How the Tempest works. Why few understand…

On September 20 2012 06:06 ItWhoSpeaks wrote:
I agree that people have been using Tempests improperly. Dancing one to two Tempests in and out of range of an army or a drone line forces such a disproportionate amount of movement from one's opponent. Depending on their final cost, I think it is safe to say that Tempests will have a safe place in all Protoss match ups. Like Carriers, the tempest's issue is not in burst damage or range, but in cost, tech, and time. Tempests are a secondary power unit, unlike the tank, you can't can't just slap some tempests on a zealot stalker sentry ball and call it a day. Tempests really shine with units that punish poor engagements like High Templar and Colossi, or even a large number of Immortals with Sentries. Long story short, Tempests require a great deal of gas intensive units to be as powerful as you explain. And given that they are the second most gas intensive unit in the protoss arsenal, It requires at least 3 bases (I would probably say 4 bases) to get the resources to pay for such a thing.

What I would like to see: A gas reduction in the Tempest's cost along with a reduction in either damage or HP. Adjusting the supply and tech requirement would be gravy as well, but that may produce binary gameplay from mass tempests.

On September 20 2012 06:42 rpgalon wrote:
everyone already knows that tempest is not good in big numbers, people just wanna have a good time in the beta, and mass tempest is really fun.

On September 20 2012 08:21 archon256 wrote:
I think a problem with doing what you say is how reliant it is on Observers (or Revelation). Both Obs and Oracles can sniped with Fungal Growth (don't even need an Overseer, but if you have one Corruptors can one-shot the obs).

What's a toss to do once that vision is denied?

On September 20 2012 10:41 travdood wrote:


Well now the person being attacked has to be able to deflect this strategy somehow. Nothing is full proof.

Protoss players will have to keep an eye out around their Observer and get ready to move it once they see Infestors coming. Maybe at future MLGs we'll be hearing Tasteless and Artosis saying things like, "That was some SICK Observer micro by Squirtle!" "Oh here comes the Infestor...can he get that Observer out in tim- NO! Sase loses vision of the hatchery and it still stands due to some really poor Observer micro..." LOL

But I will say, if you successfully use Revelation on a group of harvesters, you will have 30 seconds of vision in that area, OR they wont want you vision, so the effective harvesters will be moved out and lose 30+ seconds of mining time.

On September 20 2012 05:46 travdood wrote:
My Argument

The Tempest is very useful. The problem is that very few people are utilizing them correctly. Players are not thinking of the game designer's intention of how they are supposed to be used. One reason for this is that this kind of unit has never been in a Blizzard RTS before. Extreme long range, generous mobility, but low DPS all in one unit is a foreign concept in the StarCraft universe. However, the same concept has been executed successfully in other RTS games. Whether or not this concept will remain in the finished version of HotS still remains unseen, but one thing for sure is that many players in beta are using them wrong.

How They Work

The main idea is to do as much damage with the Tempests to key structures or units as you can, while keeping your army by their side. Hurt the enemy, protect yourself.

You need to utilize Tempest range to your advantage and inflict as much damage with them as you can, not using your main army until you have to! One idea is to get a death ball, get 2-4 Tempests (5 MAX) and position your entire army outside the enemy base. Get some vision with observers and start attacking key structures or static defense with your Tempests. Keep the death ball with the Tempests.

Advantages Gained

1. Reward Without Risk

Keeping your army with the Tempests allows you to do damage and keep them safe. Think of it like leapfrogging Siege Tanks, but without having to go in and out of Siege Mode. You can attack quicker and pull back more easily.

2. Gaining a Better Position

“Come at me bro.” The enemy has to come to you. Until they do, you are slowly but surly taking out their base. Pick a position that favors you when they come out to fight. Perhaps a choke point. Or why not setup a nice little concave.

3. Forcing Engagements

You just put your foot down said, “The fight starts right here, right now!” You've forced an engagement in a spot that is better for you and the enemy may not have the right forces to fight with. Also, they may not have a big enough army size either. But they’ll have no choice but to use what they’ve got or be whittled down over time.

4. Sniping

Once the fight starts, do not a-move your Tempests. If the enemy is within range to attack your death ball, the Tempests have now lost their advantage. However, if all of your opponents units are now in range of your Tempests, start focus firing! Take out those Infestors in the back before they use any energy. There’s always a few…Start sniping Brood Lords. Bombard Colossi. Remember, Tempests do bonus damage to massive units now.

What Not To Do

Often what I see people do is mass Tempest along with a death ball and march all their units into the enemy base. This is all wrong. If your plan of attack is to go head on with all your forces at once, don't make Tempests. Their DPS is simply too low and the range is useless because at this point the enemy is within attack range of the rest of your units anyway.

I hear players saying, “Tempests suck because their DPS is awful.” and “It’s smarter to make more high damage units instead.” Yes, their DPS is not high, but their advantage is being able to do attack from a safe distance and not require the main forces to fight right away. If you don’t utilize their range first, it is like bringing Siege Tanks into a fight without Siege Mode and saying you would have done better if you just made more Marines. Or course you would have…

Remember, as long as your Tempests are attacking and no one is attacking them, you’re not risking anything. Hold position and don’t attack with ground forces for as long as you possibly can.

