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On November 03 2011 00:20 Big J wrote:
...and saying that a protoss reaper unit would surely have a big harass role while the terran reaper unit does not, is just whining about/glorifying things that we don't know how they will/would turn out.
Read this thread:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=277452
Also note: its not just the "harrass" capability, thats mostly secondary to the early scouting information resulting from a quick harrass. The reason Reapers are "bad" for Terran is that Terran has tons of other, better options for both harrass and scouting. To take the two most obvious examples: Marine/Medivac drops are incredibly survivable (because of healing), can be added to your army later and can do a ton of damage. And scans are unblockable. Against those two the Reaper has no chance.
Protoss doesn't have anything that flexible that is available regardless of how they intend to play. If they want to Warp Prism harrass and get observers then the Protoss MUST go Robo. If blink is preferred then the Protoss MUST go Twlight Council, for DTs then the Dark Shrine needs adding to that. For Phoenixes then Stargate, which is a dead-end tech.
However if a Terran wants a Reaper for a quick bit of scouting and harrass they can get a tech lab on the barracks, get a reaper out then switch to marauders. Its far, far less commitment than anything Protoss can do. Things like DT harrass or even Warp Prism drops are in no way equivilant to Terran drops or Reaper harrass or Hellion harrass. Terran can easily go from Hellion harrass into MMM by simply flipping buildings around, which they will have because Terran production is effectively all one tech line, and adding on extras as needed. But a Protoss can't switch across from DT to the "normal" Colossus army composition used against Terran just like that; even going HT needs another building and an essential upgrade and you could be dead before that happens.
Thats why Protoss harrass HAS to do severe damage: to protect himself. Because if the harrass fails he's lost both a significant investment and he's going to take time to transition to a more stable army composition. The sole exception being Warp Prism harrass, which is generally incredibly inefficient due to the melee nature of Zealots. With the current options available to Protoss: sacrificing a harrass play for a bit of scouting information and a little bit of damage just isn't feasible. Because the harrass has to justify both the cost of the unit(s) itself/themselves (generally not cheap in any case), and the cost of the tech path chosen (250/350 150 seconds for Twilight + Dark Shrine, as an example) and the time it will take to build up another, more viable, tech path.
The reason Stargate play is becoming more popular PvZ is because a single Stargate, whilst not an insignificant investment, can be made up for by the damage done by a few Phoenixes and Void Rays, as well as forcing an unfavourable response from the Zerg player. Which combines to make it so that you can effectively justify the cost of the Stargate and the units and give yourself time to build up a new tech route (usually robo). This doesn't work for DTs because they're so much more expensive. So if you don't do a lot of damage with them you're left with a tech your opponent now knows about, that hasn't really done anything to help your situation, doesn't force as much of an unfavourable response (scans and overseers and observers aren't really a huge investment) and you've wasted a huge amount of time and resources on it. The risk/reward isn't favourable enough because if it fails it leaves you WAY behind with an unusable tech route to come back from. Its just way too hard to stabilise and it tends to be far more all-in than anything else. On the flip side if you lose a couple of reapers or a few hellions or even a banshee then by flipping around your addons you can change to whatever unit composition you want because you already have all the production building prerequisites. At most you'll need to build an extra tech building to get started.
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On November 03 2011 02:08 Hryul wrote:you have to invest 200/200 in cloak, otherwise stalkers shut it down very easily. observer + stalker are maybe a bit off if you want to get ht/blink/dt, but if you are agressive enough with your phoenix you can force a cloak near the terran base which also shuts down banshees see grubby vs happy on daybreak.
Oh great, so if I have pro-level intuition I can rally my phoenix to where a banshee is moving across the map, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable solution, I'll figure out he's going banshee by scouting his ramp and make phoenixes and then have the sense to rally RIGHT TO the banshee.
Nevermind that even if he doesn't go cloak he can still pick off a couple probes, has a high DPS unit that works well with bio, forced crappy stalkers, forced detection, and can switch off the techlab to make 2x medivacs immediately.
Banshee fits all the criteria.
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On November 02 2011 17:17 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2011 15:56 Amui wrote:
As a concept the oracle works, but in reality, especially as protoss, you can't waste gas to just deny a bit of mining against a good opponent. A marauder drop works because MMGV v P is a mineral reliant comp, you often see terrans get 2 orbitals running with 30+ scv's without getting a second gas. A zergling runby doesn't cost gas either, and ZvP is fairly gas dependant.
