Below is what I feel about my race, Protoss. It is about its mechanics and how HotS will not fix core issues holding my race back from competing at a high level vs. the other races.
It is with a long sigh that I write this in an effort to vent out some of the feelings of what I believe to be the majority of Protoss as I have personally witnessed. Where do I begin...
I am Archon, a high level Protoss gamer on SC2 and BW player. I have played Protoss back when Protoss were the high-cost, strong race, and powerful late game army. Since WoL, Protoss has lost their strength but retained their costs. As expected, the game was new and has years to match the expectations of BW balancing. With that being said, it should be noted that the fundamental concepts were 'already in place' since BW.
Let's move on to what this is really about: HotS. Before I touch base on Protoss changes I would like to bring attention to what I believe is even more important than new units... old ones. To clarify, I am referring to the buffs of several WoL units such as the reaper, ultralisk, hydralisk, hellion, battlecruiser, raven, etc. I feel like these buffs were well thought out for the above mentioned but I see something missing. Changes to Protoss WoL units. It is as if the development team considered the WoL Protoss units....perfect? I will not go into theorycrafting ideas but lay out the details such as the above.
Moving on to the problems I believe resonate with the majority if not all Protoss players. The New Hots units. As a high level gamer, I have tried it all, that's what we do; we look for the best, train, revise, repeat, and win. The new HotS units have almost no value to the way that I believe the metagame of WoL is played. Granted, the metagame will surely change in HotS for Zerg and Terran, but without the addition of "early/midgame units," as I shall term it, Protoss is not going to change much at all. That last sentence is actually a reference to another problem I will address later.
Back to the synergy of the new HotS units to our current units. Simple. There is none. Mothership core seemed like a brilliant idea, and indeed, it was. Past tense due to the hammer nerf to the ground making this core something I will highly consider skipping until I absolutely need it. It's garbage, damage, speed, ability costs, anything and everything to the point I have to ask...what does Blizzard want us to do with this. What do they believe we will be doing with this new unit. Some people believe mass recall is going to be amazing but I remain skeptical. We were talking about synergy. With the cost at an astonishing 150 energy, we have 1 use for a long while. The worst part is Protoss is not the race who can split units in the early and midgame as efficiently as other races. There will be no need to mass recall anything because I won't ever take anything I don't want to lose. I.e. I'm not worried about recalling my 4 zealots in my early game pressure as my stalkers can run home safely. I will spare the further details but remember this core point: Protoss won't be able to do multi pronged pressure with units they are not already prepared to lose.
Tempest saddens me. Not only did the iconic protoss unit, the carrier, get thrown into the can, but what saddens me is that I believe they did this because they just had no idea what other unit to give Protoss so they gave us a worse carrier. What do I mean? Remove thor and give terran warhound or remove roach and give zerg swarm host; Happy birthday, you didn't gain anything but broke out even in units. In the case of the Protoss, the tempest is a major nerf for reasons such as not being able to counter mech(I think it took 1 tempest around 10 shots to kill a warhound) The DPS is an issue, the cost is an issue, the time to make is an issue, etc. Synergy of this unit to Protoss? There is none with the exception that it is just as slow as the Protoss deathball. With no abilities on the tempest, it is just an a-move unit.
Moving on...
Alas, the oracle. The oracle was MY personal favorite unit going into the pre nerfed HotS. My god what use and strategy I could reap from such a versatile unit. Taking my third base earlier and cloaking it from roaches and lings and sniping a potential overseer with a stalker, engaging in micro with cloak...finally a cloak that I get before tier 3. An arbiter, not a "you can only have 1" slow "get this unit only to abuse it with vortex because that's all this unit is for" mothership. Cloaking my pylon to prevent it being sniped to allow my pressure to actually continue. Cloaking my warp prism at the corner of my enemy base while having the oracle slightly outside of firing range... I can go on for hours. It's gone. Cloak is gone. Strategy is gone. Protoss get a cheesy press e to block mineral patches ability. Oh I can see the strategy there. But that is not what bothers me, what bothers me is the nerfed split between its first ability having detection and now giving a 3rd ability.....detection. JUST GIVE THE ORACLE 2 ABILITIES. We know you have no idea for a 3rd ability, we get it. Don't worry, we won't be making the unit anyways. It won't have the "disruption web" the corsair had to prevent static defense from engaging so once an enemy gets 1 turret up, it's over for the oracle... "Hey oracle, meet phoenix." The cost is astronomically high and forces Protoss to commit to a stargate play which is already underpowered. Remember that list of zerg and terran units I mentioned that got buffs....now is a good time to make a connection to Protoss not receiving any. The Protoss does need a harassing unit as mentioned by David Kim. The oracle is not it.
Finalizing my position is the revisiting of a core issue: the metagame. Currently, I believe a lot of Protoss do what is widely known as "timing attacks or all ins" to win a game vs a zerg or terran player. There is little strategy to these attacks by Protoss and require a relatively low skill cap to execute(good ff, good blinks..that's it) compared to the potential of other races. This is boring to execute and boring to watch but it should be remembered that Protoss is not a very strong late game(At least in regard to what it used to be.) Yes I am referencing Brood War but before I receive a "this is not Brood War" comment. Need I remind you we already have our goliath(warhound) and lurker(swarm host) back from Brood War.
As I try to remain relatively distant from posting in these forums, I would like to voice my opinion for MY race. I believe Protoss is broken; from the reliance on sentry to survive early game, to reliance of exploits of mothership and terrain and ramps(ff) and even to how the warpgate mechanic is setup, Protoss is a shell of its former glory. But still I choose to play for this race because I keep waiting for change.
The Protoss of the starcraft 2 community are outraged. As most would say, we don't want to be strong, we want to play on an even playing field. The beta is still in beta but it is obviously headed in the wrong direction for Protoss. I personally would be thrilled with the removal of oracle, mothership core, and tempest, and just get a buff on the void ray. We, as a race of the Protoss do not want to wait for LotV to fix core problems still lurking in WoL with our race(including needing to abuse "archon toilet" to stand a chance. As the Spectre would say, "I'm tired of waiting."
On September 10 2012 08:54 Harbinger631 wrote: The biggest thing I don't understand from Protoss QQ threads is that Protoss is winning everything in WoL right now...
Also, calling the Tempest an "a-move unit" makes you looks silly. Positioning/vision are essential to make it work.
You're missing the point. Protoss wins, but it isn't a fun or interesting race to play compared to BW. I know people say that about every race but it is especially bad for Protoss
On September 10 2012 08:54 Harbinger631 wrote: The biggest thing I don't understand from Protoss QQ threads is that Protoss is winning everything in WoL right now...
Also, calling the Tempest an "a-move unit" makes you looks silly. Positioning/vision are essential to make it work.
Read his post before making such remarks. He is not talking about the win rate, he is talking about HOW Protosses win. Practically all Protoss wins come from timing attacks, cheeses, and all-ins. Just because Protoss has decent win rate doesn't mean the race's mechanics aren't broken.
On September 10 2012 08:54 Harbinger631 wrote: The biggest thing I don't understand from Protoss QQ threads is that Protoss is winning everything in WoL right now...
Also, calling the Tempest an "a-move unit" makes you looks silly. Positioning/vision are essential to make it work.
"[–]SCA_Suende 26 points 6 hours ago
Who the fuck wants to spend 300/300 on a unit that only causes problems that the other guy has FOUR MINUTES to figure out? Personally if I saw someone had the Tempest and had to choose what to do, id choose to go kill him, you know if he built any of those his army's gonna be pretty pathetic. "
"[–]DrMuffinPHD 13 points 3 hours ago The other day I was watching white-ra play. He had three tempests out and Demuslim dropped a warhound and a few SCV's into white-ra's base. The Tempests started shooting at the Warhound, but but couldn't kill it (no damage was being done due to repair). They couldn't even kill the SCV's on autorepair due to the medivac. It was pathetic. Really showed how useless the tempest is."
"DB: The one reason we’re pushing the range of the Tempest to 22 is to say “OK, this is a really long ranged weapon, guys, this is not a brood lord. This is something that can be in a different part of the map and still hit.” We’ll see how that works out.
Interviewer: I tried the tempest earlier and I was kind of disappointed. It’s expensive but the damage is very low.
DB: It is, it’s very light for its cost.
Interviewer: Yes, and so you will have to produce a lot of them, which gets quite costly.
DB: That, or be comfortable with a light amount of damage and say “Look, I am not going to kill you with this but you can’t stay there forever. I am chipping away at you, I am not killing everything but I am beating you pretty good. You have to move away, or engage this tempest or figure something out because you have limited time to do it.” And that’s the other reason why I think it feels different than a standard artillery unit. Because the standard artillery units, like the siege tank, are all like “No, you are dead. You need to move immediately.” The tempest is like “Yeah, he’s working away at my nexus and this is a problem. But it’s not a problem I need to solve in four seconds, it’s a problem I need to solve in 30 seconds, or maybe a minute.” And that creates a different kind of feeling. "
I get what you're saying - Toss can win but it's no fun playing it. To be honest though, I think it's the current metagame that's to blame. From a zerg player's perspective, it's not too different. The ZvP matchup is much like you said it - half the time I'm defending a huge gateway or immortal sentry allin and when that doesn't happen, it's a three base timing allin to try to kill me right before hive. Rarely, when that doesn't happen, it becomes a huge, ugly turtlefest where we're both maxed on deathballs where the whole game is decided by a single engagement. Either I get the chain fungals off or he archon toilets. Yeah, there's some harassment mixed in on both sides but for the most part it's what it is - a huge turtlefest into deathball fights, not really an action-packed, multitask challenging, dynamic "struggle" that I wish it was.
What I'm trying to get at here is that in the current metagame, zerg isn't very "zergy". They are really forced to turtle up until they get the broodlord infestor deathball, mostly in the modern ZvP. The other matchups are seeing more of it too. A lot of my ZvZs are have been really turtly lately.
The HotS units? Honestly, I've got to agree that the Protoss ones are lamer than the zerg or terran additions as of right now. However, I think it's a tad too early to start the QQ, the beta's only been our for what, like two days now. Give people time to come up with some builds/strats.
Imho it has nothing to do with the metagame. Protoss has this situation since WoL beta.
But I seriously doubt Blizzard will redesign a whole race for an addon....also I doubt it would be possible in the timeframe they want to get hots out.
I respect your opinion Archon. This is how I felt about zerg in the last days of beta / first months of WoL.
But ultimately, Blizzard won't fix it untill its absolutely blatant.
I remember when the HotS beta come out, and all the T/Z players raving about the new units they got. The few protoss players in the Skype Call, were all pretty quite and didn't have much to say. Because there isn't much to say, because they didn't get anything to talk about.
As a Protoss player myself, I am not outraged and disagree with you on a few points, Archon.
Mothership Core Mass Recall being unnecessary because "There will be no need to mass recall anything because I won't ever take anything I don't want to lose"... how about instead of doing a weak harassment with a couple of zealots, you add in some stalkers and sentries? And when the Zerg finally gets out enough speedlings to surround and kill your army, you just teleport away? You deal more damage with your units, and force more military units from Zerg. That's exactly what Mass Recall is all about. Energize will probably be a good safety net when opening Stargate vs. cloaked units, to make sure your Oracle can have enough energy to detect invisible units.
It's far too early to dismiss the Tempest; there's a lot of experimentation left to do with this unit, and if it turns out that it's weak then Blizzard will buff its stats. Calling it worse than the carrier at this point is laughable.
The Oracle's one-ability-in-two is pretty underwhelming, I'll give you that. Hopefully we'll see an actual third ability on it again.
I do agree with some of your sentiments, though. Protoss going from a "high cost but powerful race" to "high cost but can be abusive via force fields and warp-in" feels pretty bad, and seeing no buffs on any Protoss WoL units, not even on ones that evidently need it like the Void Ray, is rather discouraging so far in the HotS beta.
So... you think Protoss has been underpowered for the entirety of Wings of Liberty, because it has a different role in WoL than it had in BW. You think it should be like BW, even though you acknowledge they are different games, and your justification for this is that two units have been added that are similar in model to two BW units, even if those two new units function completely differently from their BW look-alikes. You dislike effective Protoss strategies like force fields, archon toilet and warpgate, calling them "exploits" because that makes them sound illegitimate. You're convinced that all the new Protoss units are completely worthless, despite the fact that beta has been out for less than a week. And you've been dissatisfied with your race for years now, but you keep playing it anyway because you're hoping Blizzard will give you a buff (for which you are now begging them).
Yeah, I think I disagree with every single thing you said. About the only thing we might agree on is that PvZ lategame is kind of dumb, and I think the Tempest creates a new and interesting way to deal with that. But you're entitled to your opinions I guess, and I hope you find something that makes you a little less down on the state of SC2.
On September 10 2012 10:09 ChristianS wrote: So... you think Protoss has been underpowered for the entirety of Wings of Liberty, because it has a different role in WoL than it had in BW. You think it should be like BW, even though you acknowledge they are different games, and your justification for this is that two units have been added that are similar in model to two BW units, even if those two new units function completely differently from their BW look-alikes. You dislike effective Protoss strategies like force fields, archon toilet and warpgate, calling them "exploits" because that makes them sound illegitimate. You're convinced that all the new Protoss units are completely worthless, despite the fact that beta has been out for less than a week. And you've been dissatisfied with your race for years now, but you keep playing it anyway because you're hoping Blizzard will give you a buff (for which you are now begging them).
Yeah, I think I disagree with every single thing you said. About the only thing we might agree on is that PvZ lategame is kind of dumb, and I think the Tempest creates a new and interesting way to deal with that. But you're entitled to your opinions I guess, and I hope you find something that makes you a little less down on the state of SC2.
Calling the way tempest interacts with broodlord death balls interesting is pushing it, but it should be effective I agree
Protoss was my main race in WoL but I stopped playing a few months ago. Basically protoss is extremely boring to play and I tried to transition to Terran but found it to be immensely frustrating so I quit SC2 instead.
I don't know what needs to be done but Protoss feels like an incomplete race. I can't bring myself to play it anymore. I will try again to transition to either terran or zerg in hots but if I fail I will quit SC2 for good.
On September 10 2012 07:28 Cabinet Sanchez wrote: Anyone seen this game from WhiteRA PvT? He completely and utterly outplayed his opponent and just scraped by, it was ridiculous.
I actually read Archons post on Bnet earlier. I can certainly agree that the protoss of WOL and HOTS is inferior to the BW protoss in almost every way. The only real improvements being warp and the warp prism. I remember reading how much trouble Blizzard had in developing zerg in WOL, they weren't sure what to do with the race and it's abilities. If you look back at the many changes to corruptors and infestors, it's pretty obvious. It seems like protoss has taken that place, and Blizzard just isn't sure what to do with protoss and what it's identity as a race is or is supposed to be.
In BW protoss identified as a race with a strong army, that was able to project it's power out onto the map, and have very powerful late game armies and abilities. Things like arbiters, carriers and dark archons, were very powerful units to support powerful gateway armies. That's what Terran is now, with MMM, ghost/viking support, and the new "walking mech". Terran is now the powerful mobile army that can project is power out onto the map.
It seems like protoss's identity in Sc2 is basically all in, or turtle until maxed and use mass warp ins to tip the battle in your favor. The spell casting has become more of a gimmick to make up for the weaker army, like FF's and Vortex. I honestly think at this point they should just accept protoss as the turtling, timing attack race that it now is.
Basically, terran and protoss have swapped identities from BW to WOL. I am fine with that, I say run with it. Give protoss even more turtle power, like terran has bunkers, pf's, lowering supply depots, ect. Then just add in some very strong positional units, similar to how siege tanks and mines function. I think with the state of protoss, the oracle and tempest are bad units for what protoss's role has actually become. The mothership core is pretty much perfect for this, what protoss needs now is things like shield batteries, the ability to reposition pylons, and some non deathball space control units. Immobile units that have to setup, much like a siege tank or swarm host.
Maybe give immortals a way to sink their feet into the ground and extend their hard shield, much like a guardian shield works now. Or give sentries a way to "phase out" and be cloaked but unable to move. So you can position them to drop FF's and slow incoming aggression, or allow them to draw power from the void and self destruct while cloaked dealing massive dmg. These aren't serious suggestions, just a quick example of the kinds of things protoss needs to manipulate the battle field and buy time, control space and delay aggression. That's what makes a turtling high tech race strong, like terran mech was in BW. It would be impossible to play mech in BW without the space control and dmg you get from setting up mines and siege tanks. But catching them without these things in place was death.
Protoss in WOL is totally different than protoss in BW. Okay, great, now just give protoss what it needs to be a turtling, positional race and it will be fun to play. Just like mech was in BW.
Edit: now that I think about, as much complaining as there is about the warhound. It is exactly what terran needed. Terran cannot mech like it did in BW but MMM was not very strong late game. Now terran has a massable, high hp, strong dps, mobile unit that is still good in the late game. It's what every terran who QQ'd about their late game wanted, just not in the form they expected. They wanted mech from BW, what they got was protoss from BW. Kind of ironic imo.
It's hard to know how much of this surge of Protoss QQ is because we got the crap toys for X'mas and are throwing a mass tantrum. Yeah, we do not seem to have gotten much love in this expansion. Still, I hope Protoss players in the beta make the best of it, and just try out stuff as the metagame has changed. For example, gate expands are now more viable vs Z (and may become the preferred build rather than FFE) as we can stay light on Sentries and pressure with Zealot/Stalker (while using the extra gas to tech) and be able to to Recall after doing damage and forcing units. If we scout an early attack (say Speedlings/Baneling bust/Roach all-in) the MC means better defense. Just speculating here - but the point is, it is too early to tell about viable Protoss strategies in the expanded SC Universe. Let's wait and see before screaming for "a fix".
I think we should be careful about how much we whine as the storm of whining from all players in WoL meant a lot of possibly fun stuff being nerfed. As much as I envy some of the cool new toys for T and Z, I would hate if P whine meant a nerf to these toys (especially those toys which do not deserve it). The game would be poorer for it. Protoss in WoL has always been about making the best use of a limited, but effective, tool kit. (This is one reason, in my opinion, why Protoss - at least on TL - talk to each other all the time, write guides and help each other.) The same may hold true for HotS. If so, if we find viable strategies in the new metagame, then maybe these will be buffed (e.g. SG tech) and Z and T not overly nerfed.
In the words of MC after being down vs Stephano in a BoX, "Play. Just play."
On September 10 2012 10:09 ChristianS wrote: So... you think Protoss has been underpowered for the entirety of Wings of Liberty, because it has a different role in WoL than it had in BW. You think it should be like BW, even though you acknowledge they are different games, and your justification for this is that two units have been added that are similar in model to two BW units, even if those two new units function completely differently from their BW look-alikes. You dislike effective Protoss strategies like force fields, archon toilet and warpgate, calling them "exploits" because that makes them sound illegitimate. You're convinced that all the new Protoss units are completely worthless, despite the fact that beta has been out for less than a week. And you've been dissatisfied with your race for years now, but you keep playing it anyway because you're hoping Blizzard will give you a buff (for which you are now begging them).
Yeah, I think I disagree with every single thing you said. About the only thing we might agree on is that PvZ lategame is kind of dumb, and I think the Tempest creates a new and interesting way to deal with that. But you're entitled to your opinions I guess, and I hope you find something that makes you a little less down on the state of SC2.
Calling the way tempest interacts with broodlord death balls interesting is pushing it, but it should be effective I agree
Well, maybe not THAT interesting. But at least how to handle it is non-obvious. Obviously pure BL-infestor does well partly because it forces opponents to come to it; now that's no longer the case. BL-infestor is still fairly strong in an offensive position, but BL's are slow enough that the Protoss might just be tempted to keep retreating and firing potshots at the brood lords. Then zerg's response is unclear. Add vipers to pull enemy units toward your brood lords and prevent retreat? Try and dash forward with infestors to fungal something and hold it in place? Try to flank with corruptors to kill the Tempests? Deny vision of his brood lords so they can't be sniped? Bring queens and just transfuse the damage?
I'm actually really interested in seeing some of the new late-game battles arise. It happens pretty rarely just yet in beta because early betas are always about all-ins, and even when late-game scenarios do come up they're so rare that no one knows how to play them out properly. But once they do start happening a little more frequently, I'm really curious how it will play out.
Toss got really one fucked up thing that is source of all the problems: Warp Gate mechanic It actually fuckes up not only PvX but also, indirectly, other match ups.
But do not hope for such a change that Protoss will return to its former form. We will have to watch as T and Z build up new strategies using their new toys, and adjust to them. Maybe we'll find a way or two to use our new toys too. One all-in or timing attack that can benefit from 'em.
In the end, we'll gather and find new ways out of the metagame. Without using Blizzard's new units. But whatever. We'll still survive and manage to win a few championships.
Entomb is the worst spell ive every seen blizzard come up with, just fly in and fly out, and you get a virtually riskless free harass, especially considering how fast the oracle is. Whats the counter to this spell? just Amove your units into the temporary buildings. what a boring spell, this is the 0-skill harass.
Just imagine all the pros using this spell, how impressed or excited will we be when we see this put to use? i doubt even a caster that is best at generating hype can even make this look entertaing.
"OMG, MC just entombed ALL the minerals in EVERY one of Nestea's bases. Hes going to really need to have perfect control on those drones to take them out in time"
As for the other 2 spells, its nice that protoss learnt a thing or two from terran = P, i wonder if zerg learns how to scan in LOTV
The saddest thing is how much promise there originally was.
Both the mothership core and the previous oracles were units I wanted to use. I couldn't wait for HoTS to be able to expand early and safely, retreat from pressure, cloak things before 15 minutes into the game and (previously) even do cool stuff like phase out my opponents' spore crawlers to support DT harass.
All gone. All of it. Recall and purify are still there, but hugely nerfed. The oracle is hilariously expensive and hilariously useless. None of our actual army units have been supported or adjusted in any way, but now need to face swarm hosts, vipers and significant buffs to both other races' core armies. Oh, and warhounds, which are a category all on their own.
It's not about whether toss is UP; that can be fixed. It's about the simple fact that there is nothing coming in this expansion that makes me want to play it, a lot of Z/T things that I'm apprehensive to face, and a whole stack of things that could have been great but were cut.
On September 10 2012 10:18 Reborn8u wrote: It seems like protoss's identity in Sc2 is basically all in, or turtle until maxed and use mass warp ins to tip the battle in your favor. The spell casting has become more of a gimmick to make up for the weaker army, like FF's and Vortex. I honestly think at this point they should just accept protoss as the turtling, timing attack race that it now is.
Basically, terran and protoss have swapped identities from BW to WOL. I am fine with that, I say run with it. Give protoss even more turtle power, like terran has bunkers, pf's, lowering supply depots, ect. Then just add in some very strong positional units, similar to how siege tanks and mines function. I think with the state of protoss, the oracle and tempest are bad units for what protoss's role has actually become. The mothership core is pretty much perfect for this, what protoss needs now is things like shield batteries, the ability to reposition pylons, and some non deathball space control units. Immobile units that have to setup, much like a siege tank or swarm host.
I agree with this part of what you said, or rather, I wouldn't want this to happen to protoss but if it DID happen at least it would make sense. If the identity of the P race changed into something different, it may not be the playstyle I like but I could accept it as long as the identity (-> strategy, playstyle etc) would make sense. The whole reasoning you make about it makes a lot of sense. The problem is that your reasoning is based on logic. Blizzar'ds isn't. They say they give protoss a harassing unit, but it's the only harassing unit in the game that doesn't kill anything, just "prevents from mining". They say they give us a long range siege unit, and that unit does nearly no damage (for a huge resource cost). Honestly, sometimes I can't tell if the designers behind these concepts are completely dumb, or they are actually trying to make fun of us. The design choices they make have no sense whatsoever, there isn't a logic behind it, and sure as hell there is no real playtest because it's been one year since hots' presentation at blizzcon, and you can't seriously playtest the new units for a year and get to beta in this state.
On September 10 2012 13:28 Belisarius wrote: It's not about whether toss is UP; that can be fixed. It's about the simple fact that there is nothing coming in this expansion that makes me want to play it
I'd say this sentence sums it up perfectly. I have beta access and I'm not even playing it because frankly there's nothing in there that really makes me want to do it. I'd rather play WoL at this point (and at any rate, playing P in beta right now means ignoring all new untis except maybe for the mothership core, so you might as well stick to WoL)
On September 10 2012 13:18 MasterCynical wrote: I absolutely hate the oracle,
Entomb is the worst spell ive every seen blizzard come up with, just fly in and fly out, and you get a virtually riskless free harass, especially considering how fast the oracle is. Whats the counter to this spell? just Amove your units into the temporary buildings. what a boring spell, this is the 0-skill harass.
Just imagine all the pros using this spell, how impressed or excited will we be when we see this put to use? i doubt even a caster that is best at generating hype can even make this look entertaing.
"OMG, MC just entombed ALL the minerals in EVERY one of Nestea's bases. Hes going to really need to have perfect control on those drones to take them out in time"
As for the other 2 spells, its nice that protoss learnt a thing or two from terran = P, i wonder if zerg learns how to scan in LOTV
Have you watched enough streams? With one queen and drones attacking the fields it stops mining for all of 10 seconds. You should hope that your opponent builds oracles instead.
It just sucks that Protoss didn't get any new staple units. They play just like WoL. It's like watching your brothers get Hot Wheels for Christmas while you got socks.
cool spells that use to belong to protoss are all gone, effective units removed due to sentry and warp in mechanics. they completely destroyed protoss just so they can "reinvent" zerg and terran!
This is way too much. I know the majority of this forum are toss players (including myself), but we're monopolizing the front page of this section with basically the same content. I don't like Oracles myself and am not entirely happy with the way toss is being designed in HoTS. But you surely are aware that there are multiple threads of basically same contents.
Please post in one of the existing threads. That's what I've done, though I could have made my own thread easily. Or maybe a mod should consolidate these threads.
On September 10 2012 08:54 Harbinger631 wrote: The biggest thing I don't understand from Protoss QQ threads is that Protoss is winning everything in WoL right now...
Also, calling the Tempest an "a-move unit" makes you looks silly. Positioning/vision are essential to make it work.
Read his post before making such remarks. He is not talking about the win rate, he is talking about HOW Protosses win. Practically all Protoss wins come from timing attacks, cheeses, and all-ins. Just because Protoss has decent win rate doesn't mean the race's mechanics aren't broken.
Read his post before making such remarks. He explicitly says at the beginning of the post that he is addressing what he thinks is holding protoss back from competing at a high level. Where in that statement, which is the opening for his whole QQing, does it even hint about the way they win? It doesn't. He complains about both. So you're wrong and you should retract or edit your post.
His opinion on current meta-game is completely wrong as well. Protoss timing attack against Z isn't an all-in at all. You can easily transition out to higher tech depending on your execution. Plus, Protoss have now figured out that we could safely expand to 3rd base while depending Z attack (or feigning timing attack). It also depends on your execution, and Korean protoss have improved a lot. (The below observation from Artosis, while old, still rings true) Only problem is the supreme late game when Z manages to have boatload of BL/infestors and spine farms.
As for TvP, I think it's best not to bring it up because everyone in Korea (including every casters who openly state as such and probably most Protoss players) believe that once the game lasts longer than 20 minutes, Terran is done for. We're embarrassing ourselves.
On September 10 2012 13:18 MasterCynical wrote: I absolutely hate the oracle,
Entomb is the worst spell ive every seen blizzard come up with, just fly in and fly out, and you get a virtually riskless free harass, especially considering how fast the oracle is. Whats the counter to this spell? just Amove your units into the temporary buildings. what a boring spell, this is the 0-skill harass.
Just imagine all the pros using this spell, how impressed or excited will we be when we see this put to use? i doubt even a caster that is best at generating hype can even make this look entertaing.
"OMG, MC just entombed ALL the minerals in EVERY one of Nestea's bases. Hes going to really need to have perfect control on those drones to take them out in time"
As for the other 2 spells, its nice that protoss learnt a thing or two from terran = P, i wonder if zerg learns how to scan in LOTV
The Oracle has 100 HP, 50 of which are in Shields. Place a Missile Turret in a good location, and it dies. This is a 200-gas unit, last I checked.
As for TvP, I think it's best not to bring it up because everyone in Korea (including every casters who openly state as such and probably most Protoss players) believe that once the game lasts longer than 20 minutes, Terran is done for. We're embarrassing ourselves.
You should watch more pro games, where mass ghost + MMMV stomped Protoss deathball with EMP, Stim and a-move
DB: That, or be comfortable with a light amount of damage and say “Look, I am not going to kill you with this but you can’t stay there forever. I am chipping away at you, I am not killing everything but I am beating you pretty good. You have to move away, or engage this tempest or figure something out because you have limited time to do it.” And that’s the other reason why I think it feels different than a standard artillery unit. Because the standard artillery units, like the siege tank, are all like “No, you are dead. You need to move immediately.” The tempest is like “Yeah, he’s working away at my nexus and this is a problem. But it’s not a problem I need to solve in four seconds, it’s a problem I need to solve in 30 seconds, or maybe a minute.” And that creates a different kind of feeling. "
Yeah... or he can just repair and stay where the heck he wants.
I LOVE this post, but there's so much wrong with the race that simply adding units wouldn't do it I think, they'd need to basically redesign the entire race, and that's something that isn't going to happen for HoTS.
