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On September 11 2012 10:56 XenoX101 wrote: It's difficult to make sense of your post when you don't make the slightest effort to sound objective or provide clear reasons why it is ineffective.
If I care about toss, I see no rational reason not to be objective about a new unit that might be added to the race. Unless you imply that perhaps I'm a stealth terran or zerg who would like to sabotage a good toss unit. You don't have to agree with anything I've said, but I'd prefer to be given the benefit of the doubt on objectivity, as I don't see the point of unobjectivity.
Try providing some actual examples next time instead of just saying "I've seen this 100 times in 100 videos".
If describing something I've seen 100 times isn't an example, what is it?
I have never seen this thing used successfully to defend a toss base. Yes, I've seen people TRY to use it. And I've seen it utterly and epicly fail each time in the most embarassing way possible. I described how enemies just ignore it, move around it, snipe it, whatever. Perhaps you can give an example yourself? I'd like to see one.
It also worries me that you don't understand the significance of making the opponent "wait for purify to dissipate". Being able to stall the enemy's all-in or attack by 1-2 minutes (depending if you have 1 or 2 purifies) means you have ample time to make units to hold off an attack.
I recognized the theoretical utility of "waiting for it to dissipate." But does toss really need such another passive gimmick? They already have force fields, vortexes, etc. Do you really think that an ability that the opponent laughs at, and chooses to back off from so it can dissipate (the enemy's point isn't that he fears the ability, it is to make the protoss waste the ability while he laughs), is a good way to provide base defense? If it's so good, why doesn't all base defense work like this? And have you forgotten that the enemy can do his own reinforcement while waiting for it to dissipate?
In truth, I haven't seen an enemy back off from it in a single video. They just totally ignore it or go around it (if it's at the nat, they run to the main; if it's at the main, they run to the nat). Or they snipe it with 4 marines. But my point was, they also COULD simply back off for a moment. It is an option.
And no, the ability doens't last 1 or 2 minutes.
Honestly it sounds more like you are simply upset that Blizzard decided to nerf the unit, the kind of thing I expect to hear on the battle.net forums.
I don't care what you want to call it. Whether it amounts to complaining about an unjustified nerf that turns a unit with potential benefit into crap, or whether it amounts to something else, the end result is the same to me, and my statements stand the same. The unit seemeed to have potential pre-beta. The unit seems like utter garbage now, at least with respect to base defense.
You also haven't justified any of the changes you are suggesting for the Core, why should it be buffed in the ways you are claiming? These are pretty drastic changes as well, having more than one mothership core at a time alone is a huge shift in dynamics from what we have now.
Aren't the justifications obvious? Can't you figure them out for yourself? The thing seemed to have potential pre-beta. It doesn't seem to have potential now. So the obvious justification is to turn it back into something that seems to have potential again. The rationale for returning the attack back to what it was pre-beta is that that attack was more powerful, and actually seemed to do something in the way of meaninfgul base defense. The justification for giving it a natural attack that isn't based on energy seems self-evident to me - just look at any other unit in the game (marines, roaches, etc) and ask yourself whether they need to expend energy to perform a weak attack. And ask yourself whether you could just back off and wait for the attack to dissipate.
You could only consider the proposed changes "drastic" if you think the jokership core is something powerful, something with utility, something to be feared. I don't consider the proposed changes drastic at all. As far as base defense goes, it is an extremely weak floating cannon that I also have to pay gas for, which moves slower than an overlord, and which would occupy supply if you read my suggestion carefully. I don't see what's so drastic about allowing more than one of the things to be built. In fact, if you are an opponent, you should probably pray that the toss wastes his gas and supply building hordes of the things. What's he gonna do with them? Come attack you with them?
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the core in the battlereports had 13 range and did 45 damage i believe, so while i am not able to say if the current core is a joke or not, i can say that a flying and moving t1 unit should not have an attack with the same range and more damage vs unarmored than a siegetank, that was strictly and only possible because the core was attached to a nexus.
(which was way cooler in my opinion)
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On September 11 2012 16:46 Naphal wrote: the core in the battlereports had 13 range and did 45 damage i believe, so while i am not able to say if the current core is a joke or not, i can say that a flying and moving t1 unit should not have an attack with the same range and more damage vs unarmored than a siegetank, that was strictly and only possible because the core was attached to a nexus.
I guess that's my point. Toss didn't gain anything by detaching it from the Nexus. They lost.
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On September 11 2012 11:16 YoungNV wrote: I still haven't seen anyone using recall effectively (if anyone has seen any replays please post links). The Mothership Core provides extremely early game access to a fantastic ability like recall. Toss can actually raid the enemy in the early game and still save the all-important Sentries, Immortals, DT's, etc. with Recall. To me that seems like a very powerful tool, yet no one (that I have seen) is using this mechanic. Until all the unit's abilities have been explored fully, we shouldn't assume it is garbage.
