EPTI think the original goal of the unit was silly, and so do a lot of other players. At this point with spells like Revelation, I think it'd be way better to see it become a support caster (aka having spells that don't do damage)- other people have posted lots of ideas that are actually really cool. Phase Shield was a little convoluted in purpose but I think it was on the right track in terms of the role it gave the Oracle (Void Siphon of course, is not). Of course you'd have to balance that with the mothership core but the only spell MSC has to support an actual army is recall.
Why Entomb should NOT be redesigned. - Page 3
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HeavenResign
United States702 Posts
I think the original goal of the unit was silly, and so do a lot of other players. At this point with spells like Revelation, I think it'd be way better to see it become a support caster (aka having spells that don't do damage)- other people have posted lots of ideas that are actually really cool. Phase Shield was a little convoluted in purpose but I think it was on the right track in terms of the role it gave the Oracle (Void Siphon of course, is not). Of course you'd have to balance that with the mothership core but the only spell MSC has to support an actual army is recall. | ||
Falling
Canada11350 Posts
If the goal was to break up the Protoss deathball it fails on all counts. It does absolutely nothing to change the army composition of the Protoss and pulls out only a tiny supply amount from the main army. A true raider for Protoss works best with the warp prism that has an actual burst damage attack would help break up the death ball. Why? Because the raider can be shuttled to the enemy base and kill workers. If it's something other than the HT, then it has the option of picking off units and buildings. But then it can be pulled back to defend. Because it can kill stuff fast, a small number of them can hold off larger numbers. (Although SC2 units and mechanics largely ignoring high ground/ terrain features the advantage of this will be muted.) Or they can push forward with the main army and pick off forward units or reinforcements. In other words it's a unit that can be moved all over the map doing all sorts of jobs. That breaks up the death ball. But if it works best with a warp prism it is self-balancing. You can only control so many of them effectively at time. So if you have lots of them, you cannot control them all equally well and the player with less (assuming mirror match up) can gain advantages by controlling their smaller force better. It pushes away from composition balance to player control balance. Zealots, HT, DT, and Reavers were heavily used as raiders in BW. HT, DT and Collosi/ Immortals in SC2 are not nearly as heavily used as raiders. Only Chargelots are extensively used for harass. Why is that? That would be far better to solve then to create such a niche unit that does nothing to change the Protoss army composition. (Plus the unit requires so little attention to manage.) | ||
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summerloud
Austria1201 Posts
On October 11 2012 19:17 cpc wrote: Have to agree I always thought that if you had to target every mineral field would be better but if the spell isn't exciting to watch then it probably is more of a problem. Entombed seems like something that is really annoying but not particularly exciting there just is no tension. For some reason I imagine a possibly more exciting spell (not saying this is a good idea) entomb attaching to the mineral field and if you dont destroy it in time it will send out a shockwave killing stuff as it disipates being more exciting because of added tension. this actually seems like a good idea :o how about these ideas: - entomb only hits a single mineral patch, this patch changes visibly but can still be mined, but all money mined goes to the protoss player (disappears directly at the patch in a warp something or whatever). could potentially go unnoticed for a long time - entombs creates small warpfields and all resources (gas or minerals) that are carried through these by workers disappear and go to the protoss player - entombed minerals can still be mined but damage workers so that if you dont manually pull your workers you might lose some, especially after multiple entombs other ideas for spells totally different than entomb but still possible for the oracle: - illusion - change a single enemy unit to look like a zealot. enemy units will auto-attack this unit (maybe give it a delay so enemy has time to react and micro the fake-zealot away from his main army) - force wave - pushes units away, kinda like an anti-abduct with aoe - silence - stops casters from casting spells for a limited amount of time, small aoe | ||
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leveller
Sweden1840 Posts
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MasterCynical
505 Posts