The oracle needs some way of helping protoss take a 3rd base, harass is nice, but if nothing comes of it, ultimately protoss is still behind because they've invested in dead end tech.
After killing 10 -15 workers with a banshee, the scariest time is the next 2-3 minutes, where the opponent has to decide whether he wants to all-in or not. After that time, you know you have a fairly decisive advantage provided you didn't cut workers, and you can throw down a 3rd fairly safely, because your opponent will have spent the time and money trying to recover economically while you try to get more ahead. The oracle as a harass unit neither allows you to secure a 3rd safely or deal enough economic damage to force an all-in. I might be wrong but losing half your workers to cloak banshee is worthy of an all-in, but losing half a base's income for the 15 seconds it takes to remove it isn't.
The oracle needs some defensive utility because without it, it's not a safe tech. No map control, no lasting economic damage. There's scouting, but unless stargate changes drastically, it's still very dead-end as far as mid-game transitions go. You're making the assumption that a banshee harass will kill anywhere from 10-15 workers when 6 kills per banshee is considered to be cost effective, 10-15 is twice that. You're assuming that Banshee harassment is always that effective when in reality it isn't, even at the pro level pros will lose their banshees before hitting that 6 kill mark. You see it all the time in TvT. Secondly, Protoss already have a gasless harassment option. Zealot/Prism drops cost ZERO gas. Even the Marine/Medivac Drop costs 100 gas per medivac, the Zealot/Prism drop only requires gas for the robotics facility and can be reinforced with stronger more expensive units if you catch your opponent dangerously out of position. The Oracle is a compliment to other Protoss options. By itself it is still capable of shutting down mining and escaping. It moves as fast as a phoenix and can disable turrets on its way in or out. This means that as long as you keep the Oracle alive it can harass mineral lines all game for a single one time investment. On top of that its ability to shut down Turrets or Cannons makes it a great support unit to other harassment options like Zealot or DT drops/warps. Honestly, I feel like people in this thread are looking at the Oracle in a vaccuum without even trying to consider how good it is when mixed with what Protoss already has. This is why the people that have used them in the HOTS mods are always impressed with how good they are. It's an underrated concept, I think it's worth giving a chance. The Replicant on the other hand? Not so much.
Thats because protoss need a unit that can be used for harass without "mixing". We already have bunch of options, that work well together, the problem being, that you have to unlock the tech first. Which doesnt happen before late game. (DT + WP or WP + HT) At least not without taking huge risks.
Protoss need a mid game harassment unit, not late game. We already have late game options.
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On November 03 2011 01:03 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 00:41 kcdc wrote:On November 03 2011 00:34 Big J wrote:On November 03 2011 00:00 Toadvine wrote:On November 02 2011 23:00 Big J wrote:On November 02 2011 22:38 Toadvine wrote:On November 02 2011 21:54 Big J wrote:On November 02 2011 21:15 Toadvine wrote:In any case, if HotS is supposed to add units that shore up weaknesses of the races, then the Terran and Zerg units do make sense in this context. Terran units serve to make mech a viable playstyle in all matchups, for example by giving Hellions the option to act as proper meatshields for Tanks. Zerg units allow them to break entrenched positions more easily, and generally achieve pressure without sacrificing tons of units. In light of this, the new Protoss units are a total joke, they don't solve Protoss problems at all. Well, you can Replicate a Siege Tank and maybe defend 1/1/1, so that's nice I suppose. :/ HotS is not supposed to do anything but sell well for blizzard. If you argue that further, it means that it should be interesting to buy it, so the game should be fun to play and balanced on high level of play. What the game doesn't need, is 3races that all have no weaknesses and play similar. Races in SC2 aren't supposed to have no weaknesses and play similar. But they also aren't supposed to be WoW classes that are only good at one thing, and have glaring holes in their arsenal. The weaknesses we do want are the ones that produce interesting gameplay. Zerg not being able to break a turtling Terran even when at a huge advantage was a bad weakness that led to stupid games. An entire Terran tech tree being unusuable in TvP was a bad weakness, so units were added to help that. Protoss had no effective means to harass in the early to mid game, and were extremely reliant on expensive tech to keep them on par with core Zerg/Terran units. This is a bad weakness, because it produces boring gameplay, where the Protoss sits in his base with no map control and just defends and masses up. So, units were added to help this... oh wait. Stargate openings vs Zerg? It's just that it seems like this techpath isn't viable further. That's why they try to make it more viable. Also: why should they give Protoss a pure early(gateway) harassment unit, that is a) hard to balance, due to warp gates b) overlapping with the dt in later stages of the game c) something terrans have; zergs partly have (zerglings harass, but they are not a unit purely designed to do so); so giving it to protoss would just mean that they "want each race to open with hellions vs zerg". It's a unique thing to have hellion openings as terran. Don't let them ruin the game with each race having the same basic strategy, just with different units. d) not necessary if they already make a spell like mass recall, which will basically make your whole army a big harrassment composition On November 02 2011 22:38 Toadvine wrote:On November 02 2011 21:54 Big J wrote:
Zergs and Terrans also don't just get units that counteract weaknesses that are intended to be there. But Mech was intended to be playable in TvP, giving them battlehellions and warhounds might fix that.
