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One core design philosophy for HoTS was to give each race something that the WoL version lacked. Zerg lacked mid-game siege potential, so they got the swarm host. Terran mech lacked core army strength, so they got a marauder that builds from the factory. Protoss lacked mid- and early-game harassment, so they got the oracle, a flying raiding unit.
The trouble is that Blizzard didn't understand why Protoss lacked harassment in the first place. In fact, Protoss already had units that were good at raiding, but because the units and their associated tech were expensive and didn't provide combat value, those raiding strategies proved in competitive play to be weaker than sitting back, massing a force, and a-moving.
The prime example of effectively harassing and losing anyway is the Protoss phoenix. Phoenixes are damn good harass units. They're stupidly fast, surprisingly tanky, they self-heal so you can raid over and over, and they kill workers in about half a second. In PvZ, if Protoss makes 5 phoenixes, they'll force a handful of spore crawlers, and they'll still kill a queen, 5 overlords and a dozen drones.
The raiding potential of the phoenix is just as good as that of the banshee, one of the best and most frequently used raiding units in the game. So why does the banshee get so much more play than the phoenix? Because, as Mondragon accurately noted in the infancy of SC2, the counter to phoenix is hatchery. Or to put it another way, because beyond raiding, everything else about the banshee is much much better.
Most importantly, the banshee builds from the starport which provides access to key units that Terran wants to build early in every match-up. Medivacs are always good and vikings are often critical, so you never see an idle starport in mid-game. Compare that to a phoenix opening where the stargate is guaranteed to sit idle from the moment it finishes that 5th phoenix in the 10th minute until the 30th minute when it rouses from its lazy nap and queues up a carrier.
Secondly, the banshee is actually useful beyond raiding. It keeps you safe from ground-based rushes, and you can recycle it into your main force for a nice DPS boost. Phoenixes....well, just picture a pack of phoenixes floating sadly over a force of zerglings as they chew through the Protoss main. Phoenixes are the symbol a uselessness when they're not raiding.
So Protoss already has raiding tools in WoL, but the units and associated tech (stargate) are too one-dimensional to enjoy frequent use in competitive play. What did Blizzard do to address this problem? They gave Protoss the oracle, an even more one-dimensional raiding unit that also builds from the stargate. This is the equivalent of seeing a man trying to cut his meat with a spoon and handing him a duller spoon.
Why didn't Blizzard apply the same heavy-handed but effective technique to fix Protoss harass that they applied to fix Terran mech? Did they see Terran factory play lacking durability and mobility, and in response, gave it a slower, more fragile siege tank? No, they let the factory build a freaking marauder!
It would be so easy to do the same thing for Protoss. Stargate play is good for harass but lacks combat strength. Give it a marauder! Or better yet, give it a colossus! Take that tempest range down to 9, make it fire faster, and give it splash damage. Boom! Now that phoenix harass feels awfully potent--you bet your ass you won't be countering with a hatchery.
Or instead, Blizzard, we can do it your way and fix the problems with the stargate by giving it a phoenix that shoots minerals. I'll bet Mengsk is quaking in his boots.
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The big problem with Entomb, in my opinion, as a harass mechanic is that the workers themselves are capable of fighting it off. It's pretty retarded when the shields over the minerals are so weak that they fall to drills and spittle, but the bigger problem is that the player under attack isn't forced to withdraw some or all of his army to combat it, like what would occur when you were facing more conventional harass (DT, banshee, marine, hellion, etc). The "damage" done is less than the mineral cost of a scan (270 minerals for a full MULE), making Entomb extremely cost-inefficient harass.
A good solution I saw posted was to make Entomb affect workers instead of minerals. This would be great, as it would require the player to bring units over to defend, otherwise his units would stand useless. It would also affect gas mining and building construction, as a bonus. It would even open up other uses for the ability, such as entombing SCVs repairing a planetary fortress, for example, or even protecting your OWN workers from harass! It would need a radius nerf for it to work, but it certainly would be better than the current system right now.
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I swear to god I already saw that paragraph about giving Stargate a collosus and changes to Tempest. Did you copy one of your previous post here ? 
I also agree on most of the points here. Stargate, in contrast to the robo, is not producing units useful beyond a certain point of the game. But I think the Tempest needs to be significantly different to the collosus, we don't need to take away a collosus to add another one.
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But my point is that no matter how much you buff the oracle's harass, stargate still sucks for combat value. You can already do lots of harass damage with stargate, but you lose anyway because the tech is too one-dimensional.
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On September 14 2012 02:10 SpiZe wrote:I swear to god I already saw that paragraph about giving Stargate a collosus and changes to Tempest. Did you copy one of your previous post here ? I also agree on most of the points here. Stargate, in contrast to the robo, is not producing units useful beyond a certain point of the game. But I think the Tempest needs to be significantly different to the collosus, we don't need to take away a collosus to add another one.