On October 11 2012 21:14 emythrel wrote: hang on a second, I came in to a thread entitled "Why entomb should not be redesigned" to find a thread about why entomb sucks. I am confused, very confused. Are you saying it should be removed altogether? Yes, this is the idea. Not just a superficial redesign to make it more skillful or behave slightly differently, but to cut it all together or either to change the core design and philosophy behind the spell so that it's an entirely new spell. I apologize for not making this clearer. | ||
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rpgalon
Brazil1069 Posts
- Remove the Void-ray charge up mechanic, buff a little the not-charged up damage. - Make the Void-ray attack be 1 hit/s instead of the 1 hit/0.6s (keep the same DPS) - Give Void-ray 1 base armor. - Reduce Carrier Build time from 120 to 90. - Make fungal not able to lock Air units in place (damage to air units is the same and fungal is still able to lock ground units). - Change the Mothership skill Vortex to make Archon toilet impossible to do, or just put another skill in it's place. - Remove Oracle - Remove Tempest Thoughts: Phoenix becomes the so wanted protoss harass unit, void-ray becomes a better all-around unit since it no longer has the stupid charge up mechanic, carrier transition becomes viable late game without the need of 4+ stargates, fungal no longer 100% stops the air play and air becomes a decent way of dealing with Brood/corruptor/infestor. | ||
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iKill
Denmark861 Posts
On October 12 2012 09:51 MasterCynical wrote: Yes, this is the idea. Not just a superficial redesign to make it more skillful or behave slightly differently, but to cut it all together or either to change the core design and philosophy behind the spell so that it's an entirely new spell. I apologize for not making this clearer. To be fair, this is what basically everyone means when they say "redesign" about anything in SC2. | ||
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Don.681
Philippines189 Posts
Entomb+Prisim+Storm. No, no, it's not boring and skill less. Edit: okay, found it <clicky> | ||
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Fig
United States1324 Posts
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Bobgrimly
New Zealand250 Posts
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HeavenResign
United States702 Posts
On October 13 2012 04:14 Don.681 wrote: I saw this youtube video where some guy entombed all but 2 mineral patches, dropped a 2 High Templar then stormed ALL 24 of the enemy drones as they proceeded to mine and stack on one side of mineral field. Entomb+Prisim+Storm. No, no, it's not boring and skill less. Edit: okay, found it <clicky> Rotterdam did that the second day of beta when most players were goofing around. Warp prism speed, Templar/storm tech, and stargate tech...how viable does that sound to you before 20 minutes into the game, where you might as well just do storm drops anyway with 3 - 4 templar? The only tech buildings you don't need for that setup are DT Shrine and Fleet Beacon. The ability is silly. | ||
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MasterCynical
505 Posts
On October 11 2012 21:33 emythrel wrote: The excitement isn't in the killing of workers, it is in the skill used to do it. In the skill of defending it. Like when MvP just perfectly puts up a turret and it finishes the second a DT walks in to range. The excitement is in whether he will see the DT walking in to his base and raise the depot, its not in him having no scans ready, no army at home and 4 DT's about to wrecking 40 SCV's I agree and disagree with this. The entertainment of skill is on a continuum based on how much a viewer understands about the game. Think about the hundreds of thousands of people watching a GSL/MLG final, do you think they will all understand the skill behind each play? of course not. To the average TL user such as you or I, the skill and mechanics behind each play is understood and hence we are entertained by how skillful the players have either done or prevented damage. This is the problem of entomb. Even if you make it require an extremely high skill level to both defend and pull off, only viewers such as you and I will understand and be entertained. This is evident in any sport, you don't just want the die hard soccer fans to watch a soccer game right? In fact, in a major international soccer event, a majority of the viewers will only know the basics of the game. It is the impressive play by play events such as someone scoring an impossible goal that entertains both the die hard fans and the casual fans. They dont care that John was slightly out of position and Peter had very good positioning, allowing Frank to get that goal. They just care that an impossible goal took place. That's one of the special impacts of soccer. It is the special impact that each sport has that entertains the mass. Entomb doesn't have this special imapct of the players killing each other's stuff that is unique to Starcraft which any fan can understand. On October 13 2012 04:14 Don.681 wrote: I saw this youtube video where some guy entombed all