Mass Thor in ZvT wasn't intended to be playable, that's why the Thor has to go and make space for a unit that is worse vs roaches.
And Zerg was intended to be one of the more aggressive races. In the alpha and beta days when people weren't that great at that game, the general opinion was that zerg was THE pressuring race, running all over the place and denying expos.
Protoss was intended to work well on Stargate tech, that's why they are trying to fix that with oracles and tempests.
Also, Protoss ground tech gets HUGE buffs through the mass recall. Like artosis said: In the current state of the game, he would ALWAYS build an extra Nexus just to have ONE mass recall, because then he could just be out on the map and harass the hell out of everything, for 400 extra minerals... Recall is actually one great thing about HotS, and is way better than our new units combined. I'd trade all of them just to keep the current Recall in the game, which will no doubt get nerfed hard at some point in the beta. However, the point about Stargate tech is retarded. The problem with Stargate was that the units weren't very good in direct army vs army engagements. So, this problem is solved by adding a unit that doesn't attack, and a unit that is only good vs mass air? So in SC:BW Protoss players only went corsairs because they were so good vs hydralisks? No. Zerg players go for mass muta play vs terran because they are obviously soooo strong vs marines the main unit in standard biomech compositions? HELL NO! The problem isn't that Stargate tech is bad in combats. The problem is that Stargate tech and the complete airfleet that a Protoss invested into becomes useless in the midgame. (unlike corsairs in SC:BW) An Oracle would definatly help, because an oracle does never get useless, assuming that it doesn't die from 3spore shots. A Tempest is at least a try to give Protoss a flaggship that is playable. The carrier is not. So it has to go. The Tempest is at least a unit that will be fooled around with anew, before people decide if it is viable or not. Sorry, but at this point, I'm pretty sure you don't understand what you're talking about at all. The exact problem with Stargate, in both PvT and PvZ, is that if it doesn't do enough damage, it is simply awful for its cost in a direct army vs army fight. Do you know what good Zergs do when they see a Stargate opening? They spore up, make tons of drones to saturate 3 bases, and then just make a shitload of roaches and lings to deny the Protoss third. Do you know what Terrans do? They expand, go up to 5-6 raxes, and then push with stim/combat shields done, and kill the Protoss natural. The problem is very clearly that the units aren't good enough. And you even bring up Mutalisks, the perfect example of how this kind of unit can work well. Mutas have amazing combat utility compared to Phoenix/VRs. In fact, Zerg players often continue massing Mutas throughout the whole game, just because of how good they are as a core army unit. Stargate openings being standard in BW is kind of a moot point, since SC2 Protoss is way different from BW Protoss (in fact, SC2 Terran is more similar to BW Protoss). NO. Stargate units not being core combat units is not the problem. Making them core combat units COULD BE a solution. Making them able to harass an opponent, pin him in his base and delay pushes, a much more interesting one. I play zerg at masters league, and I can tell you that if you go Mutalisks as "core army unit", you are fucked. Play a game with zerg and engage a Marineball with mutalisks... Engage a blinkstalker ball with mutalisks. Engage mass thor with mutalisks. THOSE are combat units (and the blinkstalker is already a harass/combat hybrid). You won't beat them. And it's the same with stargate units. You don't ENGAGE even armies of marines or hydralisks with them. You try to do damage in his base and pin him there. The fact simply is, that it is easy to deny this kind of harass most of the time. If the Oracle can make the harass continue, we will see PvZ with Protoss having mapcontrol... THAT would be a good way to improve Protoss gameplay. But I guess some players would rather just have more options to sacrifice units on mineral lines, then to improve good concepts that are out there right now, but too wacky to be called stable. Let's not pretend that mutas don't have combat value. Mutas aren't bad against stalkers (when factoring in the resource advantage Z gets due to his map control) and they're an essential component for defending marine-tank pushes. Mutas, like banshees, are not strong for cost in combat, but they're a lot better than phoenixes. The oracle, as proposed, is way behind the phoenix. Now imagine if the moment a zerg gathers his hydralisks, 1-2oracles fly into the mineral line, deactivate all spores and the phoenix kill all the drones and the queen. Then they fly home and help defending vs hydralisks. Armies get traded, but unlike in WOL, this isn't terrible for Protoss, because he is taking a third and zerg only has 2mining bases and even those get harrassed by entombs, which maybe don't pay for the oracle immidiatly, but they do good damage to a zerg that has no units (he just traded) and is redroning his base.
