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On November 03 2011 07:54 Amlitzer wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 07:34 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:On November 03 2011 07:25 Amlitzer wrote:
Just bring back the Purifier, remove the "empowering attack" aspect of the unit, and change it's +biological attack to +light instead. Make it require a Twilight Council to build from a warp gate, give it a reasonable cost, and there you go Protss now has their harass unit. The best part is it would require practically zero effort on Blizzard's part seeing as how the unit is already in the game engine. IIRC at one of the panels, DB said they twiddled with it for a couple months and it just wasn't working out. They must have seen some inherent flaw that isn't obvious to us. Yes, but that was in reference to the "empowering attack" aspect of the unit. Originally, the unit started off weak and with each kill it would get stronger, kind of like the "ranking" system you find in a lot of C&C games (coincidence... I think not). Just give it a straight up standard attack, like every other unit in the game currently, and that issue is resolved. The unit also had a researchable ability that fired a bolt of psi lightning that jumped between units of the same type. This would be a perfect ability for harassment, and it would also help toss hold off marine and zergling all ins. Thinking about the oracle more, I think Blizzard could greatly improve the concept of the unit by changing the mineral block ability to a stasis field like ability that only affects worker units. This allows toss to have an effective late game harass unit, which does not kill workers (thus keeping with the original unit concept), and which does not add to the deathball that blizzard is avoiding. Additionally, this can help toss defend against a terran who knows he is behind, and pulls all his worker in attempt to all in or base trade with his opponent.
Wow your idea about the oracle is the exact thing that I came up with too. Plus instead of entomb being just a boring spell that targets stationary minerals, you are targeting moving workers which encourages the opponent to split them and encourages you to hit as many as possible. Adds a ton more excitement and a bit more utility (helping with terran all-ins).
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Another thread about this and a huge OP. Yet again the fact that the oracle can be used to help during a seige (via disabling defensive structures) is avoided. Yet again the fact that the oracle can help other raiding options (via, again, disabling defensive structure) is avoided. Thanks for the wall of text but it comes off as pre-emptive whining to me.
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On November 03 2011 07:32 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 07:13 Rivkeh wrote:On November 03 2011 03:03 kcdc wrote:On November 03 2011 02:36 Rivkeh wrote:
I'm actually a bit concerned with the Oracle being too good because it takes virtually no TIME for the oracle to inflict its harassment. Imagine if you had to stop a single muta from attacking a mineral line a single time. It'd be almost impossible without a mistake on the zerg's behalf. The Oracle flies in at some relatively respectable speed, hits the mineral line with one spell, and moseys away. It looks to be relatively fast, and that ability is pretty powerful, but either the unit is too good at hitting and escaping or its easily run down by an air unit. Due to the massive blank air space behind basically every main base, theres plenty of space for an oracle to hide behind, and a ground force has NO chance of killing it unless it deliberately runs into marines. With no need to spend TIME in the mineral line, it'll be incredibly hard to kill unless theres an air unit that can actually run it down to death, in which case its worthless. Now this could be better balanced if the Oracle did anything but entomb minerals, but it has no other (meaningful) active abilities. This is sort of what I was talking about with my concerns about how 1-dimensional the oracle is right now. If it's going to be expensive, on stargate tech, and have no direct combat value, then it needs to have extremely strong harassment value (or it won't be used). But if the harassment is strong enough to offset its drawbacks, then it will run the risk of being overpowered in many situations (e.g. if Protoss gets far enough ahead to afford oracles, then they can't lose). This is the tightrope Blizzard has chosen to walk with the oracle. Thats exactly what I've been thinking, I honestly think the oracle can't be balanced by its current design. It needs to be good, but respondable to, and given its current 1-dimensional design, there doesn't seem to be a way to make it useful and also give the other races options to shut it down without completely blocking it out. To be honest, if it stays the way it is right now...it could be balanced if it's made super-cheap. I mean, if it does literally no damage to units and can be countered by mass-expanding, then just making it very affordable could do the trick. Like the red-flame hellion. kcdc is right in that there's no way an EXPENSIVE oracle would be balanced any time soon; either too expensive to be worth it, or too good if worth the price
You can't have a cheap unit which is countered by taking another expansion because that means a cheap unit is forcing you to spread the area you MUST control and exposing a number of weaknesses, while the 'Toss army is still completely capable of launching an assault on your exposed expansion or even into your natural area. This is an inverse of the FFE relationship in PvZ where P takes its expo early, but loses any ability to immediately attack due to the investment, so Z frequently seeks to take advantage of this by taking a 3rd. This is a somewhat tenable interaction because P has to make a large investment, if the Oracle is cheap, P will retain its striking power, imagine trying to double expand against some solid 3 gate aggression.
