On September 09 2012 06:07 usethis2 wrote: Once you acquire a few Tempests, I think no one would dare to base-race against you (since you will have plenty of vision to shoot your opponents afar). Am I thinking right?
No, the DPS is laughable, you would lose every base race.
No I think what he means is your army goes and kills his base, while your tempests slow down his progress by picking off units.
That's what I would do in a situation like that anyway.
Yes, that's what I meant. They won't completely stop full-blown base race, but I think the one with Tempests would have at least a meaningful upper hand by chipping away key enemy units (like mutas or medivacs) in your base while the rest your army breaking down his base. If you do that while being able to sneak out probes for constructing new buildings elsewhere (preferably where your main army is) that gives you a significant advantage, I'd think?
On September 09 2012 06:47 aZealot wrote: The Oracle is weird in its current incarnation. Anyway, if Protoss need more harass options that does not mean that they need a harass unit. Rather, Protoss need a unit that can harass effectively (and also do other stuff). I reckon the Phoenix can, maybe, still do harass effectively (and also lead to greater SG play) by just reducing the energy requirement for the GV beam (say 25 energy). You then have a unit that can harass better but can also be used in big battles even if the opponent does not go heavy air (i.e. the Phoenix retains its usefulness throughout the game against Air and Ground).
YES! I was thinking that making Graviton Beam 25 energy would be a good change too. I mean you have to channel it! And with Blizzard lowering the energy costs by 25 on Raven HSM and Yamato gun, why not on the raven too? They are exploring possibilities with the other races, but not protoss...
On September 09 2012 06:46 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: Terran was super OP at the beginning of WoL as well, remember?
I think the races will somewhat stabilize, at the worst case protoss in HotS release will be like Terran in WoL today.
No the worst case is that Protoss in HotS will be like Protoss in WoL today. If they don't add anything interesting it'll be a travesty
I think that would be best case. Protoss is relatively balanced with Zerg right now, maybe a bit off. Having the same level would be very nice.
So you would pay for an expansion for the same Protoss gameplay and unit compositions as the original? I know I wouldn't. If nothing changes, I'll be playing terran and zerg equally.
On September 09 2012 06:07 usethis2 wrote: Once you acquire a few Tempests, I think no one would dare to base-race against you (since you will have plenty of vision to shoot your opponents afar). Am I thinking right?
No, the DPS is laughable, you would lose every base race.
No I think what he means is your army goes and kills his base, while your tempests slow down his progress by picking off units.
That's what I would do in a situation like that anyway.
It doesn't matter, the DPS is still laughable and you will lose...
I thought the Tempest was supposed to have a splash radius. They should put that back in or something.
I am totally digging this 22 range business though. Such a unit is very cool. Because it also forces you to organize range for the unit. It makes preordain and observers so important.
On September 09 2012 06:46 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: Terran was super OP at the beginning of WoL as well, remember?
I think the races will somewhat stabilize, at the worst case protoss in HotS release will be like Terran in WoL today.
No the worst case is that Protoss in HotS will be like Protoss in WoL today. If they don't add anything interesting it'll be a travesty
I think that would be best case. Protoss is relatively balanced with Zerg right now, maybe a bit off. Having the same level would be very nice.
By balanced you mean the only way for protoss to stand a chance of winning (with the exception of the zerg fucking up his brood lord splits or something - basically zerg mistakes) is 2 base all ins? And that's balanced? Okay then.
Overall the matchup statistically is balanced, but if you look at how many matches are won by two base allins and take them out of the equation, I think you'll find it's heavily zerg favoured.
Do you guys remember the first HotS presentation at Blizzcon last year? When it came to Protoss there was a unit, the "replicant", which David Kim introduced with about these words: "And this is the Replicant, it can turn itself into enemy units, but we are still kinda trying to figure out what to do exactly with it so if you have any ideas please let us know".
That's when I realized that Blizzard has absolutely no friggin clue of what they're doing with HotS. They have been completely unprepared on the subject for more than a year now, and it shows: nearly all of their intentions have been wiped out, they wanted to give terran a new mini-thor because thor itself is a unit with many problems (size for instance), and now? Warhound is actually an antimech instead of antiair and thor is still there with no change. They wanted to give Protoss a new harassing tool because Protoss never had a proper way to harass except for their imagination, and in the end (i promise, i KNEW it would happen) Oracle costs a shitload of money for subpar abilities. Only zerg kinda remained on the tracks they put in the beginning.