Yeah, I wasn't seriously suggesting making the tempest a flying colossus. I just trying to be funny and make a point about how lame and weak the Protoss stargate fixes are when compared to the Terran factory fixes.
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You are right and I laughed when you compared phoenix to banshees since 1 banshee costs about the same as 1 phoenix except you need atleast 5 for phoenix to do anything. Also once they are out of energy they are useless in every matchup other than PvZ where you can fly around and snipe overlords. Also Don't forget Blizzard considers warp prisms as a raiding unit. While it is only effective when you are facing a largely immobile army. Or really gimmicky with dt drops. Don't even get me started on colossus drops those are laughable.
Honestly I don't know what Blizzard can do the fix Protoss, Especially harass. Right now it's either a timing attack or sit back in base turtling tell you can win.
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United States4883 Posts
I don't like this assessment.
The first thing that comes to mind is how wrong the idea of "protoss not having early/mid-game harassment" is. When we look at the early game, we see that stalkers (and by extension BLINK stalkers) are faster and more mobile than any other unit until ~8:00. In addition, protoss has immortal drops, colossus drops, sentry drops, early DTs, and phoenixes. So, you're quite wrong there.
Too add to this idea, we see that most of stargate play is not very viable aside from 4-5 phoenixes for harass or 2-3 void rays for map control. Adding MORE stargate options that work together make stargate feel like less of a waste. If you will, it's like seeing a man trying to cut his meat with a spoon and handing him a fork and a knife as well. In the end, we have it looking like the robo tech is more like the tanky "mech" of protoss while stargate tech ends up looking like an aggressive harassment tech path. While I think the tempest can't replace the carrier, I think that this sort of change to make stargate more viable could also lead into carriers better (unless they really do decide to kill it, which would be...stupid :D)
That being said, it is unfortunate that protoss doesn't have as many versatile units as terran. I think, while terran is getting ANOTHER all-around unit, protoss is still getting more and more specific units and is in great need a general, good, tanky unit (because the stalker just isn't cutting it anymore).
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well the stargate in brood war didn't have that many 'combat' units either. The corsair was largely a raiding unit as well. The difference though is that protoss gateway units were sick strong. Zealots with leg upgrade were like flying rocket ships, dragoons got sick range and dark templar weren't as much as a gimmick. They were really usefull in general. Which is kinda funny since in bw, overlords were detectors.
But for the rest, I completely agree with your post. Althoug an air collussus, would ruin the game even more imo.
I also had a good laugh at your anology and your ending statement :p
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On September 14 2012 02:16 SC2John wrote:
The first thing that comes to mind is how wrong the idea of "protoss not having early/mid-game harassment" is. When we look at the early game, we see that stalkers (and by extension BLINK stalkers) are faster and more mobile than any other unit until ~8:00. In addition, protoss has immortal drops, colossus drops, sentry drops, early DTs, and phoenixes. So, you're quite wrong there.
Blizzard has publicly stated that Protoss doesn't have good early/mid-game harass. Yes, warp prisms exist, and yes they're useful, especially in late-game where bases are spread out and defenses are far away. But Protoss warp prism play isn't nearly as strong as, for example, Terran drops, speedling harass or muta play. There's a reason you don't see early warp prisms in 95% of games.
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People are generally too much focused on the entomb imho..it can't be an harass option all-around. Entomb need a buff, that's for sure, but its a spell from a single unit you cant ask a mineral line demolisher. I see entomb to block "mule comebacks" .. i see entomb to help a timing push giving a weak window to attack.. but i cant see it like an all around harass option . Imho the quality of the oracle will be setted by the 2 other abilities,i hope something to deal with static defenses for a sinergy work with other harass options, not a defensive ability like cloak or similars, certainly needed, but for that we have to focus on the mscore.
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On September 14 2012 02:12 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2012 02:10 SpiZe wrote:I swear to god I already saw that paragraph about giving Stargate a collosus and changes to Tempest. Did you copy one of your previous post here ? I also agree on most of the points here. Stargate, in contrast to the robo, is not producing units useful beyond a certain point of the game. But I think the Tempest needs to be significantly different to the collosus, we don't need to take away a collosus to add another one. Yeah, I wasn't seriously suggesting making the tempest a flying colossus. I just trying to be funny and make a point about how lame and weak the Protoss stargate fixes are when compared to the Terran factory fixes.
I was just referencing that toss didn't need another unit with no depth that we just have to put in our army with our stalker/sentry and forget about it 
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On September 14 2012 02:27 InVerno wrote:
People are generally too much focused on the entomb imho..it can't be an harass option all-around. Entomb need a buff, that's for sure, but its a spell from a single unit you cant ask a mineral line demolisher. I see entomb to block "mule comebacks" .. i see entomb to help a timing push giving a weak window to attack.. but i cant see it like an all around harass option . Imho the quality of the oracle will be setted by the 2 other abilities,i hope something to deal with static defenses for a sinergy work with other harass options, not a defensive ability like cloak or similars, certainly needed, but for that we have to focus on the mscore.