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On November 03 2011 06:52 Blacklizard wrote:
It is hurting my brain so hard that some posters are commenting on phase shift shutting down Zerg buildings. For every Oracle you buy, Zerg can afford another spire, or pool, or roach warren, or Ultralisk cavern. Seriously... whatever the critical building is, Zerg can just build one more as soon as he sees an oracle. Right? The most inconvenient will be a greater spire. But with the oracle's low HP, late game if I were Zerg I'd just build 2 or 3 spores around my expensive buildings, plus your one queen, and that means oracles are shut down or forced to use their energy to turn off spores first.
Obviously phase shift will be not very good against Terran except for possibly upgrades or the starport.
Seriously... it's just a slightly better version of the Overseer's ability which has made a difference in about 1 pro match ever. Gah!!!!
Think of it like this... ghosts are good against HTs because they cost less than the damage they do. Oracles... costing more than 90% of the buildings they can shut down is not great.
Hmmm..
First, maybe you don't need to SHOW your oracle until you want to phase out a building, so that you don't give Zerg time to build their 'critical building'? Showing any harass unit beforehand usually renders them less effective.
Secondly, even IF it is like you say, and IF the Zerg builds 2-3 spores plus duplicates his ENTIRE TECH TREE to avoid units being locked out, seems to me like forcing 2-3 spores per building plus investing in duplicate unneccesary buildings for ONE unit seems like a pretty good investment.
If the Zerg is so frickin ahead that he can afford to build extra buildings plus 2-3 spores per building preemtively, he will have won anyhow, or you should just be able to kill him outright because all that static def + structures leaves him with no army.
Also, "it hurts my brain so hard" that people keep comparing the unit cost with the building cost. It is like assuming you will only use the unit once and then never again. It's like me saying that building 4 infestors for 400/600 to take out a nexus is clearly a bad investment and will never be done, because you can "just build another nexus".
Having SAID that, I totally agree that as a solo raider, perhaps it's a little lackluster, if we define raider as being able to cause _economic_ damage. However, do we have to be so narrow-minded in terms of what constitutes successful raiding? If you got a phoenix fast unit being able to delay and deny tech (and thus timing attacks) for 45 seconds or more, isn't that good?
I truly believe it will be totally kick-ass in combination with other units + timings, especially vs Zerg. Spore + crawler makes your base DT safe? Not anymore...
Vs T it doesn't quite have the same impact, for sure. I still feel it could be damned good though. I dunno, I guess people will have to play around with it more. Can you phase out a bunker with units inside? Planetary Fortress making harassment difficult? No problem - free kills for your zealot drop for 45 seconds, let those SCV's repair that PF all they like, they'll all die anyhow before the army gets there.
Anyway, enough rambling. I really feel though that the ones complaining that it's no good for raiding or just plain no good and to expensive haven't really thought the applications of this unit through. Sure it won't win you the game on it's own, but it definitely does NOT suck, and is by no means only a 'slightly better Overseer'.