The point we are constantly trying to make, and that you keep ignoring, is that if you make oracles in addition to the phoenix, you have even less of a chance of holding the attack. You could maybe do something like that on a map with a natural ramp, like Shakuras. But on a map where you actually need to engage the attacking army, you'll get stomped if you keep making Stargate units.
Again, the Oracle might make the harassment more powerful, but it doesn't address the primary weakness of Stargate at all.
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I like that Blizzard has tried something different.
I have concerns that the Oracle will not be able to fulfill its stated mission role (harrassment).
To me successful harassment is when the enemy's economy has been damaged in a long term manner (ie probe destruction). With the other races (Zerg/Terran) the mining rate slowly creeps back up to full over several minutes and in player has to pay to replace the probes as well. So he is hit with a double whammy, reduced mining and having to pay to rebuild the mining capacity at the same time
The Oracle delays mineral gathering without the target having to pay to replace the probes as well. When the harrasment ends then the mining rate of the enemy resumes at full. I don't know if Blizzard has estimated the total economic losses based on the losing X number of probes in a harassment mission.
I can see the "phase out" power being useful, both from an economic point of view and bolstering an attack/defense:
Economic: Phase out gas mines and tech structures. Both can be annoying to the other player.
Tactical/Micro:
Shut down defensive structures (towers, bunkers, spines, etc). Works wonders as a siege breaker.
Shut down tech structures completely. I can see this being very nasty against zerg and protoss.As with any other timing window you will have to take advantage of it the first time because you probably won't get a second (ie multiple tech structures). You have to be more selective against Terran because of the distributed nature of Terran tech: ghost academies, attached tech structures, fusion cores.
Shut down the forward pylon of a warp-in push. Instead of being able to reinforce up close the attacker has to walk across the board. This may make some sort of stargate opening viable in PvP. Timings TBD.
The "Preordain" power? Undecided- Maybe keeping an eye on Terran starports would be useful - then I can see if he is making Vikings or Medvacs so I can try to adjust my play from there.
In my opinion: The oracle augments a death ball by reducing enemy DPS (instead of increasing the protoss ball), either through reduced mining or reduced tech/production/gas harvesting options.
In my second opinion: The oracle is useful if it throws off the enemy's game - If the other player is planning on spitting out some unit and suddenly they are not available, he has to stop and think about what to do and his groove is thrown off. Half of harassment isn't the monetary issue: it is getting the enemy out of their comfort zone and having to play the game you want them to play instead of playing the game they want to play.