DB: That, or be comfortable with a light amount of damage and say “Look, I am not going to kill you with this but you can’t stay there forever. I am chipping away at you, I am not killing everything but I am beating you pretty good. You have to move away, or engage this tempest or figure something out because you have limited time to do it.” And that’s the other reason why I think it feels different than a standard artillery unit. Because the standard artillery units, like the siege tank, are all like “No, you are dead. You need to move immediately.” The tempest is like “Yeah, he’s working away at my nexus and this is a problem. But it’s not a problem I need to solve in four seconds, it’s a problem I need to solve in 30 seconds, or maybe a minute.” And that creates a different kind of feeling. "
Yeah... or he can just repair and stay where the heck he wants.
People are upset about repair with tempests, but keep in mind the tempest does burst damage. So it doesn't need to out-DPS repair, because if you have enough to one-shot your target, then it dies before you have a chance to repair. For instance, 2 tempests one-shot workers, making repair or transfuse worthless in this scenario.
DB: That, or be comfortable with a light amount of damage and say “Look, I am not going to kill you with this but you can’t stay there forever. I am chipping away at you, I am not killing everything but I am beating you pretty good. You have to move away, or engage this tempest or figure something out because you have limited time to do it.” And that’s the other reason why I think it feels different than a standard artillery unit. Because the standard artillery units, like the siege tank, are all like “No, you are dead. You need to move immediately.” The tempest is like “Yeah, he’s working away at my nexus and this is a problem. But it’s not a problem I need to solve in four seconds, it’s a problem I need to solve in 30 seconds, or maybe a minute.” And that creates a different kind of feeling. "
Yeah... or he can just repair and stay where the heck he wants.
People are upset about repair with tempests, but keep in mind the tempest does burst damage. So it doesn't need to out-DPS repair, because if you have enough to one-shot your target, then it dies before you have a chance to repair. For instance, 2 tempests one-shot workers, making repair or transfuse worthless in this scenario.
2 tempests 1 shot worker? How useful considering each costs 300/300 and 6 supply
only shows that the light tech is better then anything those dark templars can bring up. Well i miss the bw protoss play against zerg, where the zerg has to stop the giant deathball of protoss before they killed all the bases, it was really unique play. But when a purple goo on the ground that gives vision and speed is the best defenders advantage ingame, then you can't do something like this.
It is a bit funny though that zerg is currently the high cost deathball that you have to stop before all your bases are gone. I still enjoy protoss though, even if i find the new units for HotS in its currentform useless. (expensive obs and a carrier that specialized on long range giving up everything else becoming the carrier of spoon looking like a reaping hook). But WoL toss is fun to play for me, especially with the shield mechanic. (in addition most protoss players go 3/3/0 and wonder why they are cost inefficient lategame ...)
And well if i want the old protoss feeling i play bw :p.
The op is being overly dramatic though and doesn't really help his cause by stating wrong informations.
On September 10 2012 13:18 MasterCynical wrote: I absolutely hate the oracle,
Entomb is the worst spell ive every seen blizzard come up with, just fly in and fly out, and you get a virtually riskless free harass, especially considering how fast the oracle is. Whats the counter to this spell? just Amove your units into the temporary buildings. what a boring spell, this is the 0-skill harass.
Just imagine all the pros using this spell, how impressed or excited will we be when we see this put to use? i doubt even a caster that is best at generating hype can even make this look entertaing.
"OMG, MC just entombed ALL the minerals in EVERY one of Nestea's bases. Hes going to really need to have perfect control on those drones to take them out in time"
As for the other 2 spells, its nice that protoss learnt a thing or two from terran = P, i wonder if zerg learns how to scan in LOTV
Have you watched enough streams? With one queen and drones attacking the fields it stops mining for all of 10 seconds. You should hope that your opponent builds oracles instead.
So, on a fully saturated base that's about 170 minerals if the person reacts instantly. Given reaction times, for pros, I'd say you can deny 200-300 minerals. Pathetic.
The amount of times you would have to cast Entomb to even pay for the Oracle is just stupid.
If you take a WP and suicide 2 Zealots and manage to kill 3 workers you would deny the same amount of minerals as an Entomb :S
DB: That, or be comfortable with a light amount of damage and say “Look, I am not going to kill you with this but you can’t stay there forever. I am chipping away at you, I am not killing everything but I am beating you pretty good. You have to move away, or engage this tempest or figure something out because you have limited time to do it.” And that’s the other reason why I think it feels different than a standard artillery unit. Because the standard artillery units, like the siege tank, are all like “No, you are dead. You need to move immediately.” The tempest is like “Yeah, he’s working away at my nexus and this is a problem. But it’s not a problem I need to solve in four seconds, it’s a problem I need to solve in 30 seconds, or maybe a minute.” And that creates a different kind of feeling. "
Yeah... or he can just repair and stay where the heck he wants.
People are upset about repair with tempests, but keep in mind the tempest does burst damage. So it doesn't need to out-DPS repair, because if you have enough to one-shot your target, then it dies before you have a chance to repair. For instance, 2 tempests one-shot workers, making repair or transfuse worthless in this scenario.
Considering how much of an investment that is, to only be able to one shot a worker, I don't think it's viable at all. I recently saw a stream where 12 tempest (that is 3600/3600, and 72 supply) tried to kill a command center. They literally did 1/5th of the entire command centers complete health. At which point about 5 scvs could out-repair the damage. As a comparison, 12 tempest does the same DPS as 13!!! marines... That is just silly.
The only use I can see for this unit is chipping away at a late game BL + infestor army, forcing the zerg to engage in an unfavorable position. But thats about it.
As for a late game capital ship, the tempest is a joke of a unit. I would much rather have the carrier in any situation.
DB: That, or be comfortable with a light amount of damage and say “Look, I am not going to kill you with this but you can’t stay there forever. I am chipping away at you, I am not killing everything but I am beating you pretty good. You have to move away, or engage this tempest or figure something out because you have limited time to do it.” And that’s the other reason why I think it feels different than a standard artillery unit. Because the standard artillery units, like the siege tank, are all like “No, you are dead. You need to move immediately.” The tempest is like “Yeah, he’s working away at my nexus and this is a problem. But it’s not a problem I need to solve in four seconds, it’s a problem I need to solve in 30 seconds, or maybe a minute.” And that creates a different kind of feeling. "
Yeah... or he can just repair and stay where the heck he wants.
People are upset about repair with tempests, but keep in mind the tempest does burst damage. So it doesn't need to out-DPS repair, because if you have enough to one-shot your target, then it dies before you have a chance to repair. For instance, 2 tempests one-shot workers, making repair or transfuse worthless in this scenario.
Considering how much of an investment that is, to only be able to one shot a worker, I don't think it's viable at all. I recently saw a stream where 12 tempest (that is 3600/3600, and 72 supply) tried to kill a command center. They literally did 1/5th of the entire command centers complete health. At which point about 5 scvs could out-repair the damage. As a comparison, 12 tempest does the same DPS as 13!!! marines... That is just silly.
The only use I can see for this unit is chipping away at a late game BL + infestor army, forcing the zerg to engage in an unfavorable position. But thats about it.
As for a late game capital ship, the tempest is a joke of a unit. I would much rather have the carrier in any situation.
Er... just saying, you're not paying to one-shot a worker. You're paying to one-shot a worker at 22 range. As far as I'm concerned, if you get Tempest there's no reason for them to not be firing at any given time. A marine is only firing while the battle goes on, the Tempest can potentially be firing all game if you micro it properly.
On September 10 2012 15:39 BeyondCtrL wrote: So, on a fully saturated base that's about 170 minerals if the person reacts instantly. Given reaction times, for pros, I'd say you can deny 200-300 minerals. Pathetic.
The amount of times you would have to cast Entomb to even pay for the Oracle is just stupid.
If you take a WP and suicide 2 Zealots and manage to kill 3 workers you would deny the same amount of minerals as an Entomb :S
Let's say it's 250 minerals. That's 5 workers worth of cash. Any half assed harassment attempt can at least get home with 4-5 worker kills unless you really crash your warp prism into a wall of missile turrets. But wait! 5 worker kills actually means that the enemy loses 250 worth of minerals, and has to make another 5 workers so the potential damage is actually double. This is what most people (and definitely the designer eggheads at Blizzard HQ) fail to understand. Preventing mining is an issue, but losing workers is a BIGGER issue, because you lose a) the worker (50 cash each) b) the mining time c) the minerals you invest in re-training each lost worker. This is the very simple reason why Oracle and Entomb are completely worthless. I'll take a warp prism full of zealots or sentrie ANY day and try to get me some worker kills, rather than getting cheesy with the stupid entomb.
DB: That, or be comfortable with a light amount of damage and say “Look, I am not going to kill you with this but you can’t stay there forever. I am chipping away at you, I am not killing everything but I am beating you pretty good. You have to move away, or engage this tempest or figure something out because you have limited time to do it.” And that’s the other reason why I think it feels different than a standard artillery unit. Because the standard artillery units, like the siege tank, are all like “No, you are dead. You need to move immediately.” The tempest is like “Yeah, he’s working away at my nexus and this is a problem. But it’s not a problem I need to solve in four seconds, it’s a problem I need to solve in 30 seconds, or maybe a minute.” And that creates a different kind of feeling. "
Yeah... or he can just repair and stay where the heck he wants.
People are upset about repair with tempests, but keep in mind the tempest does burst damage. So it doesn't need to out-DPS repair, because if you have enough to one-shot your target, then it dies before you have a chance to repair. For instance, 2 tempests one-shot workers, making repair or transfuse worthless in this scenario.
Considering how much of an investment that is, to only be able to one shot a worker, I don't think it's viable at all. I recently saw a stream where 12 tempest (that is 3600/3600, and 72 supply) tried to kill a command center. They literally did 1/5th of the entire command centers complete health. At which point about 5 scvs could out-repair the damage. As a comparison, 12 tempest does the same DPS as 13!!! marines... That is just silly.
The only use I can see for this unit is chipping away at a late game BL + infestor army, forcing the zerg to engage in an unfavorable position. But thats about it.
As for a late game capital ship, the tempest is a joke of a unit. I would much rather have the carrier in any situation.
Er... just saying, you're not paying to one-shot a worker. You're paying to one-shot a worker at 22 range. As far as I'm concerned, if you get Tempest there's no reason for them to not be firing at any given time. A marine is only firing while the battle goes on, the Tempest can potentially be firing all game if you micro it properly.
3-4 vikings or corruptors will shut down those pathetic flying-sentries with relative ease, especially when they're flying over some places that ground forces can not reach to protect
I understand the idea behind the unit. I really believe that instead of a missile type attack, tempest should be like a long range Void Ray.
The idea of putting a unit in a position where they cant stay long is good. But giving a dps buff over time would really put a timer; i find the charging beam would be the best solution... Then again charging from a 22 range could kinda fuck up the games graphics... but i still think there should be some kind of dps buff over time.
As stated, if scv's can out repair, its just stupid...
people are getting waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to bent out of shape for this beta waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to early, remember WOL beta, stalkers were weak, trash units, but soon after time they were found to be incredibly strong with no nerfs/buffs. give it time guys, input is great but these matter of fact statements are just flawed this early, you can theorycraft and say ifs and buts, but don't make these rash point of views and play them off as fact this early into the beat, if you were around to play the WoL beta you would understand, not saying you're wrong, just wrong to draw conclusions this early
Pretty much spot on. Basically, Blizzard can't balance protoss properly because of the RIDICULOUS DAMAGE that warpgates have done to the games meta game. Warpgate warp in cross map is the core problem with protoss. It's what is keeping us weak and forcing us into timing attacks. It's our gimmick. Protoss is SUPER gimmicky because of it and they can't give us any real units because once we get a real unit suddenly you have that SUPER ugly real unit push + OH SNAP A BUNCH OF WARPINS AT YOUR BASE. Basically, protoss right now ruins the defenders supply advantage because our units show up... AT YOUR DOOR.
Warpgates need to be removed so that our tier 1 units can be properly balanced. Then they can give us real units with proper balance. Warpgates are still the core of the problem. Anything they give us is dangerous as hell because that new unit can be used in conjunction with warp ins at your base at any point. That's why the oracle is trash, that's why the tempest is trash. Warpgates + tempest won't cause anyone to quit the game. Give tempest more damage and suddenly that thing is a super dangerous artillery cannon backed up by endless warpgate units anywhere on the map. Warpgates warpgates warpgates... get rid of them.
DB: That, or be comfortable with a light amount of damage and say “Look, I am not going to kill you with this but you can’t stay there forever. I am chipping away at you, I am not killing everything but I am beating you pretty good. You have to move away, or engage this tempest or figure something out because you have limited time to do it.” And that’s the other reason why I think it feels different than a standard artillery unit. Because the standard artillery units, like the siege tank, are all like “No, you are dead. You need to move immediately.” The tempest is like “Yeah, he’s working away at my nexus and this is a problem. But it’s not a problem I need to solve in four seconds, it’s a problem I need to solve in 30 seconds, or maybe a minute.” And that creates a different kind of feeling. "
Yeah... or he can just repair and stay where the heck he wants.
People are upset about repair with tempests, but keep in mind the tempest does burst damage. So it doesn't need to out-DPS repair, because if you have enough to one-shot your target, then it dies before you have a chance to repair. For instance, 2 tempests one-shot workers, making repair or transfuse worthless in this scenario.
Considering how much of an investment that is, to only be able to one shot a worker, I don't think it's viable at all. I recently saw a stream where 12 tempest (that is 3600/3600, and 72 supply) tried to kill a command center. They literally did 1/5th of the entire command centers complete health. At which point about 5 scvs could out-repair the damage. As a comparison, 12 tempest does the same DPS as 13!!! marines... That is just silly.
The only use I can see for this unit is chipping away at a late game BL + infestor army, forcing the zerg to engage in an unfavorable position. But thats about it.
As for a late game capital ship, the tempest is a joke of a unit. I would much rather have the carrier in any situation.
Er... just saying, you're not paying to one-shot a worker. You're paying to one-shot a worker at 22 range. As far as I'm concerned, if you get Tempest there's no reason for them to not be firing at any given time. A marine is only firing while the battle goes on, the Tempest can potentially be firing all game if you micro it properly.
3-4 vikings or corruptors will shut down those pathetic flying-sentries with relative ease, especially when they're flying over some places that ground forces can not reach to protect
You may be right, but can I just ask, are you saying that from experience? Like, have you tried doing that with tempests and it didn't work for you? Or are you just assuming that will be the case? Because obviously Tempests themselves don't fare so well against vikings or corruptors, but that also forces them to go out in the open where you can kill them, since the Tempest hits from so far. Not to mention if you can see them coming a long way off and start retreating, or even kiting.
I think most people are complaining about the new units after either not using them at all, or using them once or twice and not immediately winning. I feel like if you played it properly Tempest harass could really be a bitch to deal with. People keep trying to fit it into the carrier's role, but quite frankly, there's practically zero overlap in their utility. They're both useful, but in very different circumstances.
I am all for removing warpgates and rebalancing toss as a result. Except for that Blizzard cannot do much for early game toss or toss becomes even more of a timing attack race.
And Warhound and swarmhost are not BW units. Goliath was most powerful as AA unit, while Warhound has no AA attack, and lurker could attack while burrowed and you needed detection and it guaranteed damage (except against high level marine users :D) while swarm host has none of those capabilities. Even 1-2 lurkers was something to fear, while swarm hosts only work in bigger groups.
DB: That, or be comfortable with a light amount of damage and say “Look, I am not going to kill you with this but you can’t stay there forever. I am chipping away at you, I am not killing everything but I am beating you pretty good. You have to move away, or engage this tempest or figure something out because you have limited time to do it.” And that’s the other reason why I think it feels different than a standard artillery unit. Because the standard artillery units, like the siege tank, are all like “No, you are dead. You need to move immediately.” The tempest is like “Yeah, he’s working away at my nexus and this is a problem. But it’s not a problem I need to solve in four seconds, it’s a problem I need to solve in 30 seconds, or maybe a minute.” And that creates a different kind of feeling. "
Yeah... or he can just repair and stay where the heck he wants.
People are upset about repair with tempests, but keep in mind the tempest does burst damage. So it doesn't need to out-DPS repair, because if you have enough to one-shot your target, then it dies before you have a chance to repair. For instance, 2 tempests one-shot workers, making repair or transfuse worthless in this scenario.
Considering how much of an investment that is, to only be able to one shot a worker, I don't think it's viable at all. I recently saw a stream where 12 tempest (that is 3600/3600, and 72 supply) tried to kill a command center. They literally did 1/5th of the entire command centers complete health. At which point about 5 scvs could out-repair the damage. As a comparison, 12 tempest does the same DPS as 13!!! marines... That is just silly.
The only use I can see for this unit is chipping away at a late game BL + infestor army, forcing the zerg to engage in an unfavorable position. But thats about it.
As for a late game capital ship, the tempest is a joke of a unit. I would much rather have the carrier in any situation.
Tempest aren't DPS units. They're siege units. There is a reason Tanks also have low DPS.
Protoss players just aren't used to non a-move/deathball units.
DB: That, or be comfortable with a light amount of damage and say “Look, I am not going to kill you with this but you can’t stay there forever. I am chipping away at you, I am not killing everything but I am beating you pretty good. You have to move away, or engage this tempest or figure something out because you have limited time to do it.” And that’s the other reason why I think it feels different than a standard artillery unit. Because the standard artillery units, like the siege tank, are all like “No, you are dead. You need to move immediately.” The tempest is like “Yeah, he’s working away at my nexus and this is a problem. But it’s not a problem I need to solve in four seconds, it’s a problem I need to solve in 30 seconds, or maybe a minute.” And that creates a different kind of feeling. "
Yeah... or he can just repair and stay where the heck he wants.
People are upset about repair with tempests, but keep in mind the tempest does burst damage. So it doesn't need to out-DPS repair, because if you have enough to one-shot your target, then it dies before you have a chance to repair. For instance, 2 tempests one-shot workers, making repair or transfuse worthless in this scenario.
Considering how much of an investment that is, to only be able to one shot a worker, I don't think it's viable at all. I recently saw a stream where 12 tempest (that is 3600/3600, and 72 supply) tried to kill a command center. They literally did 1/5th of the entire command centers complete health. At which point about 5 scvs could out-repair the damage. As a comparison, 12 tempest does the same DPS as 13!!! marines... That is just silly.
The only use I can see for this unit is chipping away at a late game BL + infestor army, forcing the zerg to engage in an unfavorable position. But thats about it.
As for a late game capital ship, the tempest is a joke of a unit. I would much rather have the carrier in any situation.
Er... just saying, you're not paying to one-shot a worker. You're paying to one-shot a worker at 22 range. As far as I'm concerned, if you get Tempest there's no reason for them to not be firing at any given time. A marine is only firing while the battle goes on, the Tempest can potentially be firing all game if you micro it properly.
3-4 vikings or corruptors will shut down those pathetic flying-sentries with relative ease, especially when they're flying over some places that ground forces can not reach to protect
You may be right, but can I just ask, are you saying that from experience? Like, have you tried doing that with tempests and it didn't work for you? Or are you just assuming that will be the case? Because obviously Tempests themselves don't fare so well against vikings or corruptors, but that also forces them to go out in the open where you can kill them, since the Tempest hits from so far. Not to mention if you can see them coming a long way off and start retreating, or even kiting.
I think most people are complaining about the new units after either not using them at all, or using them once or twice and not immediately winning. I feel like if you played it properly Tempest harass could really be a bitch to deal with. People keep trying to fit it into the carrier's role, but quite frankly, there's practically zero overlap in their utility. They're both useful, but in very different circumstances.
A bit from experience, and mostly from watching vods. Kiting with tempest is hard since they move slower than vikings and corruptors.
I agree that Beta has only last for a week, but after seeing how everyone stop using any of protoss new units, I started losing faith in Blizzard
DB: That, or be comfortable with a light amount of damage and say “Look, I am not going to kill you with this but you can’t stay there forever. I am chipping away at you, I am not killing everything but I am beating you pretty good. You have to move away, or engage this tempest or figure something out because you have limited time to do it.” And that’s the other reason why I think it feels different than a standard artillery unit. Because the standard artillery units, like the siege tank, are all like “No, you are dead. You need to move immediately.” The tempest is like “Yeah, he’s working away at my nexus and this is a problem. But it’s not a problem I need to solve in four seconds, it’s a problem I need to solve in 30 seconds, or maybe a minute.” And that creates a different kind of feeling. "
Yeah... or he can just repair and stay where the heck he wants.
People are upset about repair with tempests, but keep in mind the tempest does burst damage. So it doesn't need to out-DPS repair, because if you have enough to one-shot your target, then it dies before you have a chance to repair. For instance, 2 tempests one-shot workers, making repair or transfuse worthless in this scenario.
Considering how much of an investment that is, to only be able to one shot a worker, I don't think it's viable at all. I recently saw a stream where 12 tempest (that is 3600/3600, and 72 supply) tried to kill a command center. They literally did 1/5th of the entire command centers complete health. At which point about 5 scvs could out-repair the damage. As a comparison, 12 tempest does the same DPS as 13!!! marines... That is just silly.
The only use I can see for this unit is chipping away at a late game BL + infestor army, forcing the zerg to engage in an unfavorable position. But thats about it.
As for a late game capital ship, the tempest is a joke of a unit. I would much rather have the carrier in any situation.
Tempest aren't DPS units. They're siege units. There is a reason Tanks also have low DPS.
Protoss players just aren't used to non a-move/deathball units.
Siege tanks do SPLASH damage, give Tempest Splash damage too and we'll talk
DB: That, or be comfortable with a light amount of damage and say “Look, I am not going to kill you with this but you can’t stay there forever. I am chipping away at you, I am not killing everything but I am beating you pretty good. You have to move away, or engage this tempest or figure something out because you have limited time to do it.” And that’s the other reason why I think it feels different than a standard artillery unit. Because the standard artillery units, like the siege tank, are all like “No, you are dead. You need to move immediately.” The tempest is like “Yeah, he’s working away at my nexus and this is a problem. But it’s not a problem I need to solve in four seconds, it’s a problem I need to solve in 30 seconds, or maybe a minute.” And that creates a different kind of feeling. "
Yeah... or he can just repair and stay where the heck he wants.
People are upset about repair with tempests, but keep in mind the tempest does burst damage. So it doesn't need to out-DPS repair, because if you have enough to one-shot your target, then it dies before you have a chance to repair. For instance, 2 tempests one-shot workers, making repair or transfuse worthless in this scenario.
Considering how much of an investment that is, to only be able to one shot a worker, I don't think it's viable at all. I recently saw a stream where 12 tempest (that is 3600/3600, and 72 supply) tried to kill a command center. They literally did 1/5th of the entire command centers complete health. At which point about 5 scvs could out-repair the damage. As a comparison, 12 tempest does the same DPS as 13!!! marines... That is just silly.
The only use I can see for this unit is chipping away at a late game BL + infestor army, forcing the zerg to engage in an unfavorable position. But thats about it.
As for a late game capital ship, the tempest is a joke of a unit. I would much rather have the carrier in any situation.
Tempest aren't DPS units. They're siege units. There is a reason Tanks also have low DPS.
Protoss players just aren't used to non a-move/deathball units.
Siege tanks do SPLASH damage, give Tempest Splash damage too and we'll talk
Obvious counterargument: give Siege tanks 22 range and flight, and we'll talk.
when talking about warpgate, why don't Blizzard make it slightly longer unit producing time than gateway so that players have to choose when and why to get the technology, when to use and how to use it.. and at the same time revert back the original gatewayand zealot stats.. isn't that will add some diversity in protoss gameplay?
warpgate is the only "cool" thing about protoss in WOL. removing it totally, Protoss will have nothing. if there is a sideback when using warpgate compared to the gateway, i mean, at certain time or strategy it is the best to use gateway and at another different time and strategy, warpgate is a better choice. so player always have to make a decisions through out the game and warpgate is not the only 1 time things like right now.. warpgate is the absolute.. the is no reason not to get warpgate or convert gateway to warpgate. it look like a minor thing but it will add something to the protoss boring gameplay. at the same time, it will slightly nerf late game protoss warping gameplay.
winning a game or tournament is one thing but make a great game is another very important thing. right now yes, protoss can win a tournament but protoss gameplay is not that interesting. Starcraft 2 is not as interesting as it predessor. i don't want SC2 to become a carbon copy of broodwar, but i want SC2 as great or better than BW. right now SC2 is not that interesting. with HOTS beta right now, it is the time to discuss how to improve SC2. forget about which race win the tournament right now.
DB: That, or be comfortable with a light amount of damage and say “Look, I am not going to kill you with this but you can’t stay there forever. I am chipping away at you, I am not killing everything but I am beating you pretty good. You have to move away, or engage this tempest or figure something out because you have limited time to do it.” And that’s the other reason why I think it feels different than a standard artillery unit. Because the standard artillery units, like the siege tank, are all like “No, you are dead. You need to move immediately.” The tempest is like “Yeah, he’s working away at my nexus and this is a problem. But it’s not a problem I need to solve in four seconds, it’s a problem I need to solve in 30 seconds, or maybe a minute.” And that creates a different kind of feeling. "
Yeah... or he can just repair and stay where the heck he wants.
People are upset about repair with tempests, but keep in mind the tempest does burst damage. So it doesn't need to out-DPS repair, because if you have enough to one-shot your target, then it dies before you have a chance to repair. For instance, 2 tempests one-shot workers, making repair or transfuse worthless in this scenario.
Considering how much of an investment that is, to only be able to one shot a worker, I don't think it's viable at all. I recently saw a stream where 12 tempest (that is 3600/3600, and 72 supply) tried to kill a command center. They literally did 1/5th of the entire command centers complete health. At which point about 5 scvs could out-repair the damage. As a comparison, 12 tempest does the same DPS as 13!!! marines... That is just silly.
The only use I can see for this unit is chipping away at a late game BL + infestor army, forcing the zerg to engage in an unfavorable position. But thats about it.
As for a late game capital ship, the tempest is a joke of a unit. I would much rather have the carrier in any situation.
Tempest aren't DPS units. They're siege units. There is a reason Tanks also have low DPS.
Protoss players just aren't used to non a-move/deathball units.
Siege tanks do SPLASH damage, give Tempest Splash damage too and we'll talk
Obvious counterargument: give Siege tanks 22 range and flight, and we'll talk.
While we're at it, remove splash, make them cost 300/300, 6 supply, require a 300/200 tech structure, and we'll see how will terran playes make them as effective as they claim they are
So basically, give terran Tempest instead of Warhound, and we'll see who will complain
Guys don't go into balance Issues, there are other topics to do so. Question is about protoss desingn being broken and gimmick, not about which race is stronger/weaker.
Since the release of WoL, I have had a feeling that Blizzard don't understand the design of Protoss anymore. They do what they think is cool, but they don't know that it's just extremely stupid
So how does the (supposed, I haven't seen it in action myself) removal of high-ground warp-in affect Protoss overall?
I want to say it would only make things worse for Protoss overall in HotS, but again, I haven't seen it in action so I don't know. The underlying issue still lies with warpgates themselves, but that is something which won't be changed, unfortunately.
Hmmm, I actually think the warp-in mechanic is pretty cool, and adds a lot of aggressive options.
I think the problem with Protoss is that their units need to be in one huge ball in order to fight cost efficiently.
The warp-in mechanic, and the recall ability both encourage Protoss players to split their army into tiny chunks to harass and defend multiple bases. The problem is that they rely on expensive deathball units like the Colossus High templar (and now Tempest?) to win fights vs equal cost armies by the other races. I wish the Stalker was more powerful in straight up fights. I love the unit as a mobile harass unit, but Protoss could really use a Dragoon type unit available from the gateway imo.
I highly doubt that Blizzard will ever fix protoss but now would be a damn good time. Im my opinion its Force Fields and Warpgates what makes Protoss so "wierd" If you can simply cut your oponents army in half and ignore distances and design everything around that you will for sure get a really terribly designed Race TT
On September 10 2012 22:50 Whalecore wrote: Hmmm, I actually think the warp-in mechanic is pretty cool, and adds a lot of aggressive options.
I think the problem with Protoss is that their units need to be in one huge ball in order to fight cost efficiently.
The warp-in mechanic, and the recall ability both encourage Protoss players to split their army into tiny chunks to harass and defend multiple bases. The problem is that they rely on expensive deathball units like the Colossus High templar (and now Tempest?) to win fights vs equal cost armies by the other races. I wish the Stalker was more powerful in straight up fights. I love the unit as a mobile harass unit, but Protoss could really use a Dragoon type unit available from the gateway imo.
Their units are weak and generally have to be deathballed precisely because stronger gateway units with warpgate would be silly. It's a design flaw that I really wish Blizzard would look at again
Fellers, you're making this waaaaaayy more complicated than it actually is. Here's a few relevant facts:
PvT: (1) Late game PvT is relatively balanced if Toss goes gateway units + templar archive/robo bay.
(2) Those are the only options a Toss player has against Terran. A stargate option would make the game a lot more interesting.
(3) Unfortunately, marines and vikings are OP against air. Something needs to be done about this.
(4) Also, Terran is incredibly strong mid-game. The Terran bio-ball gets out of control and can only be held at bay with forcefields. Give us a viable mid game strategy, with no quick and easy hard counter like vikings against collosus.
PvZ:
(1) Even in WoL, Zerg is too powerful in this match-up. Toss is forced to resort to gimmicks to survive, none of which is a viable strategy in the long term. In open terrain we die; if we make a single slip with our forcefields we die. Zerg just has to get roach/ling and follow the same recipe every game. (2) The new units are just the death blow to Toss. Zerg gets huge buffs to hydras and ultras, as well as incredibly strong new units, like a unit that can pull collossi out of position. We get nothing. (3) The only way you're going to get this balanced is by giving some pretty huge buffs to Toss. We need to hold our own in wide maps and we need a way to win matches without relying on gimmicks. (4) Why can't we stick with the stargate tech? Because infestors are so powerful. Because mutas have area of effect. Because so many corruptors can be produced all at once.
