|
Really well thought out post that brought up some excellent points..When you compare the oracle to the Terran and Zerg harass units it is not the same at all..they would be better off giving it some sort of ability that could reduce units movement speed to almost none and it could be used on mining workers for the same effect as well as in battle. Targetting the minerals will cause minimal damage especially since the force fields can be destroyed. If you invest in this unit it's going to seriously weaken your army, and against Terran it is hardly viable because of the cost effectiveness of marines vs air and the fact that this forces you to go stargate tech.
The harass unit should come from the robo and atleast have some utility in a battle situation.. or atleast be able to do some dmg even if it is minimal ( similar to the sentry ). I haven't actually looked into it but the cost of the unit just to delay mining time..you're going to have to be consistently using this unit to make it cost effective and once the Z or T sees it they will set up static defense and/or get mutas or vikings and kill your defenseless oracle(s)
The unit has to be completely reworked in my opinion, and hopefully intelligent/analytical posts like yours about the unit don't get lumped in with all the ''LOL ORACLE SO OP'' or ''LOL DAVID KIM IS A DUMB AND FUCKED OVER PROTOSS'' posts and thinks of something else.
|
Kcdc, so smart, so handsome.
Even after fooling around with the oracle on the HotS custom map, I find it to be a stupid unit.
1. Anyone with half a brain can shut down the no-attack, low hp, flying unit. Queens, lol. Marines, lol. Basic shit.
2. One entomb isn't really that good... No srsly, it kinda sucks, just quickly a-move all your drones/scvs and its like 200 minerals AT MOST not mined, while the toss had to spend 300 gas...
3. The other spells are stupid. The building thing is w/e on this unit since you need to spend all energy on entomb or the research viewer. The research viewer is nice and all, but how often are you willing to spend 300 gas to see what one building is making?
FRANKLY the Shredder seems like a more Protossian unit than a Terran unit. With any luck they will move that kind of unit to protoss, and give them some serious harassment options. Don't know if you have seen this unit in action, but its totally broken in its current state.
|
the only problem I have with the Oracle from a design-standpoint is, that it will be quite different to balance the Oracle across the different MU's. Just because of the different way that the buildings work for Zerg and Terran. For Zerg, if you remove a building from the game for this duration, it totally shuts down ALL the Unit-production and often even tech-routes, which just works totally different for Terran. Compare for example phasing out a Pool from an early 2-base Zerg: It will not only shut down ANY further tech and building, but also deny queens, Spines and Zerglings. If you do the same to a Terran on the same stage of the game you'll most likely shut down a Barracks, while the Terran will most likely have another Barracks, therefore not shutting down any tech-options and only production from one building.
This is just very prodblematic and the only thing that could mitigate this Problem is Zerg being able and IMHO basically forced to, extensively hide their buildings, but thats basically only an option at T2. I really cannot think of a way to balance phasing out so it is equally strong in every MU other than simply make the spell work differently on Zerg-buildings, like just lasting much shorter. If they change the spell though in any other way than the duration, like make it work somewhat like the overseers spell, it would totally loose it's diverse strategic potential which is so appealing to me right now.
|
On November 03 2011 02:42 Hryul wrote:EDIT: Show nested quote +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.
"Well, that's just your opinion!" - the ultimate argument, from the ultimate debate bonjwa. 
Seriously though, either explain why he's wrong, or which Protoss problem Blizzard wants to address with the Oracle, or something. Or don't post at all, that's fine too.
|
"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."
The idea of a better way to transition out of Phoenix/Void is interesting. I think with a little redesign the Oracle could DEFINITELY do this.
If they don't want it to kill units, maybe give it some massssive snare that Protoss can use to slow down ling counters, or even trap them inside cannon range.
Or - allow it to completely cancel a researching upgrade. Fly in, BAM no more stim for you. But it could only be used on one building. So each oracle would be able to lockdown a single building. But no other oracle for the rest of the game could lockdown that building. So if the defender kills off the oracle that canceled his stim to start with, then no other oracle can mess with that tech lab for the rest of the game. A new one could hit his ebay and not die, but only get into the base once without dying, canceling +1 once, but then leaving the building safe for the rest of the game. Would encourage 'protoss-y' play by having to focus on keeping units alive and out of harm's reach.
