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Note: This is NOT a thread about how I hate Blizzard, how I hate HotS, how Protoss doesn't need more detection, how I hate Oracle and how it should be redesigned. It was obviously redesigned between alpha and beta, and it still might be changed later, but I wanted to discuss the current state of the units and how it can be used best.
So it's the second day of beta and everyone who has the beta key enjoys playing with their new toys + Show Spoiler +. Some units are pretty straight forward, like Warhound (1a gogogo!), some have obvious perculiarities, like Tempest (no, you shouldn't mass them and send to the enemy through the center of the map, trust me).
And some are just not explored yet, like Oracle. Obvious thing about Oracle is Entomb -- a lot of Protosses already figured out that Oracle opening involves energizing your Oracle and sending him to troll enemy mineral lines.
Less obvious thing is that Oracle has 2 vision spells, and in a few Protoss streams I watched the players didn't figure out how to use both of them to the best effect.
Preordain targets buildings, lasts 120 seconds and has a big radius. It does *not* reveal cloaked/burrowed units. Obviously, it is a "scout" spell: you use it to find out what tech route your enemy uses, how many workers he has and when does he move out from his base. It is also obviously the best spell to support Tempest harass... or is it?
Revelation targets any area, lasts 30 seconds and has a much smaller radius. It does reveal cloaked/burrowed units, but it does NOT grant vision under fog of war the same way Terran's scan does (so let's stop this bitching about how Blizzard gave Protosses the same ability). You can compare it to ghost's EMP, since revealed units remain visible while cloaked/burrowed for the duration of the effect.
So, Revelation is like EMP on steroids for detection, except it does not affect shields or energy. It also seems like revealed units stay visible under fog of war. So, if you Reveal an enemy army, you will see its movements for 30 seconds, and your Tempests can target them with their long range balls of doom.
In particular, if you use Preordain on enemy "town hall", your tempests might start targeting enemy structures around it. This might be not very effective, since Tempests have very low DPS. However if you use Reveal on enemy workers, Tempests will target only them! (*)
(*) Well, I imagine it will work like that. I don't have a beta key myself. Edit: confirmed below
Revelation will probably become important spell to defend against banshees/mutas (except oracles will die just from mutas staring at them menacingly) -- you're not just detecting banshees, but you see where they go when your opponent tries to hide them in fog of war. Alternatively you can use Preordain on your far edge buildings to see incoming threat.
And of course, using Revelation will be very advantageous against late game armies (especially against terran ghosts), but Oracles are even more susceptable to sniping than observers.
So that's my thoughts on Oracle. Let's hear yours!
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Nice write-up. Some of these new abilities are wonky but I think they will be a lot of fun!!!
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On September 07 2012 01:26 GeNeSiDe wrote: Nice write-up. Some of these new abilities are wonky but I think they will be a lot of fun!!! if you're mentally disabled i guess they can be fun? Or could you explain me what's fun about using entom, pre-ordain or a scan?
User was warned for this post
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On September 07 2012 02:09 wcr.4fun wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2012 01:26 GeNeSiDe wrote: Nice write-up. Some of these new abilities are wonky but I think they will be a lot of fun!!! if you're mentally disabled i guess they can be fun? Or could you explain me what's fun about using entom, pre-ordain or a scan?
It's fun because your tempest can shoot in their full 22 range. Shooting in a range of 10 (tempest's vision is 10) is not so fun as in a range of 22.
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On September 07 2012 02:09 wcr.4fun wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2012 01:26 GeNeSiDe wrote: Nice write-up. Some of these new abilities are wonky but I think they will be a lot of fun!!! if you're mentally disabled i guess they can be fun? Or could you explain me what's fun about using entom, pre-ordain or a scan?
please refrain from personal attacks just because someone else thinks something is fun when you don't..
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On September 07 2012 02:09 wcr.4fun wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2012 01:26 GeNeSiDe wrote: Nice write-up. Some of these new abilities are wonky but I think they will be a lot of fun!!! if you're mentally disabled i guess they can be fun? Or could you explain me what's fun about using entom, pre-ordain or a scan?
Where did that come from?
I'm excited to see more people start using the Oracle, I don't see it enough at the moment. Any stream using it a lot?
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Canada13389 Posts
I thought the detecting spell thing only provided detection in an area that the oracle casts its spell so long as you have vision of that area.
It just gives detection, but not vision.
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On September 07 2012 02:09 wcr.4fun wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2012 01:26 GeNeSiDe wrote: Nice write-up. Some of these new abilities are wonky but I think they will be a lot of fun!!! if you're mentally disabled i guess they can be fun? Or could you explain me what's fun about using entom, pre-ordain or a scan?
Wow pretty vicious calling someone mentally disabled because they said that part of a computer game looks fun... I guess you just call anyone and everyone mentally disabled for pretty much no reason? Of course in itself, these kinds of abilities won't be fun but it gives detection via stargate, so another counter to DT opening stargate without robo as viable in PvP perhaps? This is one in maybe 100 different effects which they will have which could improve the fun of the game... I don't think you have to be mentally disabled to see that.
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While it's good that protoss can get detection without going robo, it seems a bit redundant with two skills that are that similar. Wish they had at least tried keeping the cloak ability during beta, because that was far more interesting. They should at least remove preordain and replace it with something less overlapping and more interesting.