So, my suggestions:
- Nerf the infestor's anti-air ability. They've got freakin' hydras. - The void ray is a tank unit, so give it a tank ability that makes it stronger against ground and less fragile against marines. - The phoenix is a specialist anti-air fighter, so improve its aerial fighting capabilities. The phoenix ought to be much stronger than the viking, because Toss (if the game is going to work) will become dependent on stargate tech, and Terran gets a reactor to produce two vikings at the same time.
OP hasn't played in at least two seasons and yet he claims to be a high level player. He hasn't played seriously in about two years. Even then, he played at a low Master level when he was playing. You shouldn't lie and claim to be something you aren't in order to gain credibility.
On September 10 2012 20:06 Rimak wrote: Guys don't go into balance Issues, there are other topics to do so. Question is about protoss desingn being broken and gimmick, not about which race is stronger/weaker.
+1. I am moderating some of these posts and trying to redirect us back to the topic when I can. Most of you are raising good arguments and counterarguments. I want to remind everyone that this issue is linked to HotS but also falls into WoL. It is not an easy problem to fix by tweaking a number value or adding a new unit.
I agree with the OP. Oracle is trash. I would rather get a Warp Prism and Observer and do Zealot harass. Tempest is trash. 22 range is irrelevant, since what matters is sight. Basically the range is no better than the Carrier and the DPS is worse.
Mothership Core is playable. Temporary Cannon does not matter since they can harass bases without the mothership core and because they can pull back. Energizing Nexus for mass Chrono adds about 80% of a buildings worth of production which leads to the question of why I would not just build a Gateway instead. You would need to be spending all of it on probes for it to matter but even then you would saturate fast enough you would want the 3rd Nexus anyway and at that point you would need the army to defend it. Recall is rarely used by Mothership as it is. I would mostly expect it to be used by those who go mass Void Ray vs Zerg. Maybe Mass Voids will be more playable at lower levels now that they can Mass Recall and at least Voids are not hit by Swarm Hosts and Warhounds.
The main advantage of Mothership Core is it will allow Mothership to come out slightly faster. As far as I am concerned that is the buf from WoL for Protoss. Mothership comes out earlier and occupies your Nexus for less time.
EDIT: I was right the first time. Mass Energiving Nexus is only worth 80% of a building.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with the new units, besides I like the way they're encouraging Stargate play which makes for more interesting games.
No, the real issue there is that they did not fix the problems that Protoss already had. For as long as there is no limitation to the warpgate mechanic it is destined to remain an incredibly easy and gimmicky race to play.
On September 10 2012 08:54 Harbinger631 wrote: The biggest thing I don't understand from Protoss QQ threads is that Protoss is winning everything in WoL right now...
Also, calling the Tempest an "a-move unit" makes you looks silly. Positioning/vision are essential to make it work.
You're missing the point. Protoss wins, but it isn't a fun or interesting race to play compared to BW. I know people say that about every race but it is especially bad for Protoss
It doesn't matter if it's fun or not.
Do you think in GSL code S level, people care about how fun it is to play the game?
The bottom line is, it doesn't matter whether or not the race is "fun" to play or not. 1a move win is still a win.
I can't believe you're complaining about the luxury of having "fun" units, when other races are struggling to even keep up with the win ratio.
That being said, from a neutral point of view I do agree that the unit design of HotS for protoss needs more refinement, but the game' still in first wave of beta invites and it's way too early to start complaining.
On September 10 2012 18:16 Frozne wrote: Warpgates need to be removed so that our tier 1 units can be properly balanced. Then they can give us real units with proper balance. Warpgates are still the core of the problem. .
Warpgates are no more gimmicky than death drops or Zerg remaxing in seconds.
Half our units don't even come from warpgates, anyway. What are you saying, they can't buff the void ray because of warpgates? Poppycock. They just don't like our race.
On September 10 2012 08:54 Harbinger631 wrote: The biggest thing I don't understand from Protoss QQ threads is that Protoss is winning everything in WoL right now...
Also, calling the Tempest an "a-move unit" makes you looks silly. Positioning/vision are essential to make it work.
You're missing the point. Protoss wins, but it isn't a fun or interesting race to play compared to BW. I know people say that about every race but it is especially bad for Protoss
Then play BW.
Instead of answering that way you might want to ask yourself why so many people always argue with broodwar. It's not only because of nostagia. Just take some time and watch some good scbw vods...it just feels like the way better game even though it pretty much happened by accident.
On September 10 2012 08:54 Harbinger631 wrote: The biggest thing I don't understand from Protoss QQ threads is that Protoss is winning everything in WoL right now...
Also, calling the Tempest an "a-move unit" makes you looks silly. Positioning/vision are essential to make it work.
You're missing the point. Protoss wins, but it isn't a fun or interesting race to play compared to BW. I know people say that about every race but it is especially bad for Protoss
that is your opinion. it does not make it a general opinion.
Terran became a well rounded, complete race after its campaign. Zerg became such as well after their campaign. Just another 1.5 years and Protoss will be sweet
On September 10 2012 08:54 Harbinger631 wrote: The biggest thing I don't understand from Protoss QQ threads is that Protoss is winning everything in WoL right now...
Also, calling the Tempest an "a-move unit" makes you looks silly. Positioning/vision are essential to make it work.
You're missing the point. Protoss wins, but it isn't a fun or interesting race to play compared to BW. I know people say that about every race but it is especially bad for Protoss
It doesn't matter if it's fun or not.
Do you think in GSL code S level, people care about how fun it is to play the game?
The bottom line is, it doesn't matter whether or not the race is "fun" to play or not. 1a move win is still a win.
I can't believe you're complaining about the luxury of having "fun" units, when other races are struggling to even keep up with the win ratio.
That being said, from a neutral point of view I do agree that the unit design of HotS for protoss needs more refinement, but the game' still in first wave of beta invites and it's way too early to start complaining.
I think this might be the first time anyone has ever told me a video game isn't supposed to be fun.
On September 10 2012 18:16 Frozne wrote: Warpgates need to be removed so that our tier 1 units can be properly balanced. Then they can give us real units with proper balance. Warpgates are still the core of the problem. .
Warpgates are no more gimmicky than death drops or Zerg remaxing in seconds.
Half our units don't even come from warpgates, anyway. What are you saying, they can't buff the void ray because of warpgates? Poppycock. They just don't like our race.
Yeah. I am sick and tired of this racism.
I never thought I'd see so much collective crying over a game. If the style of Protoss isn't to your liking, why not play or cheer for a different race? Is the color scheme not to your liking? If they made Protoss look like Zerg and Zerg look like Protoss and switched the names, then maybe your problems would be solved.
Yes, warpgate and forcefield have to be offset in other ways in order for there to be balance. Yes, the new Protoss units aren't that good yet. Yes, the warhound kills stalkers and immortals in order to make mech viable for Terran. However, if the style of Terran is your ideal style, then shouldn't you just switch to Terran? It seems like many of you want to just be able to mass stalkers and immortals and "a-move." Well, Terran is doing that better than you could have hoped for. Just switch and imagine that they are blue.
I may switch back to Terran (my BW race) in HOTS. This is just getting annoying, Blizz.
The primary issue is that Protoss is designed around FFs and Warpgates, and because of that, the design has turned out to be pretty bad. If and when I've had it with the awesome, super-smart, Egyptian-alien cool Protoss, I'm going back to Terran. At least there, Bolts can truly unleash the wrath of the thunder god and his Thor-hounds upon unruly overgrown bugs and endangered aliens.
OP hasn't played in at least two seasons and yet he claims to be a high level player. He hasn't played seriously in about two years. Even then, he played at a low Master level when he was playing. You shouldn't lie and claim to be something you aren't in order to gain credibility.
"High level player" is a subjective statement. He doesn't need to have replays beating Idra to know something about the game, and you don't need a master's degree in philosophy (even a low master's degree - like from a state school) to understand that he probably thinks being in Master's is pretty good, he's not actively lying, and you're wrong to think that your standard of "high level" is the only "real" standard.
Instead, you're trying to be confrontational and sensationalist - which only makes intelligent people (like a lot of the people on TL) listen to you less.
On topic, I'm disappointed with everything Protoss has in HotS - to the point that I'm wondering if I shouldn't work on WoL builds a good bit more since I'll be using the same ones in HotS. I hope they improve Protoss, but I highly doubt they're going to remove warpgates or forcefields in time for release. Maybe if they had started working in that direction earlier - but as it is now... they'll be lucky to have playable new protoss units by release without looking at their mistakes from WoL.
OP hasn't played in at least two seasons and yet he claims to be a high level player. He hasn't played seriously in about two years. Even then, he played at a low Master level when he was playing. You shouldn't lie and claim to be something you aren't in order to gain credibility.
"High level player" is a subjective statement. He doesn't need to have replays beating Idra to know something about the game, and you don't need a master's degree in philosophy (even a low master's degree - like from a state school) to understand that he probably thinks being in Master's is pretty good, he's not actively lying, and you're wrong to think that your standard of "high level" is the only "real" standard.
Instead, you're trying to be confrontational and sensationalist - which only makes intelligent people (like a lot of the people on TL) listen to you less.
On topic, I'm disappointed with everything Protoss has in HotS - to the point that I'm wondering if I shouldn't work on WoL builds a good bit more since I'll be using the same ones in HotS. I hope they improve Protoss, but I highly doubt they're going to remove warpgates or forcefields in time for release. Maybe if they had started working in that direction earlier - but as it is now... they'll be lucky to have playable new protoss units by release without looking at their mistakes from WoL.
He made this same post on the bnet forums and claimed to have top 50 GM MMR when you can see that is a blatant lie just by looking at his sc2ranks page.
OP hasn't played in at least two seasons and yet he claims to be a high level player. He hasn't played seriously in about two years. Even then, he played at a low Master level when he was playing. You shouldn't lie and claim to be something you aren't in order to gain credibility.
"High level player" is a subjective statement. He doesn't need to have replays beating Idra to know something about the game, and you don't need a master's degree in philosophy (even a low master's degree - like from a state school) to understand that he probably thinks being in Master's is pretty good, he's not actively lying, and you're wrong to think that your standard of "high level" is the only "real" standard.
Instead, you're trying to be confrontational and sensationalist - which only makes intelligent people (like a lot of the people on TL) listen to you less.
On topic, I'm disappointed with everything Protoss has in HotS - to the point that I'm wondering if I shouldn't work on WoL builds a good bit more since I'll be using the same ones in HotS. I hope they improve Protoss, but I highly doubt they're going to remove warpgates or forcefields in time for release. Maybe if they had started working in that direction earlier - but as it is now... they'll be lucky to have playable new protoss units by release without looking at their mistakes from WoL.
He made this same post on the bnet forums and claimed to have top 50 GM MMR when you can see that is a blatant lie just by looking at his sc2ranks page.
Maybe you're right and he lied on another post that I never read. But you're trying to discredit someone in a thread that's supposed to be about proposed changes. I don't particularly think they're likely or clever (I wouldn't implment them), but if you disagree with him, the correct response is not to contest who he is or why we should listen to him, but to respond to what he has to say. If you had attached your complaint to some well-thought-out critique of his proposal (you can start with "never gonna happen this year", move onto "how to change the unit stats of gateway units and/or not make protoss or the sentry a complete joke", and finish up with "homogenization of a game about three distinct races"). Then it's not a weird attempt at internet character assassination. On top of that, I'm lower than Master's league, so I don't care that he's not a GM. I'd suspect that many such people reading this are in the same boat.
So here is my point of the protoss changes in general. At the moment protoss has basically 3 tech trees: Templar tech, robo tech and starport. In PvZ Starport builds are playable, in PvT starports are more or less unplayable except for some phoenix builds in the early-mid game. The reason why protoss cannot play starport based builds is the marine (cheap, can attack air, can be massed easily out building a terran will have anyway) and the viking (moderately expensive, destroys EVERY protoss air unit in a matter of seconds, can be build in a building terran has anyways, can be massed quickly). What does protoss get in HOTS? 2 more air units which cannot be used vs terran, because they get no ability to deal with marines or vikings. Result: Protoss cannot use a lot of viable new strategies vs a terran who DOES have additional units thaat are more or less good vs ground armies
As a Protoss player, I've never liked how you're often relying on FFs to survive. Stalkers and Zealots are fairly weak without the upgrades to compensate for the fact that you can warp them in anywhere. The only way to stop Terran bio is with tier 3 units. You can hold them off for a while with FF. The only way to beat Zerg late game is with an Archon toilet.
I'm seriously thinking of switching to Zerg. The Swarm Host and Viper may well get nerfed more, but they're both very useful. I don't like the new Protoss units at all. Best of all, Zerg has no mechanical units, so the Warhound will be less powerful.
On September 10 2012 23:04 gCgCrypto wrote: I highly doubt that Blizzard will ever fix protoss but now would be a damn good time. Im my opinion its Force Fields and Warpgates what makes Protoss so "wierd" If you can simply cut your oponents army in half and ignore distances and design everything around that you will for sure get a really terribly designed Race TT
This. So much this. Protoss is a faction that if fundamentally based around bad designs that ignore the very basic realities of RTS (Troop production and movement). The gimmicks cause pretty massive distortions in other parts of the tech tree, starting with weak Gateway units.
EDIT: Also, on top of army splitting and cutting enemy reinforcements into their own base while you happily tele-reinforce, FFs pose the issue of negating positioning to an extent. You can be in a bad position, just close down some ramp and walk away, when a badly positioned army would otherwise just be slaughtered horribly.
On September 10 2012 22:50 Whalecore wrote: Hmmm, I actually think the warp-in mechanic is pretty cool, and adds a lot of aggressive options.
I think the problem with Protoss is that their units need to be in one huge ball in order to fight cost efficiently.
The warp-in mechanic, and the recall ability both encourage Protoss players to split their army into tiny chunks to harass and defend multiple bases. The problem is that they rely on expensive deathball units like the Colossus High templar (and now Tempest?) to win fights vs equal cost armies by the other races. I wish the Stalker was more powerful in straight up fights. I love the unit as a mobile harass unit, but Protoss could really use a Dragoon type unit available from the gateway imo.
Their units are weak and generally have to be deathballed precisely because stronger gateway units with warpgate would be silly. It's a design flaw that I really wish Blizzard would look at again
On September 10 2012 18:16 Frozne wrote: Warpgates need to be removed so that our tier 1 units can be properly balanced. Then they can give us real units with proper balance. Warpgates are still the core of the problem. .
Warpgates are no more gimmicky than death drops or Zerg remaxing in seconds.
Half our units don't even come from warpgates, anyway. What are you saying, they can't buff the void ray because of warpgates? Poppycock. They just don't like our race.
The warp gates are not actually fine at all. The need for deathballs themselves is in large part a consequence of Gateway units being weak. Why are they weak? Oh. Warpgates. Warpgates ignore very basic realities of an RTS - they automatically proxy all your Gateway production for a measly cost - this alone should ring alarm bells given the traditional great power and risk of proxying - Warpgate proxies are more severe, cheaper, and safer than normal ones because your production is still in base.
Furthermore, in normal games you can't snipe Protoss reinforcements or camp their production. The frontloaded mode of production makes for instant reinforcements in remax situations, meaning you cannot really trade with a Protoss army - you have to win to be even. The final nail in the coffin, and one of the big reasons Gateway units have to be weak apart from the proxying is the initial transformation/Gate completion swell. Basically, I can complete a cycle from Gateways, turn them into Warpgates and make another cycle. With normal-power units, this is absolutely backbreaking. Even with weakened Gateway units it is very strong. Protoss Gateways can also be built later than Terran production structures or Hatches/Queens because the first round of production is ready in ten seconds. This means more money earlier and thus more flexibility.
Finally, the Warpgates do affect things like Void Rays, too, to an extent. Toss being able to ignore standard troop movement while reinforcing can make some pushes really absurd. You're deluded if you think full auto-proxying wouldn't make Void pushes and the like ridiculous.
EDIT: Oracle is also a horrible design. Banshees and other harassment units like Marine/Medivac, Zerglings, Hellions, Mutas and Stalkers are all used in a wide variety of situations because their harassment ability is simply a result of being able to kill stuff and bail out. This means they can be put to other uses like scouting, integrated into armies, cutting off reinforcements and the like. Because they kill stuff. The Oracle is extremely gimmicky-feeling, and most of all LIMITED and pidgeonholed into one role because all it can do is scout and slow down the economy. There is no escalated threat for it staying there either - it never will, no incentive to. Just screams of "killing stuff is boring, time to be INNOVATIVE". Which once again means throwing the fundamentals of strategy (and in this case RTS) under the bus for trying to look better. It's a bit like the Playstation Move looks advanced but in actuality is merely a needlessly complicated solution to a simple problem. Blizzard, make more stuff that kills other stuff.
On September 11 2012 04:20 RinconH wrote: I'd make your post a bit more clear.
You need to stress it's not about "competitive balance" as, with a long enough period of stats adjustments, Blizzard can probably "balance" win rates.
It's about Protoss being a flawed race to play and watch. Which sucks since I played Protoss (prob switching if HOTS doesn't fix it).
Definitely. Protoss is already decently balanced. The design and the dynamics resulting from it are atrocious however. This is why I try to speak of gimmicks, satisfaction and solid gameplay. The people here almost invariably consider all design complaints to be balance complaints which is silly but I guess inevitable.
I like the mothership core alot. Oracle is good too..opening with air and skipping obs is more viable now..tempest..i dont know..tempest can be good, have them sit in a corner..maybe even defend them with phoenix and nuke a opponents base all day long... its just that all other races are getting more solid units..i feel a lack of solid units in the protoss army..carriers were pretty solid, and if they hadnt removed it going air would be aloot more viable now...
I will always be a Toss because Toss offers the greatest reward for winning IMO. People say it's the easiest race to play, but it's also very difficult to win without timing build or straight-up rushes. Playing a Macro Toss game is very risky nowadays, but I find it to be the most rewarding. I'll occasionally play Zerg, but Protoss just intrigues me the most, even once HotS is finally here.
I am utterly frustrated that the Carrier was removed right when we found two units (the Swarm Host and Warhound) that it would be a great counter for. If anything frustrates me more it's definitely that.
Protoss will adapt.. as far as i remember adapting to 1/1/1 required a buff, because otherwise its impossible to defend right? Can't handle mutalisk, oh lets make a super air unit that now does splash damage in hots hurr durr and give phoenix a buff to help fight off against mutas... None of them were required really...
As a terran player, I feel so damn sad for protoss players. Blizzard gave them 0 interesting units. In WOL they became the 1a race, and HOTS doesn't change this.
If HOTS comes out in this form, I can guarantee you it will die 100%. When I am bored by a game, it really means something. WOL is easier then sc1, but I can still be amazed by MKP's marine micro, stephano's awesome play, squirtles sick timings, taeja's solid play... In HOTS I lost the whole feeling. I am bored of myself playing it, I am bored of the pros playing it.
An expansion normally means a better game, but IMO this is not the case with HOTS
I also don't quite understand why people are saying gateway units are "bad." Zealots are really strong (considered maybe too strong in late-game PvT), especially in the hit points area. Stalkers are weak by themselves, but early on they do well with zealot support, and later on they support colossi well. They can even take on brood lords; it's the infestors that shut that down as a viable response to bl/infestor. And sentries, as has been acknowledged by OP and others, are nearly game-breaking with their forcefields.
So when you say they're "weak," I assume you mean you can't build your composition solely out of zealots and stalkers all game, the way Terran can (sort of) do with MMM. In which case, no, you can't, and you shouldn't be able to. Pure gateway compositions die to MMM, as they should, because MMM dies to higher Protoss tech, and if they died to gateway compositions too, there'd be no viable composition for Terran. 2-base gateway attacks were standard PvZ for a while to deny the third base, and they're exactly the reason that Zerg gets the roach warren as early as they do. But there's no reason to stay on pure gateway compositions, because higher Protoss tech is better (as higher tech should be). This is exactly the way the game should function, and does not need a massive overhaul of the game in order to "fix" it.
On September 11 2012 06:36 ChristianS wrote: I also don't quite understand why people are saying gateway units are "bad." Zealots are really strong (considered maybe too strong in late-game PvT), especially in the hit points area. Stalkers are weak by themselves, but early on they do well with zealot support, and later on they support colossi well. They can even take on brood lords; it's the infestors that shut that down as a viable response to bl/infestor. And sentries, as has been acknowledged by OP and others, are nearly game-breaking with their forcefields.
So when you say they're "weak," I assume you mean you can't build your composition solely out of zealots and stalkers all game, the way Terran can (sort of) do with MMM. In which case, no, you can't, and you shouldn't be able to. Pure gateway compositions die to MMM, as they should, because MMM dies to higher Protoss tech, and if they died to gateway compositions too, there'd be no viable composition for Terran. 2-base gateway attacks were standard PvZ for a while to deny the third base, and they're exactly the reason that Zerg gets the roach warren as early as they do. But there's no reason to stay on pure gateway compositions, because higher Protoss tech is better (as higher tech should be). This is exactly the way the game should function, and does not need a massive overhaul of the game in order to "fix" it.
Let me explain what we mean.
About Zealots The difference between Fresh zealots and 3/3 chargelots is HUGE, but they are not actually that good and mostly they are just used as a meat shield, so your deathball can live longer. Same goes for stalkers and stalkers with blink.
While they are really good when are working together, mostly gateway units is just junk you throw against your enemy so your robo/templar tech could do the killing. You take the robo/templar tech away and gateways will just be annihilated badly, so this gets us to point that you MUST get AOE, you MUST get TECH or DIE. So this puts P in position, that before tech you can do nothing, you can just barely survive early-midgame (and with swarmhost and gghound even more buffing Z and T midgame, it's going to be painful to watch), as your units just don't stand a chance against other race (just to be clear, I'm talking about macro games, not a 1-2 base allin). And although lategame protoss units are really good in deathball, when you chip them away from it, they just die to everything.
About toss all in all. Though Protoss is a race that has it's strong points, very strong tech, colossus (which i find stupid design), templar (which is awesome) but if we look into core mechanics they are very gimmick and stupid. For example - the Force Field, both T and Z hate the force field, as it's clearly an unfair spell that destroys your army synergy, and the protoss should love the spell, right?... Wrong most of the protoss do not like it, as for having It in our arsenal P pay for It with the price of ALL the early game being around it, every single toss remember how many games he has lost due a single incorrectly placed FF, which is just plain stupid. And there are other examples of this, like having a slow, flying 22 range 300/300 roach.
I'll quote you a guy from Bnet forums.
On September 11 2012 Xion wrote: Yeah, the Oracle seems a bit dire at the moment. I think more tweaking with numbers with the Tempest, Oracle and Mothership Core could help make Protoss in HotS on more equal footing to the other races, however doesn't really change the gimmicky-ness of it all.
I miss the Arbiter and Reaver from BW. I can't help but compare the Oracle to the Arbiter because of the cloaking field they initially had for it, and I can't help but be disappointed.
It just makes me sad that Protoss are viewed by others as a race in shambles, the A-move race, the gimmick race. Give me a chance to micro, and I'll micro my heart out, I'd love to, we just barely get the opportunity to with the A+move deathball we're stuck with.
I miss BW where you used speedlots to drag mines into siege lines, while dodging EMPs from Science Vessels and landing the clutch stasis on top of them, while dropping HTs and Reavers with the speed shuttle to storm the siege line between tank rounds.
Now its sorta, oh look my zealots are charging forward, zap-zap Colossus kills stuff, blink with stalkers... maybe some forcefields and storm... nothing exciting. APM sitting at 2 for clicking A + LMB =.=, it's just boring.
On September 11 2012 01:20 UntoTheBreach wrote: Fellers, you're making this waaaaaayy more complicated than it actually is. Here's a few relevant facts:
PvT: (1) Late game PvT is relatively balanced if Toss goes gateway units + templar archive/robo bay.
(2) Those are the only options a Toss player has against Terran. A stargate option would make the game a lot more interesting.
(3) Unfortunately, marines and vikings are OP against air. Something needs to be done about this.
(4) Also, Terran is incredibly strong mid-game. The Terran bio-ball gets out of control and can only be held at bay with forcefields. Give us a viable mid game strategy, with no quick and easy hard counter like vikings against collosus.
PvZ:
(1) Even in WoL, Zerg is too powerful in this match-up. Toss is forced to resort to gimmicks to survive, none of which is a viable strategy in the long term. In open terrain we die; if we make a single slip with our forcefields we die. Zerg just has to get roach/ling and follow the same recipe every game. (2) The new units are just the death blow to Toss. Zerg gets huge buffs to hydras and ultras, as well as incredibly strong new units, like a unit that can pull collossi out of position. We get nothing. (3) The only way you're going to get this balanced is by giving some pretty huge buffs to Toss. We need to hold our own in wide maps and we need a way to win matches without relying on gimmicks. (4) Why can't we stick with the stargate tech? Because infestors are so powerful. Because mutas have area of effect. Because so many corruptors can be produced all at once.
So, my suggestions:
- Nerf the infestor's anti-air ability. They've got freakin' hydras. - The void ray is a tank unit, so give it a tank ability that makes it stronger against ground and less fragile against marines. - The phoenix is a specialist anti-air fighter, so improve its aerial fighting capabilities. The phoenix ought to be much stronger than the viking, because Toss (if the game is going to work) will become dependent on stargate tech, and Terran gets a reactor to produce two vikings at the same time.
You know, I really like some of your suggestions and it's not something you see being said too often. Mass Phoenix / Void Ray vs. Zerg is shut down so hard by Infestors that it renders Stargate play pretty useless overall in that matchup (save for Mothership Vortex), and the Infestor is at the same time incredibly strong against everything else Protoss (and Terran and Zerg for that matter) can throw at them. I'd like to see Zerg not needing to rely so much on Infestors for anti-air, while at the same time making this highly powerful and versatile unit less of a hard counter to Protoss Air.
The Phoenix is decent and the Void Ray is bad, their overall utility should be greater to make Stargate play more viable... maybe nerfing the Infestor's anti-air capabilities would be enough to make these units good in PvZ, or maybe they could stand to see some buffs on top of that as well.
In my opinion, the nerfs to VRs was way to hasty as a lot of the troubles early on are no longer present although the nerfs to counteract them still are. If they gave VRs back their initial range, or a degree of their initial damage without the range increase, then stargate play wouldn't be so gimmicky and would be a legitimate tech path. They put the Tempest in but don't have a realistic way to get it since stargate play is so unstable. Buff the VR back to some reasonable level (everyone knows it's a joke and has been for a while) and you have a reason to get Tempests on top of a more dynamic game.
how to notice wether you're watching a HOTS or SC2 stream of a protoss player? Look at the minimap or check if there are worker counts above nexi or assimilators hahah
On September 11 2012 06:36 ChristianS wrote: I also don't quite understand why people are saying gateway units are "bad." Zealots are really strong (considered maybe too strong in late-game PvT), especially in the hit points area. Stalkers are weak by themselves, but early on they do well with zealot support, and later on they support colossi well. They can even take on brood lords; it's the infestors that shut that down as a viable response to bl/infestor. And sentries, as has been acknowledged by OP and others, are nearly game-breaking with their forcefields.
So when you say they're "weak," I assume you mean you can't build your composition solely out of zealots and stalkers all game, the way Terran can (sort of) do with MMM. In which case, no, you can't, and you shouldn't be able to. Pure gateway compositions die to MMM, as they should, because MMM dies to higher Protoss tech, and if they died to gateway compositions too, there'd be no viable composition for Terran. 2-base gateway attacks were standard PvZ for a while to deny the third base, and they're exactly the reason that Zerg gets the roach warren as early as they do. But there's no reason to stay on pure gateway compositions, because higher Protoss tech is better (as higher tech should be). This is exactly the way the game should function, and does not need a massive overhaul of the game in order to "fix" it.
Let me explain what we mean.
About Zealots The difference between Fresh zealots and 3/3 chargelots is HUGE, but they are not actually that good and mostly they are just used as a meat shield, so your deathball can live longer. Same goes for stalkers and stalkers with blink.
While they are really good when are working together, mostly gateway units is just junk you throw against your enemy so your robo/templar tech could do the killing. You take the robo/templar tech away and gateways will just be annihilated badly, so this gets us to point that you MUST get AOE, you MUST get TECH or DIE. So this puts P in position, that before tech you can do nothing, you can just barely survive early-midgame (and with swarmhost and gghound even more buffing Z and T midgame, it's going to be painful to watch), as your units just don't stand a chance against other race (just to be clear, I'm talking about macro games, not a 1-2 base allin). And although lategame protoss units are really good in deathball, when you chip them away from it, they just die to everything.
About toss all in all. Though Protoss is a race that has it's strong points, very strong tech, colossus (which i find stupid design), templar (which is awesome) but if we look into core mechanics they are very gimmick and stupid. For example - the Force Field, both T and Z hate the force field, as it's clearly an unfair spell that destroys your army synergy, and the protoss should love the spell, right?... Wrong most of the protoss do not like it, as for having It in our arsenal P pay for It with the price of ALL the early game being around it, every single toss remember how many games he has lost due a single incorrectly placed FF, which is just plain stupid. And there are other examples of this, like having a slow, flying 22 range 300/300 roach.
On September 11 2012 Xion wrote: Yeah, the Oracle seems a bit dire at the moment. I think more tweaking with numbers with the Tempest, Oracle and Mothership Core could help make Protoss in HotS on more equal footing to the other races, however doesn't really change the gimmicky-ness of it all.