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On November 03 2011 09:07 willoc wrote:
Another thread about this and a huge OP. Yet again the fact that the oracle can be used to help during a seige (via disabling defensive structures) is avoided. Yet again the fact that the oracle can help other raiding options (via, again, disabling defensive structure) is avoided. Thanks for the wall of text but it comes off as pre-emptive whining to me.
I don't see how the oracle can help with breaking a siege considering it's not like Terran build missile turrets with their siege push currently. Cannon rushes happen way to early on in the game for the Oracle to be of any use, and spine/spore crawlers require late game creep spread to be used offensively.
In terms of base raiding, I don't see how the unit can be cost efficient. On average, the oracle will be able to "stun" two defensive structures, as seen in the panel video. So a spore crawler cost 75 minerals and zero gas, where as the oracle is 150 minerals and 200 gas. So right away we see that the Oracle's mineral cost is equal to two spore crawlers. Once you take the high gas cost into account, it becomes clearly visible that the unit is in no way cost efficient. I haven't even mentioned the fact that it also cost food, and has a good chance of being destroyed in the process of the raid.
Also, whining about whining is inappropriate. I also advice you to read this post by Tyler addressing the necessity of feedback to the development process.
+ Show Spoiler +On October 28 2011 04:42 Liquid`Tyler wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2011 04:27 Midgetman101 wrote:Hey heres an idea! Why dont you wait for the beta and then make judgements like these?  ... Blizzard wants feedback now. They always want feedback. The reason we don't stay quiet until the beta is because we want the beta to start off in the best state possible.
On November 03 2011 08:49 Fig wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 07:54 Amlitzer wrote:On November 03 2011 07:34 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:On November 03 2011 07:25 Amlitzer wrote:
Just bring back the Purifier, remove the "empowering attack" aspect of the unit, and change it's +biological attack to +light instead. Make it require a Twilight Council to build from a warp gate, give it a reasonable cost, and there you go Protss now has their harass unit. The best part is it would require practically zero effort on Blizzard's part seeing as how the unit is already in the game engine. IIRC at one of the panels, DB said they twiddled with it for a couple months and it just wasn't working out. They must have seen some inherent flaw that isn't obvious to us. Yes, but that was in reference to the "empowering attack" aspect of the unit. Originally, the unit started off weak and with each kill it would get stronger, kind of like the "ranking" system you find in a lot of C&C games (coincidence... I think not). Just give it a straight up standard attack, like every other unit in the game currently, and that issue is resolved. The unit also had a researchable ability that fired a bolt of psi lightning that jumped between units of the same type. This would be a perfect ability for harassment, and it would also help toss hold off marine and zergling all ins. Thinking about the oracle more, I think Blizzard could greatly improve the concept of the unit by changing the mineral block ability to a stasis field like ability that only affects worker units. This allows toss to have an effective late game harass unit, which does not kill workers (thus keeping with the original unit concept), and which does not add to the deathball that blizzard is avoiding. Additionally, this can help toss defend against a terran who knows he is behind, and pulls all his worker in attempt to all in or base trade with his opponent. Wow your idea about the oracle is the exact thing that I came up with too. Plus instead of entomb being just a boring spell that targets stationary minerals, you are targeting moving workers which encourages the opponent to split them and encourages you to hit as many as possible. Adds a ton more excitement and a bit more utility (helping with terran all-ins).
Lets just hope someone at blizzard has a similar idea.
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Going with the stasis field for workers only idea, I think it'd be better if instead of stasis it was a black hole/vortex. That way you could stop all the workers from mining gas too... it would also make the workers invincible til they pop back out and wouldn't trigger an alert.
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On November 03 2011 07:54 Amlitzer wrote:
Thinking about the oracle more, I think Blizzard could greatly improve the concept of the unit by changing the mineral block ability to a stasis field like ability that only affects worker units. This allows toss to have an effective late game harass unit, which does not kill workers (thus keeping with the original unit concept), and which does not add to the deathball that blizzard is avoiding. Additionally, this can help toss defend against a terran who knows he is behind, and pulls all his worker in attempt to all in or base trade with his opponent.