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On November 03 2011 02:20 Toadvine wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 01:03 Big J wrote:On November 03 2011 00:41 kcdc wrote:On November 03 2011 00:34 Big J wrote:On November 03 2011 00:00 Toadvine wrote:On November 02 2011 23:00 Big J wrote:On November 02 2011 22:38 Toadvine wrote:On November 02 2011 21:54 Big J wrote:On November 02 2011 21:15 Toadvine wrote:In any case, if HotS is supposed to add units that shore up weaknesses of the races, then the Terran and Zerg units do make sense in this context. Terran units serve to make mech a viable playstyle in all matchups, for example by giving Hellions the option to act as proper meatshields for Tanks. Zerg units allow them to break entrenched positions more easily, and generally achieve pressure without sacrificing tons of units. In light of this, the new Protoss units are a total joke, they don't solve Protoss problems at all. Well, you can Replicate a Siege Tank and maybe defend 1/1/1, so that's nice I suppose. :/ HotS is not supposed to do anything but sell well for blizzard. If you argue that further, it means that it should be interesting to buy it, so the game should be fun to play and balanced on high level of play. What the game doesn't need, is 3races that all have no weaknesses and play similar. Races in SC2 aren't supposed to have no weaknesses and play similar. But they also aren't supposed to be WoW classes that are only good at one thing, and have glaring holes in their arsenal. The weaknesses we do want are the ones that produce interesting gameplay. Zerg not being able to break a turtling Terran even when at a huge advantage was a bad weakness that led to stupid games. An entire Terran tech tree being unusuable in TvP was a bad weakness, so units were added to help that. Protoss had no effective means to harass in the early to mid game, and were extremely reliant on expensive tech to keep them on par with core Zerg/Terran units. This is a bad weakness, because it produces boring gameplay, where the Protoss sits in his base with no map control and just defends and masses up. So, units were added to help this... oh wait. Stargate openings vs Zerg? It's just that it seems like this techpath isn't viable further. That's why they try to make it more viable. Also: why should they give Protoss a pure early(gateway) harassment unit, that is a) hard to balance, due to warp gates b) overlapping with the dt in later stages of the game c) something terrans have; zergs partly have (zerglings harass, but they are not a unit purely designed to do so); so giving it to protoss would just mean that they "want each race to open with hellions vs zerg". It's a unique thing to have hellion openings as terran. Don't let them ruin the game with each race having the same basic strategy, just with different units. d) not necessary if they already make a spell like mass recall, which will basically make your whole army a big harrassment composition On November 02 2011 22:38 Toadvine wrote:On November 02 2011 21:54 Big J wrote:
Zergs and Terrans also don't just get units that counteract weaknesses that are intended to be there. But Mech was intended to be playable in TvP, giving them battlehellions and warhounds might fix that.
Mass Thor in ZvT wasn't intended to be playable, that's why the Thor has to go and make space for a unit that is worse vs roaches.
And Zerg was intended to be one of the more aggressive races. In the alpha and beta days when people weren't that great at that game, the general opinion was that zerg was THE pressuring race, running all over the place and denying expos.
Protoss was intended to work well on Stargate tech, that's why they are trying to fix that with oracles and tempests.
Also, Protoss ground tech gets HUGE buffs through the mass recall. Like artosis said: In the current state of the game, he would ALWAYS build an extra Nexus just to have ONE mass recall, because then he could just be out on the map and harass the hell out of everything, for 400 extra minerals... Recall is actually one great thing about HotS, and is way better than our new units combined. I'd trade all of them just to keep the current Recall in the game, which will no doubt get nerfed hard at some point in the beta. However, the point about Stargate tech is retarded. The problem with Stargate was that the units weren't very good in direct army vs army engagements. So, this problem is solved by adding a unit that doesn't attack, and a unit that is only good vs mass air? So in SC:BW Protoss players only went corsairs because they were so good vs hydralisks? No. Zerg players go for mass muta play vs terran because they are obviously soooo strong vs marines the main unit in standard biomech compositions? HELL NO! The problem isn't that Stargate tech is bad in combats. The problem is that Stargate tech and the complete airfleet that a Protoss invested into becomes useless in the midgame. (unlike corsairs in SC:BW) An Oracle would definatly help, because an oracle does never get useless, assuming that it doesn't die from 3spore shots. A Tempest is at least a try to give Protoss a flaggship that is playable. The carrier is not. So it has to go. The Tempest is at least a unit that will be fooled around with anew, before people decide if it is viable or not. Sorry, but at this point, I'm pretty sure you don't understand what you're talking about at all. The exact problem with Stargate, in both PvT and PvZ, is that if it doesn't do enough damage, it is simply awful for its cost in a direct army vs army fight. Do