I miss the Arbiter and Reaver from BW. I can't help but compare the Oracle to the Arbiter because of the cloaking field they initially had for it, and I can't help but be disappointed.
It just makes me sad that Protoss are viewed by others as a race in shambles, the A-move race, the gimmick race. Give me a chance to micro, and I'll micro my heart out, I'd love to, we just barely get the opportunity to with the A+move deathball we're stuck with.
I miss BW where you used speedlots to drag mines into siege lines, while dodging EMPs from Science Vessels and landing the clutch stasis on top of them, while dropping HTs and Reavers with the speed shuttle to storm the siege line between tank rounds.
Now its sorta, oh look my zealots are charging forward, zap-zap Colossus kills stuff, blink with stalkers... maybe some forcefields and storm... nothing exciting. APM sitting at 2 for clicking A + LMB =.=, it's just boring.
-Zealots are absolutely used for a "meat shield" in late-game scenarios quite often. Of course they are! It's a melee unit with 100 shields, and another 100 health which has a point of natural armor. The thing is designed to tank damage, as it was in BW for that matter.
-Stalkers, on the other hand, are pretty bad at tanking damage. They're not exactly low on hit points because they're Protoss units, but they're primarily good because they're mobile, ranged, and anti-air. In a colossus/zealot army, the zealots are designed to tank damage, but in a colossus/stalker/zealot army, the stalkers are there to shoot down vikings or corruptors and add a little DPS.
It's absolutely true that pure gateway armies tend to die to MMM, or to mass roach/ling, but that's absolutely how it should work.PvT basically functions this way: MMM kills gateway units, but toss higher tech kills MMM. Then Terran has specific counters to toss's higher tech to try and negate that advantage and force him back to the killable pure gateway army. If MMM couldn't convincingly kill gateway units, then Terran would have no way to beat Protoss even before higher tech came into play, and there'd really be no hope once you added in colossus.
Gateway armies aren't exactly weak, anyway. The 4gate absolutely wrecked the metagame for a long time, and 2base 6gate attacks can only really be defended by T because of bunkers + mass repair. Honestly without warpgate there would still be very little room for buffing gateway units, because delay a 6gate attack by the 30 seconds it takes to walk your stalkers across the field, and its still a REALLY powerful attack. But gateway units are still tier one units, and toss has much more powerful core compositions. Nor are they as uninteresting to attack with as random Bnet poster would have you believe; storms and forcefields require impressive micro, and colossi depend on positioning them to do damage before the vikings completely destroy them.
Gateway pushes would be delayed by more. The warp-in happens at the start of the production cycle, not at the end of it. The whole BO would have to be reworked to build earlier gateways so it didn't rely on the switch-swell or instantly online functions of the warpgates as much. And while there would not be that much room, there would still be some room. But that is not my main concern: Good gameplay is. And Warpgates make for miserable gameplay.
Gateway units are strong and are perfectly fine as they are. If there are issues, it is to do with the Stalker which is balanced around blink, not WG. The main issue in the respective P match-ups is that the Marauder hard counters the Stalker which means that P is reliant, for the most part, on the Zealot to do damage. This role is shifted to AOE damage dealers as the game goes on. However, having a melee unit engaging ranged units leads to problems for Protoss (hence the requirement for armour upgrades+GS). FF is used more to trap T armies so that they can't kite zealots and when we do cut them in half it is when they have a strong upgrade (such as stim) that require cutting off a portion of their armies. This is especially in those P compositions which remain Stalker heavy (mainly for a good number of Protoss 2 base all-ins).
Against Zerg, the issue is that the Roach counters the Zealot (if not to the same extent the Marauder counters the Stalker). Therefore, we are reliant on the Stalker in that match-up which, unfortunately, does not scale well as the game proceeds due to the Blink upgrade. The Sentry is used here not so much for GS (although that is still used) but for FF, and that so as to counter the unit producing capabilities of Zerg. Not because Protoss gateway armies are weak.
Originally, as I understand it, the Immortal was to be a Gateway unit (which it actually is - they are the new Dragoons) and these would counter the Roach and the Marauder. However, this was moved to Robo. Any problems Protoss has are due to the hard counters implemented in the game - a path, seemingly, being continued with the Warhound.
It has nothing to do with Warpgate. In fact, Protoss need WG to stay in touch with Terran production (reactors) and Zerg production (larvae inject). I hope Blizzard has the sense to ignore a good many of these utterly stupid balance/design suggestions. Not only are they mostly wrong, they'd effectively destroy Starcraft as a game with all the other changes that would have to be implemented to Z and T. As I said earlier, we may not have gotten the cool stuff. But, play. Just play.
On September 11 2012 06:36 ChristianS wrote: I also don't quite understand why people are saying gateway units are "bad." Zealots are really strong (considered maybe too strong in late-game PvT), especially in the hit points area. Stalkers are weak by themselves, but early on they do well with zealot support, and later on they support colossi well. They can even take on brood lords; it's the infestors that shut that down as a viable response to bl/infestor. And sentries, as has been acknowledged by OP and others, are nearly game-breaking with their forcefields.
So when you say they're "weak," I assume you mean you can't build your composition solely out of zealots and stalkers all game, the way Terran can (sort of) do with MMM. In which case, no, you can't, and you shouldn't be able to. Pure gateway compositions die to MMM, as they should, because MMM dies to higher Protoss tech, and if they died to gateway compositions too, there'd be no viable composition for Terran. 2-base gateway attacks were standard PvZ for a while to deny the third base, and they're exactly the reason that Zerg gets the roach warren as early as they do. But there's no reason to stay on pure gateway compositions, because higher Protoss tech is better (as higher tech should be). This is exactly the way the game should function, and does not need a massive overhaul of the game in order to "fix" it.
Let me explain what we mean.
About Zealots The difference between Fresh zealots and 3/3 chargelots is HUGE, but they are not actually that good and mostly they are just used as a meat shield, so your deathball can live longer. Same goes for stalkers and stalkers with blink.
While they are really good when are working together, mostly gateway units is just junk you throw against your enemy so your robo/templar tech could do the killing. You take the robo/templar tech away and gateways will just be annihilated badly, so this gets us to point that you MUST get AOE, you MUST get TECH or DIE. So this puts P in position, that before tech you can do nothing, you can just barely survive early-midgame (and with swarmhost and gghound even more buffing Z and T midgame, it's going to be painful to watch), as your units just don't stand a chance against other race (just to be clear, I'm talking about macro games, not a 1-2 base allin). And although lategame protoss units are really good in deathball, when you chip them away from it, they just die to everything.
About toss all in all. Though Protoss is a race that has it's strong points, very strong tech, colossus (which i find stupid design), templar (which is awesome) but if we look into core mechanics they are very gimmick and stupid. For example - the Force Field, both T and Z hate the force field, as it's clearly an unfair spell that destroys your army synergy, and the protoss should love the spell, right?... Wrong most of the protoss do not like it, as for having It in our arsenal P pay for It with the price of ALL the early game being around it, every single toss remember how many games he has lost due a single incorrectly placed FF, which is just plain stupid. And there are other examples of this, like having a slow, flying 22 range 300/300 roach.
I'll quote you a guy from Bnet forums.
On September 11 2012 Xion wrote: Yeah, the Oracle seems a bit dire at the moment. I think more tweaking with numbers with the Tempest, Oracle and Mothership Core could help make Protoss in HotS on more equal footing to the other races, however doesn't really change the gimmicky-ness of it all.
I miss the Arbiter and Reaver from BW. I can't help but compare the Oracle to the Arbiter because of the cloaking field they initially had for it, and I can't help but be disappointed.
It just makes me sad that Protoss are viewed by others as a race in shambles, the A-move race, the gimmick race. Give me a chance to micro, and I'll micro my heart out, I'd love to, we just barely get the opportunity to with the A+move deathball we're stuck with.
I miss BW where you used speedlots to drag mines into siege lines, while dodging EMPs from Science Vessels and landing the clutch stasis on top of them, while dropping HTs and Reavers with the speed shuttle to storm the siege line between tank rounds.
Now its sorta, oh look my zealots are charging forward, zap-zap Colossus kills stuff, blink with stalkers... maybe some forcefields and storm... nothing exciting. APM sitting at 2 for clicking A + LMB =.=, it's just boring.
-Zealots are absolutely used for a "meat shield" in late-game scenarios quite often. Of course they are! It's a melee unit with 100 shields, and another 100 health which has a point of natural armor. The thing is designed to tank damage, as it was in BW for that matter.
-Stalkers, on the other hand, are pretty bad at tanking damage. They're not exactly low on hit points because they're Protoss units, but they're primarily good because they're mobile, ranged, and anti-air. In a colossus/zealot army, the zealots are designed to tank damage, but in a colossus/stalker/zealot army, the stalkers are there to shoot down vikings or corruptors and add a little DPS.
It's absolutely true that pure gateway armies tend to die to MMM, or to mass roach/ling, but that's absolutely how it should work.PvT basically functions this way: MMM kills gateway units, but toss higher tech kills MMM. Then Terran has specific counters to toss's higher tech to try and negate that advantage and force him back to the killable pure gateway army. If MMM couldn't convincingly kill gateway units, then Terran would have no way to beat Protoss even before higher tech came into play, and there'd really be no hope once you added in colossus.
Gateway armies aren't exactly weak, anyway. The 4gate absolutely wrecked the metagame for a long time, and 2base 6gate attacks can only really be defended by T because of bunkers + mass repair. Honestly without warpgate there would still be very little room for buffing gateway units, because delay a 6gate attack by the 30 seconds it takes to walk your stalkers across the field, and its still a REALLY powerful attack. But gateway units are still tier one units, and toss has much more powerful core compositions. Nor are they as uninteresting to attack with as random Bnet poster would have you believe; storms and forcefields require impressive micro, and colossi depend on positioning them to do damage before the vikings completely destroy them.
Ok just a few corrections.
Zealots have only 50 shields, not 100. Stalkers are not made to add a little DPS. Stalker DPS is so low, that when I play terran, I fist pump whenever I can force my opponent to make them.
Going on this idea, the weakness of gateway units is indeed their DPS. Only zealots have good DPS. And they are slow, melee units, meaning that their actual DPS against a ranged army that is capable of kiting, is actually cut in half, at least! Obviously it gets better with charge, but stimmed bio is still faster for example, and concussive shells doesn't help.
Therefore you see protosses doing all ins and timing attacks, because they actually have a fighting chance in the early game when FFs are still useful. Once medivacs or ghosts or infestors or broodlords come out, FFs become much weaker.
This also means that protoss has to rely on strong aoe units like the colossus and HT in order to actually fight most battles after the timing attack window is closed. The colossus is super powerful but vulnerable to everything. Therefore you need zealots to tank for it and are forced to make stalkers to defend it from air. You have to keep this whole bunch together, because none can stand on their own. The HT has a similar problem. Again, while powerful, it is the slowest caster in the game, and doesn't have an energy upgrade, so it needs to be babysat with units too.
This low DPS problem is what leads to the deathball. I don't know what makes Blizzard keep gateway DPS down, but I would welcome any change (aka nerf) that would allow for greater damage. With less reliance on strong vulnerable units to deal ALL the DPS, there would be no need for the deathball.
I don't get it, protoss has the most 'intrusive' new unit out of all the races: the mothership core. That unit alone is going to change gameplay significantly for protoss. I understand the complaints if you're discontent with the state of protoss in WoL and want to see a design overhaul, but if it's just jealousy at terran players for their new factory tools then it's really misguided imo.
On September 11 2012 08:44 Grumbels wrote: I don't get it, protoss has the most 'intrusive' new unit out of all the races: the mothership core. That unit alone is going to change gameplay significantly for protoss. I understand the complaints if you're discontent with the state of protoss in WoL and want to see a design overhaul, but if it's just jealousy at terran players for their new factory tools then it's really misguided imo.
Haha you are close! It's jealousy at the fact that so many of terran's underused WoL units have gotten a revamp. The raven (100 energy HSM and increased move speed), the BC (back to the old improved damage and 100 Yamato Gun), the reaper (now heals). Blizzard is trying to make all of terran's units viable. And it is really quite amazing. This plus the added units to the factory makes any style you try with the terran race fun, and effective.
Now we look back at protoss... Any changes to the existing units? YES They took out the carrier...
Then they add two new gimmicky (and boring) units to the already most gimmicky tech branch in SC2. They took away cloak from the oracle, the only interesting thing about it.
The mothership core was slotted to be amazing though. I was so ready to energize a sentry for 25 energy so I wouldn't have to build 5 of them and could spend that 400 gas on other things like tech. Guess what, they changed energize to 100 energy. Boring. The only thing I see as exciting is the recall, and that was already in WoL, just took longer to get.
On September 11 2012 06:36 ChristianS wrote: I also don't quite understand why people are saying gateway units are "bad." Zealots are really strong (considered maybe too strong in late-game PvT), especially in the hit points area. Stalkers are weak by themselves, but early on they do well with zealot support, and later on they support colossi well. They can even take on brood lords; it's the infestors that shut that down as a viable response to bl/infestor. And sentries, as has been acknowledged by OP and others, are nearly game-breaking with their forcefields.
So when you say they're "weak," I assume you mean you can't build your composition solely out of zealots and stalkers all game, the way Terran can (sort of) do with MMM. In which case, no, you can't, and you shouldn't be able to. Pure gateway compositions die to MMM, as they should, because MMM dies to higher Protoss tech, and if they died to gateway compositions too, there'd be no viable composition for Terran. 2-base gateway attacks were standard PvZ for a while to deny the third base, and they're exactly the reason that Zerg gets the roach warren as early as they do. But there's no reason to stay on pure gateway compositions, because higher Protoss tech is better (as higher tech should be). This is exactly the way the game should function, and does not need a massive overhaul of the game in order to "fix" it.
Let me explain what we mean.
About Zealots The difference between Fresh zealots and 3/3 chargelots is HUGE, but they are not actually that good and mostly they are just used as a meat shield, so your deathball can live longer. Same goes for stalkers and stalkers with blink.
While they are really good when are working together, mostly gateway units is just junk you throw against your enemy so your robo/templar tech could do the killing. You take the robo/templar tech away and gateways will just be annihilated badly, so this gets us to point that you MUST get AOE, you MUST get TECH or DIE. So this puts P in position, that before tech you can do nothing, you can just barely survive early-midgame (and with swarmhost and gghound even more buffing Z and T midgame, it's going to be painful to watch), as your units just don't stand a chance against other race (just to be clear, I'm talking about macro games, not a 1-2 base allin). And although lategame protoss units are really good in deathball, when you chip them away from it, they just die to everything.
About toss all in all. Though Protoss is a race that has it's strong points, very strong tech, colossus (which i find stupid design), templar (which is awesome) but if we look into core mechanics they are very gimmick and stupid. For example - the Force Field, both T and Z hate the force field, as it's clearly an unfair spell that destroys your army synergy, and the protoss should love the spell, right?... Wrong most of the protoss do not like it, as for having It in our arsenal P pay for It with the price of ALL the early game being around it, every single toss remember how many games he has lost due a single incorrectly placed FF, which is just plain stupid. And there are other examples of this, like having a slow, flying 22 range 300/300 roach.
I'll quote you a guy from Bnet forums.
On September 11 2012 Xion wrote: Yeah, the Oracle seems a bit dire at the moment. I think more tweaking with numbers with the Tempest, Oracle and Mothership Core could help make Protoss in HotS on more equal footing to the other races, however doesn't really change the gimmicky-ness of it all.
I miss the Arbiter and Reaver from BW. I can't help but compare the Oracle to the Arbiter because of the cloaking field they initially had for it, and I can't help but be disappointed.
It just makes me sad that Protoss are viewed by others as a race in shambles, the A-move race, the gimmick race. Give me a chance to micro, and I'll micro my heart out, I'd love to, we just barely get the opportunity to with the A+move deathball we're stuck with.
I miss BW where you used speedlots to drag mines into siege lines, while dodging EMPs from Science Vessels and landing the clutch stasis on top of them, while dropping HTs and Reavers with the speed shuttle to storm the siege line between tank rounds.
Now its sorta, oh look my zealots are charging forward, zap-zap Colossus kills stuff, blink with stalkers... maybe some forcefields and storm... nothing exciting. APM sitting at 2 for clicking A + LMB =.=, it's just boring.
-Zealots are absolutely used for a "meat shield" in late-game scenarios quite often. Of course they are! It's a melee unit with 100 shields, and another 100 health which has a point of natural armor. The thing is designed to tank damage, as it was in BW for that matter.
-Stalkers, on the other hand, are pretty bad at tanking damage. They're not exactly low on hit points because they're Protoss units, but they're primarily good because they're mobile, ranged, and anti-air. In a colossus/zealot army, the zealots are designed to tank damage, but in a colossus/stalker/zealot army, the stalkers are there to shoot down vikings or corruptors and add a little DPS.
It's absolutely true that pure gateway armies tend to die to MMM, or to mass roach/ling, but that's absolutely how it should work.PvT basically functions this way: MMM kills gateway units, but toss higher tech kills MMM. Then Terran has specific counters to toss's higher tech to try and negate that advantage and force him back to the killable pure gateway army. If MMM couldn't convincingly kill gateway units, then Terran would have no way to beat Protoss even before higher tech came into play, and there'd really be no hope once you added in colossus.
Gateway armies aren't exactly weak, anyway. The 4gate absolutely wrecked the metagame for a long time, and 2base 6gate attacks can only really be defended by T because of bunkers + mass repair. Honestly without warpgate there would still be very little room for buffing gateway units, because delay a 6gate attack by the 30 seconds it takes to walk your stalkers across the field, and its still a REALLY powerful attack. But gateway units are still tier one units, and toss has much more powerful core compositions. Nor are they as uninteresting to attack with as random Bnet poster would have you believe; storms and forcefields require impressive micro, and colossi depend on positioning them to do damage before the vikings completely destroy them.
Ok just a few corrections.
Zealots have only 50 shields, not 100. Stalkers are not made to add a little DPS. Stalker DPS is so low, that when I play terran, I fist pump whenever I can force my opponent to make them.
Going on this idea, the weakness of gateway units is indeed their DPS. Only zealots have good DPS. And they are slow, melee units, meaning that their actual DPS against a ranged army that is capable of kiting, is actually cut in half, at least! Obviously it gets better with charge, but stimmed bio is still faster for example, and concussive shells doesn't help.
Therefore you see protosses doing all ins and timing attacks, because they actually have a fighting chance in the early game when FFs are still useful. Once medivacs or ghosts or infestors or broodlords come out, FFs become much weaker.
This also means that protoss has to rely on strong aoe units like the colossus and HT in order to actually fight most battles after the timing attack window is closed. The colossus is super powerful but vulnerable to everything. Therefore you need zealots to tank for it and are forced to make stalkers to defend it from air. You have to keep this whole bunch together, because none can stand on their own. The HT has a similar problem. Again, while powerful, it is the slowest caster in the game, and doesn't have an energy upgrade, so it needs to be babysat with units too.
This low DPS problem is what leads to the deathball. I don't know what makes Blizzard keep gateway DPS down, but I would welcome any change (aka nerf) that would allow for greater damage. With less reliance on strong vulnerable units to deal ALL the DPS, there would be no need for the deathball.
-Oh hey, you're right about zealot shields. Thanks! Doesn't change their role really, though.
-Sure its in DPS. Gateway armies have high HP and low DPS, MMM armies have high DPS and low HP. That means gateway units do well at defending their bigger units, while MMM armies do well at attacking undefended targets or killing the opposing army before it can get close to engage (kiting). This is how gateway armies were intended to work, and this is the way they always have worked, even back in BW.
-Of course colossi and HT need to be "babysat." Not every army can be mobile and strong in small numbers. One army is always more mobile than the other, which means one will clump and attack at once, while the other will try to spread out, slow it down, and generally abuse its mobility. So know your opponent's army, and if they're more mobile, clump up and do a death push; if they're less mobile, spread out and try to catch your opponent out of position.
Generally in terms of mobility, Zerg > Terran bio/biomech > Protoss > Terran mech. There are exceptions, of course; Pure bio from Terran is often more mobile than zerg, as a result of its drop potential. Broodlord/infestor armies are often far less mobile than Protoss or even Terran mech, although the comparison with Terran mech is different in different situations. Blink stalkers are really mobile, and in specific situations involving cliffs, colossi can be, too. But in general, Protoss armies are and should be less mobile, which means that they have to clump up.
The criticism against the tempest backfires as you claim it's nothing but 1a unit, expensive and has low dps. Well didn't you long for protoss units that were expensive, complex and powerful in the late game? The tempest commanded like a 1a unit gives you a small reward but used properly against the right units gives you a great reward. The tempest is good against all of the zerg late game units like the swarm host and broodlords. It saddens me that people don't seem to understand the way a tempest should be handled. As a final look I think that the WoL Carrier looks measly in comparison to the beastly and commanding Tempest.
On September 11 2012 09:06 archonOOid wrote: The criticism against the tempest backfires as you claim it's nothing but 1a unit, expensive and has low dps. Well didn't you long for protoss units that were expensive, complex and powerful in the late game?
The only thing protoss players ever really wanted was their units to stop being broken and require imagination to be used, and just worked properly. Carriers was never viable apart from weird games like Whitera's mass carriers. Void Ray has hardly ever been viable for anything that isn't cheese, for a long time now. Phoenix only is playable with superior multitasking for harassing purposes, and even so it falls behind any other harassing unit in the game (and it has never been a decent counter to enemy flyers as it should be). Not only Hots doesn't even try to fix any of these, it leaves broken units broken and add new units which will quickly fall off in the "broken" category as well leaving Protoss to play the only single way they have been ever played in the last 1 year and a half
On September 11 2012 08:14 ChristianS wrote: Gateway armies aren't exactly weak, anyway. The 4gate absolutely wrecked the metagame for a long time, and 2base 6gate attacks can only really be defended by T because of bunkers + mass repair. Honestly without warpgate there would still be very little room for buffing gateway units, because delay a 6gate attack by the 30 seconds it takes to walk your stalkers across the field, and its still a REALLY powerful attack. But gateway units are still tier one units, and toss has much more powerful core compositions. Nor are they as uninteresting to attack with as random Bnet poster would have you believe; storms and forcefields require impressive micro, and colossi depend on positioning them to do damage before the vikings completely destroy them.
If you delay a 2base 6gate timing attack by how long it takes to build your units (as opposed to near-instant build time from warp-in) plus how long it takes to get to the enemy base, then Terran will have stimpack (and more units) by when your attack starts so it's not a powerful attack at all. This timing attack hits JUST before stimpack and that's what makes it so powerful.
In the same vein, 4gate wrecked the metagame a long time ago because of warp-in, not due to Protoss gateway units being too powerful; without warp-in, 4gate would have been VASTLY weaker.
LOL this makes me hate the colossus even more. How could you ever leave that unit out and put this abomination in this game? o0
Seriously though...that's a great unit, because it is kinda hard to use, but if used godly the effect will be godly. There are very few units like that in sc2 right now.
Storm Drops are million times better. Warp Prism with 200 energy Templar can potentially clean up a WHOLE base and when it comes down it's pretty similar to a Oracle from a cost to cost standpoint.
AND since mothership core is doesn't need a stargate we ca completely bypass that useless tech branch.....
Pretty much all the tinkering that's silly in WoL is related to Warpgate/Force Field
I might quit Protoss. They're mechanically fubar'D
LOL this makes me hate the colossus even more. How could you ever leave that unit out and put this abomination in this game? o0
Seriously though...that's a great unit, because it is kinda hard to use, but if used godly the effect will be godly. There are very few units like that in sc2 right now.
The thing with SC2 is pretty much this, on the right side of the screen:
Now think about this happening every time you make a ball of marines:
Not saying it shouldn't happen, but it might not end up exactly like people are thinking.
I guess what I'm saying is that the colossus is really like a nerfed reaver made to fit in with SC2's engine, though I don't think many people have that idea, really.
LOL this makes me hate the colossus even more. How could you ever leave that unit out and put this abomination in this game? o0
Seriously though...that's a great unit, because it is kinda hard to use, but if used godly the effect will be godly. There are very few units like that in sc2 right now.
The thing with SC2 is pretty much this, on the right side of the screen:
Now think about this happening every time you make a ball of marines:
Not saying it shouldn't happen, but it might not end up exactly like people are thinking.
Well everyone with such a marineball deserves punishment, but yeah I get your point you might would have to tweak the splash since units tend to bunch up a lot more in sc2. As a concept though the reaver imho is first of all way more interesting and secondly way more skilldependent than lets say the colossus ~~.
On September 10 2012 15:39 BeyondCtrL wrote: So, on a fully saturated base that's about 170 minerals if the person reacts instantly. Given reaction times, for pros, I'd say you can deny 200-300 minerals. Pathetic.
The amount of times you would have to cast Entomb to even pay for the Oracle is just stupid.
If you take a WP and suicide 2 Zealots and manage to kill 3 workers you would deny the same amount of minerals as an Entomb :S
Let's say it's 250 minerals. That's 5 workers worth of cash. Any half assed harassment attempt can at least get home with 4-5 worker kills unless you really crash your warp prism into a wall of missile turrets. But wait! 5 worker kills actually means that the enemy loses 250 worth of minerals, and has to make another 5 workers so the potential damage is actually double. This is what most people (and definitely the designer eggheads at Blizzard HQ) fail to understand. Preventing mining is an issue, but losing workers is a BIGGER issue, because you lose a) the worker (50 cash each) b) the mining time c) the minerals you invest in re-training each lost worker. This is the very simple reason why Oracle and Entomb are completely worthless. I'll take a warp prism full of zealots or sentrie ANY day and try to get me some worker kills, rather than getting cheesy with the stupid entomb.
can't base Blizzard's design/balance decisions off of game scenarios involving skilled players, as seen in that first HotS PvT Battle Report lol. If anything, Blizzard playtesters probably ended up attacking their own workers instead of the entombed minerals.
On September 11 2012 08:14 ChristianS wrote: Gateway armies aren't exactly weak, anyway. The 4gate absolutely wrecked the metagame for a long time, and 2base 6gate attacks can only really be defended by T because of bunkers + mass repair. Honestly without warpgate there would still be very little room for buffing gateway units, because delay a 6gate attack by the 30 seconds it takes to walk your stalkers across the field, and its still a REALLY powerful attack. But gateway units are still tier one units, and toss has much more powerful core compositions. Nor are they as uninteresting to attack with as random Bnet poster would have you believe; storms and forcefields require impressive micro, and colossi depend on positioning them to do damage before the vikings completely destroy them.
If you delay a 2base 6gate timing attack by how long it takes to build your units (as opposed to near-instant build time from warp-in) plus how long it takes to get to the enemy base, then Terran will have stimpack (and more units) by when your attack starts so it's not a powerful attack at all. This timing attack hits JUST before stimpack and that's what makes it so powerful.
In the same vein, 4gate wrecked the metagame a long time ago because of warp-in, not due to Protoss gateway units being too powerful; without warp-in, 4gate would have been VASTLY weaker.
But it's completely inaccurate to assume the player gets out the other gateways at the same time without warpgate. 6-gate builds are timed out to have the production to spend all the money you've accumulated up to that point. Without warpgate you don't get a free production cycle at the front end, but you've mined just as much money, so you'd just build the production earlier. Maybe you need one extra gateway to get the same number of units, but the army size is about the same for a given time; its just built at your base instead of at your forward pylon.
-Sure its in DPS. Gateway armies have high HP and low DPS, MMM armies have high DPS and low HP
Ummm.....What? Marauders are probably the beefiest early tier unit in the game....
Zealots are beefier and cheaper, and early game armies tend to rely more on marines, unless you're talking a 2rax or proxy tech lab rax or something. Marauders also have significantly worse DPS to compensate. Meanwhile stalkers and roaches are beefy with low dps, zealots are beefy with good dps (but melee), zerglings have brilliant dps but they're weak and melee, and marines have good dps but almost no hp. On average an MM army will have higher DPS than other races' counterparts, while it will have lower hitpoints than other races' counterparts.
On September 11 2012 08:14 ChristianS wrote: Gateway armies aren't exactly weak, anyway. The 4gate absolutely wrecked the metagame for a long time, and 2base 6gate attacks can only really be defended by T because of bunkers + mass repair. Honestly without warpgate there would still be very little room for buffing gateway units, because delay a 6gate attack by the 30 seconds it takes to walk your stalkers across the field, and its still a REALLY powerful attack. But gateway units are still tier one units, and toss has much more powerful core compositions. Nor are they as uninteresting to attack with as random Bnet poster would have you believe; storms and forcefields require impressive micro, and colossi depend on positioning them to do damage before the vikings completely destroy them.
If you delay a 2base 6gate timing attack by how long it takes to build your units (as opposed to near-instant build time from warp-in) plus how long it takes to get to the enemy base, then Terran will have stimpack (and more units) by when your attack starts so it's not a powerful attack at all. This timing attack hits JUST before stimpack and that's what makes it so powerful.
In the same vein, 4gate wrecked the metagame a long time ago because of warp-in, not due to Protoss gateway units being too powerful; without warp-in, 4gate would have been VASTLY weaker.
But it's completely inaccurate to assume the player gets out the other gateways at the same time without warpgate. 6-gate builds are timed out to have the production to spend all the money you've accumulated up to that point. Without warpgate you don't get a free production cycle at the front end, but you've mined just as much money, so you'd just build the production earlier. Maybe you need one extra gateway to get the same number of units, but the army size is about the same for a given time; its just built at your base instead of at your forward pylon.