This is not to say that I wasn't expecting changes in the last year, of course I was. But I was also expecting changes to go along the route of some objectives. The problem with this beta isn't that some units are too weak or too strong numerically speaking, something that could relatively easily be tuned with trial and error in the next months. The problem with this beta, and with protoss ESPECIALLY, is that there are design choices which make completely zero sense, the reasoning behind the new units and how they work (alone or with the rest of the army) is something appalling. And the worst part, call me pessimistc, is that for what I know of Blizzard they are never going back on their steps at this stage of development, so you can rest assured that however tweaked and turned, we're gonna have our HotS expansion full of shitty monoclick-play warhounds, boring 22 range units that play by themselves, useless 200 gas "harassing" units and so on.
I would like to join in with the many others that Entomb is just stupid, and please get rid of it.
Give the Oracle some army utility, like that cloaking spell they had intended before .. in fact replace Entomb with Cloaking, and that'll allow for some interesting early-midgame Protoss pressure.
Mothership core should be restricted to moving in only Pylon radiuses, which will solve MC pushes and allow for it to move faster.
There's not much to say about the Tempest though, I wish they'd have something to solve Colossi wars in PvP. Or to give a Dark Shrine techpath more utility than just DTs ..
The problem with the Tempest is that Protoss already have a unit which should counter colossi and brood lords, it's called "void ray", unfortunately much like other units (phoenix vs mutas anyone?) it never really worked for its intended role. Obviously trying to fix that and maybe keep (and fix) carriers in the process didn't seem like a bright idea to Blizzard: why fix broken units and make them viable when we can try to render them obsolete and create new broken units?
On September 09 2012 06:46 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: Terran was super OP at the beginning of WoL as well, remember?
I think the races will somewhat stabilize, at the worst case protoss in HotS release will be like Terran in WoL today.
No the worst case is that Protoss in HotS will be like Protoss in WoL today. If they don't add anything interesting it'll be a travesty
I think that would be best case. Protoss is relatively balanced with Zerg right now, maybe a bit off. Having the same level would be very nice.
By balanced you mean the only way for protoss to stand a chance of winning (with the exception of the zerg fucking up his brood lord splits or something - basically zerg mistakes) is 2 base all ins? And that's balanced? Okay then.
Overall the matchup statistically is balanced, but if you look at how many matches are won by two base allins and take them out of the equation, I think you'll find it's heavily zerg favoured.
Wait what? Whatever happened to good old warp prism/zealot harassment and properly placed mothership vortexes? PvZ is played like TvP - you don't engage his deathball at all if possible, just keep poking holes in him until you simply win. Snipe with blink stalkers. Zealot drops. Storm drops. Midgame void rays. Maybe some dark templar. Protoss has the most harassment options of the three races.
On September 09 2012 11:38 RehnFreemark wrote: Do you guys remember the first HotS presentation at Blizzcon last year? When it came to Protoss there was a unit, the "replicant", which David Kim introduced with about these words: "And this is the Replicant, it can turn itself into enemy units, but we are still kinda trying to figure out what to do exactly with it so if you have any ideas please let us know".
That's when I realized that Blizzard has absolutely no friggin clue of what they're doing with HotS. They have been completely unprepared on the subject for more than a year now, and it shows: nearly all of their intentions have been wiped out, they wanted to give terran a new mini-thor because thor itself is a unit with many problems (size for instance), and now? Warhound is actually an antimech instead of antiair and thor is still there with no change. They wanted to give Protoss a new harassing tool because Protoss never had a proper way to harass except for their imagination, and in the end (i promise, i KNEW it would happen) Oracle costs a shitload of money for subpar abilities. Only zerg kinda remained on the tracks they put in the beginning.
This is not to say that I wasn't expecting changes in the last year, of course I was. But I was also expecting changes to go along the route of some objectives. The problem with this beta isn't that some units are too weak or too strong numerically speaking, something that could relatively easily be tuned with trial and error in the next months. The problem with this beta, and with protoss ESPECIALLY, is that there are design choices which make completely zero sense, the reasoning behind the new units and how they work (alone or with the rest of the army) is something appalling. And the worst part, call me pessimistc, is that for what I know of Blizzard they are never going back on their steps at this stage of development, so you can rest assured that however tweaked and turned, we're gonna have our HotS expansion full of shitty monoclick-play warhounds, boring 22 range units that play by themselves, useless 200 gas "harassing" units and so on.
IIRC one of the first patches in the WoL beta was the deletion of two Mothership spells and the addition of the Mass Recall. The High Templar also gained and lost a spell in this same patch. Then later on we got other changes such as D-8 charge removal, a complete change of the role of the hydralisk, and corruption basically became a brand new spell in everything but name.