Another idea I had was to actually allow the Oracle to siphon minerals like they are thinking about doing with the corrupter. If Entomb actually siphoned minerals for the protoss, or worked on geysers, it would be worthwhile I think.
|
I'm no expert but I think most everyone is missing the point. The Oracle is "worker friendly" meaning the other player will never even noticed they've been harassed if done properly, or at least until they notice that they have no income. Since the unit is so damn fast it can get in, entomb the minerals, and get back out and a player might not even notice the little blip on the mini-map. Plus from what I saw from videos the entomb spell even has a pretty long range too 6-7 perhaps.
The oracle can even be used pretty effectively in late game too. I would imagine that if the Oracle can shut down static defenses it removes their detection ability as well. Which allows for some amazing combinations with DTs. Entomb can force all the workers to one or two patches which allows for one WP with one HT two devastate the entire line with one storm and possible have another ready for the reinforcements.
Also one the big clash comes and players have to rebuild just send the an Oracle or two over and completely shut down a Terran's or Protoss's production, or the Zergs tech so they can't recharge with the units they want. It allows you to get a much larger army than your opponent for that second engagement.
I don't know though I'm not a pro, nor do I play enough to consider myself an expert. But those are just some strategies I see that I don't think anyone has mentioned / ignored. It certainly seems like it will make for an effective unit.
|
On November 03 2011 02:28 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 02:20 Toadvine wrote: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.
Right now you can follow a Stargate opening up with
1) a gateway count of 5+, so you can hold ANY ATTACK roach, roach/ling, hydra/ling the opponent can throw at you. Your problem will just be that you are still on 2base vs 3base zerg if he doesn't attack. And then you just don't have the eco to stay in the game much longer, because you can't keep harassing anymore and your army composition is only useful in a defensive scenario.
2) The other route to go is to either go directly into third or colossi, then you can't hold an attack, but you're usually ahead if he doesn't attack.
The Oracle sounds to me like it helps with both. in 1) you get more harass done, so you can keep playing a macro game off gateway+stargate tech and in 2) you can just phase out his warren/pool/hydra den/nydus and buy time until the colossus pops, or the delayed gateways kick in.
Right now those 2 options are coinflips, because you don't know what zerg does until you see his eggs pop. With the oracle you can preemtively do the right thing, depending on what you are doing. (also you can see what the eggs are building, as far as I remember the third ability of the oracle)
What you want is to play Terran. Switch race and you'll be fine, plenty of harass options there. But Protoss doesn't have those light high dps fighters but balancewise is as fine without them, as zerg is with them (7P and 7Z in code S).
But honestly, I think I'm wasting time on discussing with people that have an opinion that only reflects like 10% of all the players out there, while most guys (like me) just think, that we simply can't say how those new units/abilities will turn out, but obviously blizzard will try to make them work. (maybe Protoss can just always open Nexus first into gateway and arc shields in HotS vs zerg, or zerg has to go roach to expand, due to arcshield pylonlocks everygame, who knows?)
Also, if you want some pro opinion on the HotS units, just watch the latest 2 episodes of State of the Game.
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...
|
On November 03 2011 03:50 Koreish wrote:
I'm no expert but I think most everyone is missing the point. The Oracle is "worker friendly" meaning the other player will never even noticed they've been harassed if done properly, or at least until they notice that they have no income. Since the unit is so damn fast it can get in, entomb the minerals, and get back out and a player might not even notice the little blip on the mini-map. Plus from what I saw from videos the entomb spell even has a pretty long range too 6-7 perhaps.
The oracle can even be used pretty effectively in late game too. I would imagine that if the Oracle can shut down static defenses it removes their detection ability as well. Which allows for some amazing combinations with DTs. Entomb can force all the workers to one or two patches which allows for one WP with one HT two devastate the entire line with one storm and possible have another ready for the reinforcements.
Also one the big clash comes and players have to rebuild just send the an Oracle or two over and completely shut down a Terran's or Protoss's production, or the Zergs tech so they can't recharge with the units they want. It allows you to get a much larger army than your opponent for that second engagement.
I don't know though I'm not a pro, nor do I play enough to consider myself an expert. But those are just some strategies I see that I don't think anyone has mentioned / ignored. It certainly seems like it will make for an effective unit.
1 - so it will work on noobs, great. Not very helpful.
2 - or, I can just send dts and target down the spores/turrets. or, I can just use two templar or one templar with full energy and get in and out with much less risk
3 - that's not going to do anything vs Terrans, they'll have marines around and what good is it to shut down one barracks for a bit when they have 3+ more? High risk, low reward. It'll work better vs zerg, but they can just pool larva while they wait. It's really better suited for aggressive timings.
|
What Protoss needs is a land-based harassment unit that is available from the gateway or robotics facility and will have value in multiple dimensions of the game. We don't need another unit that encourages Zerg to take expansions or that leaves Protoss undefended against Terran and is shut down cold by vikings. I'd be thrilled if Protoss were given the hellion or reaper. But instead, Blizzard has offered us the phoenix 2.0.