While the issue you're mentioning does exist (warp gate cooldown being lower than gateway production time, therefore you need extra gateways to match the production of warp gates operating at full speed), it's not what I meant. Rather, the difference between warping in next to the enemy vs. producing at home is that...
*When warping next to the enemy, it takes 5s and then you have your unit right where you want it.
*When building units from gateways, it takes 37-42s to build your unit (depending on whether you're building a sentry, zealot or stalker) and then you have to run them across the map to the enemy base before they're ready.
So in your example where you've mined just as much money and it takes 30s to run across the map, from the moment you have the money and start your warp-in of stalkers it would take 5s for them to be exactly where you need them (but then the warp gates are on cooldown for a bit); if from the moment you have the money you start building your stalkers from gateways then move them to the enemy base when they're ready, it would take 42s of build time plus 30s of travel time for a total of 1min 12s to get the same units to the same place, or 1 min 7s more time than it would take if you use warp-in. Delaying a timing attack by that much time makes a colossal difference in terms of the effectiveness of said timing attack.
On September 11 2012 08:14 ChristianS wrote: Gateway armies aren't exactly weak, anyway. The 4gate absolutely wrecked the metagame for a long time, and 2base 6gate attacks can only really be defended by T because of bunkers + mass repair. Honestly without warpgate there would still be very little room for buffing gateway units, because delay a 6gate attack by the 30 seconds it takes to walk your stalkers across the field, and its still a REALLY powerful attack. But gateway units are still tier one units, and toss has much more powerful core compositions. Nor are they as uninteresting to attack with as random Bnet poster would have you believe; storms and forcefields require impressive micro, and colossi depend on positioning them to do damage before the vikings completely destroy them.
If you delay a 2base 6gate timing attack by how long it takes to build your units (as opposed to near-instant build time from warp-in) plus how long it takes to get to the enemy base, then Terran will have stimpack (and more units) by when your attack starts so it's not a powerful attack at all. This timing attack hits JUST before stimpack and that's what makes it so powerful.
In the same vein, 4gate wrecked the metagame a long time ago because of warp-in, not due to Protoss gateway units being too powerful; without warp-in, 4gate would have been VASTLY weaker.
But it's completely inaccurate to assume the player gets out the other gateways at the same time without warpgate. 6-gate builds are timed out to have the production to spend all the money you've accumulated up to that point. Without warpgate you don't get a free production cycle at the front end, but you've mined just as much money, so you'd just build the production earlier. Maybe you need one extra gateway to get the same number of units, but the army size is about the same for a given time; its just built at your base instead of at your forward pylon.
While the issue you're mentioning does exist (warp gate cooldown being lower than gateway production time, therefore you need extra gateways to match the production of warp gates operating at full speed), it's not what I meant. Rather, the difference between warping in next to the enemy vs. producing at home is that...
*When warping next to the enemy, it takes 5s and then you have your unit right where you want it.
*When building units from gateways, it takes 37-42s to build your unit (depending on whether you're building a sentry, zealot or stalker) and then you have to run them across the map to the enemy base before they're ready.
So in your example where you've mined just as much money and it takes 30s to run across the map, from the moment you have the money and start your warp-in of stalkers it would take 5s for them to be exactly where you need them (but then the warp gates are on cooldown for a bit); if from the moment you have the money you start building your stalkers from gateways then move them to the enemy base when they're ready, it would take 42s of build time plus 30s of travel time for a total of 1min 12s to get the same units to the same place, or 1 min 7s more time than it would take if you use warp-in. Delaying a timing attack by that much time makes a colossal difference in terms of the effectiveness of said timing attack.
The idea is to lessen Protoss' reliance on said timing attacks. Plus it would give a real defender's advantage in PvP which is one of the key components in its instability as a matchup. For example reinforcing from the now-faster gateways would give you the necessary extra units to hold a big warpgate push atyour own base.
It'd open up a whole world of interestingness having stronger gateway units too, the other side of a warpgate redesign. Imagine for example playing a PvZ where you don't have to rely on doing big +1 Zealot pressures, or gateway allins but could instead send out a few units, micro your heart out while expanding behind it. PvZ having no real back-and-forth dynamic is a big turnoff for many with the matchup and needs to be looked at in a more fundamental way.
These are just extremely rough examples, but I think the idea behind them is reasonably clear.
On September 11 2012 08:14 ChristianS wrote: Gateway armies aren't exactly weak, anyway. The 4gate absolutely wrecked the metagame for a long time, and 2base 6gate attacks can only really be defended by T because of bunkers + mass repair. Honestly without warpgate there would still be very little room for buffing gateway units, because delay a 6gate attack by the 30 seconds it takes to walk your stalkers across the field, and its still a REALLY powerful attack. But gateway units are still tier one units, and toss has much more powerful core compositions. Nor are they as uninteresting to attack with as random Bnet poster would have you believe; storms and forcefields require impressive micro, and colossi depend on positioning them to do damage before the vikings completely destroy them.
If you delay a 2base 6gate timing attack by how long it takes to build your units (as opposed to near-instant build time from warp-in) plus how long it takes to get to the enemy base, then Terran will have stimpack (and more units) by when your attack starts so it's not a powerful attack at all. This timing attack hits JUST before stimpack and that's what makes it so powerful.
In the same vein, 4gate wrecked the metagame a long time ago because of warp-in, not due to Protoss gateway units being too powerful; without warp-in, 4gate would have been VASTLY weaker.
But it's completely inaccurate to assume the player gets out the other gateways at the same time without warpgate. 6-gate builds are timed out to have the production to spend all the money you've accumulated up to that point. Without warpgate you don't get a free production cycle at the front end, but you've mined just as much money, so you'd just build the production earlier. Maybe you need one extra gateway to get the same number of units, but the army size is about the same for a given time; its just built at your base instead of at your forward pylon.
While the issue you're mentioning does exist (warp gate cooldown being lower than gateway production time, therefore you need extra gateways to match the production of warp gates operating at full speed), it's not what I meant. Rather, the difference between warping in next to the enemy vs. producing at home is that...
*When warping next to the enemy, it takes 5s and then you have your unit right where you want it.
*When building units from gateways, it takes 37-42s to build your unit (depending on whether you're building a sentry, zealot or stalker) and then you have to run them across the map to the enemy base before they're ready.
So in your example where you've mined just as much money and it takes 30s to run across the map, from the moment you have the money and start your warp-in of stalkers it would take 5s for them to be exactly where you need them (but then the warp gates are on cooldown for a bit); if from the moment you have the money you start building your stalkers from gateways then move them to the enemy base when they're ready, it would take 42s of build time plus 30s of travel time for a total of 1min 12s to get the same units to the same place, or 1 min 7s more time than it would take if you use warp-in. Delaying a timing attack by that much time makes a colossal difference in terms of the effectiveness of said timing attack.
The idea is to lessen Protoss' reliance on said timing attacks. Plus it would give a real defender's advantage in PvP which is one of the key components in its instability as a matchup. For example reinforcing from the now-faster gateways would give you the necessary extra units to hold a big warpgate push atyour own base.
It'd open up a whole world of interestingness having stronger gateway units too, the other side of a warpgate redesign. Imagine for example playing a PvZ where you don't have to rely on doing big +1 Zealot pressures, or gateway allins but could instead send out a few units, micro your heart out while expanding behind it. PvZ having no real back-and-forth dynamic is a big turnoff for many with the matchup and needs to be looked at in a more fundamental way.
These are just extremely rough examples, but I think the idea behind them is reasonably clear.
While I agree with what you're saying, I'm pretty sure you're missing the context of the discussion I was having with ChristianS about whether gateway units, with their current stats and costs, are weak overall or not; he was arguing that they're not weak because some timing attacks with gateway units- namely, 4gate and more recently 2base 6gate timing vs. Terran- are quite strong, and they would remain strong even without warp-gates. I was pointing out that these timing attacks would become a lot weaker without warp-in, so therefore his argument wasn't valid for claiming that gateway units are strong enough as-is.
Why does everyone always reference them self as "high-level" X player, does that give more brownie points of credence to the whine that follows? I'm not convinced 'till I see Hero, Seed, Parting, etc. play P in HotS because the new units have so much potential.
On September 11 2012 08:14 ChristianS wrote: Gateway armies aren't exactly weak, anyway. The 4gate absolutely wrecked the metagame for a long time, and 2base 6gate attacks can only really be defended by T because of bunkers + mass repair. Honestly without warpgate there would still be very little room for buffing gateway units, because delay a 6gate attack by the 30 seconds it takes to walk your stalkers across the field, and its still a REALLY powerful attack. But gateway units are still tier one units, and toss has much more powerful core compositions. Nor are they as uninteresting to attack with as random Bnet poster would have you believe; storms and forcefields require impressive micro, and colossi depend on positioning them to do damage before the vikings completely destroy them.
If you delay a 2base 6gate timing attack by how long it takes to build your units (as opposed to near-instant build time from warp-in) plus how long it takes to get to the enemy base, then Terran will have stimpack (and more units) by when your attack starts so it's not a powerful attack at all. This timing attack hits JUST before stimpack and that's what makes it so powerful.
In the same vein, 4gate wrecked the metagame a long time ago because of warp-in, not due to Protoss gateway units being too powerful; without warp-in, 4gate would have been VASTLY weaker.
But it's completely inaccurate to assume the player gets out the other gateways at the same time without warpgate. 6-gate builds are timed out to have the production to spend all the money you've accumulated up to that point. Without warpgate you don't get a free production cycle at the front end, but you've mined just as much money, so you'd just build the production earlier. Maybe you need one extra gateway to get the same number of units, but the army size is about the same for a given time; its just built at your base instead of at your forward pylon.
While the issue you're mentioning does exist (warp gate cooldown being lower than gateway production time, therefore you need extra gateways to match the production of warp gates operating at full speed), it's not what I meant. Rather, the difference between warping in next to the enemy vs. producing at home is that...
*When warping next to the enemy, it takes 5s and then you have your unit right where you want it.
*When building units from gateways, it takes 37-42s to build your unit (depending on whether you're building a sentry, zealot or stalker) and then you have to run them across the map to the enemy base before they're ready.
So in your example where you've mined just as much money and it takes 30s to run across the map, from the moment you have the money and start your warp-in of stalkers it would take 5s for them to be exactly where you need them (but then the warp gates are on cooldown for a bit); if from the moment you have the money you start building your stalkers from gateways then move them to the enemy base when they're ready, it would take 42s of build time plus 30s of travel time for a total of 1min 12s to get the same units to the same place, or 1 min 7s more time than it would take if you use warp-in. Delaying a timing attack by that much time makes a colossal difference in terms of the effectiveness of said timing attack.
The idea is to lessen Protoss' reliance on said timing attacks. Plus it would give a real defender's advantage in PvP which is one of the key components in its instability as a matchup. For example reinforcing from the now-faster gateways would give you the necessary extra units to hold a big warpgate push atyour own base.
It'd open up a whole world of interestingness having stronger gateway units too, the other side of a warpgate redesign. Imagine for example playing a PvZ where you don't have to rely on doing big +1 Zealot pressures, or gateway allins but could instead send out a few units, micro your heart out while expanding behind it. PvZ having no real back-and-forth dynamic is a big turnoff for many with the matchup and needs to be looked at in a more fundamental way.
These are just extremely rough examples, but I think the idea behind them is reasonably clear.
While I agree with what you're saying, I'm pretty sure you're missing the context of the discussion I was having with ChristianS about whether gateway units, with their current stats and costs, are weak overall or not; he was arguing that they're not weak because some timing attacks with gateway units- namely, 4gate and more recently 2base 6gate timing vs. Terran- are quite strong, and they would remain strong even without warp-gates. I was pointing out that these timing attacks would become a lot weaker without warp-in, so therefore his argument wasn't valid for claiming that gateway units are strong enough as-is.
Ah my apologies for that. I'm just emotionally and physically drained after the US Open Tennis final
@kckkryptonite Yeah and why don't you address the guy's points instead of referring to his skill level? The GSL players have a GSL to win so I can't see them playing the beta anytime soon. In addition not all of the best players skill wise are the most creative of players that shape how a game is played, they just play it better. For example a player like Destiny was very innovative and changed how people used Infestors without being the best player around. White-Ra and his special tactics have shown off cool concepts that top Koreans have later refined etc.
I agree with a fair amount of what the OP is saying. Protoss in SC2 has to rely on gimmicks like force fields to survive early and beyond that the only options are all-in off 2 base or turtle into deathball and a-move. Coming into SC2 as a fellow Protoss player, I too was very disappointed with the race and switched to Terran within weeks. Then after Terran spent month after month getting crushed under the nerf hammer, I quit playing 1v1 entirely. HotS has done nothing to renew my interest so far.
On September 11 2012 09:06 archonOOid wrote: The criticism against the tempest backfires as you claim it's nothing but 1a unit, expensive and has low dps. Well didn't you long for protoss units that were expensive, complex and powerful in the late game? The tempest commanded like a 1a unit gives you a small reward but used properly against the right units gives you a great reward. The tempest is good against all of the zerg late game units like the swarm host and broodlords. It saddens me that people don't seem to understand the way a tempest should be handled. As a final look I think that the WoL Carrier looks measly in comparison to the beastly and commanding Tempest.
It saddens me more that a Zerg player thinks he can play protoss better than professional players (see how much WhiteRa likes the new units for example)
so, dude, just in case you didn't notice, considering the huge cost of the Tempest, in terms of actual cost and tech required, it's not only NOT cost-effective against any Zerg units, including drones....(they can be produced faster than tempests kill them) it's just one of the worst RTS units ever designed, period, and a big, flashy "hey, my army sucks, come and kill me now" signal, yup, great unit (they should just change its pathetic damage to a flashing sign that hangs over an enemy base and says "come kill me now buddy", it wouldn't make much of a difference really) while the damage dealing carrier is removed without any attempts at fixing it
OP is right on every point, and so far Hots looks like a slap in the face of every protoss player with a brain
1- Early defence unit (core) that now can't defend from anything 2-Harass unit that doesn't harass - see link for a longer analysis (credit to SNR for the post) http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6520713440 3-Capital ship that makes you lose the game for wasting so many resources
yup, great additions, they must surely feel proud of their design acumen.....
DB: That, or be comfortable with a light amount of damage and say “Look, I am not going to kill you with this but you can’t stay there forever. I am chipping away at you, I am not killing everything but I am beating you pretty good. You have to move away, or engage this tempest or figure something out because you have limited time to do it.” And that’s the other reason why I think it feels different than a standard artillery unit. Because the standard artillery units, like the siege tank, are all like “No, you are dead. You need to move immediately.” The tempest is like “Yeah, he’s working away at my nexus and this is a problem. But it’s not a problem I need to solve in four seconds, it’s a problem I need to solve in 30 seconds, or maybe a minute.” And that creates a different kind of feeling. "
I love that, DB may as well have just said "Yeah so basically the tempest is a 300/300 siege tank that doesnt do splash damage and has a pause twice as long between shots, but we feel the cost is justified by the different dynamic we've created"
Completely agree with the OP though, theres a lot of all-in-ishness about the protoss race design, i think due to the high cost of units you have a dynamic where the high outlay on new tech trees and very strong upgrades (thermal lance, blink, charge, etc) are all conducive to the army having points where its strength obviously jumps large steps at a time creating more obvious attacking opportunities. If the base units were better but the upgrades were not as good with rebalances in the costs that could go a long way to fixing the issue
It's just stupid to argue with terran or zerg players, they don't know a damn about protoss original design. Neither does blizzard.
Protoss is no longer the race of firepower as they used to be. Now they only have durability left, but when they face with other races' superior firepower, they're just like paper
On September 10 2012 08:57 MattBarry wrote: You're missing the point. Protoss wins, but it isn't a fun or interesting race to play compared to BW. I know people say that about every race but it is especially bad for Protoss
This is the only form of protoss QQing that I agree with at all.
And sadly, I agree with it immensely. Protoss is just boring to play, boring to watch.
Didn't the Tempest used to have air to air AOE?? Maybe to make the unit not crap they could bring that back and reduce the range of the unit to 15 or 14 so that its actually scary, worth the cost, and can be used in the late game to protect Colossi or something. The 15 range on a ground attack would also help deal with lategame tanks. Might be a bit much for some people, but Protoss is so weak in the current version of HOTS. And for LoTV they need to look at redesigning the whole damn race, if not sooner. I'd be glad to give up warp gate, and/or forcefield if the Protoss units were actually STRONGand lived up to the philosophy of the race.
the moment warpgate has been implemented, in order for the timings to not be deadly to the enemies, gateway units had to suck.
In a regular TvT, TvZ, or ZvZ (or any BW matchup), there is a huge defender's advantage ( yes, even zvz), because the defender has 2, maybe even 3 production cycles more than the attacker who has to reinforce from far away. With warpgate, this is thrown out of the window, so to balance that stage of the game, the zealots and stalkers have to be bad.
Warpgate is the main reason why Protoss are so bad right now. Yes, they win with great timings, but they still suck in the long run.
Edit: And I (as well as many others) have said it numerous times, this game shouldn't be a build order wins game, it should be about managing an economy, while defending many bases and planning attacks and harassments. The 200 maxed out vs 200 maxed out, or 2 base timing that decides the winner in 30 seconds is not what Starcraft 2 should be.
I just think at this moment it's too late to make any meaningful changes to Protoss without destroying all current standard plays. Even though HotS looks to add and shift the standard it is simply an extension to what exists by building on existing mechanics. Removing or altering the core, albeit broken, mechanics of Protoss will catapult the state of the game back to the stone-age. The biggest problem with this is how pros will have to adjust, especially Protoss pros. Such a move could potentially remove any significantly balanced representation of Protosses in tournaments in the near future, until the new/changed mechanics become understood.
On September 11 2012 17:26 BeyondCtrL wrote: I just think at this moment it's too late to make any meaningful changes to Protoss without destroying all current standard plays. Even though HotS looks to add and shift the standard it is simply an extension to what exists by building on existing mechanics. Removing or altering the core, albeit broken, mechanics of Protoss will catapult the state of the game back to the stone-age. The biggest problem with this is how pros will have to adjust, especially Protoss pros. Such a move could potentially remove any significantly balanced representation of Protosses in tournaments in the near future, until the new/changed mechanics become understood.
I wouldn't care if it destroy all current Protoss build. It is call an expansion for a good reason. It is not like these changes are going to be implemented in WOL.
On September 11 2012 17:26 BeyondCtrL wrote: I just think at this moment it's too late to make any meaningful changes to Protoss without destroying all current standard plays. Even though HotS looks to add and shift the standard it is simply an extension to what exists by building on existing mechanics. Removing or altering the core, albeit broken, mechanics of Protoss will catapult the state of the game back to the stone-age. The biggest problem with this is how pros will have to adjust, especially Protoss pros. Such a move could potentially remove any significantly balanced representation of Protosses in tournaments in the near future, until the new/changed mechanics become understood.
So you're saying SC2 is lost? Seriously, the release of an expansion is the best opportunity to rework the game on the fundamental level. The balance will be thrown out the window regardless, so they might as well fix the god damn game.
Look at WC3 and TFT, they added: shops, neutral heroes, anticasters, and reworked creeping. Those were some fundamental changes, but in the end they mae the game much better.
On September 11 2012 17:26 BeyondCtrL wrote: I just think at this moment it's too late to make any meaningful changes to Protoss without destroying all current standard plays. Even though HotS looks to add and shift the standard it is simply an extension to what exists by building on existing mechanics. Removing or altering the core, albeit broken, mechanics of Protoss will catapult the state of the game back to the stone-age. The biggest problem with this is how pros will have to adjust, especially Protoss pros. Such a move could potentially remove any significantly balanced representation of Protosses in tournaments in the near future, until the new/changed mechanics become understood.
I wouldn't care if it destroy all current Protoss build. It is call an expansion for a good reason. It is not like these changes are going to be implemented in WOL.
YES!
Do whatever you can Blizzard, just give us back the TRUE Protoss!!
They could try to change warpgate implementation in certain ways to keep it in the game but not make it nesesary for the nerfed gateway army.
1: Warp Gates and Warp Prisms now produce warpfields where units can be allowed to warp in instaid of using pylon power fields (esentialy you need to proxy a powered gateway or bring a warp prism with your army to reinforce without travel)
2: Warp Gate research moved to Twilight Council, increased cost to 100/100 but greatly reduced research time (forcing it into a diferent tech path than robo to prevent early warp prism rushes)
If that's not enough
3: Warp Gates now produce units like a normal gateway, with buildtime and everything, however when the Warp Gate finish producing the unit it gets sent to the Warp Buffer accesed by the 'W' key where you can warp in units on demand as long as they have been produced first (this meas that you cant insta reinforce when you go into maxed battles and have to wait the production cycles like other races, but also we get the benefit of queue like terran have it)
4: Warp Prism have a throttling feature that any 1 warp prism can only handle 5 simultanious warp ins at a time and posibly change the prism cost from 200/0 to 100/100 (the prism can produce a max of 1 unit every second as long as there is units ready in the warp buffer)
With this the general mecanic will remain in the game as it is interesting and race defining for protoss, however it will eliminate most of the problematic "surge" timings because of frontloaded production and give the oponent back most of his defenders advantage as it offencivly will be like zerg rallying all hatcheries into nydus worms and using the worms as reinforcement warp prisms/gates.... something i cannot understand why zerg dont use more.
Why not just make the warp in duration time like 2x or 3x longer? It would be way easier to defend warp gate all ins while keeping the whole mecanism in the game, and open the way of creating more cost efficient support or harass units.
This somewhat reasonable change would change a lot of things without breaking the game as it is.
On September 11 2012 15:03 Havik_ wrote: Didn't the Tempest used to have air to air AOE?? Maybe to make the unit not crap they could bring that back and reduce the range of the unit to 15 or 14 so that its actually scary, worth the cost, and can be used in the late game to protect Colossi or something. The 15 range on a ground attack would also help deal with lategame tanks. Might be a bit much for some people, but Protoss is so weak in the current version of HOTS. And for LoTV they need to look at redesigning the whole damn race, if not sooner. I'd be glad to give up warp gate, and/or forcefield if the Protoss units were actually STRONGand lived up to the philosophy of the race.
This was way, way back in some alpha build for HotS that Blizzard demoed on some convention, I believe it was Blizzcon 2011. At the time, they were worried about a recent shift in the PvZ metagame in which Zerg players would just mass a ton of mutalisks and kill Protoss while Protoss seemed to have no answer for the strategy; they thought a new unit, which they'd call the Tempest, could fix that problem in HotS as a capital ship that had an air-to-air attack with splash damage and some form of air-to-ground attack. Here's a video for you to see what they were thinking of:
The Tempest as a crazy range siege unit is an entirely different concept; they scrapped the idea of needing an anti-air AoE capital ship when mass mutas stopped looking unstoppable in WoL (in part thanks to their addition of the range upgrade for Phoenix). The only things the current Tempest has in common with that other, old Tempest are their names and their artwork; their roles are completely different.
I don't actually have a huge problem with Protoss in WoL; it's true that it does feel somewhat "deathball"-like, or all-in or lose at times, but I think protoss is actually quite a dynamic race. They can match a terran in the lategame(not including the fourth race, Taeja), if not better, with their splash damage and warp in mechanic. Against zerg there does seem to be a slight problem late game- it becomes archon toilet or lose situation- but that's what I expected HotS to try to fix.
The range of options for protoss are actually pretty dynamic, imo. They have nice harass units(warp prism, not oracle) that are strong BECAUSE of the warp in mechanics. Warp in adds a new mechanic into the game and I don't blame blizzard for trying that- even if it makes protoss units a bit weaker than they should be. The mobility that protoss actually get from warpgate is underrated behind the BW belief that protoss have to stay the fat, slow, powerful race.
But especially,what I love about protoss in WoL is the spellcasters. Sentries and templar are my favorite units and are probably a lot of other people's too. Same with microable units like blink stalkers. "Relying on forcefields and [insert spells here]" to win the game is not an issue; it makes protoss have a higher skill ceiling than it would otherwise. If we talk about deathball on deathball games, that's a problem at the game's core that isn't the issue I want to address here(mainly multi unit select and clumping but I digress). If you've ever watched HerO play, you know what I'm talking about- he abuses the mechanics of protoss to no end, and its fun to watch and play in that style.
I actually don't even think protoss need a harass unit in hots- they have probably the best one in the game, the pylon. The pylon, because it can harass from any location makes it quite strong to harass. Warp prisms add to that by making it a shuttle that is also a pylon; it works perfectly fine.
Those that complain about protoss being too 1-a, I think that there are ways to play protoss that don't involve 1-aing; its just that other ways also exist, but the common metagame is that once protosses start losing with one all-in they start trying a new one. I think the future of protoss lies in clever harass tactics like I see from HerO or any other harassment based toss- and if they can gather together to form a big fat army in the end, nbd.
Which brings me to the problems I have with Hots protoss. I agree with the OP that the new units do not benefit the race at all in their current state. Mship cores are probably the only unit I think works ALRIGHT right now. They're certainly not perfect; a toss still can't fast expand off of Mship core more effectively than if he just built a forge, imo. But it definitely has potential and can be buffed/nerfed accordingly.
The tempest- sigh. I liked the idea in the beginning of a 22 range harass unit. But now I realize the fatal flaw- you can't buff/nerf it properly. Make it too much damage and it's broken(all the protoss has to do is park on in korhal city where theres infinite airspace and wait). Make it too weak like it is now and it's useless. It's not a lategame unit- I would rather build a warp prism with a few dts/zealots to kill a greater spire in under 15 seconds with warp in than build a tempest to take it down in 10 minutes(not counting transfuses). Absoultely useless. It's just a big cannon that doesn't do anything useful. I would take the current carrier any day; at least we see it in late game.
The oracle- as I said before, the warp prism is still the current better option because of its tech route and its mineral only cost. But I think there's potential here, with nerfs and buffs- maybe on cost or abilities(cloak would be cool). It's a spellcaster which instantly makes it a lot more interesting than any stupid 1-a unit.
Lastly I want to completely agree that the void ray needs a buff to see use; we just need to be wary of stronger void ray all ins, etc because of it. A speed upgrade that wasn't as destructive as flux veins would be good(voidrayblink?? lol jk). Perhaps a faster acceleration(not speed) would make it a better "tactical/surgical strike unit" which is the role I want it to take.
But the ending point is that the new protoss units are completely replaced by their stronger WoL counterpart units; theres no reason to get the new ones unless you're ahead or bored. This needs to be changed, but I expect some of it to come in beta. Maybe I need to be a little bit more patient.
On September 11 2012 15:03 Havik_ wrote: Didn't the Tempest used to have air to air AOE?? Maybe to make the unit not crap they could bring that back and reduce the range of the unit to 15 or 14 so that its actually scary, worth the cost, and can be used in the late game to protect Colossi or something. The 15 range on a ground attack would also help deal with lategame tanks. Might be a bit much for some people, but Protoss is so weak in the current version of HOTS. And for LoTV they need to look at redesigning the whole damn race, if not sooner. I'd be glad to give up warp gate, and/or forcefield if the Protoss units were actually STRONGand lived up to the philosophy of the race.
This was way, way back in some alpha build for HotS that Blizzard demoed on some convention, I believe it was Blizzcon 2011. At the time, they were worried about a recent shift in the PvZ metagame in which Zerg players would just mass a ton of mutalisks and kill Protoss while Protoss seemed to have no answer for the strategy; they thought a new unit, which they'd call the Tempest, could fix that problem in HotS as a capital ship that had an air-to-air attack with splash damage and some form of air-to-ground attack. Here's a video for you to see what they were thinking of:
The Tempest as a crazy range siege unit is an entirely different concept; they scrapped the idea of needing an anti-air AoE capital ship when mass mutas stopped looking unstoppable in WoL (in part thanks to their addition of the range upgrade for Phoenix). The only things the current Tempest has in common with that other, old Tempest are their names and their artwork; their roles are completely different.
Yeah, but air to air aoe would still be good and unique. Toss already has enough ground aoe, so air to air would be nice. Better than a 22 range gimmicky unit with no dps. The problem with Protoss is nothing really had good DPS except the Carrier, but that got taken out :p
Problem as i see it is Protoss has no cost/effective versatile units. The only versatile unit is stalker and it does sht damage, has the highest cost and upgrades are appalling on it.
Protoss is the race of counters. You have to sit there and defend and try to figure out what your oponent is doing in order to "counter" his army. It's stupid, and that's because our gateway units suck balls. BW had zealot dragoon that had great synergy and scaled well with upgrades. Now gateway units are a bunch of crap.
But dont worry leave it to blizzard to "fix" this by giving us a crap harass unit and an almost zero damage 300/300 useless slow scout.
EASY Protoss fix, give us back zealot legs from BW, give us dark templar on templar archives ! DONE Protoss can now stand toe to toe with t and z.
On September 11 2012 21:22 jWavA wrote: I don't actually have a huge problem with Protoss in WoL; it's true that it does feel somewhat "deathball"-like, or all-in or lose at times, but I think protoss is actually quite a dynamic race. They can match a terran in the lategame(not including the fourth race, Taeja), if not better, with their splash damage and warp in mechanic. Against zerg there does seem to be a slight problem late game- it becomes archon toilet or lose situation- but that's what I expected HotS to try to fix.
The range of options for protoss are actually pretty dynamic, imo. They have nice harass units(warp prism, not oracle) that are strong BECAUSE of the warp in mechanics. Warp in adds a new mechanic into the game and I don't blame blizzard for trying that- even if it makes protoss units a bit weaker than they should be. The mobility that protoss actually get from warpgate is underrated behind the BW belief that protoss have to stay the fat, slow, powerful race.