you know what good Zergs do when they see a Stargate opening? They spore up, make tons of drones to saturate 3 bases, and then just make a shitload of roaches and lings to deny the Protoss third. Do you know what Terrans do? They expand, go up to 5-6 raxes, and then push with stim/combat shields done, and kill the Protoss natural. The problem is very clearly that the units aren't good enough. And you even bring up Mutalisks, the perfect example of how this kind of unit can work well. Mutas have amazing combat utility compared to Phoenix/VRs. In fact, Zerg players often continue massing Mutas throughout the whole game, just because of how good they are as a core army unit. Stargate openings being standard in BW is kind of a moot point, since SC2 Protoss is way different from BW Protoss (in fact, SC2 Terran is more similar to BW Protoss). NO. Stargate units not being core combat units is not the problem. Making them core combat units COULD BE a solution. Making them able to harass an opponent, pin him in his base and delay pushes, a much more interesting one. I play zerg at masters league, and I can tell you that if you go Mutalisks as "core army unit", you are fucked. Play a game with zerg and engage a Marineball with mutalisks... Engage a blinkstalker ball with mutalisks. Engage mass thor with mutalisks. THOSE are combat units (and the blinkstalker is already a harass/combat hybrid). You won't beat them. And it's the same with stargate units. You don't ENGAGE even armies of marines or hydralisks with them. You try to do damage in his base and pin him there. The fact simply is, that it is easy to deny this kind of harass most of the time. If the Oracle can make the harass continue, we will see PvZ with Protoss having mapcontrol... THAT would be a good way to improve Protoss gameplay. But I guess some players would rather just have more options to sacrifice units on mineral lines, then to improve good concepts that are out there right now, but too wacky to be called stable. Let's not pretend that mutas don't have combat value. Mutas aren't bad against stalkers (when factoring in the resource advantage Z gets due to his map control) and they're an essential component for defending marine-tank pushes. Mutas, like banshees, are not strong for cost in combat, but they're a lot better than phoenixes. The oracle, as proposed, is way behind the phoenix. Now imagine if the moment a zerg gathers his hydralisks, 1-2oracles fly into the mineral line, deactivate all spores and the phoenix kill all the drones and the queen. Then they fly home and help defending vs hydralisks. Armies get traded, but unlike in WOL, this isn't terrible for Protoss, because he is taking a third and zerg only has 2mining bases and even those get harrassed by entombs, which maybe don't pay for the oracle immidiatly, but they do good damage to a zerg that has no units (he just traded) and is redroning his base. The point we are constantly trying to make, and that you keep ignoring, is that if you make oracles in addition to the phoenix, you have even less of a chance of holding the attack. You could maybe do something like that on a map with a natural ramp, like Shakuras. But on a map where you actually need to engage the attacking army, you'll get stomped if you keep making Stargate units. Again, the Oracle might make the harassment more powerful, but it doesn't address the primary weakness of Stargate at all.
This. If I want to invest in dedicated harass, I already have stargate tech and phoenix/void available. I don't need a way to help me kill more drones with phoenix/void. What I need is either (1) a better way to defend and transition from phoenix/void, or (2) a better way to harass with gateway or robo openings. The oracle solves a problem that Protoss doesn't have.
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I don't think any discussion on possible builds, abilities or viability will lead to anything useful at this point. The ability of the Oracle to harras and fit into a build will depend on a number of things that we cannot predict without having the unit in hand. We do not know the amount of effort it takes to deal with the unit.
Also, there is a HUGE amount of false information about all of the HotS units on TL, to the point were I am taking not counting on anything until the beta. The amount of effort required to deal with this unit, free the minerals and how it is done has not be addressed at all and won't be until beta. Can you A-move your units into the mineral-shields, or do you need to attack each one? What is the range of the "lock down" ability for structures? How quickly does the unit build? These are all questions I want answered. And when I say answered, I mean by clicking on the unit and moving it around.
And for players who say that the unit will not fit into a standard robo build, well that is the name of the game. Finding a solid build where you can get a unit out at a good timing and still have a solid chance of defending is SC 2 in a nut shell.
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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.
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On November 02 2011 14:03 Tektos wrote:
Dark Templars hinder the enemy expanding unless they invest in mobile detection.
How is that not economy harass?
And we already have threads on the Oracle.
I don't think:
"nobody read my opinion (which I think is more valuable than everyone else's) so I'll make it a thread of it's own instead of replying to the existing threads"
is a legitimate reason to make this a thread.
