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.
You play toss?
Yes. I've used about three of these and seen every example I've provided used frequently in higher level PvZ.
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 half agree with you on that point. PvP has a lot of design issues but I still enjoy it, it's not completely linear and there's a little bit of variation which is fun to mess around with, but yes definitely it needs to be reworked.
I would like to see a new style akin to Terran mech and Zerg... does it even have a name? Basically units such as hydras and the new units that all have new roles in the expansion. Protoss... let's see... you've got mass recall on the mothership core, a safer, faster, more expensive observer that denies minerals, and a brood lord breaker as well as potential worker sniper. I have a feeling Bnet is taking Protoss harassment way too far. I'll stick to phoenixes and drops for harassment, tyvm, and I'd like just some sort of extended stargate play that isn't 100% harassment.
Protoss basically have the same units as WoL, I have seen nothing that changes the lack of mobility and harass in HoTS, There units are just too gas heavy and the new units are no different. Protoss players have been hosed
Blizzard really should stop trying to design units for niche roles because they really don't seem to have a clue -.-
They should instead make interesting-seeming units with a lot of different micro possibilities and let the players figure out the uses for them. All those targeted units for a specific purpose are just atrociously bad. What legitly good, interesting idea has Blizzard even come up with in SC2? I'm really trying to think of one...
On September 09 2012 23:15 Shikyo wrote: Blizzard really should stop trying to design units for niche roles because they really don't seem to have a clue -.-
They should instead make interesting-seeming units with a lot of different micro possibilities and let the players figure out the uses for them. All those targeted units for a specific purpose are just atrociously bad. What legitly good, interesting idea has Blizzard even come up with in SC2? I'm really trying to think of one...
The phoenix? It can be used for worker harassment, lifting enemy units in PvP, overlord hunting, queen sniping, and a bunch of other things.
The infestor to some extent. It's interesting to use and takes some skill to land proper fungals, infested terran walls, etc. and doesn't have a single purpose. It's a support unit for anything from lings to brood lords, and can still be used for worker harassment with burrow.
On September 09 2012 23:15 Shikyo wrote: Blizzard really should stop trying to design units for niche roles because they really don't seem to have a clue -.-
They should instead make interesting-seeming units with a lot of different micro possibilities and let the players figure out the uses for them. All those targeted units for a specific purpose are just atrociously bad. What legitly good, interesting idea has Blizzard even come up with in SC2? I'm really trying to think of one...
The phoenix? It can be used for worker harassment, lifting enemy units in PvP, overlord hunting, queen sniping, and a bunch of other things.
The infestor to some extent. It's interesting to use and takes some skill to land proper fungals, infested terran walls, etc. and doesn't have a single purpose. It's a support unit for anything from lings to brood lords, and can still be used for worker harassment with burrow.
That's true, Phoenix is kind of a good one. I don't like the autoshoot but otherwise it's an interesting unit. I'd prefer it if it was more powerful, had no autoshoot but if microed could move exactly as it does with autoshoot. However as is it's passable. The liftup is kind of dumb, though, in that it has no counter(okay killing the phoenix but meh). If it was, say, an AoE spell that doesn't allow people to fire and lets you shoot at them while they're underneath it they can still move out of the way.
Infestor would be if Fungal wasn't so stupid(anti-micro). and Infested Terrans weren't so stupid. I really feel like they could have done much better with the unit... The fungal having no counter after it hits is pretty silly, in my opinion. Even if it slowed by 50% you could still spread against banelings, for instance. If it was a 0.5s delay from the ground you could move out of the way. If it was a skillshot exploding projectile you could have a single unit in the front taking the AoE saving the rest of your army, but if you don't they get fungaled. Or make Fungal channeled so you are freed if you kill the Infestor. Etc Etc. The important thing is being able to counter every spell if you are skilled enough.
At this point I really feel like they just don't understand Protoss and they wouldn't even have bothered putting them in the game if it wasn't for broodwar. If you look at the patch history of WOL you can clearly see how they feel about the race.
Warp gate research nerfed several times, forge build time nerfed, zealot build time nerfed, fungal stops blink, hell even pylons got nerfed. The robo units got buffed (obs, prism, and immortal). Ironically the units everyone complained about (FF, colossus) never got changed after beta (I think hallucination got a buff somewhere?). Charge got buffed (they called it a bug fix) and the phoenix got some buffs. Also, they removed the energy upgrade for templar, instead of doing what everyone said to do and just lower the energy by 5 so you can't "warp in storms".