But especially,what I love about protoss in WoL is the spellcasters. Sentries and templar are my favorite units and are probably a lot of other people's too. Same with microable units like blink stalkers. "Relying on forcefields and [insert spells here]" to win the game is not an issue; it makes protoss have a higher skill ceiling than it would otherwise. If we talk about deathball on deathball games, that's a problem at the game's core that isn't the issue I want to address here(mainly multi unit select and clumping but I digress). If you've ever watched HerO play, you know what I'm talking about- he abuses the mechanics of protoss to no end, and its fun to watch and play in that style.
I actually don't even think protoss need a harass unit in hots- they have probably the best one in the game, the pylon. The pylon, because it can harass from any location makes it quite strong to harass. Warp prisms add to that by making it a shuttle that is also a pylon; it works perfectly fine.
Those that complain about protoss being too 1-a, I think that there are ways to play protoss that don't involve 1-aing; its just that other ways also exist, but the common metagame is that once protosses start losing with one all-in they start trying a new one. I think the future of protoss lies in clever harass tactics like I see from HerO or any other harassment based toss- and if they can gather together to form a big fat army in the end, nbd.
Which brings me to the problems I have with Hots protoss. I agree with the OP that the new units do not benefit the race at all in their current state. Mship cores are probably the only unit I think works ALRIGHT right now. They're certainly not perfect; a toss still can't fast expand off of Mship core more effectively than if he just built a forge, imo. But it definitely has potential and can be buffed/nerfed accordingly.
The tempest- sigh. I liked the idea in the beginning of a 22 range harass unit. But now I realize the fatal flaw- you can't buff/nerf it properly. Make it too much damage and it's broken(all the protoss has to do is park on in korhal city where theres infinite airspace and wait). Make it too weak like it is now and it's useless. It's not a lategame unit- I would rather build a warp prism with a few dts/zealots to kill a greater spire in under 15 seconds with warp in than build a tempest to take it down in 10 minutes(not counting transfuses). Absoultely useless. It's just a big cannon that doesn't do anything useful. I would take the current carrier any day; at least we see it in late game.
The oracle- as I said before, the warp prism is still the current better option because of its tech route and its mineral only cost. But I think there's potential here, with nerfs and buffs- maybe on cost or abilities(cloak would be cool). It's a spellcaster which instantly makes it a lot more interesting than any stupid 1-a unit.
Lastly I want to completely agree that the void ray needs a buff to see use; we just need to be wary of stronger void ray all ins, etc because of it. A speed upgrade that wasn't as destructive as flux veins would be good(voidrayblink?? lol jk). Perhaps a faster acceleration(not speed) would make it a better "tactical/surgical strike unit" which is the role I want it to take.
But the ending point is that the new protoss units are completely replaced by their stronger WoL counterpart units; theres no reason to get the new ones unless you're ahead or bored. This needs to be changed, but I expect some of it to come in beta. Maybe I need to be a little bit more patient.
Maybe if the removed the Tempest, added the 22 range upgrade for Voidrays, however the damage done by the beam at the range 7-22 would be reduced to the same DPS (or slightly higher) as the Tempest? This makes it not a completely useless unit in actual engagements.
On September 11 2012 21:54 hecticSc wrote: EASY Protoss fix, give us back zealot legs from BW, give us dark templar on templar archives ! DONE Protoss can now stand toe to toe with t and z.
But... charge is zealot legs?
It's a passive, permanent speed boost on top of the charge ability.
On September 11 2012 23:02 a176 wrote: Anyone who even concedes to the concept of the tempest is only fooling themselves.
Blizzard initially said protoss need an AoE anti-air to deal with mutalisks/corrupter/bl. That was the original tempest.
So what happened? All of a sudden protoss need a 22 range unit that tickles the enemy to death?
I really think DB/blizz has no fucking idea what he is doing anymore. It saddens me even more that some players think they do.
at the time, yes . But phenix do the job right now thanks to the upgrade... even if u have just 4 phenix, u will kill and infinite flock of mutas with the range upgrade providing one can micro....
if tempest were purely just A-move big aoe blast that be boring as fuck dude. Talk about adding to the death ball! .colossus kill everything on ground, no worries tempest kill everything in AIR as well. 2 death balls.
Glad they changed it role to be more like what it is right now.
On September 11 2012 21:54 hecticSc wrote: EASY Protoss fix, give us back zealot legs from BW, give us dark templar on templar archives ! DONE Protoss can now stand toe to toe with t and z.
But... charge is zealot legs?
It's a passive, permanent speed boost on top of the charge ability.
Legs give Zealots more pernament speed than Charge does, so the total time to close the gap with enemies of zealots is also shorter
I think the root of the problem is that in HotS Zerg and Terrans got spamable units in warhounds, new helions, swarmhosts and new hydras. Now beta comes around, all players start playing and want to try out new units. Zergs mass produce swarmhosts in all matchups even when it is stupid to do so. Terrans do the same with warhounds.
Toss players want to have fun and start mass producing Tempests and get rolled over. Then they decide to build lot of oracle and figure out in direct combat the unit is pretty much useless. Then they want to mass produce mothership cores but wait, you can only have one.
So all they got left is play with old units while trying to figure out how to include new units into old metagame. They watch Zergs and Terrans do opposite, get pissed and start mass complaining on forums.
On September 11 2012 23:33 -Archangel- wrote: I think the root of the problem is that in HotS Zerg and Terrans got spamable units in warhounds, new helions, swarmhosts and new hydras. Now beta comes around, all players start playing and want to try out new units. Zergs mass produce swarmhosts in all matchups even when it is stupid to do so. Terrans do the same with warhounds.
Toss players want to have fun and start mass producing Tempests and get rolled over. Then they decide to build lot of oracle and figure out in direct combat the unit is pretty much useless. Then they want to mass produce mothership cores but wait, you can only have one.
So all they got left is play with old units while trying to figure out how to include new units into old metagame. They watch Zergs and Terrans do opposite, get pissed and start mass complaining on forums.
Don't talk crap about Protoss when you clearly never see any HoTS VODs
On September 11 2012 23:51 neversummer wrote: 1. Not high level 2. Does not play HotS (and hasn't played WoL for a long time) 3. /thread
I play WoL on a pretty high level very frequently and pretty much agree with many points he pointed out 100%. Alsofor example Harsteem who is a pretty highlevel Protoss pretty much agreed completely.
On September 10 2012 08:06 Archon96 wrote:I personally would be thrilled with the removal of oracle, mothership core, and tempest, and just get a buff on the void ray.
I am not a player of your caliber, but this, this, this. So much this!
I've been saying this for ages. The Void is a 250/150 unit that's only good at killing things that cant shoot at it. And even then, it takes its time to do it. So we use it vs Zerg when they dont have anti-air but when a couple of queens pop, it's over. If this unit is supposed to be harasser,then make it a harasser. But it's supposed to be an anticapital ship, that's why it has a bonus vs armoured and massive, +60% vs massive if i am not mistaken. The fact that it's only used vs drones speaks volumes.
So either make it a harasser, or make it good at what it's supposed to be: An anticapital / antiarmoured destroyer. But Thors and BCs have energy so feedback is better (HT also counters the million marines that go with them), and vs BL there's fungal and mass corruptors. That's why the Tempests have 22 range. It's the only solution. "Your anticapital ship melts when it faces the zerg deathball? Here's a second one to use it from the back so that it wont get melted".
At the end of the day, Stargate did get detection (finally), but it's still a build with no DPS, and protoss need some of that because GW units suck, and you wont have Forcefields to help them if you invest so hard on Stargate. So something's got to give. The Oracle needs to become more multipurpose, something like a Protoss Raven.
Maybe with some buffs to SG we will be able to see skytoss vs mech, but again, this will be a situational thing. You wont be able to decide to go skytoss, and have your enemy wonder which tech path you're going. It will be decided based on what the Terran does. The terran went for Warhounds? Better get air units that the warhounds cant shoot.
DB: That, or be comfortable with a light amount of damage and say “Look, I am not going to kill you with this but you can’t stay there forever. I am chipping away at you, I am not killing everything but I am beating you pretty good. You have to move away, or engage this tempest or figure something out because you have limited time to do it.” And that’s the other reason why I think it feels different than a standard artillery unit. Because the standard artillery units, like the siege tank, are all like “No, you are dead. You need to move immediately.” The tempest is like “Yeah, he’s working away at my nexus and this is a problem. But it’s not a problem I need to solve in four seconds, it’s a problem I need to solve in 30 seconds, or maybe a minute.” And that creates a different kind of feeling. "
So the protoss capital ship isnt an harbinger of doom, it's a flying sentry that tickles you from afar.
"Please stop it, dont be tickling me you silly Tempest!"
On September 11 2012 23:51 neversummer wrote: 1. Not high level 2. Does not play HotS (and hasn't played WoL for a long time) 3. /thread
I play WoL on a pretty high level very frequently and pretty much agree with many points he pointed out 100%. Alsofor example Harsteem who is a pretty highlevel Protoss pretty much agreed completely.
So please shut the fuck up next time.
HOLY SHIT you play WoL at a pretty high level pretty frequently and pretty much agree with many of the points he made 100% (60% of the time, it works every time amiright?). Oh and wait, your friend who I've never heard of nor will ever hear of is also a pretty high level toss and pretty much agrees with pretty much everything the OP said as well, pretty much?
Yea, I'll go ahead and stfu next time. GL in life sir.
On September 11 2012 23:02 a176 wrote: Anyone who even concedes to the concept of the tempest is only fooling themselves.
Blizzard initially said protoss need an AoE anti-air to deal with mutalisks/corrupter/bl. That was the original tempest.
So what happened? All of a sudden protoss need a 22 range unit that tickles the enemy to death?
I really think DB/blizz has no fucking idea what he is doing anymore. It saddens me even more that some players think they do.
at the time, yes . But phenix do the job right now thanks to the upgrade... even if u have just 4 phenix, u will kill and infinite flock of mutas with the range upgrade providing one can micro....
if tempest were purely just A-move big aoe blast that be boring as fuck dude. Talk about adding to the death ball! .colossus kill everything on ground, no worries tempest kill everything in AIR as well. 2 death balls.
Glad they changed it role to be more like what it is right now.
When anyone, ANYONE in the GSL gets the Phoenix upgrade, then we'll talk. So far, it's an upgrade to help the little guys in the low leagues. A pro player will get 1 infestor and kill your phoenix. Or just let his 100 mutas kill your nexus while your micro your heart out with your 4 phoenix. Or spam roaches.
This is the problem with PvZ. You have the race that needs tier 3 tech to deal with even the simplest thing, and the race than can instantly tech switch. "Oh there's 100 mutas out there? Get a Beacon and try to get enough Phoenix". "Well ok, i'll drop 2 SG, get a Beacon and..."
BOOM 100 roaches in your natural, or 1 infestor fungals you.
You see, you can safely go up to tier 3 vs Terran or Toss, because they wont instantly tech switch to something else. So you're safe. But you cant expect the Toss to go up to Tier 3 in the most useless tech path in the game, the Stargate, especially vs Zerg.
Maybe this is obvious but the meta game has shifted towards an all in type of style for protoss due to the strength of warping in reinforcements. This creates an attacking advantage which pushes the meta game towards timings and the like. If HotS wasn't coming out it could very well be that all the timings could be figured out and protoss would be forced into playing a bit differently, unfortunately the expansion will have a sort of reset of the meta and a ton of new timings will come out that will delay the trend of all inning.
I personally think that the main problem toss is having is just a boring late game composition. unfortunately this doesn't look like it is being addressed in HotS.
On September 11 2012 08:44 Grumbels wrote: I don't get it, protoss has the most 'intrusive' new unit out of all the races: the mothership core. That unit alone is going to change gameplay significantly for protoss. I understand the complaints if you're discontent with the state of protoss in WoL and want to see a design overhaul, but if it's just jealousy at terran players for their new factory tools then it's really misguided imo.
Haha you are close! It's jealousy at the fact that so many of terran's underused WoL units have gotten a revamp. The raven (100 energy HSM and increased move speed), the BC (back to the old improved damage and 100 Yamato Gun), the reaper (now heals). Blizzard is trying to make all of terran's units viable. And it is really quite amazing. This plus the added units to the factory makes any style you try with the terran race fun, and effective.
Now we look back at protoss... Any changes to the existing units? YES They took out the carrier...
Then they add two new gimmicky (and boring) units to the already most gimmicky tech branch in SC2. They took away cloak from the oracle, the only interesting thing about it.
The mothership core was slotted to be amazing though. I was so ready to energize a sentry for 25 energy so I wouldn't have to build 5 of them and could spend that 400 gas on other things like tech. Guess what, they changed energize to 100 energy. Boring. The only thing I see as exciting is the recall, and that was already in WoL, just took longer to get.
Just a little consistency would be nice.
This is a great quote I think. It's true, all that terran stuff in addition to all the fluff upgrades the already had (hi-sec auto tracking, neosteel plating, the building armor upgrade, every unit with energy including medivacs have a starting energy upgrade) protoss's only equatable upgrade is hallucination really. I mean, lets say that obs speed and warp prism speed equates to BC + Energy and Raven + Energy. Then you cancel out some of the essential upgrades such as siege mode, collosus range, stim and charge and you're left with terran still having all the cool upgrades, and now zerg has some too (ultra charge, hydra speed, all sorts of fun burrow shenanigans etc), which is all fantastic races should have that fun stuff... But for the most part protoss does not have that, or viable unit variety as mentioned above... And for some reason they just took out the carrier just incase we had the urge to differ from the norm a bit.
Fixing Toss shouldn't be that difficult. A few things are missing:
- The other races get buffs to staple units like hydras and helions. We get none -- even for units like the dark templar which are perilously close to going extinct.
- Our new units suck. Make them as good as vipers and the swarm host. To do this, give a buff to the mothership core and bring cloak back on the oracle. Multiply the damage dealt by the tempest by like a factor of five.
- Even if you don't restore cloak to the oracle, something will need to be done about dark templars to make them worth using despite the high gas requirements of the new units. They need a huge buff to stay in the game. Maybe reduce their damage and make the gas cost of them low so in addition to being used early and mid game as a surprise hit squad, they have a role late game as "elite infantry".
On September 11 2012 23:51 neversummer wrote: 1. Not high level 2. Does not play HotS (and hasn't played WoL for a long time) 3. /thread
I play WoL on a pretty high level very frequently and pretty much agree with many points he pointed out 100%. Alsofor example Harsteem who is a pretty highlevel Protoss pretty much agreed completely.
So please shut the fuck up next time.
HOLY SHIT you play WoL at a pretty high level pretty frequently and pretty much agree with many of the points he made 100% (60% of the time, it works every time amiright?). Oh and wait, your friend who I've never heard of nor will ever hear of is also a pretty high level toss and pretty much agrees with pretty much everything the OP said as well, pretty much?
Yea, I'll go ahead and stfu next time. GL in life sir.
Well to be fair Harstem is in fact a competitive dutch protoss player.
Edit: In other news, I disagree with just about every change suggested by the post above me. Tempest damage shouldn't be huge, it's just a silly unit that would be a broken unit if it had good damage. DT's are fine as they are, reducing their damage would be horrible because they wouldn't one shot workers. I like the idea of cloak back onto the oracle though.
On September 12 2012 00:31 arcHoniC wrote: Maybe this is obvious but the meta game has shifted towards an all in type of style for protoss due to the strength of warping in reinforcements. This creates an attacking advantage which pushes the meta game towards timings and the like. If HotS wasn't coming out it could very well be that all the timings could be figured out and protoss would be forced into playing a bit differently, unfortunately the expansion will have a sort of reset of the meta and a ton of new timings will come out that will delay the trend of all inning.
I personally think that the main problem toss is having is just a boring late game composition. unfortunately this doesn't look like it is being addressed in HotS.
I think that protoss has one of the most exciting late game compositions along with terran. Protoss generally have a very diverse amount of units that use every tech path. Terran similarly will have a very diverse army composition. If you want to talk about boring late game compositions, I think you have to say that is zerg.
And the PvZ metagame isn't timing attacks because of warpgame, it's because of how powerful zerg lategame compositions are, and how strong zerg gets with an undamage economy (although there are some protoss, such as Creator and HerO who just do light harass into expansions, and they are both very strong PvZ so it's possible to not have to do a timing attack). PvT has a good mixture of all ins, timing attacks, and defensive macro play.
On September 12 2012 00:50 UntoTheBreach wrote: Fixing Toss shouldn't be that difficult. A few things are missing:
- The other races get buffs to staple units like hydras and helions. We get none. - Our new units suck. Make them as good as vipers and the swarm host. To do this, give a buff to the mothership core and bring cloak back on the oracle. - Even if you don't restore cloak to the oracle, something will need to be done about dark templars to make them worth using despite the high gas requirements of the new units. They need a huge buff to stay in the game. Maybe make the gas cost of them low.
DTs are one of the most powerful late game harass units (I'd say reapers are also up there with lategame harass potential). Almost all games that go to the lategame will have DTs harassing mineral lines. If you reduced their gas cost, well... I don't think toss would ever lose in the lategame just because of sheer harassing potential.
The oracle with cloaking field is definitely a little bit too strong. You would have cloaking field before zerg will usually have detection. You could argue that zerg should just prebuild spores everywhere, but I think building spores should be able to be done as a reaction of "I scout DT shrine building, I should have detection at every base", instead of "he has the potential to get mass cloak before I have lair, I'll have to have spores everywhere in case he does that"
was i the only one watching a TSL PvZ finals, where the Protoss did pretty much FFE into Stargate every single game? (Maybe not exactly all of them, but most at least) If you can win a TSL with a Stargate opening as your core strategy vs Zerg, can it really be that bad?
I also blame the weakness of Zerg anti-air for the weakness of protoss air, as if the hydra was a viable T1 massable unit, stronger air units for Protoss would be viable. And the tech switch problem is actually funny, since before the time when Zerg has 20 bases, all tech and every single upgrade in the game, Protoss is actually most of the times better in tech switching, given the chrono boost mechanics (which requires less production facilities), shared upgrades on all ground units and the fact that 5 core units can just be produced as required in five seconds. I have died to more blink stalker into Zealot tech switches (or vice-versa) than you could think of, because Protoss can just in the blink of an eye reproduce whatever Gateway unit they need to hard counter my army, as long as i don't have a unit that does only get soft countered by Gateway units (aka Brood Lords). Whereas if you really try to tech switch, you will suddenly sit without upgrades. Try to win with your just tech switched 0/0 Mutas vs 3/1/3 Stalkers, it ain't gonna happen. And as for ground forces, nowadays Zerg already has to pretty much do triple upgrades to be able to keep up with the tech switching of Gateway units (Zerglings vs Stalkers, Roaches vs Zealots). Bring the wrong one to the fight, or the right one unupgraded, and you will still lose badly.
TL;DR: Asymmetric design is cool in a few ways, but too much asymmetric design forces units to suck, and races to feel boring or broken. Blizzard could take away a few of the really crucial ones (warping in all over the map, the swarm having no swarm-like anti-air and such things, even blink and burrow movement wouldn't be bad to remove) and in return buff the core units. They tried to do too much fancy things that sounded cool, but should have kept them for the campaign instead.
On September 12 2012 00:31 arcHoniC wrote: Maybe this is obvious but the meta game has shifted towards an all in type of style for protoss due to the strength of warping in reinforcements. This creates an attacking advantage which pushes the meta game towards timings and the like. If HotS wasn't coming out it could very well be that all the timings could be figured out and protoss would be forced into playing a bit differently, unfortunately the expansion will have a sort of reset of the meta and a ton of new timings will come out that will delay the trend of all inning.
I personally think that the main problem toss is having is just a boring late game composition. unfortunately this doesn't look like it is being addressed in HotS.
I think that protoss has one of the most exciting late game compositions along with terran. Protoss generally have a very diverse amount of units that use every tech path. Terran similarly will have a very diverse army composition. If you want to talk about boring late game compositions, I think you have to say that is zerg.
And the PvZ metagame isn't timing attacks because of warpgame, it's because of how powerful zerg lategame compositions are, and how strong zerg gets with an undamage economy (although there are some protoss, such as Creator and HerO who just do light harass into expansions, and they are both very strong PvZ so it's possible to not have to do a timing attack). PvT has a good mixture of all ins, timing attacks, and defensive macro play.
On September 12 2012 00:50 UntoTheBreach wrote: Fixing Toss shouldn't be that difficult. A few things are missing:
- The other races get buffs to staple units like hydras and helions. We get none. - Our new units suck. Make them as good as vipers and the swarm host. To do this, give a buff to the mothership core and bring cloak back on the oracle. - Even if you don't restore cloak to the oracle, something will need to be done about dark templars to make them worth using despite the high gas requirements of the new units. They need a huge buff to stay in the game. Maybe make the gas cost of them low.
DTs are one of the most powerful late game harass units (I'd say reapers are also up there with lategame harass potential). Almost all games that go to the lategame will have DTs harassing mineral lines. If you reduced their gas cost, well... I don't think toss would ever lose in the lategame just because of sheer harassing potential.
The oracle with cloaking field is definitely a little bit too strong. You would have cloaking field before zerg will usually have detection. You could argue that zerg should just prebuild spores everywhere, but I think building spores should be able to be done as a reaction of "I scout DT shrine building, I should have detection at every base", instead of "he has the potential to get mass cloak before I have lair, I'll have to have spores everywhere in case he does that"
I don't think it's a bad thing that zergs should have to build a lair if protoss is building starport. Part of the problem with the current state of the game is that zerg doesn't need to react much in early game versus toss as long as toss is FFEing. Versus say toss having to build a robo throughout all of WoL in PvT incase of banshees. There's nothing wrong with forcing a reaction from your opponent who might overreact or under-appreciate the situation, it adds more elements to the game than waiting till eight minutes to get lair to give your mass roaches roach speed for the win.
On September 11 2012 15:03 Havik_ wrote: Didn't the Tempest used to have air to air AOE?? Maybe to make the unit not crap they could bring that back and reduce the range of the unit to 15 or 14 so that its actually scary, worth the cost, and can be used in the late game to protect Colossi or something. The 15 range on a ground attack would also help deal with lategame tanks. Might be a bit much for some people, but Protoss is so weak in the current version of HOTS. And for LoTV they need to look at redesigning the whole damn race, if not sooner. I'd be glad to give up warp gate, and/or forcefield if the Protoss units were actually STRONGand lived up to the philosophy of the race.
This was way, way back in some alpha build for HotS that Blizzard demoed on some convention, I believe it was Blizzcon 2011. At the time, they were worried about a recent shift in the PvZ metagame in which Zerg players would just mass a ton of mutalisks and kill Protoss while Protoss seemed to have no answer for the strategy; they thought a new unit, which they'd call the Tempest, could fix that problem in HotS as a capital ship that had an air-to-air attack with splash damage and some form of air-to-ground attack. Here's a video for you to see what they were thinking of:
The Tempest as a crazy range siege unit is an entirely different concept; they scrapped the idea of needing an anti-air AoE capital ship when mass mutas stopped looking unstoppable in WoL (in part thanks to their addition of the range upgrade for Phoenix). The only things the current Tempest has in common with that other, old Tempest are their names and their artwork; their roles are completely different.
Yeah, but air to air aoe would still be good and unique. Toss already has enough ground aoe, so air to air would be nice. Better than a 22 range gimmicky unit with no dps. The problem with Protoss is nothing really had good DPS except the Carrier, but that got taken out :p
In terms of DPS per cost, the Zealot, DT, Immortal (vs. armored), Colossus & Archon (both of these when hitting 3+ units) are the heavy hitting Protoss units, not the Carrier. Without upgrades (or if the enemy matches your attack upgrades with their armor upgrades), the Carrier's cost/DPS is actually higher (worse) than that of the Stalker, and that's even assuming a 0 armor target and not counting the Stalker's damage bonus vs. armored. + Show Spoiler [math] +
For reference, the Tempest's cost/DPS is roughly 150% higher than that of the Carrier and Stalker vs. Light units, meaning that you need 2.5 times as many resources spent on Tempests to match the DPS of a given amount of resources spent on Stalkers or Carriers.
On September 12 2012 00:31 arcHoniC wrote: Maybe this is obvious but the meta game has shifted towards an all in type of style for protoss due to the strength of warping in reinforcements. This creates an attacking advantage which pushes the meta game towards timings and the like. If HotS wasn't coming out it could very well be that all the timings could be figured out and protoss would be forced into playing a bit differently, unfortunately the expansion will have a sort of reset of the meta and a ton of new timings will come out that will delay the trend of all inning.
I personally think that the main problem toss is having is just a boring late game composition. unfortunately this doesn't look like it is being addressed in HotS.
I think that protoss has one of the most exciting late game compositions along with terran. Protoss generally have a very diverse amount of units that use every tech path. Terran similarly will have a very diverse army composition. If you want to talk about boring late game compositions, I think you have to say that is zerg.
And the PvZ metagame isn't timing attacks because of warpgame, it's because of how powerful zerg lategame compositions are, and how strong zerg gets with an undamage economy (although there are some protoss, such as Creator and HerO who just do light harass into expansions, and they are both very strong PvZ so it's possible to not have to do a timing attack). PvT has a good mixture of all ins, timing attacks, and defensive macro play.
On September 12 2012 00:50 UntoTheBreach wrote: Fixing Toss shouldn't be that difficult. A few things are missing:
- The other races get buffs to staple units like hydras and helions. We get none. - Our new units suck. Make them as good as vipers and the swarm host. To do this, give a buff to the mothership core and bring cloak back on the oracle. - Even if you don't restore cloak to the oracle, something will need to be done about dark templars to make them worth using despite the high gas requirements of the new units. They need a huge buff to stay in the game. Maybe make the gas cost of them low.
DTs are one of the most powerful late game harass units (I'd say reapers are also up there with lategame harass potential). Almost all games that go to the lategame will have DTs harassing mineral lines. If you reduced their gas cost, well... I don't think toss would ever lose in the lategame just because of sheer harassing potential.
The oracle with cloaking field is definitely a little bit too strong. You would have cloaking field before zerg will usually have detection. You could argue that zerg should just prebuild spores everywhere, but I think building spores should be able to be done as a reaction of "I scout DT shrine building, I should have detection at every base", instead of "he has the potential to get mass cloak before I have lair, I'll have to have spores everywhere in case he does that"
I don't think it's a bad thing that zergs should have to build a lair if protoss is building starport. Part of the problem with the current state of the game is that zerg doesn't need to react much in early game versus toss as long as toss is FFEing. Versus say toss having to build a robo throughout all of WoL in PvT incase of banshees. There's nothing wrong with forcing a reaction from your opponent who might overreact or under-appreciate the situation, it adds more elements to the game than waiting till eight minutes to get lair to give your mass roaches roach speed for the win.
I do agree with you about forcing reactions, but I feel like missing a scout on the starport seems like it would be straight up game ending, whereas missing the DT shrine/cloakshees, you still would have a bit of time. You will take a lot of damage, but it isn't completely game over. With energize from the mothership core gives the oracle full energy, which is probably two cloaking fields on two bases which will die so fast since you can't attack their units. It isn't like a DT where it is four units hacking away, it's an entire army which is rampaging your bases.
On the other hand, you should be able to scout the mothership core with full energy, see that they have a low use of gas in terms of scouted units/tech, that you could anticipate that sort of attack. They could make that spell an upgrade to make getting it a more significant investment, such that to get it early limits the number of units, but still adds some defensive strength to the oracle later in the game when every base is mostly locked down from oracle harass.
I agree whole-heartedly with the OP (even though I think the mommaship cores still has potential). I was SO hoping for a new early / mid game fighting unit, of ANY kind, what a disappointment.
Making our race less gimmicky would be nice as well but that doesn't sound feasible.
I still love Starcraft but damn, I hope LOTV will deliver <3
On September 11 2012 21:54 hecticSc wrote: EASY Protoss fix, give us back zealot legs from BW, give us dark templar on templar archives ! DONE Protoss can now stand toe to toe with t and z.
But... charge is zealot legs?
It's a passive, permanent speed boost on top of the charge ability.
It's nothing like the BW speed boost though. In BW, Speedlots would fly across the map lol.
On September 11 2012 23:51 neversummer wrote: 1. Not high level 2. Does not play HotS (and hasn't played WoL for a long time) 3. /thread
I play WoL on a pretty high level very frequently and pretty much agree with many points he pointed out 100%. Alsofor example Harsteem who is a pretty highlevel Protoss pretty much agreed completely.
So please shut the fuck up next time.
HOLY SHIT you play WoL at a pretty high level pretty frequently and pretty much agree with many of the points he made 100% (60% of the time, it works every time amiright?). Oh and wait, your friend who I've never heard of nor will ever hear of is also a pretty high level toss and pretty much agrees with pretty much everything the OP said as well, pretty much?
Yea, I'll go ahead and stfu next time. GL in life sir.
Well to be fair Harstem is in fact a competitive dutch protoss player.
Edit: In other news, I disagree with just about every change suggested by the post above me. Tempest damage shouldn't be huge, it's just a silly unit that would be a broken unit if it had good damage. DT's are fine as they are, reducing their damage would be horrible because they wouldn't one shot workers. I like the idea of cloak back onto the oracle though.
DTs actually do pretty insane damage, so if they were to receive buffs in some other way (reduced cost, giving them a special ability, etc.), you could reduce their damage and they'd still hit really hard. If you think they should continue to be able to 1-shot workers and Marines (I know I do), then their damage can be reduced by increasing their attack cooldown a bit.