I agree with the OP completely, especially the conclusion above, except for one thing. Everything hinges on how recall on the nexus is balanced. If it is kept as it was in Blizzcon, then Protoss harassment options are opened up (outside of the Oracle, which is still too one-dimensional).
Think about Voidrays + recall. Perhaps you can wade deeper into the Zerg base before simply recalling them. Then again, recall has a few seconds before it is active, perhaps negating any aggression that would force Zerg to overcommit a queen or such.
Recall + DTs or Warp Prism harassment in general is better because you can pull them out of harms way at the last moment. Still, it would seem that proper cloak defense or vikings will keep these things from being effective.
So even with recall, not much more damage will be done per harassment run... however risk will be lowered, so more attempts may be possible if you have enough Nexus energy to support it. Again, this all revolves around recall staying on the nexus in a usable, micro-intensive form.
Having said all that, we still come back to the Oracle. It is certainly too specific, too gas expensive, and on the wrong tech tree to fill in the early to mid game harassment tool that Protoss players have been longing for.
|
I honestly have no issue with the design of the oracle, honestly, but the problem is that it doesn't fix the REAL issue of no T1/T1.5 harass units.
|
Honestly what was blizzard thinking, protoss players can already drop in sentries and force fielded over minerals if they wanted to.
|
On November 03 2011 04:25 Blacklizard wrote:
What Protoss needs is a land-based harassment unit that is available from the gateway or robotics facility and will have value in multiple dimensions of the game. We don't need another unit that encourages Zerg to take expansions or that leaves Protoss undefended against Terran and is shut down cold by vikings. I'd be thrilled if Protoss were given the hellion or reaper. But instead, Blizzard has offered us the phoenix 2.0.
I agree with the OP completely, especially the conclusion above, except for one thing. Everything hinges on how recall on the nexus is balanced. If it is kept as it was in Blizzcon, then Protoss harassment options are opened up (outside of the Oracle, which is still too one-dimensional).
Think about Voidrays + recall. Perhaps you can wade deeper into the Zerg base before simply recalling them. Then again, recall has a few seconds before it is active, perhaps negating any aggression that would force Zerg to overcommit a queen or such.
Recall + DTs or Warp Prism harassment in general is better because you can pull them out of harms way at the last moment. Still, it would seem that proper cloak defense or vikings will keep these things from being effective.
So even with recall, not much more damage will be done per harassment run... however risk will be lowered, so more attempts may be possible if you have enough Nexus energy to support it. Again, this all revolves around recall staying on the nexus in a usable, micro-intensive form.
Having said all that, we still come back to the Oracle. It is certainly too specific, too gas expensive, and on the wrong tech tree to fill in the early to mid game harassment tool that Protoss players have been longing for.
What's the cost? 150/200?
It could be a better option than Phoenixes vs. Zerg since you need at least 4-5 before you can start doing damage. I'd have to play with the Oracle to see how it functions, but atm, it just doesn't seem to be what Protoss needs or would really pay for itself. I guess if you Entomb mineral lines, there's no PF, cannons, or spines, the player has no units nearby and doesn't attack the fields with the workers, then it could do some economic damage. Otherwise, I can't see it paying for itself. I guess if a Zerg has 0 overseers, 1 spore crawler, and you disable that and bring in DTs, yeah you'll do some work (although a shitton of resources is going into this harass), but otherwise, as it stands now, the Oracle doesn't seem to great.
|
On November 02 2011 14:56 JinnAxel wrote:
Obviously a lot of people haven't explored Oracles in the HotS custom map yet. They're annoyingly good. A lot of people underestimate the sort of damage they can do, especially in conjunction with timing attacks or stuff like void ray/phoenix harass. 1 oracle can cause the opposing player to lose 500 minerals if left untouched. That's huge. Even if they react immediately, they already lost about 150 minerals.
Shutting down production buildings and tech as well as static defence in addition to economy harass makes the oracle unbelievably useful. As long as you have the apm to support it, the protoss economy can jump ahead of the opponents economy quickly. Plus it can stop gas mining...
The HOTS custom map had mistakes in the entomb ability in earlier version (it may be correct as of the latest, today's? version). One cast doesn't cover all patches. The entomb shields are auto-attacked by plantetaries and normal units. Plantetaries do splash damage against them and kill 4 shield patches per hit, killing all 4 in two hits according to what I've heard from Blizzcon.