The thing that proves how little they "get" protoss, is that most of these changes were directed at pvp and pvt. I believe every one of those changes except fungal stopping blink was directed at those 2 matchups. Yet every single one had a huge effect on PvZ. Which put us where PvZ is today, protoss gets 2 bases and zerg gets 3 free bases. Both races hit production timings about the same time, with the protoss cutting a bunch of corners to get there. Then the protoss 2 base all ins and a the matchup becomes a coin flip. The only time a protoss really gets a 3rd on time, is when the zerg messes up and lets them.
Protoss has had it's core ripped out. Let's face it, blink stalkers and chargelots are awesome, zealots and stalkers suck so bad you can't survive without FF. But if you want those sweet upgrades as early as say, stim, combat shield, concussive, roach or ling speed, you have to sacrifice the robo, and protoss is not the same without those robo units IMO.
This is why the mothership core was added, to fill the hole in protoss early game left by repeated nerfs and the weakness of gateway units without upgrades or heavy gas units like sentries, templar, or robo units. I don't even know what to say about the oracle, EVERY protoss I can remember hearing from said things like "the oracle looks interesting, but I'd still rather kill workers!"
I don't think anyone can disagree that protoss was in a much better state in Broodwar than in WOL or HOTS. I'd honestly like to see how the broodwar protoss would matchup against the WOL or HOTS terran/zerg. Dragoons > stalkers, Reavers > immortals or colossus, corsair > phoenix, shield batteries > ???. Anyone remember a templar archive giving you DT and HT? Prisms and warp ins were a big improvement to the race, crono is good, but I (wish protoss) could live without sentries.
In broodwar protoss had terrifying harass from reavers, and strong armies of goons and zealots that didn't have to be scared of terran and zerg early game units. They had to be cautious of mass hydra,lurkers, siege tanks, and spider mines. In sc2 protoss can't even fight MM, or roach ling in the early stages without abusing the shit out of FF.
Can we just get rid of all the stupid protoss gimmicks and go back to having a tough core army, that can be cost affective without all the B.S.? HOTS was the chance to make protoss a solid race without relying on gimmicks, but the truth is in the light now. Blizzards balance team wasn't able to fix all the holes in protoss during WOL, and the Design team wasn't able to fix those same holes with new units in HOTS. They just don't actually understand what needs to be fixed, and they certainly have shown they are incapable of executing the needed changes.
For counters to spells, there's infested terran dodging, i.e. fighting the Zerg in a way that infested terrans are doing minimal damage to your army while keeping everything else as equal as possible. Fungal can be countered by mass recall, which going back to mothership core would actually be pretty useful. When I watch PvZ on streams, or I think it even happened on TSL a few times, warp prism or void ray would get fungaled to death. Having the ability to recall from cyber core tech would be a good counter.
For things you can dodge, there are storms and... not a lot of spells. Ok you got me there. I like lift better than d-web though, I think it's a nice offensive spell. It can take out key units like immortals and sentries and completely change an engagement, while dweb was more like a psi storm that didn't do damage.
As for the BW/SC2 comparisons, a lot of those are false in my opinion. Stalkers shoot and move faster, making them better for killing things like marines and zealots than dragoons while worse at armored things like other stalkers or marauders. Immortals have a completely different role from reavers, and a reaver would be much worse at the immortal's job due to low dps, high cost, and low durability.
Reaver vs. colossus is questionable. I'd rather have colossi but the startup tech is more expensive. Reavers aren't deathball units anyway, they're harassment units. Corsairs were used mostly in PvZ as an anti-mutalisk counter and general harassment unit. There are other uses but that was the main one. And phoenix exceeds all bounds in that role. It does 20 damage per volley against a mutalisk (you'd need 7 stacked mutas for that kind of splash), is more mobile, and can shoot things on the ground. Shield batteries... I see a role for those bad boys but I can live without them. I'd rather have forcefields and let my shields recharge over the time I bought.
I'd go with WoL protoss over BW protoss any day.
I think BW toss was a lot like WoL terran in the Tier 1 centric army. Now in all three matchups toss has a good mix of initial gateway units, zealot stalker sentry, while incorporating tier 2 immortals or warp prisms or phoenixes, and tier 3 archons, HT, colli, and heck, even the tier 4 mothership.
Forcefields are actually good measurements of skill. Over time a player can trap more units in better spots with them, or block out roaches as the situation calls. Saying FF spam is abuse is like saying Terran can't contain Protoss without abusing the shit out of spider mines.