I just wanted to pop in here and say that i've been playing protoss, since, well forever. But over the past 2-3 weeks i've slowly made the switch to Zerg in preparation for HotS since they are just infinately more interesting. I'm not high ranked, i'm platinum, but even i, who don't know jack about balancing compared to a grandmaster level player, can't see myself using any of the new protoss units :/
DT's need a buff or they're not going to be used. Already they're hardly ever used apart from cheese. If the new units ever become viable, then the DT's will go the way of the dodo.
DT's could be buffed by lowering the gas requirement. Maybe even have them pure minerals -- say 200 a piece. Maybe lower the DPS slightly. This is not such a crazy idea if you think about it. Terran have helions and all kinds of units that could stop a DT army. Zerg have banelings, infestors, roaches and all kinds. But Toss would have a new gateway strategy!
Come on, admit it. It's a brilliant idea. All Toss players want this DT buff.
On September 12 2012 03:09 UntoTheBreach wrote: DT's need a buff or they're not going to be used. Already they're hardly ever used apart from cheese. If the new units ever become viable, then the DT's will go the way of the dodo.
DT's could be buffed by lowering the gas requirement. Maybe even have them pure minerals -- say 200 a piece. Maybe lower the DPS slightly. This is not such a crazy idea if you think about it. Terran have helions and all kinds of units that could stop a DT army. Zerg have banelings, infestors, roaches and all kinds. But Toss would have a new gateway strategy!
Come on, admit it. It's a brilliant idea. All Toss players want this DT buff.
400m for an Archon sounds like it could be really OP though. I'll admit it's an interesting idea, but you'd probably want to remove their Archon Warp ability if you were to try to change their cost in such a way :p
On September 12 2012 03:09 UntoTheBreach wrote: DT's need a buff or they're not going to be used. Already they're hardly ever used apart from cheese. If the new units ever become viable, then the DT's will go the way of the dodo.
DT's could be buffed by lowering the gas requirement. Maybe even have them pure minerals -- say 200 a piece. Maybe lower the DPS slightly. This is not such a crazy idea if you think about it. Terran have helions and all kinds of units that could stop a DT army. Zerg have banelings, infestors, roaches and all kinds. But Toss would have a new gateway strategy!
Come on, admit it. It's a brilliant idea. All Toss players want this DT buff.
This is a terrible idea. Dark Templar are used in a lot of strategies and especially into the lategame. If you want a buff to the DT you are better off asking that both templar are unlocked by the same tech structure. But to ask for a cost change is ridiculous.
On September 12 2012 03:09 UntoTheBreach wrote: DT's need a buff or they're not going to be used. Already they're hardly ever used apart from cheese. If the new units ever become viable, then the DT's will go the way of the dodo.
DT's could be buffed by lowering the gas requirement. Maybe even have them pure minerals -- say 200 a piece. Maybe lower the DPS slightly. This is not such a crazy idea if you think about it. Terran have helions and all kinds of units that could stop a DT army. Zerg have banelings, infestors, roaches and all kinds. But Toss would have a new gateway strategy!
Come on, admit it. It's a brilliant idea. All Toss players want this DT buff.
This is a terrible idea. Dark Templar are used in a lot of strategies and especially into the lategame. If you want a buff to the DT you are better off asking that both templar are unlocked by the same tech structure. But to ask for a cost change is ridiculous.
Would the DT break the game if its cost decreased to 125/100 from 125/125? No. Would it be overpowered? Probably not. What about something like 150/75? Would it be overpowered then? Possibly.
It's fine if you disagree and think it's a bad idea, but claiming that the unit is perfect exactly as-is and can never be tweaked in a way that changes its cost is disingenuous. I don't see DTs being used any more often than Battlecruisers or Hydras, and both of those are getting buffs in HotS.
This is a terrible idea. Dark Templar are used in a lot of strategies and especially into the lategame. If you want a buff to the DT you are better off asking that both templar are unlocked by the same tech structure. But to ask for a cost change is ridiculous.
They are not used in a lot of strategies. They are used in cheese strategies. Apart from that they're used once every blue moon. They need a buff like the hydra and the reaper.
As soon as detection comes into play, then any number of dark templars will die faster than zealots. As far as we know, balancing them isn't an issue because they're so fragile. They main problem is the archons, but I don't think a mineral archon (i.e. archon with small gas requirement) is such a bad idea.
Go into unit tester and try using archons on their own. They're like paper. They need a zealot buffer. That requires minerals. Mineral archon would not be OP as far as we know.
On September 11 2012 17:26 BeyondCtrL wrote: I just think at this moment it's too late to make any meaningful changes to Protoss without destroying all current standard plays. Even though HotS looks to add and shift the standard it is simply an extension to what exists by building on existing mechanics. Removing or altering the core, albeit broken, mechanics of Protoss will catapult the state of the game back to the stone-age. The biggest problem with this is how pros will have to adjust, especially Protoss pros. Such a move could potentially remove any significantly balanced representation of Protosses in tournaments in the near future, until the new/changed mechanics become understood.
So you're saying SC2 is lost? Seriously, the release of an expansion is the best opportunity to rework the game on the fundamental level. The balance will be thrown out the window regardless, so they might as well fix the god damn game.
Look at WC3 and TFT, they added: shops, neutral heroes, anticasters, and reworked creeping. Those were some fundamental changes, but in the end they mae the game much better.
This, this a thousand times. The WC3 development team radically overhauled the game going in The Frozen Throne and they really improved the game. Even if Blizzard didn't want to do this, I'd like them to at least consider an overhaul as an option.
On September 12 2012 03:42 Zato-1 wrote: 400m for an Archon sounds like it could be really OP though. I'll admit it's an interesting idea, but you'd probably want to remove their Archon Warp ability if you were to try to change their cost in such a way :p
Thanks, dude. You seem to be the only with an open mind in this thread.
Maybe 300 minerals per dark templar, so it's a 600 mineral archon.
I like to see DTs getting an upgrade, the Dark Shrine feels somewhat neglected otherwise and protoss could always use more ways to use chronoboost. Something like: activate a shield that gives you +5 armor for 4 seconds would be neat, could help you escape those pesky scans in late-game.
Give warp prisms an energy bar, make them cost a little gas, maybe tone down their shield buff, and then: give them a spell that allows them to pick up units from a small distance away -> instant DT buff without really changing the DT.
On September 12 2012 05:12 Resistentialism wrote: Give warp prisms an energy bar, make them cost a little gas, maybe tone down their shield buff, and then: give them a spell that allows them to pick up units from a small distance away -> instant DT buff without really changing the DT.
So a huge nerf on a staple unit to give Toss a trick which is really difficult to execute and would hardly ever be used anyway.
Meanwhile, Terran and Zerg get massive buffs to helions, battlecruisers, reapers, hydras, ultras with no compensating nerfs.
Notice I didn't use any numbers! Imagine whatever values seem appropriate to you. Plus there could be more uses to it than just dts: imagine saving immortals or sentries or whathaveyou as well. Plus, it's micro intensive; we all pretty much agree that would be a good thing for protoss.
On September 12 2012 05:21 Resistentialism wrote: Notice I didn't use any numbers! Imagine whatever values seem appropriate to you. Plus there could be more uses to it than just dts: imagine saving immortals or sentries or whathaveyou as well. Plus, it's micro intensive; we all pretty much agree that would be a good thing for protoss.
It's a good idea, sure. I took exception to the mentality that Terran can get improved units with no nerfs, but Toss can't. But now that you metnion it, I guess it does need a nerf if you can pull immortals out of the fray.
How about this: Research on the Dark Shrine giving the DT a cooldown based ability (no energy and easier to balance) that cloaks a targeted unit. Imagine Warp prism that waprs a dt close to enemy base, the dt cloaks the WP then they both go in the enemy base for some hard luvin'.
No matter what changes have in the beta, Blizzard's approach to it shows they are completely unwilling to make the major changes that Protoss needs: introducing micro opportunities to immortal and colossus, making Stargate viable to open and survive long enough to transition out, moving warpgate to lategame so that gateway units can get much needed buffs, removing reliance on forcefield which overly constrains map design, making high templar viable as an opening tech..
So It doesn't really matter what units they give Protoss. They're not willing to fix the problems the race has, problems they said they wouldn't change outside of an expansion pack, and they're not now so they won't in LotV either. So no matter what stats they give the Protoss, it will just over power the race or under power it, games at every skill level will continue not be won by skill but by the roulette wheel of luck, desperately propped up by the metagame and map design.
They should also remove Darkshrine from the game. That way templartech gets way more useful and imho it wouldn't screw up balance that much basically it would just be a change of timings for the other races.
On September 12 2012 05:02 Grumbels wrote: I like to see DTs getting an upgrade, the Dark Shrine feels somewhat neglected otherwise and protoss could always use more ways to use chronoboost. Something like: activate a shield that gives you +5 armor for 4 seconds would be neat, could help you escape those pesky scans in late-game.
Exactly. The only change to DTs should be getting rid of the most useless building in the game. The only thing the dark shrine does is announce to the opponent that you are about to make invisible units. If you are going to have it in the game, give us an ability on it!
Honestly, we should stop walking on egg shells about Protoss changes "because they might be overpowered." You're supposed to start them off OP then tune it down. Just look at the Warhound, it was/is clearly overpowered, and yet here it is in our beta.
Besides the reason for the deathball playstle is because everything is so shite outside the deathball, And hell, sometimes even in the deathball. I played one game where I took my entire army, right into the enemies main, and forcefielded the ramp 8 times, where his entire army was trying to get in. And i still only managed to kill a few addons. Meanwhile if one medivac gets loose in my main i will lose a building or two garunteed
I personally think that the main problem toss is having is just a boring late game composition. unfortunately this doesn't look like it is being addressed in HotS.
I think that protoss has one of the most exciting late game compositions along with terran. Protoss generally have a very diverse amount of units that use every tech path. Terran similarly will have a very diverse army composition. If you want to talk about boring late game compositions, I think you have to say that is zerg.
And the PvZ metagame isn't timing attacks because of warpgame, it's because of how powerful zerg lategame compositions are, and how strong zerg gets with an undamage economy (although there are some protoss, such as Creator and HerO who just do light harass into expansions, and they are both very strong PvZ so it's possible to not have to do a timing attack). PvT has a good mixture of all ins, timing attacks, and defensive macro play.
I would agree that PvT late game toss armies are good, I should have specified the late game toss of PvZ leaves something to be desired. I would agree that the late game Z does push toward all ins from the toss side I think both that and the warp in mechanic both push the matchup this way.
On September 12 2012 06:55 GoldenH wrote: Besides the reason for the deathball playstle is because everything is so shite outside the deathball, And hell, sometimes even in the deathball. I played one game where I took my entire army, right into the enemies main, and forcefielded the ramp 8 times, where his entire army was trying to get in. And i still only managed to kill a few addons. Meanwhile if one medivac gets loose in my main i will lose a building or two garunteed
I feel that goes more in line with the racial identities of Terran vs. Protoss; Marines and Marauders simply have insane DPS vs. buildings. Protoss units are beefy in terms of health but the flipside is that their DPS is lower so most of them can't bring down buildings in a hurry (Zealots, DTs and Immortals are the exceptions). If you kill a lot of SCVs with harassment but lose a lot of probes, then the Terran has a huge leg up because of MULEs.
That's all bad, but Protoss does have some advantages as well; if you manage to camp the Terran's production facilities he's toast because he loses all his addons and as soon as his units come out of their production facilities they die immediately, whereas Protoss can warp units into safety and can more easily make a bunch of warp gates elsewhere. A Nexus has 2000 health compared to 1500 health for the Hatchery, Command Center, Orbital Command and Planetary Fortress; an Assimilator has an insane 900 health compared to 500 health for an Extractor or Refinery; finally, warp-in is really good for dealing with drops and harassment in general.
Still, like a lot of others in this thread I'd be in favor of changing some of Protoss' racial strengths and weaknesses, like getting rid of warp-in in favor of having stronger gateway units.
As Cloak said, I think we should stop pussyfooting. Nothing will ever get done if we keep worrying about how "maybe" a change will be overpowered in the beta. Virtually everything they've done with Terran and Zerg is overpowered. Virtually everything they've done with Protoss is underpowered.
We need to show more vigour, more onions, more testicular fortitude. Why can't we be the one's who's OP in the beta for a change?
Well, the good news is there is a small glimmer of hope on the horizon. Dustin Browder posted here stating they are talking heavily about Protoss (and the Warhound):
By the way, buff to the void ray is not especially viable. A lot of Protoss complain that they can't keep up in air vs. air battles because T and Z have vikings and corruptors, respectively, which will destroy all Protoss air. That's true; you know why? Because Protoss have the single most powerful "air" unit in the game: the colossus. With enough colossus on the field, the only way to engage a Protoss is by air. And if Protoss could negate that front, too, there simply wouldn't be a way to beat that composition.
So maybe you could make the void ray faster, or you could make it phase more quickly, or something like that. But when it comes down to it, you can't have cost-effective air-to-air in the Protoss arsenal. Some of you will say remove the colossus and go from there, but as a rule, game developers don't suddenly and completely change their design philosophy on successful games in an expansion pack, nor should they. If the game design is so centrally flawed to the point that that would be necessary, then you basically don't want to play Starcraft 2 any more. If you like BW better, it still exists, and you can play it; or you can play SC2BW if you like the new graphics. But if you really do hate the majority of the game design in SC2, I don't really know why you keep playing it, and nobody is going to completely and radically change it on your behalf.
On September 12 2012 11:07 ChristianS wrote: By the way, buff to the void ray is not especially viable. A lot of Protoss complain that they can't keep up in air vs. air battles because T and Z have vikings and corruptors, respectively, which will destroy all Protoss air. That's true; you know why? Because Protoss have the single most powerful "air" unit in the game: the colossus. With enough colossus on the field, the only way to engage a Protoss is by air. And if Protoss could negate that front, too, there simply wouldn't be a way to beat that composition.
So maybe you could make the void ray faster, or you could make it phase more quickly, or something like that. But when it comes down to it, you can't have cost-effective air-to-air in the Protoss arsenal. Some of you will say remove the colossus and go from there, but as a rule, game developers don't suddenly and completely change their design philosophy on successful games in an expansion pack, nor should they. If the game design is so centrally flawed to the point that that would be necessary, then you basically don't want to play Starcraft 2 any more. If you like BW better, it still exists, and you can play it; or you can play SC2BW if you like the new graphics. But if you really do hate the majority of the game design in SC2, I don't really know why you keep playing it, and nobody is going to completely and radically change it on your behalf.
You make a good point, but T and especially Z are getting some new answers to the Colossus in the Warhound and Viper's Abduct. Also, while Vikings rock Void Rays (they can kite them due to faster movespeed and longer range), Corruptors don't; without infestor support, Void Rays do pretty well vs. Corruptors already. If Protoss loses their ground army supremacy with the introduction of new counters to the Colossus, then they should also have viable air play, which would require Void Ray buffs IMO.
On September 12 2012 08:54 Lelden wrote: Well, the good news is there is a small glimmer of hope on the horizon. Dustin Browder posted here stating they are talking heavily about Protoss (and the Warhound):
I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but right now it seems they can't make it worse. If they do then no one would play Protoss.
That is the opposite of hope for many of us. He's flatout said he's not going to change warpgates in any appreciable way, or units like the sentry. The underlying design is what makes Protoss near-impossible to balance properly, but Blizzard don't wish to deal with these issues, or at least discuss them beyond 'we're not discussing them'. Really maddening, I wouldn't even mind so much if it was a 'we like warpgates, here's why, they#re staying' but no it's just this void where conjecture is all we can use to ascertain their motives.
It's a shame really that Protoss players can't win on our skills, instead we rely on timing attacks, deathballs or gimmicks. I for one don't like playing in this manner, would rather be stretched more
On September 12 2012 12:09 aZealot wrote: It's appalling that you feel that way about your race. In all seriousness and with respect, maybe you should switch?
It's good that Blizz are taking some of the criticism on board. I am glad, however, that sense remains and that WG stays.
(That said, it's likely too late for substantive changes. Still, it may be too early in the beta for that, anyway.)
I did, I switched to Terran and got pretty quickly up to my Protoss level, slightly below but could have bridged it. I like the aspect of that race that if you're mechanically good, you can get more out your units, more out of your production and all that good stuff. There was this sense playing Terran that there's always something I can do better, at any point in the game that I really didn't feel with Protoss. Would probably still be playing Terran if Blizzard's godawful 1.5 patch didn't prevent me from playing anymore (why was a bigger deal not made of this btw?)
However, I played Protoss in BW, in every series I like the kind of high-tech alien aesthetic. I don't feel I should have to switch race to play in a certain manner, when it can be tweaked a bit. I'm not asking that Protoss should be able to drop all over the place with strong gateway units a la Terran bio, or that we can swarm things like Zerg. I don't like having to hit a 2 base timing, pre Brood timing or an archon toilet EVERY game PvZ. I don't like turtling and A-moving with a 3/3 deathball in PvT, even if it gives me the win.
I and many others even suggested reasonable, non-huge changes such as creating a cost/benefit dynamic between gateways and warpgates. Little things that can scale well in the hands of a good player, but won't be broken in the hands of a noob. Then we get 'yeah we're not touching gateways'. You just get the sense that Blizzard have made a rod for their own backs, and realise now they can't fix it with the way the Protoss race is designed.
A lot of people disagree with me, fair enough it's obviously my own personal vision of the game and how I'd like to see HoTS moving forward!
On September 12 2012 06:30 Cloak wrote: Honestly, we should stop walking on egg shells about Protoss changes "because they might be overpowered." You're supposed to start them off OP then tune it down. Just look at the Warhound, it was/is clearly overpowered, and yet here it is in our beta.
Ah, fair enough, mate. Respect. I see your point, by the way.
When I first started playing HotS, I found I had to play Protoss in a different way to how I remembered playing it with my mates when we lanned BW all night. I just think we forget that the game has certain rules, and each race has certain rules about how they can be played. Like reality, you can't just do anything you want. Believe me, I've often thought that if I had not been Protoss in BW, I would probably have played Terran in HotS. But, I fell in love with Protoss in BW when I played the campaign, right from the very first mission, and decided to stick with Aiur. If I play HotS (which is highly unlikely due to work/life stuff - I may return to SC for LoTV) I am seriously tempted to play Zerg, because from the little I have seen it looks like fun.
But it won't feel right, at all. I'll miss the sounds of probes and structures warping in.
I don't agree that the P style is gimmicy or prone to all-ins and turtle to deathball etc. For example, I am pretty pleased with myself if I have held off an aggressive Terran with good scouting, observers, and army splits. And if feels good that after I have held all that off, I move out with 3/3 completing and my Chargelots hungering for battle and for the smell of Terran blood on their Psi-Blades. I would not like to play a race where that felt, somehow, illegitimate. These are all part of the game to varying degrees. If there is a concern regarding these, it is with regards to the game as a whole, and not specific to Protoss.
I disagree with regards to removal of WG as I've said before (I, probably like you, but from the other end, am tired of belabourng the point). But, tweaks, maybe would be good (depending on what they are, of course).
On September 12 2012 12:51 aZealot wrote: @ Wombat_NI:
Ah, fair enough, mate. Respect. I see your point, by the way.
When I first started playing HotS, I found I had to play Protoss in a different way to how I remembered playing it with my mates when we lanned BW all night. I just think we forget that the game has certain rules, and each race has certain rules about how they can be played. Like reality, you can't just do anything you want. Believe me, I've often thought that if I had not been Protoss in BW, I would probably have played Terran in HotS. But, I fell in love with Protoss in BW when I played the campaign, right from the very first mission, and decided to stick with Aiur. If I play HotS (which is highly unlikely due to work/life stuff - I may return to SC for LoTV) I am seriously tempted to play Zerg, because from the little I have seen it looks like fun.
But it won't feel right, at all. I'll miss the sounds of probes and structures warping in.
I don't agree that the P style is gimmicy or prone to all-ins and turtle to deathball etc. For example, I am pretty pleased with myself if I have held off an aggressive Terran with good scouting, observers, and army splits. And if feels good that after I have held all that off, I move out with 3/3 completing and my Chargelots hungering for battle and for the smell of Terran blood on their Psi-Blades. I would not like to play a race where that felt, somehow, illegitimate. These are all part of the game to varying degrees. If there is a concern regarding these, it is with regards to the game as a whole, and not specific to Protoss.
I disagree with regards to removal of WG as I've said before (I, probably like you, but from the other end, am tired of belabourng the point). But, tweaks, maybe would be good (depending on what they are, of course).
I don't feel Protoss is illegitimate, we use the tools at our disposal and get nothing but BM for it on the ladder I feel your point man nothing more fun than holding off a 2 rax or a well executed 1/1/1. You get that kind of adrenaline rush, you're microing your heart out and wiping the sweat off your brow if you pull off the win. Protoss is really microable and fun to play in those smaller scale engagements, but it's difficult to scale this up
I feel it's a complicated issue with how the game is going and how some of us feel about it. Some of it comes from Blizzard, some of it from map developments, some of it from general refinement. Greedy builds aren't really greedy and the midgame deathballs that aren't as much fun to many come into play much faster. Games tend to end often with one big engagement, all those issues that have been debated to death. I was known and used as a PvT sniper by adopting Creator's PvT style and getting it down nice and early, and yeah it is fun to survive the early game with the big cut in units and desperate defence that it entails. The issue for me is when you get your composition and economy going it just feels a bit 'easy' or something. Hard to explain!
Like you I doubt I'd be able to invest the time to become legitimately good in HoTS due to that insidious 'real life' stuff, but it's rare I don't feel any kind of excitement for a Blizzard release. Anyway cheers for the posts, was good to have a brief back-and-forth man!
On September 12 2012 11:07 ChristianS wrote: By the way, buff to the void ray is not especially viable. A lot of Protoss complain that they can't keep up in air vs. air battles because T and Z have vikings and corruptors, respectively, which will destroy all Protoss air. That's true; you know why? Because Protoss have the single most powerful "air" unit in the game: the colossus. With enough colossus on the field, the only way to engage a Protoss is by air. And if Protoss could negate that front, too, there simply wouldn't be a way to beat that composition.
So maybe you could make the void ray faster, or you could make it phase more quickly, or something like that. But when it comes down to it, you can't have cost-effective air-to-air in the Protoss arsenal. Some of you will say remove the colossus and go from there, but as a rule, game developers don't suddenly and completely change their design philosophy on successful games in an expansion pack, nor should they. If the game design is so centrally flawed to the point that that would be necessary, then you basically don't want to play Starcraft 2 any more. If you like BW better, it still exists, and you can play it; or you can play SC2BW if you like the new graphics. But if you really do hate the majority of the game design in SC2, I don't really know why you keep playing it, and nobody is going to completely and radically change it on your behalf.
I'd like to point out that while Colossus is probably the most ground dominating ground unit (BL being best air ground dominating) that a support army must exist to buffer and prevent easy snipes. There should be a balance point where Protoss can invest enough into air where they win the air battle, but no longer can keep Colossus safe on the ground if the opponent makes a better balanced army. Protoss is in the exact reverse situation where their lack of competition for air means they're losing the ground battle to Broodlords.
On September 12 2012 08:54 Lelden wrote: Well, the good news is there is a small glimmer of hope on the horizon. Dustin Browder posted here stating they are talking heavily about Protoss (and the Warhound):
I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but right now it seems they can't make it worse. If they do then no one would play Protoss.
Actually for myself HOPE is the only thing I have left. Up to right now Protoss have been pretty much overlooked and new units were implemented just for the sake of new units, they didn't actually add anything to a protoss gameplay.
But even if we dump the new units - take for example terran, even the old, underused units were tweaked so make them useful: Reaper heal Battle helion mode Raven change Battlecruiser Buff
As i said before, blizz seems to finally noticed that something is wrong, but let's be honest, they won't change the sentry or fix the warp-in. So our only hope is to pray for the sake of Aiur, that they will make us want to return to this game.
P.s. Yesterday offraced with Zerg, damit it's so easy, you basically just build stuff, and when that's not working, just build more stuff.
On September 12 2012 08:54 Lelden wrote: Well, the good news is there is a small glimmer of hope on the horizon. Dustin Browder posted here stating they are talking heavily about Protoss (and the Warhound):
On September 12 2012 08:54 Lelden wrote: Well, the good news is there is a small glimmer of hope on the horizon. Dustin Browder posted here stating they are talking heavily about Protoss (and the Warhound):
I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but right now it seems they can't make it worse. If they do then no one would play Protoss.
Actually for myself HOPE is the only thing I have left. Up to right now Protoss have been pretty much overlooked and new units were implemented just for the sake of new units, they didn't actually add anything to a protoss gameplay.
But even if we dump the new units - take for example terran, even the old, underused units were tweaked so make them useful: Reaper heal Battle helion mode Raven change Battlecruiser Buff
As i said before, blizz seems to finally noticed that something is wrong, but let's be honest, they won't change the sentry or fix the warp-in. So our only hope is to pray for the sake of Aiur, that they will make us want to return to this game.
P.s. Yesterday offraced with Zerg, damit it's so easy, you basically just build stuff, and when that's not working, just build more stuff.
Cry me a river. Terran units needed to be buffed since they were underused, why on earth would you complain about that? And obligatory completely subjective statements about how zerg is easy are ridiculous too. And they did add a very significant change to protoss: mothership core. Furthermore, stargate play is revamped, just like factory play for terran. It's conceptually not too different.
For one reason or another random protoss players found an outlet for complaints in this thread and have bizarre notions of feeling neglected. There isn't even any argument - outside of legitimate issues with protoss design in general - just, 'oh other races get stuff and even if my race gets stuff too and I haven't really tested it yet or seen how good it can be I'll just complain anyway about how theirs is better'. Yeah, the oracle is underwhelming, but it's early in beta, just give your feedback and be done with it. Don't make this about how horribly oppressed you are as protoss.
On September 10 2012 16:53 RehnFreemark wrote:Preventing mining is an issue, but losing workers is a BIGGER issue, because you lose a) the worker (50 cash each) b) the mining time c) the minerals you invest in re-training each lost worker.
By that logic for every worker you kill opponent loses 100minerals (a+c) AND mining time? How weird.
Different problem is that harassing by killing workers is way more interesting than just mining time if you play against Zerg (larva!) so I'm not sure if Oracle is really that viable in PvZ. Plus zerg nearly always have combat unit (though not heavy hitting one) at each hatchery.
On September 12 2012 11:07 ChristianS wrote: By the way, buff to the void ray is not especially viable. A lot of Protoss complain that they can't keep up in air vs. air battles because T and Z have vikings and corruptors, respectively, which will destroy all Protoss air. That's true; you know why? Because Protoss have the single most powerful "air" unit in the game: the colossus. With enough colossus on the field, the only way to engage a Protoss is by air. And if Protoss could negate that front, too, there simply wouldn't be a way to beat that composition.
You mean like brood infestor, or battlecruisers and vikings?
It's one standard for Zerg and Terran, and another for Protoss.
There are many ways for Terran to engage air -- not least of which is using EMP. But that would require work, a foreign concept to Terran players who think themselves entitled to free-wins by spamming bioballs and warhounds.
Not horribly oppressed, np. But the new units are by and large horrible designs, easily the most atrocious of the bunch. Except perhaps the Warhound. But Warhounds at least actually kill stuff instead of... Entomb. Eww.
Like, most of their new stuff is just deeply flawed by default because Blizzard wants to innovate instead of designing a solid game. The Oracle for example feels like a cool single player units forced into multiplayer for some godawful reason. It's underwhelming by design, not by being in early beta.
On September 12 2012 19:02 UntoTheBreach wrote: There are many ways for Terran to engage air -- not least of which is using EMP. But that would require work, a foreign concept to Terran players who think themselves entitled to free-wins by spamming bioballs and warhounds.
Brilliant argumentation. I am in awe. How have the poor Terran players survived, "spamming bioballs" in WoL? Oh, right. The faction is now called Korean for some reason. Free wins, free wins all day. But yeah, horrible, horrible attitude, if perhaps understandabe after being beaten by stupid warhound spam one time too many.
On September 12 2012 17:43 Grumbels wrote: Yeah, the oracle is underwhelming, but it's early in beta, just give your feedback and be done with it. Don't make this about how horribly oppressed you are as protoss.
We're oppressed to the extent that we were looking forward to the expansion and the new Protoss race, but now that the beta is out we seem to have gained nothing. The new units are so bad that the game is exactly like WoL for us. Meanwhile, Zerg and Terran have received new units that are exactly what they needed, as well as buffed units from WoL that were previously underused.
If we don't QQ, then they won't realize the extent of the problem and will settle for making tweaks instead of a rehaul of the race. So we need to QQ.
On September 12 2012 19:13 Coffee Zombie wrote: Brilliant argumentation. I am in awe. How have the poor Terran players survived, "spamming bioballs" in WoL? Oh, right. The faction is now called Korean for some reason. Free wins, free wins all day. But yeah, horrible, horrible attitude, if perhaps understandabe after being beaten by stupid warhound spam one time too many.
Well it's the truth. For most of the history of WoL, you got Terrans who made careers out doing nothing but spamming bioballs and learning a bit of micro. And that's all they did.
Admittedly in the end when Toss players learned how to beat bioballs and Zerg got the queen buff, Terran players had to get good. Before that it was the race of Xbox kiddies...and still is in HotS, with stupid units like the warhound.
All balance talk aside, from the perspective of a viewer the Protoss race is simply boring to watch in my opinion.
I have watched a lot of pro games since TSL3 and the most stunning and awesome games usually involve Terran and Zerg players. There are exceptions like Stephano vs Kiwikaki at IPL 3 but most Protoss games are just dull.
I don´t know why that is, but the stuff Terran and Zerg players do is much more entertaining compared to Protoss. Again, I´m not talking about skill and balance here, just from the perspective of me, a viewer.