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I think both of the vision spells will converge into one spell that involves detection in some shape or form, probably something like Ocular Parasite, because Protoss need a way to detect for Banshees if they tech to Starport first vs. Terran. If all it did was give target friendly unit or building detection, it'd be pretty good. Giving an enemy unit or building detection and stealing their site radious would be a bonus. I like abilities that make the opponent think about having to kill his own stuff or peel it away from the deathball.
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I think this will solve rock/paper/scissor in PvP because you will not die to DT with stargate opening again.
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it just feels akward that toss isn't forced on robo tech anymore ... since my childhood it was always get that damn robo bay and the observatory if you don't want to die. But i guess they had to do it in order to promote airplay for protoss. Don't really see a big issue in getting the robo + obs though. Could be old conservative me, needing so much more valuable gas to get to observers in bw, so i don't really mind the few bits of gas you need in sc2 to not die to cloaked stuff that comes later.
Kind of destroys almost any sort of cloak/burrow play against toss though in the early game, which is really sad. But it is something that will take some time to find out, if the vision spells are way to strong in terms of intel you gain.
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On September 07 2012 03:04 FeyFey wrote: it just feels akward that toss isn't forced on robo tech anymore ... since my childhood it was always get that damn robo bay and the observatory if you don't want to die. But i guess they had to do it in order to promote airplay for protoss. Don't really see a big issue in getting the robo + obs though. Could be old conservative me, needing so much more valuable gas to get to observers in bw, so i don't really mind the few bits of gas you need in sc2 to not die to cloaked stuff that comes later.
Kind of destroys almost any sort of cloak/burrow play against toss though in the early game, which is really sad. But it is something that will take some time to find out, if the vision spells are way to strong in terms of intel you gain.
Locking detection to a specific tech tree is the reason that many build for Protoss do not involve stargate at all. Even if you wanted to get three to five phoenixes(300-500 gas), you need to delay your robo for so long that you risk losing to DT and cloaked banshees. The detection for stargate is not nearly as good as the detection for robo, so it levels out.
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On September 07 2012 02:29 ZeromuS wrote: I thought the detecting spell thing only provided detection in an area that the oracle casts its spell so long as you have vision of that area.
It just gives detection, but not vision. It doesn't give the vision of an area, yes. I specifically said that it's not terran scan remade 
Anyway, I would appreciate if someone from the beta clarified the mechanics of Revelation, we already have enough guessing in HotS threads (people still whine about cloaking field )
On September 07 2012 03:04 FeyFey wrote: Kind of destroys almost any sort of cloak/burrow play against toss though in the early game, which is really sad. But it is something that will take some time to find out, if the vision spells are way to strong in terms of intel you gain.
Well if you say that Protoss is "forced" to get a robo anyway, it means cloak/burrow play is already dead?
Oracle is 150/200, and it's quite an investment. Also you have to have it at your base and with energy -- which seems minor considering their speed and availability of energize, but most people will usually immidiately use energize and send oracle to use entomb if they don't scout cloak tech in time. Besides, people are already used to splitting cloaked units to dodge terran scans.
Anyway, every race will have 3 sources of detection in HotS: a stationary building, a unit and a spell (well, it's still 2 spells for terran) and I think people will still find ways to loose to DTs somehow
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Definitely happy about the detection ability on the oracle. Not getting an auto-loss vs. banshees when opening stargate will be nice.
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It also seems like revealed units stay visible under fog of war. So, if you Reveal an enemy army, you will see its movements for 30 seconds, and, as I assume, your Tempests can target them with their long range balls of doom.
I can confirm this, you keep vision of the units that where on the targeted area (just the units, similar to how burrowed units vision works), and ofc you can 22 range attack those with Tempest.
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On September 07 2012 05:38 Kaleidos wrote:Show nested quote +It also seems like revealed units stay visible under fog of war. So, if you Reveal an enemy army, you will see its movements for 30 seconds, and, as I assume, your Tempests can target them with their long range balls of doom. I can confirm this, you keep vision of the units that where on the targeted area (just the units, similar to how burrowed units vision works), and ofc you can 22 range attack those with Tempest. Thanks! So my theorycraft in the OP is not a bunch of nonsense, nice to know
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Thank you OP! I had misunderstood the changes to the Oracle and was kinda disappointed, but now I'm thinking that this is going to very useful. The Revelation ability is like an Observer that can't be sniped.
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If there's just one thing I hope remains in this game for Protoss it's the detection ability of the Oracle. Needing to build a robotics facility in every PvT and PvP game is simply bad game design and really hampers Protoss' ability to be versatile in those matchups, and also contributes to the over-representation of the most boring Protoss unit: the Colossus. With this new possibility for Terrans to go mech, I can't wait to see how people are able to use stargate units against Terran, it may even be like banshee openers in TvZ if you think of the defending queens as defending marines amidst a purely ground mech army. Now P's have the chance to mix things up in a way that doesn't involve taking huge build order loss risks. And since this also means that Terran's will have to consider these new openers, the entire match-up will become more fruitful from this new build diversity. It's exciting to say the least.
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Another question for beta owners: can you use Preordain on neutral buildings, like destructible rocks and statues? And what about creep tumors?
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