I agree with your last paragraph to some extent, however. Like I said before, I don't want harassment units, I just want some good air units akin to Terran mech.
after watching much stream, I'd say this is WoL+, not HotS. The expansion is supposed to drastically change the way the race is played. But toss is essentially the same composition every game. The oracle is created just for shift-queuing, MsCore is mainly for recall a harassing hit squad, and theres not much thing to say about Tempest except that they kill warhounds effectively (yea luckily warhound cant shoot air). Thats so little change there, and by "change", they are all bad ones. Why forcing a bad design down our throat? Hows about experimenting some modifies to warp gates unit or the ever-hated collossus? If theres something I learnt about HotS, it's that the dev team is lazy, not creative and stubborn as fuck
Protoss just becomes harder and thats good because It was the least mechanically demanding race, even Artosis said it. It was pretty much sitting only on 2/3 bases and attacking. Now you got chances to expand because you can pin your enemy at his base with your new oracle and even scout him with it.
On September 10 2012 01:23 D4V3Z02 wrote: Protoss just becomes harder and thats good because It was the least mechanically demanding race, even Artosis said it. It was pretty much sitting only on 2/3 bases and attacking. Now you got chances to expand because you can pin your enemy at his base with your new oracle and even scout him with it.
Oh, bullshit.
Spamming marines and marauders is the least mechanically demanding race.
I owned a diamond Terran in WoL the other week with high templars. I asked him why he didn't produce a single ghost the entire match. He answered that he's not grandmaster and can't be expected to do all that complicated stuff like upgrading to tier 3 and using EMP.
That's Terran. You're Modern Warfare 2 kiddies turned SC2 players. Bread and butter stuff for gold league Toss players, like upgrading to tier 3 and using spells, is over the head of all but the best Terrans.
On September 10 2012 00:56 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: I'd go with WoL protoss over BW protoss any day.
I'm the opposite way. For me, the only Wings units that clearly win out over their Brood War equivalents are the warp prism and the observer (because fuck the observatory, yo). And I guess void rays are better than scouts because... scouts were scouts.
I'd rather have multiple arbiters zipping around throwing out stasis and doing offensive recalls than a lone mothership that moves slower than an episode of The Walking Dead. I'd take the absurd front-loaded burst damage of a reaver over the colossus' lasers. I'd take useful carriers versus modern carriers. And stalkers better at killing marines than dragoons were? Hell...
And despite my negativity... HotS looks a lot better than it did a few months ago. Early-game recall looks awesome. No more replicant is something I can get behind. I like having detection on the stargate, even if I don't like the oracle.
On September 10 2012 00:56 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: I'd go with WoL protoss over BW protoss any day.
I'm the opposite way. For me, the only Wings units that clearly win out over their Brood War equivalents are the warp prism and the observer (because fuck the observatory, yo). And I guess void rays are better than scouts because... scouts were scouts.
I'd rather have multiple arbiters zipping around throwing out stasis and doing offensive recalls than a lone mothership that moves slower than an episode of The Walking Dead. I'd take the absurd front-loaded burst damage of a reaver over the colossus' lasers. I'd take useful carriers versus modern carriers. And stalkers better at killing marines than dragoons were? Hell...
And despite my negativity... HotS looks a lot better than it did a few months ago. Early-game recall looks awesome. No more replicant is something I can get behind. I like having detection on the stargate, even if I don't like the oracle.
On September 10 2012 01:23 D4V3Z02 wrote: Protoss just becomes harder and thats good because It was the least mechanically demanding race, even Artosis said it. It was pretty much sitting only on 2/3 bases and attacking. Now you got chances to expand because you can pin your enemy at his base with your new oracle and even scout him with it.
Oh, bullshit.
Spamming marines and marauders is the least mechanically demanding race.
I owned a diamond Terran in WoL the other week with high templars. I asked him why he didn't produce a single ghost the entire match. He answered that he's not grandmaster and can't be expected to do all that complicated stuff like upgrading to tier 3 and using EMP.
That's Terran. You're Modern Warfare 2 kiddies turned SC2 players. Bread and butter stuff for gold league Toss players, like upgrading to tier 3 and using spells, is over the head of all but the best Terrans.
this post made me sexually aroused. Big QFT
Besides saying that in hots "protoss becomes harder" is exceedingly laughable. What makes it harder? A caster unit that you just fly in, [E]ntomb, fly out? A nobrainer unit that shoots from a range of 22 and cannot be microed even if you wanted to? The mothership core with it's whopping 0.44 speed and 1 click to make it attack? Is this what you consider "harder"? My guess is you play terran, don't you?
Warhound = boring a-move unit. Tempest concept so boring compared to carries and interceptors. Oracle = FF minerals, so one dimensional and no room for player creativity =(
There are so many other way to fix the carrier but I think blizzard just doesn't want to for some reason. They want us to love the new unit and play the way they think we should. The attitude was the same way in D3 during launch and beta "play the game the way we want you to and what we say how to have fun".
Why can't they just design interesting kickass units and let the players get creative with how they should be used.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0zPDP.png)