How many epic games exists with Protoss involved? I can only remember MVP vs Squirtle Game 5, Thorzain vs MC(TSL3) and Stephano vs Kiwikaki.
There are so many awesome Terran and Zerg games to remember just to name a view: DRG vs MMA.(Blizzard Cup) Polt vs Stephano.(MLG, Lone Star Clash, ...) DRG vs MKP.(MLG) MMA vs Gumiho(GSTL Final) Freaky vs Bomber(GSL) Leenock vs Jjaki(GSL Final) MVP vs Top(GSL Final, Daybreak) Nestea vs SC(GSL Semifinal) Nestea vs MVP(Blizzcon)
You could name a lot more games involving Terran and Zerg. I guess my point is that Protoss really needs some interesting features and useful features because right now, the Protoss race is just boring.
...I don't know why people say protoss is boring. I'm personally of the opinion that protoss is by far the most interesting race, made MORE interesting by the fact that warp gate and FFs exist. I think those things may have been broken and problematic when the game first came out, but things are working out better now, and I think that warp gate and FF actually make protoss unique.
I feel like protoss matchups are quite interesting right now. We've seen a complete overhaul of strategy in both PvZ and PvT in the past 6 months, and with more research into multi-tasking and really taking advantage of the warp gate mechanic, we're starting to see even more interesting styles without colossus. Even PvP, which was exclusively 4-gate for a full year, has shown an immense amount of growth with a plethora of unique and interesting openings including stargate, 3-gate robo, 3-stalker rush, DT/archon rush, immortal drops, etc.
Let's look around, people. It's really not anywhere near as bad as you're making it.
I'd also like to add that, while I feel protoss is fine in WoL, I WOULD like to see some more interesting things come out of protoss than the bland, generally not useful units and abilities that have come with HotS. Hopefully some tweaks will be made to spice up the protoss metagame for HotS more.
So they're not removing Warp Gate or the Sentry, this leaves me wondering what else they can do. I'd be in favor of a Stalker/Gateway buff, but that would create other issues. I think Protoss is fucked guys.
i have a design suggestion for the Tempest - and i didn't want to start new thread just for a single suggestion.
as most of you know the Tempest has terrible dps by design - because the high range needs some kind of counterbalance. ( 3.3 delay 30 dmg (+3) equates to 9.09 dps) the high range of 10 + 12 give this unit a lot of opportunity for harassment akin to the Mutalisk. albeit the Mutalisk gains his opportunity for harassment through Move-speed and not through range. though both of them are kinda terrible at direct confrontation. however unlike the Mutalisk the Tempest is very terrible at getting out of a bad spots - because its very slow.
so here is my suggestion ; what if the Tempest DPS would be dependent on the range from which it was attacking ? The closer the Tempest is to its target the more dps it is dishing out. how so ?
Instead of firing a single one way plasma-ball or w/e the Tempest will now fire a charged protoss-looking steel ball. ; so the Tempest is propelling the charged steelball towards the target with a constant missile speed. when the steelball hits it decharges ( deals damage ) and returns to the tempest like a JO-JO again with constant missile speed. The Tempest requires the steel-ball to return in order to shoot again which means that the DPS of the tempest is dependent on Distance and missile speed. the raw damage itself would not change (only through air dmg upgrades)
for example dmg / shot = 60 , Missile speed 10.00 (minimum delay for a steel-ball to be recharged 1,5 sec) the minimum delay causes the Tempest to not get more effective vs targets inside of 7,5 range. because the steelball with 10.00 ms would only need 1,5sec for trip of 15 range (7,5 from tempest to target and 7,5 from target back to tempest)
DPS vs Target at 5 range or less = 40 DPS vs Target at 7,5 range or less = 40 DPS vs Target at 10 range = 30 DPS vs Target at 15 range = 20 DPS vs Target at 20 range = 15 DPS vs Target at 22 range = 13,63
ofc the numbers for damage / shot (+ upgrade) , missile-speed and minimum delay can still be adjusted to reach balance.
however just from a game-design-standpoint i think that this change would greatly improve the viability and the role of the Tempest in the Protoss-army.
you could still tickle your enemy from far away at low risk. or get closer for higher DPS. but with this design the Tempest would also be an worthy asset in direct confrontation - which is only fair in my opinion. in the end the Tempest is a high cost t3 unit with little mobility and utility. unlike other flying units like phoenix and mutalisk.
i think that this would be a great improvement - any other thoughts ? keep in mind that numbers can be easily tuned (base-dmg / missile-speed )
I was really excited about the new protoss direction. The Oracle gave stargate detection and the cloak ability looked really awesome. The tempest was niche in its use, but it definitely had a place in the game. Really what was bringing it together for me was the MC, such a strong defenders advantage. I could play really greedy and go multiple tech routes without a huge gateway army, I felt like it really opened up what protoss could do.
Then the nerf hammer hit and all 3 units look so bad that I actually hate watching PvX on the HotS beta streams. Tempests being even slower removed a lot of why i though 22 range was cool. The Oracle is so useless it makes my head hurt. I mean, when I watch HerO, who is such a great player, not even come close to making them cost efficient, it really makes me not like the game. The MC is so lame now...ugh, I'm not interested in buy HotS at all anymore as things stand.
On September 13 2012 02:14 GNear wrote: i have a design suggestion for the Tempest - and i didn't want to start new thread just for a single suggestion.
as most of you know the Tempest has terrible dps by design - because the high range needs some kind of counterbalance. ( 3.3 delay 30 dmg (+3) equates to 9.09 dps) the high range of 10 + 12 give this unit a lot of opportunity for harassment akin to the Mutalisk. albeit the Mutalisk gains his opportunity for harassment through Move-speed and not through range. though both of them are kinda terrible at direct confrontation. however unlike the Mutalisk the Tempest is very terrible at getting out of a bad spots - because its very slow.
so here is my suggestion ; what if the Tempest DPS would be dependent on the range from which it was attacking ? The closer the Tempest is to its target the more dps it is dishing out. how so ?
Instead of firing a single one way plasma-ball or w/e the Tempest will now fire a charged protoss-looking steel ball. ; so the Tempest is propelling the charged steelball towards the target with a constant missile speed. when the steelball hits it decharges ( deals damage ) and returns to the tempest like a JO-JO again with constant missile speed. The Tempest requires the steel-ball to return in order to shoot again which means that the DPS of the tempest is dependent on Distance and missile speed. the raw damage itself would not change (only through air dmg upgrades)
for example dmg / shot = 60 , Missile speed 10.00 (minimum delay for a steel-ball to be recharged 1,5 sec) the minimum delay causes the Tempest to not get more effective vs targets inside of 7,5 range. because the steelball with 10.00 ms would only need 1,5sec for trip of 15 range (7,5 from tempest to target and 7,5 from target back to tempest)
DPS vs Target at 5 range or less = 40 DPS vs Target at 7,5 range or less = 40 DPS vs Target at 10 range = 30 DPS vs Target at 15 range = 20 DPS vs Target at 20 range = 15 DPS vs Target at 22 range = 13,63
ofc the numbers for damage / shot (+ upgrade) , missile-speed and minimum delay can still be adjusted to reach balance.
however just from a game-design-standpoint i think that this change would greatly improve the viability and the role of the Tempest in the Protoss-army.
you could still tickle your enemy from far away at low risk. or get closer for higher DPS. but with this design the Tempest would also be an worthy asset in direct confrontation - which is only fair in my opinion. in the end the Tempest is a high cost t3 unit with little mobility and utility. unlike other flying units like phoenix and mutalisk.
i think that this would be a great improvement - any other thoughts ? keep in mind that numbers can be easily tuned (base-dmg / missile-speed )
No.
On September 13 2012 02:10 Havik_ wrote: So they're not removing Warp Gate or the Sentry, this leaves me wondering what else they can do. I'd be in favor of a Stalker/Gateway buff, but that would create other issues. I think Protoss is fucked guys.
I've been thinking about protoss in regards to the problems with the warhound, and I think the key problem with protoss as it stands now is that it doesn't have a meaty all-purpose unit. While stalkers and zealots fill the backbone of the protoss army and are interesting and, with correct micro, are quite cost-efficient, there's something lacking in their ability to take on small groups of MMM or roaches. That being said, I feel as if protoss units might be a little TOO specialized, and perhaps what protoss needs is a beefier all-around, general purpose unit.
Blizzard will probably not address this, as it makes it easier to create a deathball with, but it's probably the main weakness of protoss versus the other races.
On September 12 2012 08:54 Lelden wrote: Well, the good news is there is a small glimmer of hope on the horizon. Dustin Browder posted here stating they are talking heavily about Protoss (and the Warhound):
On September 12 2012 08:54 Lelden wrote: Well, the good news is there is a small glimmer of hope on the horizon. Dustin Browder posted here stating they are talking heavily about Protoss (and the Warhound):
I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but right now it seems they can't make it worse. If they do then no one would play Protoss.
Actually for myself HOPE is the only thing I have left. Up to right now Protoss have been pretty much overlooked and new units were implemented just for the sake of new units, they didn't actually add anything to a protoss gameplay.
But even if we dump the new units - take for example terran, even the old, underused units were tweaked so make them useful: Reaper heal Battle helion mode Raven change Battlecruiser Buff
As i said before, blizz seems to finally noticed that something is wrong, but let's be honest, they won't change the sentry or fix the warp-in. So our only hope is to pray for the sake of Aiur, that they will make us want to return to this game.
If you listen to this weeks Inside the Game, Idra and Incontrol said that Blizzard has a forum for the beta where they are communicating directly with the pros about the problems in the beta. Both Idra and Incontrol were very postive about the interaction with Blizzard and that they are aware of the issues with the new protoss units(and warhound). It sounds like Blizzard is taking the criticism and is willing to address things the pros are taking about. If you want to feel better about the beta, go listen to the show from this week.
Also, remember that the WoL units were not good until players really got their hands on them. Blizzard cannot fully design units until they see them in the hands of high level players. It takes time, effort and hard work.
i see how my Tempest-suggestion would enhance the death-ball gameplay. but as it stands now the Tempest is all around pretty useless when it comes to efficiency cost (minerals / gas / supply) and tech time. and i dont think that 22 range do really offset these high cost / low dps.
i just don't see them making drastic changes seeing how they don't want to touch warpgate units and warpgate tech. as long as the protoss depends on sentry for early game and warp-gate tech as the most versatile and effective way to get offensive / aggressive i dont see how the gameplay for protoss really changes.
On September 12 2012 08:54 Lelden wrote: Well, the good news is there is a small glimmer of hope on the horizon. Dustin Browder posted here stating they are talking heavily about Protoss (and the Warhound):
I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but right now it seems they can't make it worse. If they do then no one would play Protoss.
Actually for myself HOPE is the only thing I have left. Up to right now Protoss have been pretty much overlooked and new units were implemented just for the sake of new units, they didn't actually add anything to a protoss gameplay.
But even if we dump the new units - take for example terran, even the old, underused units were tweaked so make them useful: Reaper heal Battle helion mode Raven change Battlecruiser Buff
As i said before, blizz seems to finally noticed that something is wrong, but let's be honest, they won't change the sentry or fix the warp-in. So our only hope is to pray for the sake of Aiur, that they will make us want to return to this game.
If you listen to this weeks Inside the Game, Idra and Incontrol said that Blizzard has a forum for the beta where they are communicating directly with the pros about the problems in the beta. Both Idra and Incontrol were very postive about the interaction with Blizzard and that they are aware of the issues with the new protoss units(and warhound). It sounds like Blizzard is taking the criticism and is willing to address things the pros are taking about. If you want to feel better about the beta, go listen to the show from this week.
Also, remember that the WoL units were not good until players really got their hands on them. Blizzard cannot fully design units until they see them in the hands of high level players. It takes time, effort and hard work.
That's awesome! Way better to listen to the pros than us noobs.
On September 12 2012 17:31 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:
On September 12 2012 08:54 Lelden wrote: Well, the good news is there is a small glimmer of hope on the horizon. Dustin Browder posted here stating they are talking heavily about Protoss (and the Warhound):
On September 12 2012 17:31 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:
On September 12 2012 08:54 Lelden wrote: Well, the good news is there is a small glimmer of hope on the horizon. Dustin Browder posted here stating they are talking heavily about Protoss (and the Warhound):
We are not discussing removing Warp Gates or making any changes to the Sentry. Sorry.
Why did Browder use two different verbs? Is he implying that Warp Gates will likely be changed (but not removed)? Or am I reading too much into this.
Actually changes is a noun. The sentence is a little awkward, but the two verbs are removing and making, which is fine because and/or can bring together 2 independent clauses. The gist of what he's saying is that core WoL mechanics will not budge because it would throw off balance way too much.
On September 12 2012 17:31 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:
On September 12 2012 08:54 Lelden wrote: Well, the good news is there is a small glimmer of hope on the horizon. Dustin Browder posted here stating they are talking heavily about Protoss (and the Warhound):
We are not discussing removing Warp Gates or making any changes to the Sentry. Sorry.
Why did Browder use two different verbs? Is he implying that Warp Gates will likely be changed (but not removed)? Or am I reading too much into this.
Because those two different verbs are what people have been asking for. Removal of warp gates and changes to Sentry (specifically, changes to Forcefield).
I still think that putting warpgate on the dark shrine, swapping forcefield and hallucination on the tech tree, would allow buffing gateway and nerfing colossus and improve the game significantly. It's inconceivable to me why mr rocks doesn't want this change.
On September 13 2012 09:55 GoldenH wrote: I still think that putting warpgate on the dark shrine, swapping forcefield and hallucination on the tech tree, would allow buffing gateway and nerfing colossus and improve the game significantly. It's inconceivable to me why mr rocks doesn't want this change.
If you would put the warpgate somewhere it obviously has to be the twighlight counsil. I don't like the idea, but that would be the tech Protoss usually has to progress to anyways. Darkshrine would be way to specific
On September 13 2012 09:55 GoldenH wrote: I still think that putting warpgate on the dark shrine, swapping forcefield and hallucination on the tech tree, would allow buffing gateway and nerfing colossus and improve the game significantly. It's inconceivable to me why mr rocks doesn't want this change.
If you would put the warpgate somewhere it obviously has to be the twighlight counsil. I don't like the idea, but that would be the tech Protoss usually has to progress to anyways. Darkshrine would be way to specific
You need it on the dark shrine to prevent warpin from finishing at the same time as the dark shrine, tho, so that DT can also be buffed. And then you will enable DT expands, instead of DT 'i hope he doesn't have detection' roulette.
The whole point of re balancing protoss should be to giving variety in playstyles, after all.
It seems pointless to me this debate about warptech. It's never gonna change, it's too much of a core mechanic. Please remind we are talking about a game where it took a year and a half to figure out phoenix needed a buff to be used against mutalisks (and even then it was a shit buff), and a game where there's still stuff like 1/1/1 going around perfectly (actually improved with hots, since you can now 1/1/1 cheaper and earlier using warhounds insteand of siege tanks). And you think they're gonna do something as drastic as changing warpgate tech? It's wasted time, whether you like it or not. They said it, anyway. The best thing we can hope for is a complete overhaul of oracle and tempest, and at any rate I think the most realistic expectation can be a couple of changes in the abilities for the former and a stat buff (if anything) for the latter
On September 12 2012 08:54 Lelden wrote: Well, the good news is there is a small glimmer of hope on the horizon. Dustin Browder posted here stating they are talking heavily about Protoss (and the Warhound):
I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but right now it seems they can't make it worse. If they do then no one would play Protoss.
Actually for myself HOPE is the only thing I have left. Up to right now Protoss have been pretty much overlooked and new units were implemented just for the sake of new units, they didn't actually add anything to a protoss gameplay.
But even if we dump the new units - take for example terran, even the old, underused units were tweaked so make them useful: Reaper heal Battle helion mode Raven change Battlecruiser Buff
As i said before, blizz seems to finally noticed that something is wrong, but let's be honest, they won't change the sentry or fix the warp-in. So our only hope is to pray for the sake of Aiur, that they will make us want to return to this game.
If you listen to this weeks Inside the Game, Idra and Incontrol said that Blizzard has a forum for the beta where they are communicating directly with the pros about the problems in the beta. Both Idra and Incontrol were very postive about the interaction with Blizzard and that they are aware of the issues with the new protoss units(and warhound). It sounds like Blizzard is taking the criticism and is willing to address things the pros are taking about. If you want to feel better about the beta, go listen to the show from this week.
Also, remember that the WoL units were not good until players really got their hands on them. Blizzard cannot fully design units until they see them in the hands of high level players. It takes time, effort and hard work.
This thread resonates with everything I have been feeling. The meta game for Protoss is SO FUCKING STALE!!! it's 2 base all-in or It's late game with 3-4 bases and you win off a single good engagement. OF course this is different for pvp because 4 gates have become really popular again so it's mostly 1 base vs 1 base. I really don't want to switch races because of how much I loved Protoss from BW and just the lore and everything. It feels like if you even mention Reavers in your post it's immediately discredited. Since every protoss hell every player would rather have Reavers then Colossus, and Warp gates are just crappy WE should have to chose between gateways and warpgates.
The way Blizzard has made protoss is that we have to play the game a certain way since that his how the metagame evolved. You have to have sentries early in PvZ or you just die to any early aggression. You have to sit in your base most of the game tell you have a good army or go all-in since we can't really defend at home if we are warping in at the front. Yeah I know that is a decision making thing but it makes Protoss really unstable in every matchup. Sorry I have complained and whined so much. I am going to go play some Iccup.
On September 13 2012 02:34 SC2John wrote:I've been thinking about protoss in regards to the problems with the warhound, and I think the key problem with protoss as it stands now is that it doesn't have a meaty all-purpose unit. While stalkers and zealots fill the backbone of the protoss army and are interesting and, with correct micro, are quite cost-efficient, there's something lacking in their ability to take on small groups of MMM or roaches. That being said, I feel as if protoss units might be a little TOO specialized, and perhaps what protoss needs is a beefier all-around, general purpose unit.
Blizzard will probably not address this, as it makes it easier to create a deathball with, but it's probably the main weakness of protoss versus the other races.
I'm inclined to agree with your premise but not your conclusion. Protoss units are so specialised in their roles its very difficult to take on more general purpose units in small groups without an absurdly delicate balance in terms of the Protoss group composition. I can definitely support this as an idea which is likely to be one of the issues contributing to the problems with the Protoss race.
However claiming that having a unit like this would make deathballing even easier isn't something I agree with. Because at the moment the problem is the Protoss army HAS to basically be one huge lump because the units individually are so weak by themselves. Separating units out is generally wasteful, thus encourages one huge army with all the interacting elements together. A general purpose unit, on the other hand, would allow bits of that lump to be broken off much more effectively. And since they wouldn't be as good in the roles fulfilled already by other units there would be little benefit to simply balling them up in a huge group instead of having a mix of the other units.
To illustrate: Take 4 totally unupgraded Zealots, they're pretty rubbish compared to eight marines (same supply/mineral cost) and I know which I'd prefer to have in a small group to drop into an enemy base or to defend against someone else's drop. However a bunch of Zealots is way better at buffering damage for Colossi with their 100 health and 50 shield and inherent 1 armour compared with 45 base health for marines (with +10 for combat shield) and no other protection.
On September 13 2012 09:55 GoldenH wrote: I still think that putting warpgate on the dark shrine, swapping forcefield and hallucination on the tech tree, would allow buffing gateway and nerfing colossus and improve the game significantly. It's inconceivable to me why mr rocks doesn't want this change.
Would have to be a HUGE buff to gateway units. Losing both early warpgate and forcefields would make Protoss just instantly die to any early game attack unless you make Zealots and Stalkers significantly stronger than Marines, Marauders, Zerglings and Roaches.
Also I'm not sure how you're saying that nerfing forcefield and warpgate would allow you to also nerf Colossi. Unless I'm missing something here. If you nerf Colossi you're going to have to make an even huger buff to gateway units or Protoss is just going to die both early game and late. But if you buff gateway units that much then proxy gateways could be unstoppable, and the complaints of "OMG WARP IN 30 ZEALOTS AFTER A BATTLE AND GG" would just get even worse.
Been thinking about the energize ability for the mothership core. Why can't we Chrono Boost units to increase shield regeneration/energy? Nothing to crazy maybe 1.5x faster for 20 seconds. Also doing it to a Carrier would increase build time of interceptors that would help with fixing some problems. In the midgame or when you get up to 3 nexus Protoss normally always have spare chronos that just go into warp gates when your army dies.
We have heard your concerns. We are on it the case. Our next patch will have lots of changes for Protoss. David is preparing a situation report for you guys that explains all the details. See what you think when he gets it out. Hopefully you will be playing with changes soon and we can see how it goes.
What do you guys think about increasing the mothership-core movement speed while in purify mode (maybe nerf something else like duration or damage or range if needed). I like the mothership core a lot but purify seems kind of off and I think you want to avoid using it as its not very helpful. It has so little range and the core moves so slow, so the opponent can avoid it and while you reposition the core purify is over. Also the core has not so much health and is easily killed if you can't micro it back. Visually the mothership core is spinning very fast and yet moving very slow; this seems weird.
On September 13 2012 09:55 GoldenH wrote: I still think that putting warpgate on the dark shrine, swapping forcefield and hallucination on the tech tree, would allow buffing gateway and nerfing colossus and improve the game significantly. It's inconceivable to me why mr rocks doesn't want this change.
Would have to be a HUGE buff to gateway units. Losing both early warpgate and forcefields would make Protoss just instantly die to any early game attack unless you make Zealots and Stalkers significantly stronger than Marines, Marauders, Zerglings and Roaches.
Also I'm not sure how you're saying that nerfing forcefield and warpgate would allow you to also nerf Colossi. Unless I'm missing something here. If you nerf Colossi you're going to have to make an even huger buff to gateway units or Protoss is just going to die both early game and late. But if you buff gateway units that much then proxy gateways could be unstoppable, and the complaints of "OMG WARP IN 30 ZEALOTS AFTER A BATTLE AND GG" would just get even worse.
Its kind of irrelevant because protoss already 'just instantly die' if there is an open natural, one gate expands just aren't safe, even though the other two races can comfortably fend off every all in Protoss can do, with no real damage 'oh, I got my nexus up 3-4 minutes later vs oh, I made him spend 200 minerals'.
As for colossus, basically any buff to gateway units will allow you to nerf colossus. You should not be relying on colossus anyway. As for late game warpins, you don't need to buff them so much that warpin 30 zealots is GG, but any buff will at least counteract the 'oh, I lost my entire army and I can't rebuild anything in time, gg'.
And sure, it's pointless to argue this because it won't get fixed, but it's also pointless to argue it because it isn't wrong. But it feels good to say it :8
On September 13 2012 02:34 SC2John wrote:I've been thinking about protoss in regards to the problems with the warhound, and I think the key problem with protoss as it stands now is that it doesn't have a meaty all-purpose unit. While stalkers and zealots fill the backbone of the protoss army and are interesting and, with correct micro, are quite cost-efficient, there's something lacking in their ability to take on small groups of MMM or roaches. That being said, I feel as if protoss units might be a little TOO specialized, and perhaps what protoss needs is a beefier all-around, general purpose unit.
Blizzard will probably not address this, as it makes it easier to create a deathball with, but it's probably the main weakness of protoss versus the other races.
I'm inclined to agree with your premise but not your conclusion. Protoss units are so specialised in their roles its very difficult to take on more general purpose units in small groups without an absurdly delicate balance in terms of the Protoss group composition. I can definitely support this as an idea which is likely to be one of the issues contributing to the problems with the Protoss race.
However claiming that having a unit like this would make deathballing even easier isn't something I agree with. Because at the moment the problem is the Protoss army HAS to basically be one huge lump because the units individually are so weak by themselves. Separating units out is generally wasteful, thus encourages one huge army with all the interacting elements together. A general purpose unit, on the other hand, would allow bits of that lump to be broken off much more effectively. And since they wouldn't be as good in the roles fulfilled already by other units there would be little benefit to simply balling them up in a huge group instead of having a mix of the other units.
To illustrate: Take 4 totally unupgraded Zealots, they're pretty rubbish compared to eight marines (same supply/mineral cost) and I know which I'd prefer to have in a small group to drop into an enemy base or to defend against someone else's drop. However a bunch of Zealots is way better at buffering damage for Colossi with their 100 health and 50 shield and inherent 1 armour compared with 45 base health for marines (with +10 for combat shield) and no other protection.
Well, I maybe wasn't claiming something as much as suggesting at it. I think that Blizzard is trying to be very careful about making units that support a deathball. I honestly feel like marine/marauder, BECAUSE of their general versatility, have kind of lent themselves to this kind of deathbally feel (although with splits from AoE and other things, it's generally split up); I think, after looking at such an effect, Blizzard is trying to be careful with giving protoss a better zealot which would just better support a colossus deathball.
I think this comes out to "colossus is the worst thing ever to happen to SC" lol.
1. Warp Gates will not go away. 2. Colossi will not disappear.
I am not making any value judgement on the merits of Warp gates or Colossi. But I can assure you that neither will disappear. So I hope people would discuss accordingly.
On September 10 2012 08:54 Harbinger631 wrote: The biggest thing I don't understand from Protoss QQ threads is that Protoss is winning everything in WoL right now...
Also, calling the Tempest an "a-move unit" makes you looks silly. Positioning/vision are essential to make it work.
"[–]SCA_Suende 26 points 6 hours ago
Who the fuck wants to spend 300/300 on a unit that only causes problems that the other guy has FOUR MINUTES to figure out? Personally if I saw someone had the Tempest and had to choose what to do, id choose to go kill him, you know if he built any of those his army's gonna be pretty pathetic. "
"[–]DrMuffinPHD 13 points 3 hours ago The other day I was watching white-ra play. He had three tempests out and Demuslim dropped a warhound and a few SCV's into white-ra's base. The Tempests started shooting at the Warhound, but but couldn't kill it (no damage was being done due to repair). They couldn't even kill the SCV's on autorepair due to the medivac. It was pathetic. Really showed how useless the tempest is."
"DB: The one reason we’re pushing the range of the Tempest to 22 is to say “OK, this is a really long ranged weapon, guys, this is not a brood lord. This is something that can be in a different part of the map and still hit.” We’ll see how that works out.
Interviewer: I tried the tempest earlier and I was kind of disappointed. It’s expensive but the damage is very low.
DB: It is, it’s very light for its cost.
Interviewer: Yes, and so you will have to produce a lot of them, which gets quite costly.
DB: That, or be comfortable with a light amount of damage and say “Look, I am not going to kill you with this but you can’t stay there forever. I am chipping away at you, I am not killing everything but I am beating you pretty good. You have to move away, or engage this tempest or figure something out because you have limited time to do it.” And that’s the other reason why I think it feels different than a standard artillery unit. Because the standard artillery units, like the siege tank, are all like “No, you are dead. You need to move immediately.” The tempest is like “Yeah, he’s working away at my nexus and this is a problem. But it’s not a problem I need to solve in four seconds, it’s a problem I need to solve in 30 seconds, or maybe a minute.” And that creates a different kind of feeling. "
Is this actually DB? sounds like a idiot troll i prefer david kim.
DB: "We have heard your concerns. We are on it the case. Our next patch will have lots of changes for Protoss. David is preparing a situation report for you guys that explains all the details. See what you think when he gets it out. Hopefully you will be playing with changes soon and we can see how it goes."
On September 14 2012 23:53 Archon96 wrote: DB: "We have heard your concerns. We are on it the case. Our next patch will have lots of changes for Protoss. David is preparing a situation report for you guys that explains all the details. See what you think when he gets it out. Hopefully you will be playing with changes soon and we can see how it goes."
They made changes, but they don't fix the problems. Gateway units are just too weak. If they actually scaled better into the late game, we'd be much better off.
Huh? Zealots get +2 per upgrade and do real well with armour upgrades and their innate +1 armour (not to mention Charge).
Stalker upgrades have been a concern forever, true, but that is because Stalkers with +2/+2 per upgrade (for example) and Blink would be heavily OP. We'd never hear the end of Zerg QQ (and be seeing a lot more Blink all-in type play).
That said, +1/+1 per upgrade would be nice, rather than the current +1/+0. I can only assume that Blizzard have play tested the numbers and feel that those numbers are the best. Who knows, though? In HotS, those numbers may change. I just don't imagine them changing very much. I'd be very pleased with a +1/+1, myself, though.
On September 14 2012 23:53 Archon96 wrote: DB: "We have heard your concerns. We are on it the case. Our next patch will have lots of changes for Protoss. David is preparing a situation report for you guys that explains all the details. See what you think when he gets it out. Hopefully you will be playing with changes soon and we can see how it goes."
They made changes, but they don't fix the problems. Gateway units are just too weak. If they actually scaled better into the late game, we'd be much better off.
Pretty much this. Though, I'm more concern about the early/mid game and not having to rely on certain.... things(we already know where i'm I'm going with this) just to survive. I would love for storm damage(14*8) to return, though it's probably a little too much to hope for.
What do you guys think about adding an increasing cooldown effect to warp in - when using it on a proxy pylon? Like the more you use warp ins from some distance to you nexi the longer it will take for the cooldown to finnish and whenever you are not the cooldown decreases.
So this change will not really effect the way it works now but nerf it enough to make all ins weaker and giving the defenders some advantage. Maybe it will feel convoluted and too muddy but I think it would add some strategic elements to the game and could be made to feel natural. It would also be very easy to balance with buffing the gateway units.
EPT
but i still think there should be some kind of dps buff over time.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0lRu4.jpg)