A thousand times this, I wonder how many 'X HOTS UNIT is awful, here's seven paragraphs of why' threads exist now.
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On November 03 2011 02:15 bovineblitz wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 02:08 Hryul wrote:On November 03 2011 02:00 bovineblitz wrote:
Okay then.
Banshees. you have to invest 200/200 in cloak, otherwise stalkers shut it down very easily. observer + stalker are maybe a bit off if you want to get ht/blink/dt, but if you are agressive enough with your phoenix you can force a cloak near the terran base which also shuts down banshees see grubby vs happy on daybreak. Oh great, so if I have pro-level intuition I can rally my phoenix to where a banshee is moving across the map, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable solution, I'll figure out he's going banshee by scouting his ramp and make phoenixes and then have the sense to rally RIGHT TO the banshee. Nevermind that even if he doesn't go cloak he can still pick off a couple probes, has a high DPS unit that works well with bio, forced crappy stalkers, forced detection, and can switch off the techlab to make 2x medivacs immediately. Banshee fits all the criteria.
I'm just ignoring the rant on phoenixes. I just said it is possible, not that you could easily do that. But i thought the idea behind the phoenix is to harass and scout his base. So you have actual time to prepare for them. together with the possibility to cut off the direct path, you have even more time to react.
A banshee is 100/150. which would, in a naive way, be like 5 probes. if he can kill you 5 probes without you being able to react to that you have other problems than banshees. But I'm sorry you have to react to banshees by building stalkers. Seems like any T and esp. Z player can just ignore the oracle. not.
I also can't see how it works "well" with bio. It isn't bad to have them, but they don't add the utility of, say a medivac which heals your bioball and gives highground vision. It also forced detection but once you hold off the harass you can further use the obs to scout the terran base. it's not like the oh so liked turret at the terran expansion which is just there. maybe to hold off dts or observers but doesn't do anything beside that.
EDIT:
On November 03 2011 02:28 kcdc wrote:
This. If I want to invest in dedicated harass, I already have stargate tech and phoenix/void available. I don't need a way to help me kill more drones with phoenix/void. What I need is either (1) a better way to defend and transition from phoenix/void, or (2) a better way to harass with gateway or robo openings. The oracle solves a problem that Protoss doesn't have.
No it's just something you want.
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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.
I retract my previous statement about testing the unit before passing judgment. Any unit that can mosey is broken. Not only does it deny mining, but it taunts and trolls you opponent by moving. No unit should be that frustrating to deal with. It is clearly inbalanced and needs to be removed.
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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.
Agreed because this takes maybe 4 apm. I think when people actually begin to use this thing we'll realize it's actually extremely powerful. Take into consideration that most Protoss play is based around certain timing attacks. As zerg i need to have a flood of income at that time to continue to defend. If the harass goes down right before the attack, my ability to defend is severely hampered. Also, zerg play is based around droning like hell and coming out with tech or units just in time. If you phase out any of my lair tech upgrades in advance of an attack timing, my whole build is cut to shreds.
It is a big investment of a unit, but i think we will be saying it's well worth it down the line.
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On November 03 2011 02:42 Hryul wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 02:15 bovineblitz wrote:On November 03 2011 02:08 Hryul wrote:On November 03 2011 02:00 bovineblitz wrote:
Okay then.
Banshees. you have to invest 200/200 in cloak, otherwise stalkers shut it down very easily. observer + stalker are maybe a bit off if you want to get ht/blink/dt, but if you are agressive enough with your phoenix you can force a cloak near the terran base which also shuts down banshees see grubby vs happy on daybreak. Oh great, so if I have pro-level intuition I can rally my phoenix to where a banshee is moving across the map, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable solution, I'll figure out he's going banshee by scouting his ramp and make phoenixes and then have the sense to rally RIGHT TO the banshee. Nevermind that even if he doesn't go cloak he can still pick off a couple probes, has a high DPS unit that works well with bio, forced crappy stalkers, forced detection, and can switch off the techlab to make 2x medivacs immediately. Banshee fits all the criteria. I'm just ignoring the rant on phoenixes. I just said it is possible, not that you could easily do that. But i thought the idea behind the phoenix is to harass and scout his base. So you have actual time to prepare for them. together with the possibility to cut off the direct path, you have even more time to react. A banshee is 100/150. which would, in a naive way, be like 5 probes. if he can kill you 5 probes without you being able to react to that you have other problems than banshees. But I'm sorry you have to react to banshees by building stalkers. Seems like any T and esp. Z player can just ignore the oracle. not. I also can't see how it works "well" with bio. It isn't bad to have them, but they don't add the utility of, say a medivac which heals your bioball and gives highground vision. It also forced detection but once you hold off the harass you can further use the obs to scout the terran base. it's not like the oh so liked turret at the terran expansion which is just there. maybe to hold off dts or observers but doesn't do anything beside that.