Yeah, I remember watching Whitera the other day against Z and he was Forge Fast Expanding on a map with an in base natural. It seemed made to Gate/Gas expand as you only had 1 small ramp to defend and the traditional weakness of Gate expands to Speedling counters was nullified. I have not watched any streams recently (been too busy) but I do hope to see Recall being used in this way against Z. You could move out with a couple of Sentries and muscle up on Zealot/Stalker and then Recall out after doing some real damage. Meanwhile, at home, you use the saved gas to tech up. Or expand etc.
Edit/ I do agree though that the pre Beta MCore looked and felt a lot better. I don't know why they changed it.
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On September 11 2012 18:18 aZealot wrote: I have not watched any streams recently (been too busy) but I do hope to see Recall being used in this way against Z. You could move out with a couple of Sentries and muscle up on Zealot/Stalker and then Recall out after doing some real damage. Meanwhile, at home, you use the saved gas to tech up. Or expand etc.
Initially, I did see a lot of tosses trying to use the recall ability in games, just like I saw them trying to use the oracle and tempest. Eventually, tosses stopped using these strats as mainstays.
I'm not 100% sure why recall play dissipated. My guess is, it was deemed to be better to simply use the energy for the jokership core to charge up the nexus, and not much else. Perhaps sending zealots in on foot as expendable suicide units, or warping them in with prisms, has been deemed the superior choice in most circumstances.
As to the oracle, once you've been shafted a few times spending that kind of money only to have it shot down by 4 stimmed marines instantly upon arriving in the enemy base, while *maybe* if you are lucky being able to land one entomb... well, let's try to put it more kindly. If you are gonna be attempting to use that thing very often, you'd better have a big butthole.
I think a similar thing could be said about tempests. Initially the tosses were trying to use this unit quite a bit. Then it stopped, and they all settled down to pretty much identical gameplay to WoL. In one particular game, I remember a toss being ahead 5 bases to his oppent's 3, or something like that. He dominated all game, and massed quite a few tempests. In the end, he lost because he was massing said tempests. Again, I think it's one of those units where you'd better have a pretty big butthole if you're gonna be using it.
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The unit is actually called Mothership Core.
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I love how Blizzard designs units, decides they are overpowered and instead of re-designing they just nerf it. Warhound - nerf Widow mine - nerf Mothership core - nerf Tempest - nerf incoming. They need to just release shit and see how the game develops and tweak/redesign from there, not just nerf things into oblivion because thats how they thing balancing works. When have we ever seen Blizzard improve a unit? Not often.
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On September 11 2012 10:14 archon256 wrote: If Blizzard feels that they have to limit its attack by energy somehow, maybe they could just make it so that each attack costs (a very small amount of) energy (and turning each shot into an autocast-able spell)? That way you could use it to defend the moment it spawned, its defensive capability becomes stronger the longer you let it charge up, and you'd still have a tradeoff between Purify and Energize. Nice idea.
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I would also like to say that I don't 100% hate every aspect of what has been proposed by Blizzard (just most aspects, heh). My opinion even differs in some ways from what the overwhelming majority opinion is. For instance, the warhound model. It seems to be universally despised by most. I actually don't mind the model design. Yeah, it's clunky and derpy looking, and looks like something out of 80s mechwarrior or whatever, but to me that sort of "fits" terran (I do however agree that the gameplay design and role of the thing needs to be seriously revisited, or it needs to be scrapped altogether).
As for tempests, I don't hate them in theory, and I don't think that they are a lost cause. Sure, they may be uninspiring on the creativity side of things (both in model and gameplay aspects), but I think they are salvageable. Quite simply, I think they need more dps, and possibly a cost or supply reduction, and that's all. In other words, a simple tweak to numbers can save the thing, I think.
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The reason it isn't fixed to a Nexus anymore is because it would limit mapmakers a lot. Then you need to have your expansion wall close to the nexus, which isn't always the case. I like it much better like this actually.
Other than that I think you're using it wrong OP. It was never supposed to just automatically defend everything. You still need a wall and acual units. But it does make it harder for your opponent to engage early game, and has other really cool abilities that good players will eventually abuse.
I think it might turn out that the MC is the most powerful of all the new units.
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"Protoss should not use any of the new units" (c)
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Pros seem to agree with you. I watched a lot of WhiteRa and TT1 and against Z they are back to FFE. WR makes some attempts at gateway expand, on huge maps against very late pools but he do not build a MC until quite late anyway and defends using zealot and stalkers. He uses alittle bit of recall, but not really to make a push he would not make in WoL. The DPS on the thing is not that good and mostly he will 70% of the time be misplaced to defend, and well we all know he takes sweet time to reposition itself.