Successful Strategies

1. Tempest/Archon vs Zerg

The most common PvZ strategy I’ve seen using Tempets. While sieging with Tempets, the Protoss leaves his Archons with his Tempests. He does not engage with them, he holds position. Due to the range, the Zerg cannot see what is around the Tempests, so when he blindly sends in his Corruptors, they are destroyed by the Archons standing by.

2. Tempest/Oracle/Phoenix vs Zerg or Protoss

White-Ra was sniping Hatcheries beautifully with Tempests. He used the Oracle’s Preordain ability on the Hatchery to maintain vision. Tempests attacked from an open air spot on the edge of the map, safe from ground units and guarded by Phoenix. Ground forces stayed home to hold down the fort. The opponent would always have to make air forces to deal with the problem.

NOTE: Unfortunately, with the recent removal of Preordain, this strategy is not as easy to do, but nevertheless achievable. Using Revelation on worker units or positioning an Observer can make the same strategy viable.

3. Holding The Fort

In a late game PvZ, two players were in a semi-base race. While destroying each other’s mains, the players established new bases. 2 each, so of course Protoss is ahead. Zerg had a larger force and was pressing against the new Protoss bases. Brood Lord/Infestor/Viper/Corruptor/Roach vs Tempest/Carrier/Archon/Stalker. At first, Toss pushed out a bit to fend off Zerg forces, only to have big units snagged by Vipers and destroyed by the swarm.

After learning his lesson, he pulled back and started using Tempests to snipe key units. Once Vipers were picked off, he continued to hold his army in place while the Zerg army was still trying to knock down buildings blocking their way. During this time, he used Tempests to pick off Brood Lords. The Protoss army continued to hold position, build up and not take damage…not fighting until the Zerg broke through. The Protoss did not fight until they had to. At this point, most of the game changing units in the Zerg army had been taken out. Protoss engaged, drove the Zerg back, saturated mineral lines, got ahead, moved out and overpowered the enemy.

In Other Games

Long range, low DPS units have been successfully incorporated in various other RTS games. In Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II, Bombardment Ships have extremely long range and though they hit very hard, the time between shots is much longer than that of the Tempests attack delay. The range was actually even further than the 22 range Tempests had. These units were accessible to all races and required a unit to spot vision of the area you were attacking.

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 had long range siege ships for each race, all used in a similar fashion. Spot the target with a scouting unit, attack from far away and hold units near your sieging units to protect them. Make the enemy come to you. These units were even more limited. They were bound to the sea and were only effective against structures (hitting units required leading the target as their missiles attacked a location rather than a target directly). Meanwhile, Tempests can fly and hit individual units directly.

Conclusion

I’m not saying that just because this unit concept works in other RTS games that it will fit perfectly into StarCraft II. It’s very well possible that the developers will say it doesn’t work out after all and remove it from the game completely. All I am saying is that there are intended methods for this unit that simply are not being put into practice by most beta testers at the current time.

Side Note
I also feel that Tempests should be given back their 22 range upgrade as it was the factor that compensated for the unit’s low DPS. Not to mention the unit was just more impressive. When I first saw that 22 range I thought, "DAMN!" When I see it now I think, "Oh hey, that's a little further than a Siege Tank..."

On September 20 2012 12:11 Belha wrote:
TLDR: Tempest right now SUCKS. Due how protoss works, THERE IS NO TEMPO IN AN EVEN GAME TO USE THE TEMPEST.

“Come at me bro.” The enemy has to come to you. Until they do, you are slowly but surly taking out their base. Pick a position that favors you when they come out to fight. Perhaps a choke point. Or why not setup a nice little concave.

3. Forcing Engagements

You just put your foot down said, “The fight starts right here, right now!”

A couple things: your information is a little dated. Preordain is gone.

As i said before, i'm not smart saying this, is pretty freaking obvious. But it pisses me off that some guy with no idea about the real game (the game where tempest suck, where we all knew the warhound was op even with the before beta stats and so on), talks like if he just discover the Americas.

It pisses me off one thing is just discussing about the unit, but you are CLAIMING that you understand more than the average people!

On September 20 2012 16:23 stard1n wrote:


Considering it takes roughly about 30 seconds to kill 5 marines with a tempest, i would say those statements are just very wrong...

On September 20 2012 17:10 gedatsu wrote:

If you're aiming at the marines, you're doing it wrong. Shoot the medivacs or the vikings.

On September 20 2012 16:09 Rabiator wrote:
The Tempest is a terrible unit design, because it
a) POTENTIALLY allows to be very destructive without any risk,
b) forces an opponent to build a disproportionate amount of air units (depending on the map) and
c) can totally suck if it is too expensive or too weak.