but 2 mineral patches, dropped a 2 High Templar then stormed ALL 24 of the enemy drones as they proceeded to mine and stack on one side of mineral field. Entomb+Prisim+Storm. No, no, it's not boring and skill less. Edit: okay, found it <clicky> Was it the Entomb, or the Storm that killed all the worker that really made that play entertaining? Lets say he just stormed twice onto the entire mineral line instead of doing that entomb/storm combo. I don't think the entomb really added that much more at all, most of the excitement and impact came from the storm. If anything, we are amazed that he actually found a creative use of entomb. Imagine that entomb/storm play became standard, and we are a few months down the line. This effect wears off and almost all of the impact comes from the storm. If someone hits an entomb but completely misses a storm, we are let down as viewers. If someone misses an entomb but lands the perfect storm, it still has that same entertaining impact of Starcraft. Not to mention the massive tech requirement. On October 11 2012 16:35 ejozl wrote: I do believe that casters can make this very exciting, by watching a battle, then switching to the mineral line and saying, he hasn't been mining this whole time, OMG! he cannot reinforce! Yes, any good caster can do this. It's part of their job. It's like how Tasteless/Artosis needs to start cracking jokes after the 8th TvT of a day. Unfortunately, in this case with Entomb, it just wont be genuine and people will indeed pick up on that. It will feel exactly like this. On October 11 2012 22:39 mage36 wrote: Bottom line is can you imagine Kim Carrier and other casters shout out "OHHHHHH ENTOMBUUUUU!!!" Like they would shout out "PLAYGUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!" or "STORMUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!" Doubt it. It's just not that exciting to see. | ||
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MasterCynical
505 Posts
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Evangelist
1246 Posts
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osiris17
United States165 Posts
And Blizzard has shown such willingness to balance this ability, and this unit the oracle. I have only great prospects for Protoss in heart of the swarm. If only Terran were improved so well... There's too much whining in this community. | ||
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R0YAL
United States1768 Posts
On October 11 2012 17:38 Teoita wrote: The big problem with the Oracle is that it's just so incredibly monodimensional. There's nothing a pro player can do that someone in say, diamond, can't. Compared to a unit like HT's...yeah. I share the same sentiments as this fellow. It's just such a one dimensional ability that does not vary with the skill of the user. It's another attempt by Blizzard to add something into the game with its role already decided which is something that this game needs less of. We need more flexible units capable of blowing minds in the hands of top pros. | ||
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
The oracle is a boring unit. There are just a couple problems with the unit: - It's a half-assed attempt to prevent deathball play by making a unit that has NO use in combat and is only a harasser, at most this just forces a deathball with a few oracles flying around, it's not a constructive way to dismantle the deathball at all.. - It's an air unit, most protoss harass is by air already and is consequently stopped by AA units which are made to counter colossi most of the time anyway.. I would have loved to have seen either the colossus replaced OR a harass unit which was not airbased (and not placed on the stargate..). Robo play for protoss still has practically no harass options as warp prisms are practically not useable (too easy to counter). - Entomb is utterly boring indeed. The OP explained this perfectly already but harass should vary in it's success wildly depending on micro, timing etc. Entomb is a low risk low reward spell, just very bland. - The unit just doesn't add cool new gameplay. It doesn't really synergize with other air units too well (exception maybe tempest now) and stargate play already has a ton of options for harass. Phoenix play especially is quite similar to the oracle: it's eco damage is limited by energy and it often doesn't do much in combat. protoss should have gotten a cliffwalking fast harass unit or something like that. A unit that isn't stopped by anti-air like nearly all other protoss harass options. An air unit that could transform to ground would also have filled an unique role for protoss but alas we are probably stuck with this completely dull unit. I do expect it to get some sort of ability that's useful in combat in the end though | ||
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RifleCow
Canada637 Posts
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archonOOid
1983 Posts
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RavenLoud
Canada1100 Posts
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