Oracles can't harass all game long. If you put 2 turrets up around your mineral lines you will never see another oracle again they die so fast to turrets. so Mule Comebacks will always happen if Terran just prepare a little bit for this harass.
Also to JohnSC2 you really need to play Protoss to be making comments about warp prism harass. In theory it does "raid" but it's so bad all game long except super late game and only in pvp/pvz. All Protoss Harass is a gimmick, If it gets scouted it's shut down and if you try to force it you normally just lose the game.
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+ Show Spoiler +On September 14 2012 01:56 kcdc wrote:
One core design philosophy for HoTS was to give each race something that the WoL version lacked. Zerg lacked mid-game siege potential, so they got the swarm host. Terran mech lacked core army strength, so they got a marauder that builds from the factory. Protoss lacked mid- and early-game harassment, so they got the oracle, a flying raiding unit.
The trouble is that Blizzard didn't understand why Protoss lacked harassment in the first place. In fact, Protoss already had units that were good at raiding, but because the units and their associated tech were expensive and didn't provide combat value, those raiding strategies proved in competitive play to be weaker than sitting back, massing a force, and a-moving.
The prime example of effectively harassing and losing anyway is the Protoss phoenix. Phoenixes are damn good harass units. They're stupidly fast, surprisingly tanky, they self-heal so you can raid over and over, and they kill workers in about half a second. In PvZ, if Protoss makes 5 phoenixes, they'll force a handful of spore crawlers, and they'll still kill a queen, 5 overlords and a dozen drones.
The raiding potential of the phoenix is just as good as that of the banshee, one of the best and most frequently used raiding units in the game. So why does the banshee get so much more play than the phoenix? Because, as Mondragon accurately noted in the infancy of SC2, the counter to phoenix is hatchery. Or to put it another way, because beyond raiding, everything else about the banshee is much much better.
Most importantly, the banshee builds from the starport which provides access to key units that Terran wants to build early in every match-up. Medivacs are always good and vikings are often critical, so you never see an idle starport in mid-game. Compare that to a phoenix opening where the stargate is guaranteed to sit idle from the moment it finishes that 5th phoenix in the 10th minute until the 30th minute when it rouses from its lazy nap and queues up a carrier.
Secondly, the banshee is actually useful beyond raiding. It keeps you safe from ground-base rushes, and you can recycle it into your main force for a nice DPS boost. Phoenixes....well, just picture a pack of phoenixes float sadly over a force of zerglings as they chew through the Protoss main. Phoenixes are the symbol a uselessness when they're not raiding.
So Protoss already has raiding tools in WoL, but the units and associated tech (stargate) are too one-dimensional to enjoy frequent use in competitive play. What did Blizzard to to address this problem? They gave Protoss the oracle, an even more one-dimensional raiding unit that also builds from the stargate. This is the equivalent of seeing a man trying to cut his meat with a spoon and handing him a duller spoon.
Why didn't Blizzard apply the same heavy-handed but effective technique to fix Protoss harass that they applied to fix Terran mech? Did they see Terran factory play lacking durability and mobility, and in response, gave it a slower, more fragile siege tank? No, they let the factory build a freaking marauder!
It would be so easy to do the same thing for Protoss. Stargate play is good for harass but lacks combat strength. Give it a marauder! Or better yet, give it a colossus! Take that tempest range down to 9, make it fire faster, and give it splash damage. Boom! Now that phoenix harass feels awfully potent--you bet your ass you won't be countering with a hatchery.
Or instead, Blizzard, we can do it your way and fix the problems with the stargate by giving it a phoenix that shoots minerals. I'll bet Mengsk is quaking in his boots.
I freaking love you kcdc. Your guilds for Protoss and writing are amazing.
Even though it has been said multiple times, and in different threads, this is an eloquent post written just in time when the topic is hot again AND we can perhaps get something done. Specially since Blizzard is communicating with pros on almost a daily basis.
PS: /babies?
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I think entomb is a poorly designed ability. If you think about it, it's essentially a flying sentry with forcefields. Each entomb thing is like a forcefield on top of a mineral path.
Additionally, it's just really bad design to have an ability that is so one-dimensional.
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United States4883 Posts
On September 14 2012 02:35 SigmaoctanusIV wrote:
Also to JohnSC2 you really need to play Protoss to be making comments about warp prism harass. In theory it does "raid" but it's so bad all game long except super late game and only in pvp/pvz. All Protoss Harass is a gimmick, If it gets scouted it's shut down and if you try to force it you normally just lose the game.