Thats a pretty darn good idea to stabilize stargate tech as an early game option, it would make it quite a bit harder for terran to see your stargate units and not just pull his workers and kill you.
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On November 03 2011 15:26 Rivkeh wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 07:54 Amlitzer wrote:
Thinking about the oracle more, I think Blizzard could greatly improve the concept of the unit by changing the mineral block ability to a stasis field like ability that only affects worker units. This allows toss to have an effective late game harass unit, which does not kill workers (thus keeping with the original unit concept), and which does not add to the deathball that blizzard is avoiding. Additionally, this can help toss defend against a terran who knows he is behind, and pulls all his worker in attempt to all in or base trade with his opponent. Thats a pretty darn good idea to stabilize stargate tech as an early game option, it would make it quite a bit harder for terran to see your stargate units and not just pull his workers and kill you.
It would also help against scv all-ins.
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stopping production facilities / uprades can be compared to having more defense, because your opponent has less stuff and/or his timing push comes later. I don't get, oracle has so many different uses and people still not happy, and still talking about its price when that's going to change still many times until HotS.
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On November 03 2011 07:05 Lightspeaker wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 03:59 Big J wrote:
Tyler, Destiny, JP, Artosis, Day9, Idra, Incontrol pretty much all said, that the oracle was one of the units that looked the most interesting out of all the new ones... I'm glad you've brought this up because it shows you don't actually understand the problem. Practically nobody is saying that the Oracle isn't going to be "interesting". The ability to phase out buildings, in particular, could be incredibly powerful with protoss timing attacks. With that it could be an amazing unit and a good addition.
Be so fair and quote my complete post in which I discuss that with kcdc how the oracle might with safely transitioning out of Stargate harass tech. Because what he said was basically:
"I can already harass with stargate tech, I just can't stay alive when doing it", while my point was, that the oracle is going to help when one wants to switch from stargateharass to robo or stargateharass to eco. If you want to know how, read the full post...
And yes, I'm not quoting your full post, because it basically says the same thing, a small amount of people is bitching around since the oracle has been revealed: that dustin browder called it a raider unit that is workerfriendly.
If he had just said it was a stargate caster, people might finally realize that protoss is already getting the option to turn EACH AND EVERY ARMY THEY HAVE IN A HARASSMENT TOOL WITH MASS RECALL. Right now the new standard opening for HotS seems like it's going to be gassteal into win anyway for protoss, so no reason to whine about the other races, as only Protoss is playable anyway in HotS...
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Mass Recall just looks too good to be true.
Warpgate all-ins will no longer be all-ins, there will be no reason to ever have your army at your base. Sentrys and Templar will have much higher life spans.
Blink Stalkers will become insane units. Who cares about the Oracle when you can now actually blink into your opponents base, go in far to snipe tech and treat with minor losses. Toss will go from the least mobile race to the most mobile.
The only way I can see them putting this in is making the recall radius tiny/longer delay and nerfing blink cooldown.
Honestly, I would trade every unit Toss is getting for just Mass Recall as they have it now. It changes the game completely.
But I guess with the introduction of the Viper and Dark Swarm/Pull, Toss will need something that gives them a lot more mobility, otherwise they will get steam rolled by Zerg. But against Terran :X?
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I don't necessarily agree that a starport based harassment unit is bad. The issue here is to make a stargate opening a viable standard (with possible transitions to more stargate, robo or templar tech). Early scouting info will be gained from oracle instead of observer. Anything above 150 gas is ridiculous though. I don't get blizzards fetish for "capital units". Thors, motherships, the new BCs are so boring...
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This was a very well written article however I think that it is important to note that the oracle has different ( not better ) capabilities as a void ray phoenix harass. The oracle is capable of shutting down a production facility and for zerg that means you cannot build anymore of those units. Also the oracle can shut down mineral patches without the enemy players noticing meaning that it is possible to not notice that you haven't been mining from your third for the past 5 minutes. That being said I think that the balance on the Protoss units in particular will be difficult. And keep in mind that they are not balanced now. They won't be until the beta when they are played and the community has the chance to fully utilize them.