Also don't forget that people are screwing around in the custom maps to try out new units... people would normally just go kill you if you spent 250 gas (stargate + oracle) early game on temp harass that can't stop a ground army attack. So the Oracles may seem better in non-serious testing than in a true match up.
One thing that did make them the slightest bit better is the fact that in the custom maps your workers can't surround all the patches to kill them easily. That is the only positive thing I've seen, IMO.
Overall, it's not the unit Protoss wants or needs I think.
|
On November 02 2011 15:51 Whitewing wrote:
The defensive abilities of the oracle are interesting as well: let's say you open stargate and make one or two for harass after a FFE, and the zerg hits you with an all in. You can phase out some of the buildings in your wall to make them immune to damage (they still wall the zerg out however), and can be used as last ditch sentries in this scenario. You can also do that to really important tech structures when the enemy is about to kill them to give you more time to clean up a drop or something, like saving your twilight council or templar archives when terran does a marine/marauder drop.
It's not particularly good at defense, but it's not quite accurate to say that it's useless either.
I like to think of the ability to warp buildings out of existence as the primary advantage of the unit, with the spell to block mineral patches as icing on the cake.
Pre-ordain, from what I understand, gives you vision of the area around the structure as well for 2 whole minutes, so you can use the oracles as harassing observers without detection.
Your defense options are cool, but very very situational. It's sort of like saying you can use warp prism to power cannons were pylons went down. Yes you can, and I have maybe once or twice in a year, but it's so rare to have a warp prism in the perfect place at the perfect time. Oracle will probably be the same. I mean, are you going to be able to afford oracles just to sit around waiting for something that probably won't happen?
EDIT: Furthermore, how much energy are you realistically going to have to protect a whole wall off from a push? I mean, wouldn't you need enough to cover everything that FF doesn't? So somewhere between 3 and 6 casts? Seems unlikely.
Oh, I forgot to say in my other post that the other mistake on the HOTS custom maps is that apparently pre-ordain does not give area vision around a building. And they said the casting range for the spell was tiny, so it is changed to 3.
|
On November 03 2011 03:50 Koreish wrote:
I'm no expert but I think most everyone is missing the point. The Oracle is "worker friendly" meaning the other player will never even noticed they've been harassed if done properly, or at least until they notice that they have no income. Since the unit is so damn fast it can get in, entomb the minerals, and get back out and a player might not even notice the little blip on the mini-map. Plus from what I saw from videos the entomb spell even has a pretty long range too 6-7 perhaps.
The oracle can even be used pretty effectively in late game too. I would imagine that if the Oracle can shut down static defenses it removes their detection ability as well. Which allows for some amazing combinations with DTs. Entomb can force all the workers to one or two patches which allows for one WP with one HT two devastate the entire line with one storm and possible have another ready for the reinforcements.
Also one the big clash comes and players have to rebuild just send the an Oracle or two over and completely shut down a Terran's or Protoss's production, or the Zergs tech so they can't recharge with the units they want. It allows you to get a much larger army than your opponent for that second engagement.
I don't know though I'm not a pro, nor do I play enough to consider myself an expert. But those are just some strategies I see that I don't think anyone has mentioned / ignored. It certainly seems like it will make for an effective unit.
The range is greater than six. From what I remember while playing, it was 9.
|
On November 02 2011 17:53 Thrombozyt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2011 13:58 kcdc wrote:On November 02 2011 13:50 Vindicare605 wrote:
Without getting in to why I like the Oracle. Can I ask you something?
Why is the Dark Templar not included in your list of Protoss Harassment options? It should be. But it's pretty simple: DT's are good if your opponent isn't prepared. Otherwise, they're expensive archons. Either way, they're not consistent harass options because your opponent will certainly be prepared the second time. So I get it right? You want a unit that pulls off harass successfully even if the opponent is prepared, that demands a response from the opponent that is out of the way of his usual combat tech and that is located conveniently in your tech path so you don't have to specifically invest in harassment? Oh.. and it should also have some utility in other roles... Tell me one unit that fullfils those criteria... I guess they placed it on the stargate in order to encourage more stargate play beyond the '1 VR and 2-4 pheonix' vs Zerg. FYI: Terran harassment isn't much better, when I 'analyze' it like you did: Banshee - Huge investment in tech that must pay off. Paperplane that adds little to our combat force apart from very specific timings. Hellions - Out of the way vs P, does not contribute to combat force, shut down by sim city, needs drops Medivac/Bio drops - Big investment, reduces the forces you have at home for defense, if your opponent is prepared, you lose the drop. Reapers - One dimensional, cost a ton of gas and take forever to build, easily shut down by warp in or speedlings Damn.. terran harassment options suck hard... 
