And how is this a good thing? Why should Zerg or Terran for that matter be forced to attack the Protoss Death Ball? Is a stupid unit that affects gameplay in a really bad way. Protoss has so many spells that can decimate the enemy it's not even funny..

ragz_gt

9172 Posts

September 20 2012 20:47 GMT

#42

On September 21 2012 03:23 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
Guys...

Forcing the Zerg to engage the Colossi/stalker/sentry deathball in WOL was next to impossible.
In HOTS, tempests pretty much force Zerg to react or slowly chipped to death,

Why there is still bitching I have no idea.

In WoL it's Zerg that WANTS to engage with BL/Festor/Corruptor army and Protoss with more mobile army and have to dance around and harass. Col/Stalker/Sentry is more of a chocolate ball than a deathball against late game Zerg compo.

Cloak

United States816 Posts

September 20 2012 21:58 GMT

#43

1 Tempest(s): Tickles
2 Tempest(s): Tickles
3 Tempest(s): Opponent steamrolls you.

Stop massing them! Gosh. That's not how you're s'pposed to use them.

WinterNightz

United States111 Posts

September 20 2012 22:22 GMT

#44

See, the thing is that even if that's how they should work, there's no way that that will ever be a good idea in the context of SC2 Protoss.

With the way protoss currently functions, I can't imagine a single situation where you want to tease the enemy into an engagement. It's not like we have siege tanks to draw the enemy into. Because of warp gate tech, you almost always want to draw things out longer and longer and longer. Why draw the enemy out right now when you can engage them in a few minutes when you have a bigger bank and more gateways ready to go as soon as your food drops below 200?

It really does have a lot to do with the "just go f'in kill him" concept. You're tickling the enemy death from afar until they have to come out and attack you head on (like how swarm host was originally proposed). Except without something incredibly powerful (like a siege tank) to draw the enemy into, there's no reason you would ever want to do this.

shihido

Singapore29 Posts

September 21 2012 09:16 GMT

#45

I think with all that it is still hard to justify a tempest. The prohibitive cost, let alone all the tech needed to reach.

An enemy who scouts and anticipates the tempest can be well prepared for it.

I think much of the HOTS protoss play will revolve around the mothership core.

Hattori_Hanzo

Singapore1229 Posts

September 21 2012 11:16 GMT

#46

On September 21 2012 07:22 WinterNightz wrote:
See, the thing is that even if that's how they should work, there's no way that that will ever be a good idea in the context of SC2 Protoss.

With the way protoss currently functions, I can't imagine a single situation where you want to tease the enemy into an engagement. It's not like we have siege tanks to draw the enemy into. Because of warp gate tech, you almost always want to draw things out longer and longer and longer. Why draw the enemy out right now when you can engage them in a few minutes when you have a bigger bank and more gateways ready to go as soon as your food drops below 200?

It really does have a lot to do with the "just go f'in kill him" concept. You're tickling the enemy death from afar until they have to come out and attack you head on (like how swarm host was originally proposed). Except without something incredibly powerful (like a siege tank) to draw the enemy into, there's no reason you would ever want to do this.

It's called "an alternative strategy", just as every T can CHOOSE between going mech or sky or bio, so too should Protoss be able to choose between Gateway or Robo or Stargate. HOTS opens up sky toss play to another level with these new units.

WinterNightz

United States111 Posts

September 21 2012 17:57 GMT

#47

That... has nothing to do with anything I wrote.

My point is that in order for this strategy--namely, using tempests to force the enemy to engage the protoss army--to ever be a good idea, there must exist some sort of monstrous unit composition that has the capability to just stomp another army extremely cost efficiently. As far as I can tell, this does not exist at all in the current Protoss arsenal BECAUSE the strength of every unit has to be balanced around warp gate technology.

Seriously, the tempest would be a great Terran unit. Set up a huge arsenal of tanks and turrets protecting the tempests. The tempest pokes from afar, and if the enemy wants to deal with it, they either need to go around and harrass and try to avoid the giant mech army, or they have to try and break a massive tank/turret line.

Except there's no way for Protoss to manage anything close to that because protoss units have to be balanced around the strength of front-loaded production in the warpgates.

eviltomahawk

United States11135 Posts

September 21 2012 18:20 GMT

#48

On September 21 2012 00:53 a176 wrote:

Show nested quote +

no unit should fall under this category. bad, bad game design.

I actually disagree that the Tempest is "reward without risk."

It's fine for chipping away at armies and picking off individual expensive units. However, there is the risk that perhaps the Tempest will not be that useful in the actual big engagement since it deals damage too slowly, so they essentially become dead supply that would otherwise be fighting units that would be more useful in the big engagement.

So I think the actual Tempest count will be very important to consider. Too many would mean too much dead supply for the big engagement. Too few would mean it doesn't do much. There should be a good medium where there are just enough Tempests to be able to efficiently pick away at the opponent's expensive units, but only enough so that the rest of the army is substantial enough to survive the engagement.