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On November 03 2011 07:54 Amlitzer wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 07:34 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:On November 03 2011 07:25 Amlitzer wrote:
Just bring back the Purifier, remove the "empowering attack" aspect of the unit, and change it's +biological attack to +light instead. Make it require a Twilight Council to build from a warp gate, give it a reasonable cost, and there you go Protss now has their harass unit. The best part is it would require practically zero effort on Blizzard's part seeing as how the unit is already in the game engine. IIRC at one of the panels, DB said they twiddled with it for a couple months and it just wasn't working out. They must have seen some inherent flaw that isn't obvious to us. Yes, but that was in reference to the "empowering attack" aspect of the unit. Originally, the unit started off weak and with each kill it would get stronger, kind of like the "ranking" system you find in a lot of C&C games (coincidence... I think not). Just give it a straight up standard attack, like every other unit in the game currently, and that issue is resolved. The unit also had a researchable ability that fired a bolt of psi lightning that jumped between units of the same type. This would be a perfect ability for harassment, and it would also help toss hold off marine and zergling all ins. Thinking about the oracle more, I think Blizzard could greatly improve the concept of the unit by changing the mineral block ability to a stasis field like ability that only affects worker units. This allows toss to have an effective late game harass unit, which does not kill workers (thus keeping with the original unit concept), and which does not add to the deathball that blizzard is avoiding. Additionally, this can help toss defend against a terran who knows he is behind, and pulls all his worker in attempt to all in or base trade with his opponent.
Yes, bring it back with tweaks... and this:
Just give it a straight up standard attack, like every other unit in the game currently, and that issue is resolved. The unit also had a researchable ability that fired a bolt of psi lightning that jumped between units of the same type. This would be a perfect ability for harassment, and it would also help toss hold off marine and zergling all ins.
As for stasis... how about just a regular old stasis?
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I don't think it's fair to imagine a rush to oracle first strategy to work without using the context of the other options a stargate offers. You probably still want to get out a void ray or some phoenixes first and an oracle does augment them by allowing you to disable spore crawlers and missile turrets. Later on simply having an oracle around will be tremendously useful for mineral harass (easier when bases are more spread out), scouting (for instance, checking when the greater spire will be upgraded using its vision spell), phasing out tech structures, you name it.
Maybe the oracle would be a little bit more interesting if it just had a weak enough attack to take out one or two marines, but really, is that necessary? I think it would be nice, as there would be a bit more synergy between phoenixes and oracles, since no longer do you need the critical mass of 4 phoenixes when you can also add an oracle to the mix, but that all remains to be seen and isn't necessarily the case.
I'm actually really looking forward to at least one dynamic: shutting down the roach warren at the right moment during a timing attack can mean the difference between failure and success. The zerg answer will be to create more tech buildings, but who says you can't shut down all of them as long as you scout well and have more than one oracle? I think it might work and it would really make scouting the zerg incredibly necessary. For me this is one of those cool instances that could actually happen quite often enough to make the unit worth it. Another one is the Viper's "grant vision" ability that is certainly going to be used on a non-trivial unit at one point to win a game. I really like such tools that have a huge amount of applications, some that will be standard and others only in unique cases, because it rewards players with better decision making. I mean, don't you think it's an improvement over stuff like four-gate that's purely about following a standard build order and then just microing better?
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On November 03 2011 09:07 willoc wrote:
Another thread about this and a huge OP. Yet again the fact that the oracle can be used to help during a seige (via disabling defensive structures) is avoided. Yet again the fact that the oracle can help other raiding options (via, again, disabling defensive structure) is avoided. Thanks for the wall of text but it comes off as pre-emptive whining to me.