What all this goes to show is that Blizzard does whatever the hell they want, and in the end we're going to enjoy whatever it is they make. That's why we have a beta.
On September 09 2012 06:46 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: Terran was super OP at the beginning of WoL as well, remember?
I think the races will somewhat stabilize, at the worst case protoss in HotS release will be like Terran in WoL today.
No the worst case is that Protoss in HotS will be like Protoss in WoL today. If they don't add anything interesting it'll be a travesty
I think that would be best case. Protoss is relatively balanced with Zerg right now, maybe a bit off. Having the same level would be very nice.
By balanced you mean the only way for protoss to stand a chance of winning (with the exception of the zerg fucking up his brood lord splits or something - basically zerg mistakes) is 2 base all ins? And that's balanced? Okay then.
Overall the matchup statistically is balanced, but if you look at how many matches are won by two base allins and take them out of the equation, I think you'll find it's heavily zerg favoured.
Wait what? Whatever happened to good old warp prism/zealot harassment and properly placed mothership vortexes? PvZ is played like TvP - you don't engage his deathball at all if possible, just keep poking holes in him until you simply win. Snipe with blink stalkers. Zealot drops. Storm drops. Midgame void rays. Maybe some dark templar. Protoss has the most harassment options of the three races.
People really don't seem to get the Tempest. It's not really an army unit, or a harass unit. It's certainly not an air superiority unit. You're not supposed to a-move them with your army. You're not supposed to tech up to them as some sort of Protoss version of the "gg lord" (or a Protoss version of the anti-colossus Viking fleet).
It's a siege breaker/map control/anti-deathball unit. I'd say it's closest analog is the nuke. The ridiculous range is there for a reason, and that reason is forcing the enemy to engage or retreat, because along with the Oracle's Revelation spell, it can attack the opponent's power units without putting your own army into play.
It has low DPS exactly because it's not meant for surprise snipes. But when they start shooting at Colossi or Infestors or Broodlords or HTs or tanks, the opponent has to react or lose his expensive tech. That reaction will either force an engagement that is advantageous to you, or a retreat that allows you to secure an area held by your opponent (Xel'Naga tower/choke/high ground).
On September 09 2012 12:23 yeint wrote: People really don't seem to get the Tempest. It's not really an army unit, or a harass unit. It's certainly not an air superiority unit. You're not supposed to a-move them with your army. You're not supposed to tech up to them as some sort of Protoss version of the "gg lord" (or a Protoss version of the anti-colossus Viking fleet).
It's a siege breaker/map control/anti-deathball unit. I'd say it's closest analog is the nuke. The ridiculous range is there for a reason, and that reason is forcing the enemy to engage or retreat, because along with the Oracle's Revelation spell, it can attack the opponent's power units without putting your own army into play.
It has low DPS exactly because it's not meant for surprise snipes. But when they start shooting at Colossi or Infestors or Broodlords or HTs or tanks, the opponent has to react or lose his expensive tech. That reaction will either force an engagement that is advantageous to you, or a retreat that allows you to secure an area held by your opponent (Xel'Naga tower/choke/high ground).
No, just no. If he has 1 or 2 tempests, just completely ignore him, their DPS will take them ages to bring your units down. If he has plenty of Tempests, just go and smash his armies into pieces, since he wasted too much his resources and supply on those expensive flying sentries that will make his armies inferior compare to yours
On September 09 2012 12:12 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: IIRC one of the first patches in the WoL beta was the deletion of two Mothership spells and the addition of the Mass Recall. The High Templar also gained and lost a spell in this same patch. Then later on we got other changes such as D-8 charge removal, a complete change of the role of the hydralisk, and corruption basically became a brand new spell in everything but name.
What all this goes to show is that Blizzard does whatever the hell they want, and in the end we're going to enjoy whatever it is they make. That's why we have a beta.
WoL is full of awful things that never got corrected because they are design issues. Take PvP. In 2 years the best they have done has been destroy 4 gate, but PvP still remains a bucket of shit to this day. Not that I have a simple way of fixing it: as I said it's a design issue, something that would require the entire race to be reworked from scratch. You might still enjoy it, I personally stopped playing months ago, under the vague hope that they would try to improve the game drastically with HotS. What they're doing is under everybody's eyes, put it some new units which hardly make any sense. You can hope that since this is still a beta things will magically turn awesome at release, and when the game is out and is a mess maybe you'll be hoping that Legacy of the Void will fix it.
I think everything is ok except the destabilize. and toss needs other options to play. Just like how terran can go bio and mech and how zerg has so many styles to play around with vs each matchup. Toss just has the same old composition...
EPT