Honestly, all tosses I see playing HotS are back to WoL tactics and units, just learning to counter new units/tactics from the other races. Kinda sad, but hey, at least now that zerg is massing swarm hosts instead of brood lords we can make a shitton of colossi like in PvP (/sarcasm). Oh and new maps.
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On September 11 2012 20:21 Rimak wrote: "Protoss should not use any of the new units" (c)
Well the new units were designed to require more skills from Protoss players. But they forgot to nerf the easy strategies too. So I think it's natural that people will go back to stuff like gateway timings every game if the game stays like that.
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Or it's just that new units don't really contribute to P gameplay and some of them are even making it weaker (except for maybe a recall).
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On September 11 2012 20:28 MilesTeg wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2012 20:21 Rimak wrote: "Protoss should not use any of the new units" (c) Well the new units were designed to require more skills from Protoss players. But they forgot to nerf the easy strategies too. So I think it's natural that people will go back to stuff like gateway timings every game if the game stays like that.
You're not a Protoss player, you don't know a damn about Protoss design, strategies, and tactics so please stop embarassing yourself
User was temp banned for this post.
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On September 11 2012 20:18 MilesTeg wrote: The reason it isn't fixed to a Nexus anymore is because it would limit mapmakers a lot. Then you need to have your expansion wall close to the nexus, which isn't always the case. I like it much better like this actually.
I'm not sure that one of my units should be given a severe nerf, making one of it's design goals moot, just because someone thinks it would limit mapmakers. If it would limit mapmakers, then come up with another solution to the problem besides the default "nerf the hell out of the unit." Jeez, I could come up with something better than that option in 5 seconds just off the top of my head. In fact, let me do it right now. Duhh... derr... umm... how about making the mothership core able to move at a reasonable speed inside pylon power?
See, was that so hard? And before anyone says "too complex, blah blah," it's already done for queens on creep. I'm not suggesting this is the solution to the unit's problems, btw, just trying to illustrate how easy it would be to use one's brain to come up with a better solution.
Other than that I think you're using it wrong OP. It was never supposed to just automatically defend everything. You still need a wall and acual units.
I'm not sure any reasonable person ever thought you were supposed to build one of these things and have it automatically defend your base against anything, forever. But I think it's reasonable to expect the thing to be more powerful than a weaker floating photon cannon that can't even contribute to defense because it can be bypassed.
But it does make it harder for your opponent to engage early game....
Personally, I've seen zero evidence of this. I can't really see it being able to do anything except sit over the front wall and deter a few lings from attacking. In which the case, a photon cannon would do the job cheaper and better because it has a natural attack, and is cheaper.
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On September 11 2012 10:14 archon256 wrote: If Blizzard feels that they have to limit its attack by energy somehow, maybe they could just make it so that each attack costs (a very small amount of) energy (and turning each shot into an autocast-able spell)? That way you could use it to defend the moment it spawned, its defensive capability becomes stronger the longer you let it charge up, and you'd still have a tradeoff between Purify and Energize.
Wait, that's a good idea. Thus, chances are we will never see it in the game. Another good idea might be to simply get rid of close spawn positions, although we might have to wait for LOTV for Blizzard to realizes that (if we're lucky, ofc).
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You seem to make a couple strange assumptions - like the assumption that the range/damage nerf had anything to do with it getting a movement speed (did you see the thing in the custom map? It could hold off a 2-rax by itself!). The mothership core was nerfed because its pre-beta version was ridiculous and made it borderline impossible to harass a protoss or make any kind of meaningful early game aggression against the protoss. I really wouldn't be surprised if the pre-beta version could have been used to go 3 Nexii before tech path like zergs do in WoL.
The mothership core has problems - but that its attack is too weak... that's not one of them (edit: and by this I mean look at its attack - 25 damage per attack from a flying unit - don't know its attack speed, but it looks pretty fast). I'd love to see its attack decoupled from its energy, as such a slow moving unit surely deserves to be feared if you do run across it, but then do we have problems with proxy Nexus?
Allowing multiple mothership cores... that idea has some merit to it - but it seems like they're (rightfully) afraid of what too much energize or too many Mass Recalls could do to the game. I don't think you've thought things out enough (or if you have, it isn't reflected in what you've written so far) for any of your ideas to really be implemented.
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How about this idea: It can attach to the nexus again gaining additional range or no cost to the purify. Or perhaps, expanding on the some thoughts in this thread, it can move faster not inside pylon power (that can maybe be abused to make a offensive recall, which I don't care for really just don't want to ruin the idea because of it) but around the Nexus? A large area around the Nexus to be precise, like the entirety of a base. So it can be similar to the queen this way and serve as a decent base defender.
It would still leave Purify as a lackluster spell, but worth experimenting with.
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I don't understand the QQ.
Protoss has a get out of free card for their aggression which is essentially bad design in itself. That's extremely powerful.
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