Helping on defense is extremely situational at best. It will basically only help if
- there is a baneling bust and you happen to have an oracle at that weird late baneling bust timing... very unlikely
- if there is a roach/ling all-in, and you somehow have enough forcefields/cannons to protect everything but a gateway or maybe your forge... because disabling a cyber or pylon during a roach/ling all in is probably suicide. But is it really that useful? It would have been better to have had a voidray out which actually stops the rush.
- you happen to have an oracle sitting around when Terran drop is killing your twilight or robo. But the time it takes for that building to come back online is almost as bad as having to rebuild it. Who won that fight?
As for raiding options, sure, super late game when you are near max, it would be nice to have a couple of oracles to disable turrets and spores. But in the midgame, you might as well just build 2 more phoenix and fly around the spores/turrets. It's more efficient, IMO.
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+ Show Spoiler +On November 03 2011 11:35 Zergnub wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 06:52 Blacklizard wrote:
It is hurting my brain so hard that some posters are commenting on phase shift shutting down Zerg buildings. For every Oracle you buy, Zerg can afford another spire, or pool, or roach warren, or Ultralisk cavern. Seriously... whatever the critical building is, Zerg can just build one more as soon as he sees an oracle. Right? The most inconvenient will be a greater spire. But with the oracle's low HP, late game if I were Zerg I'd just build 2 or 3 spores around my expensive buildings, plus your one queen, and that means oracles are shut down or forced to use their energy to turn off spores first.
Obviously phase shift will be not very good against Terran except for possibly upgrades or the starport.
Seriously... it's just a slightly better version of the Overseer's ability which has made a difference in about 1 pro match ever. Gah!!!!
Think of it like this... ghosts are good against HTs because they cost less than the damage they do. Oracles... costing more than 90% of the buildings they can shut down is not great.
Hmmm.. First, maybe you don't need to SHOW your oracle until you want to phase out a building, so that you don't give Zerg time to build their 'critical building'? Showing any harass unit beforehand usually renders them less effective. Secondly, even IF it is like you say, and IF the Zerg builds 2-3 spores plus duplicates his ENTIRE TECH TREE to avoid units being locked out, seems to me like forcing 2-3 spores per building plus investing in duplicate unneccesary buildings for ONE unit seems like a pretty good investment. If the Zerg is so frickin ahead that he can afford to build extra buildings plus 2-3 spores per building preemtively, he will have won anyhow, or you should just be able to kill him outright because all that static def + structures leaves him with no army. Also, "it hurts my brain so hard" that people keep comparing the unit cost with the building cost. It is like assuming you will only use the unit once and then never again. It's like me saying that building 4 infestors for 400/600 to take out a nexus is clearly a bad investment and will never be done, because you can "just build another nexus". Having SAID that, I totally agree that as a solo raider, perhaps it's a little lackluster, if we define raider as being able to cause _economic_ damage. However, do we have to be so narrow-minded in terms of what constitutes successful raiding? If you got a phoenix fast unit being able to delay and deny tech (and thus timing attacks) for 45 seconds or more, isn't that good? I truly believe it will be totally kick-ass in combination with other units + timings, especially vs Zerg. Spore + crawler makes your base DT safe? Not anymore... Vs T it doesn't quite have the same impact, for sure. I still feel it could be damned good though. I dunno, I guess people will have to play around with it more. Can you phase out a bunker with units inside? Planetary Fortress making harassment difficult? No problem - free kills for your zealot drop for 45 seconds, let those SCV's repair that PF all they like, they'll all die anyhow before the army gets there. Anyway, enough rambling. I really feel though that the ones complaining that it's no good for raiding or just plain no good and to expensive haven't really thought the applications of this unit through. Sure it won't win you the game on it's own, but it definitely does NOT suck, and is by no means only a 'slightly better Overseer'.