The first argument alone is a terrible thing to have for a game such as Starcraft and Protoss can give vision very very easily (just use a hallucinated Phoenix) for free and thus risk nothing on their own side. If you have just a few Stalkers underneath the Tempests you can kill a pretty big number of flying units which are sent out to get rid of the Tempests and that is a terrible thing. Due to the super long range and the flying aspect of the unit it is required to send flyers after them on certain maps, because there will be ledges which can be used "cleverly" to defend them against ground units. Thus we get to the last point and thats the actual core of the problem (combined with the first), because you will get a balance of the unit to "make it fair" and this will result in it being either too weak or too strong with no middle ground, just like the Void Rays were balanced to be not used anymore nowadays. The game is made to be non-flying-armies and that sucks, but it practically requires any flyers to be nerfed to "not worth it" status.

On September 20 2012 19:12 []Phase[] wrote:
hmph I still dont like the unit _AT ALL_, even if it becomes more efficient. It seems like a unit with the sole purpose of pissing people off AND motivating people to go deathball. If its used on top of some cliffs for long range harassment id like it, because then its not part of the deathball, but the OP obv sees it way more effective when put inside a deathball aswell.

On September 20 2012 21:23 eMGmoG wrote:
the tempest is a boring, stupid unit. if you cant attack an army, because its stronger than yours, what sense does it make to put a unit in the game to force you to such an engagement?i dont get it. i mean in standard TvP, if your terran and you cant attack protoss directly or you will die and the protoss has tempest so you have to attack, how stupid is that? its and addition to the protoss deathball because the toss deathball is so damn strong and you want your enemy to attack you. it forces the deathball play.
the poor gameplay design, with overpowered bio dps and therefore overpowered AE (colossus, fungals, storms) lead to such units, but it wont solve the problem.
the problem is not the tempest, and its balance, its the core gameplay design, pathing, minerals per minute, mules, injects and all that fundamental stuff.

On September 20 2012 21:38 gedatsu wrote:
You force him to engage in another position. A position where your army is stronger than his.

On September 20 2012 22:03 eMGmoG wrote:


sorry but this seems to me like RTS for 7 year olds. i do this, you have to do that. i do that, you have to do this. there should be always multiple options in most of the situations. thats where the skill of strong players shines; how they decide what when to do. thats what makes good RTS fun to watch and play.

On September 20 2012 12:11 Belha wrote:
Your analysis is totally low levelish, or you have no idea about toss play, anyways, low level toss.

The cost of the Tempest and tempest tech is just too much for real competitive play. Cost in money, and tempo.
If you go to tempest, and you in even foot with your opponent (in case you're ahead, the tempest then is irrelevant), the the cost and tempo to develop/fund the tech is just insanelly high (again, in a high level game, this is just freaking obvious for any serious toss player).

And the last, but not the less important fact, is the total lack of punch, aka impact once it appears in the game. Ok you warped in 2 tempests, so you invested a lot in those 2 flagships, so what? Of curse that with such investment you have to play defensive. The tempest is just a weak unit for fights. Weak as fuck.

For terrans, once medivacs come into play, then is a huge improve for infantry. Once stim comes into play, is a big hit. Once siege tanks are up, is very important. Same once protoss get the first collosus vs those infantry pushes, is "the wall" vs those attacks, same for storms, huge investment, big impact. Same for dts, same for those first 10-12 mutas, those infestors with fungal, those broods.

What make them hit the board with such presence? You make a huge investment, survived, and now you have a turning weapon for any battle.

Tempest? Nope. Not at all. Dps less than an hidra but at an insane cost (again, not talking about the 300/300 only).

As i said before, i'm not smart saying this, is pretty freaking obvious. But it pisses me off that some guy with no idea about the real game (the game where tempest suck, where we all knew the warhound was op even with the before beta stats and so on), talks like if he just discover the Americas. It pisses me off one thing is just discussing about the unit, but you are CLAIMING that you understand more than the average people!

TLDR: Tempest right now SUCKS. Due how protoss works, THERE IS NO TEMPO IN AN EVEN GAME TO USE THE TEMPEST.

On September 20 2012 05:46 travdood wrote:
Advantages Gained

1. Reward Without Risk

On September 20 2012 22:03 eMGmoG wrote:


sorry but this seems to me like RTS for 7 year olds. i do this, you have to do that. i do that, you have to do this. there should be always multiple options in most of the situations. thats where the skill of strong players shines; how they decide what when to do. thats what makes good RTS fun to watch and play.

On September 21 2012 00:53 a176 wrote:


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

On September 20 2012 22:52 Fragile51 wrote:


Forcing someone else to engage on your terms is RTS for 7 year olds? What the hell are you even talking about? "there should always be multiple options in most of the situations". There is. You can sit back and take the damage, you can attack knowing the risk you are taking a fight that doesn't favor you OR move your army around in a way that it ends up favoring you, or you do your own harass in order to gain ground. I really don't understand why people are saying tempests are skill-less boring deathball units when they are literally the absolute opposite and are exactly what sc2 needs in order to become a better spectator experience.

On September 21 2012 02:29 Nosferatos wrote:
given the buff vs massive, Tempest is great for forcing late game Zerg to react.

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.

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.