Watch HerO's stream for an hour. I do play protoss and I'm quite familiar with speed prism plays that are highly effective. It's silly to say that they don't have a good harassment option. If anything, they just have a very difficult time transitioning out of harassment because the ability to harass is really expensive for protoss. The goal of the oracle is to give protoss a harassing unit that deals a good amount of harass without costing too much or deviating from "normal play" too much, or at least, from what will become "normal play".
EDIT: Again, this is "role" of the oracle, whether or not it actually fulfills it at this moment....
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Reavers are so cool at harass.
They can clear out a mineral line or than can misfire and do no damage at all. That's kinda meh for the players involved but excellent for spectators. It's risky because the drop ship can get shot down and you lose your reavers which is no less than a disaster.
I'd just do anything at this stage to have them. I'm getting desperate!
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Canada11318 Posts
The goal of the oracle is to give protoss a harassing unit that deals a good amount of harass without costing too much or deviating from "normal play" too much, or at least, from what will become "normal play".
Well if that's the case, the I guess they were successful because the Oracle really played it safe in not changing normal too much. The Protoss core army composition is virtually untouched. However, they also said, they wanted to break up the death ball a bit, but if that's the case, they're playing way too cautious.
I hadn't thought of the similarities to the Phoenix's, but I guess it's rather true that they're both pretty niche units when it comes to harass. A more versatile unit that could be used in attack, defence, and harass when combined with the warp prism would definitely be ideal. Need to have more drop/undrop micro harass that abuses a units burst damage and protect it from returning fire.
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I'm not saying blizzard should bring back the reaver but they totally missed the point of why harass in a game is so cool.
When a protoss player reaver drops in BW it's not cool because a he just killed a bunch of workers or delayed mining for a long time. It's cool because of all the drama and spectacle created by loading up a reaver in a shuttle and flying it over a base. It's cool seeing a ballsy protoss player find a small hole in the terran perimeter and dart in and drop off a reaver and target-fire the right SCV that wasn't pulled fast enough. It's cool see a protoss player dismantle a strong defense with just a reaver, shuttle, and 2 zealots. It's cool because there is a HUGE risk involved in reaver harass (because reavers are expensive and in the case of pvz critical for defense as well as harass (IE if you lose your 1st 2 reavers without doing anything then the zerg can just march right into your natural with some hydras)). It's cool because YOU DONT KNOW WHATS GOING TO HAPPEN (not just scarabs dudding out, but seeing how well the protoss controls his shuttle and how tight the defense of the opposing player is, how fast they can react and pull workers, etc).
Entomb is the lame as fuck compared to any other form of harass in BW or SC2. It's almost as bad as just giving the protoss a button in the HUD to press that says "stop terran from mining for X seconds". there is no risk involved in sending a fast flying unit behind a mineral line and casting a spell really quick and leaving. There's no way a player can be BETTER at doing that than anyone else, ever. It's an incredibly shallow spell that only does 1 thing in 1 situation. IT'S FUCKING BORING.
You can eventually fix balance, but a boring spell that makes it through beta will be boring forever (just look at corruptors).
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I thought that Protoss harass had a fundamental flaw to begin with.
All our harass capabilities cost gas, and gas is the fundamental resource protoss need in the main army. Therefore, it always becomes that our harass NEEDS to do significant damage to the terrans economy (for example) for it to be worth it.
From that assumption i think we can all agree that the best harass in the game (or so called harass) is zealot run-by's or warp prism and zealot's to harass. This is because we are trading a pure mineral investment in to harass, we never want to trade gas because then we need to do a significant amount of damage or we lose a strength in the core gas protoss army.
This is why the oracle is fundamentally flawed in my opinion, we have to spend 150/200 + 150/150 (stargate) into harass, when i think its been mentioned that if they attack with their harvesters they get delayed by 200 minerals. The floor is already their, we don't have enough ROI in the short term at least to be able to afford these earlier in the game (when they are most effective). I think the oracle needs to cost as much as a sentry/high templar for it to be considered, the oracle is currently the most expensive spellcaster unit in the game, and is frankly the shittest.
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On September 14 2012 03:12 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +The goal of the oracle is to give protoss a harassing unit that deals a good amount of harass without costing too much or deviating from "normal play" too much, or at least, from what will become "normal play". Well if that's the case, the I guess they were successful because the Oracle really played it safe in not changing normal too much. The Protoss core army composition is virtually untouched. However, they also said, they wanted to break up the death ball a bit, but if that's the case, they're playing way too cautious. I hadn't thought of the similarities to the Phoenix's, but I guess it's rather true that they're both pretty niche units when it comes to harass. A more versatile unit that could be used in attack, defence, and harass when combined with the warp prism would definitely be ideal. Need to have more drop/undrop micro harass that abuses a units burst damage and protect it from returning fire.
aka reaver :D
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