No wait, I would never advocate a Zerg building 3 spores per tech building in the mid game, that's insane. I was talking about late game when you have more tech buildings to protect, group them all together near your hatchery as you build them, then surround with 2 or 3 spores plus your default first queen. Very affordable by the time you are talking about greater spire and stuff.
Sure, it does have some potential as a late game assisted harass unit with DTs and such. Absolutely. But is that what Protoss needs?
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I would laugh so hard if the oracle became suddenly minerals only.... but something exorbitant... like 650 minerals and 4 supply for an oracle~! I'm pretty sure it just wouldn't work.... but I can tell tons of Protosses would rather lose the minerals than even a speck of gas xPPPP
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On November 03 2011 22:44 Blacklizard wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On November 03 2011 11:35 Zergnub wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 06:52 Blacklizard wrote:
It is hurting my brain so hard that some posters are commenting on phase shift shutting down Zerg buildings. For every Oracle you buy, Zerg can afford another spire, or pool, or roach warren, or Ultralisk cavern. Seriously... whatever the critical building is, Zerg can just build one more as soon as he sees an oracle. Right? The most inconvenient will be a greater spire. But with the oracle's low HP, late game if I were Zerg I'd just build 2 or 3 spores around my expensive buildings, plus your one queen, and that means oracles are shut down or forced to use their energy to turn off spores first.
Obviously phase shift will be not very good against Terran except for possibly upgrades or the starport.
Seriously... it's just a slightly better version of the Overseer's ability which has made a difference in about 1 pro match ever. Gah!!!!
Think of it like this... ghosts are good against HTs because they cost less than the damage they do. Oracles... costing more than 90% of the buildings they can shut down is not great.
Hmmm.. First, maybe you don't need to SHOW your oracle until you want to phase out a building, so that you don't give Zerg time to build their 'critical building'? Showing any harass unit beforehand usually renders them less effective. Secondly, even IF it is like you say, and IF the Zerg builds 2-3 spores plus duplicates his ENTIRE TECH TREE to avoid units being locked out, seems to me like forcing 2-3 spores per building plus investing in duplicate unneccesary buildings for ONE unit seems like a pretty good investment. If the Zerg is so frickin ahead that he can afford to build extra buildings plus 2-3 spores per building preemtively, he will have won anyhow, or you should just be able to kill him outright because all that static def + structures leaves him with no army. Also, "it hurts my brain so hard" that people keep comparing the unit cost with the building cost. It is like assuming you will only use the unit once and then never again. It's like me saying that building 4 infestors for 400/600 to take out a nexus is clearly a bad investment and will never be done, because you can "just build another nexus". Having SAID that, I totally agree that as a solo raider, perhaps it's a little lackluster, if we define raider as being able to cause _economic_ damage. However, do we have to be so narrow-minded in terms of what constitutes successful raiding? If you got a phoenix fast unit being able to delay and deny tech (and thus timing attacks) for 45 seconds or more, isn't that good? I truly believe it will be totally kick-ass in combination with other units + timings, especially vs Zerg. Spore + crawler makes your base DT safe? Not anymore... Vs T it doesn't quite have the same impact, for sure. I still feel it could be damned good though. I dunno, I guess people will have to play around with it more. Can you phase out a bunker with units inside? Planetary Fortress making harassment difficult? No problem - free kills for your zealot drop for 45 seconds, let those SCV's repair that PF all they like, they'll all die anyhow before the army gets there. Anyway, enough rambling. I really feel though that the ones complaining that it's no good for raiding or just plain no good and to expensive haven't really thought the applications of this unit through. Sure it won't win you the game on it's own, but it definitely does NOT suck, and is by no means only a 'slightly better Overseer'. No wait, I would never advocate a Zerg building 3 spores per tech building in the mid game, that's insane. I was talking about late game when you have more tech buildings to protect, group them all together near your hatchery as you build them, then surround with 2 or 3 spores plus your default first queen. Very affordable by the time you are talking about greater spire and stuff. Sure, it does have some potential as a late game assisted harass unit with DTs and such. Absolutely. But is that what Protoss needs?