Building stalkers is suboptimal. T and Z will theoretically be able to counter the oracle with any unit. A small force of marines will scare the oracle and kill the mineral shields quickly enough that it won't even be an issue. A queen and a few lings will do the same. None of that is suboptimal except perhaps you have to keep a couple units near your mineral line. Overmaking stalkers vs terran is certainly suboptimal, once marauders, and god forbid, stim, are out, they plain suck.
I don't really get how you don't see that a banshee works well with bio. You can just throw it into a group and it does 19.2dps. The utility is the dps. It integrates well with armies because it does massive damage and can't get hit by zealots. You typically only make two or so and barely go out of your tech path so it's not like you've wasted much time and resources even if you do no economic damage with the banshee.
And really, you're comparing making a cheap turret at a dt timing vs being forced to go 225/175 robo/obs for a banshee timing? Plus even if you don't make the turret, you can still survive via scan vs DTs. If toss doesn't get the obs, the game is over.
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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.
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On November 03 2011 02:50 cerebralz wrote:Show nested quote +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. Agreed because this takes maybe 4 apm. I think when people actually begin to use this thing we'll realize it's actually extremely powerful. Take into consideration that most Protoss play is based around certain timing attacks. As zerg i need to have a flood of income at that time to continue to defend. If the harass goes down right before the attack, my ability to defend is severely hampered. Also, zerg play is based around droning like hell and coming out with tech or units just in time. If you phase out any of my lair tech upgrades in advance of an attack timing, my whole build is cut to shreds. It is a big investment of a unit, but i think we will be saying it's well worth it down the line.
That's another reason I don't like the unit. Protoss kept getting nerfed because timing attacks were too good. Now this unit will make timing attacks (for example, stargate into 6gate all in) vs zerg even better? How is that going to balance out... what else will they have to nerf to make up for it?
I just really dislike the idea, I don't see how it will be good for the game.
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I carefully read your thread. Then realised you dont mention the DT...
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My complaint with the oracle is that the only way I can think to use it effectively is to stall production in the late game after the death-balls have collided. By using it in the mid-game the enemy can gain map control, as they will gave a larger army (assuming both players have been playing equally well) at about the same supply, thereby freeing them to simply expand when they see the oracle. Plus, as the OP said, the defense against phoenix harass is the same defense against the oracle. I'm sure you can combine it with other air units to shut down air defense or with warp prisms to allow for easier drops, but over all the unit seems too gimmicky to see wide-spread use. With that said it should be fun to mess with in team games!
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On November 03 2011 02:42 Hryul wrote:
A banshee is 100/150. which would, in a naive way, be like 5 probes. if he can kill you 5 probes without you being able to react to that you have other problems than banshees. But I'm sorry you have to react to banshees by building stalkers.
A banshee's cost is equal to a medivac + 50 gas, so for the banshee to pay for itself, it needs to kill enough probes to make up for the 50 gas + the drop in combat value from a medivac to a banshee. I'd say that in most situations where you already have a couple medivacs, a banshee is almost as good as a medivac in combat, so the banshee needs to kill maybe 2 or 3 probes to pay for itself. I don't remember the last time I saw a pro game where a banshee failed to kill at least 2 probes.
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On November 03 2011 03:08 Psychobabas wrote:
I carefully read your thread. Then realised you dont mention the DT...
Because it's not a consistent early/mid-game harass tool. In early/mid-game, it's a dice roll. In late-game vs Z, it's more useful.
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On November 03 2011 03:08 Psychobabas wrote:
I carefully read your thread. Then realised you dont mention the DT...
Can you carefully read up to post 11-12 ?
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EPT