Not fair criticism.
Banshees do damage due to flight and range even if they don't have cloak. DTs are melee and slow in comparison, get trapped due to no flight, and can't normally be used in your army because they don't have range and are too expensive to be meatshields like zealots.
Starport tech opens up all tech options for Terran and is never a bad idea... hardly, it seems necessary in 90% of Terran games.
Hellion drops have seen play, even if they require specific builds/timings.
Medivac/bio drops may detract from your main army temporarily, but they win games all the time because they are high reward. Bio drops have a lot of ranged DPS, are invulnerable to worker only defense, and can kill building very quickly. And they are part of your normal army 99% of the time, so it's no investment to get harassment tech.
Reapers: I may agree with you there a bit. They are basically like DT harass, except they can get in and escape easier b/c of jump jetpacks. So it will be like DT harass if nexus Recall stays in a usable format in HotS. Well, except they are faster and have range... but they aren't cloaked so yeah, comparable.
|
On November 03 2011 04:41 Blacklizard wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2011 14:56 JinnAxel wrote:
Obviously a lot of people haven't explored Oracles in the HotS custom map yet. They're annoyingly good. A lot of people underestimate the sort of damage they can do, especially in conjunction with timing attacks or stuff like void ray/phoenix harass. 1 oracle can cause the opposing player to lose 500 minerals if left untouched. That's huge. Even if they react immediately, they already lost about 150 minerals.
Shutting down production buildings and tech as well as static defence in addition to economy harass makes the oracle unbelievably useful. As long as you have the apm to support it, the protoss economy can jump ahead of the opponents economy quickly. Plus it can stop gas mining... The HOTS custom map had mistakes in the entomb ability in earlier version (it may be correct as of the latest, today's? version). One cast doesn't cover all patches. The entomb shields are auto-attacked by plantetaries and normal units. Plantetaries do splash damage against them and kill 4 shield patches per hit, killing all 4 in two hits according to what I've heard from Blizzcon. Also don't forget that people are screwing around in the custom maps to try out new units... people would normally just go kill you if you spent 250 gas (stargate + oracle) early game on temp harass that can't stop a ground army attack. So the Oracles may seem better in non-serious testing than in a true match up. One thing that did make them the slightest bit better is the fact that in the custom maps your workers can't surround all the patches to kill them easily. That is the only positive thing I've seen, IMO. Overall, it's not the unit Protoss wants or needs I think.
The Blizzcon version covered all of the patches.
|
People just need to stop obsessing over the numbers. There will be plenty of time to fine tune that come the actual beta.
On a side note about entomb. Wouldn't you rather cover all but one mineral patch than all of them? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the drones will idle if all mineral patches are blocked but will still mine if one is there. Against a skilled player it might not make a difference, but if you can do it in the heat of battle they might not notice for a long time without the idle drone indicator going off
|
On November 03 2011 05:20 Dommk wrote:
People just need to stop obsessing over the numbers. There will be plenty of time to fine tune that come the actual beta.
On a side note about entomb. Wouldn't you rather cover all but one mineral patch than all of them? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the drones will idle if all mineral patches are blocked but will still mine if one is there. Against a skilled player it might not make a difference, but if you can do it in the heat of battle they might not notice for a long time without the idle drone indicator going off
as far as I have seen from the official announcment video (the one where 5/8 patches got blocked - maybe only due to bad placement of the spell, idk), the drones kept trying to mine from the patches that where blocked, even with the 3 other patches being available.
But I'm sure this is a thing that blizzard will play around with at the beginning of the beta, once they see how strong the oracle really is in more competetive use.
|
On November 03 2011 05:20 Dommk wrote:
People just need to stop obsessing over the numbers. There will be plenty of time to fine tune that come the actual beta.
On a side note about entomb. Wouldn't you rather cover all but one mineral patch than all of them? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the drones will idle if all mineral patches are blocked but will still mine if one is there. Against a skilled player it might not make a difference, but if you can do it in the heat of battle they might not notice for a long time without the idle drone indicator going off
Does it really cover as many as 7 patches? In the Blizzcon presentation, it got 5. Maybe it was poor placement, but in any case, it would be nice if someone who went to Blizzcon would respond on this matter.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