LOL high risk low reward... what would you do if the Protoss went crazy and sent in like 3 oracles and shutdown ALL of your tech? xDDDD
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On November 03 2011 22:44 Blacklizard wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On November 03 2011 11:35 Zergnub wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 06:52 Blacklizard wrote:
It is hurting my brain so hard that some posters are commenting on phase shift shutting down Zerg buildings. For every Oracle you buy, Zerg can afford another spire, or pool, or roach warren, or Ultralisk cavern. Seriously... whatever the critical building is, Zerg can just build one more as soon as he sees an oracle. Right? The most inconvenient will be a greater spire. But with the oracle's low HP, late game if I were Zerg I'd just build 2 or 3 spores around my expensive buildings, plus your one queen, and that means oracles are shut down or forced to use their energy to turn off spores first.
Obviously phase shift will be not very good against Terran except for possibly upgrades or the starport.
Seriously... it's just a slightly better version of the Overseer's ability which has made a difference in about 1 pro match ever. Gah!!!!
Think of it like this... ghosts are good against HTs because they cost less than the damage they do. Oracles... costing more than 90% of the buildings they can shut down is not great.
Hmmm.. First, maybe you don't need to SHOW your oracle until you want to phase out a building, so that you don't give Zerg time to build their 'critical building'? Showing any harass unit beforehand usually renders them less effective. Secondly, even IF it is like you say, and IF the Zerg builds 2-3 spores plus duplicates his ENTIRE TECH TREE to avoid units being locked out, seems to me like forcing 2-3 spores per building plus investing in duplicate unneccesary buildings for ONE unit seems like a pretty good investment. If the Zerg is so frickin ahead that he can afford to build extra buildings plus 2-3 spores per building preemtively, he will have won anyhow, or you should just be able to kill him outright because all that static def + structures leaves him with no army. Also, "it hurts my brain so hard" that people keep comparing the unit cost with the building cost. It is like assuming you will only use the unit once and then never again. It's like me saying that building 4 infestors for 400/600 to take out a nexus is clearly a bad investment and will never be done, because you can "just build another nexus". Having SAID that, I totally agree that as a solo raider, perhaps it's a little lackluster, if we define raider as being able to cause _economic_ damage. However, do we have to be so narrow-minded in terms of what constitutes successful raiding? If you got a phoenix fast unit being able to delay and deny tech (and thus timing attacks) for 45 seconds or more, isn't that good? I truly believe it will be totally kick-ass in combination with other units + timings, especially vs Zerg. Spore + crawler makes your base DT safe? Not anymore... Vs T it doesn't quite have the same impact, for sure. I still feel it could be damned good though. I dunno, I guess people will have to play around with it more. Can you phase out a bunker with units inside? Planetary Fortress making harassment difficult? No problem - free kills for your zealot drop for 45 seconds, let those SCV's repair that PF all they like, they'll all die anyhow before the army gets there. Anyway, enough rambling. I really feel though that the ones complaining that it's no good for raiding or just plain no good and to expensive haven't really thought the applications of this unit through. Sure it won't win you the game on it's own, but it definitely does NOT suck, and is by no means only a 'slightly better Overseer'. No wait, I would never advocate a Zerg building 3 spores per tech building in the mid game, that's insane. I was talking about late game when you have more tech buildings to protect, group them all together near your hatchery as you build them, then surround with 2 or 3 spores plus your default first queen. Very affordable by the time you are talking about greater spire and stuff. Sure, it does have some potential as a late game assisted harass unit with DTs and such. Absolutely. But is that what Protoss needs?
There is nothing Protoss "needs" right now. The game is close to balanced, the little bit that is missing to being balanced can be achieved via patches. But the new units and abilities will have such a huge impact, that we absolutly can't forsee the metagame right now, so for anything that the races "need" in HotS, we have to wait for the beta (at least).
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