Nearly all Protoss players of the community, and many players of other races, like the concept of an alien high tech race which is technological superior against its enemies but are unhappy (to say the least) with the way Protoss has to be played in WOL to be successful. But is the reason the Protoss race seems boring in WOL, which is only a shadow of the Aiur-spirit of the past, really the warpgate? Or is it something else, something even more disturbing?
I. The Warpgate
Almost all of the concerns are concentrating on the gameplay-mechanic of the warpgate. The argumentation is that warpgates allow, with their quick cooldown (and which can produce even faster with chronoboost), a reinforcing advantage against other races. In combination with a pylon, which can be placed nearly everywhere on the map with the exception of on creep, the Protoss can reinforce nearly anywhere on the map very quickly which negates the defender's advantage. Also, counterattacks can be taken care of with quick warp ins without splitting up the Protoss main army.
Following this argumentation Blizzard balanced this advantage of the Protoss race against the others by balancing the earlygame units, which are weaker compared to earlygame units of the other races, looked at it from an equal cost point of view. So, in order to survive the earlygame, Protoss must either go all in with a timing push or rely heavily on the sentry's spell Force Field to hold the enemy out of their bases long enough to tech up to a healthy amount of expensive lategame units.
II. General design concept of the Protoss race.
The general overlaying design concept of the race is that the protoss units are very weak in the earlygame; without extensive micro and spell usage of Force Field and Blink. But if they survive long enough and are able to take 3 bases they can accumulate enough resources to build their expensive but very strong lategame-units such as Colossi, Archons, Immortals and the Mothership.
So:
Weak when not micro'd correctly in the earlygame, but strong in the lategame.
Important to know is , that this decision was not a design accident made by Blizzard, they wanted to design it that way. A race which is technological superior and has units that are stronger, but more expensive than the units of the other races. Balancing this concept so that all races have similar chances of winning, is very difficult and lead to the design toss is known for in WOL.
And that design is generally not a bad idea but the way Blizzard implemented it was not optimal because the lategame units are all strong but very boring to use because they are all non-microintensive-a-movers (Colossus, Immortal and Archon). It wouldn't be a bad idea that earlygame units are weak and must rely on support units if the lategame units are strong if the lategameunits would be more micro intensive and multidimensional. This would differ the way Protoss is played clearly form the other races. It creates a tension of surviving the earlygame and then, if you managed that, it's payback time.
So even if the warpgate would be a lategame upgrade in the twilight council or would be completely taken out of the game it would lead to the same unit composition in the lategame:
1. x Stalkers + 5-6 Colossi + Mothership against ground based armies.
2. x Stalkers + y Archons + Mothership against air based armies.
Because these two combinations are the most effective way to deal with the most unit compositions of the enemy. Only change there would be, if for instance warpgate were to be taken out and Stalker would be buffed, is that we would see more early Stalker + Sentry deathballs instead of Colossi + Stalker deathballs. But a deathball is a deathball.
Their is no reason for toss to go anything else, except maybe some immortals against a meching Terran.
III.Conclusion
And that leads to a situation in which nearly all Protoss games look the same. It's the bad and boring unit ideas, with the Colossus as a too powerful all-round unit, which hurt protoss gameplay and diversity in lategame unit compositions, not warpgates. The decision of being weak when not micro'd correctly earlygame but strong lategame would be good if the units would be more versatile and would lead to more different openings and more potent lategame compositions so that for example airplay would be an option. If i start Phoenix airplay in WOL it's a loss in most games if the enemy is on an even skill level because of the weakness of toss air units in the followup (carriers are a joke against target-firing vikings/corruptors).
Think about it. Which units of the protoss race in WOL are really fun to play ?
In my opinion only the Sentry, Phoenix, Warp Prism and High Templar are deep in design and benefit from good micro. All the lategame units are boring because they all a-move.
Poll: Should there be an drastic overhaul of core protoss gameplaymechanics
Yes it should. (9)
69%
No it should not. (3)
23%
Im not sure. (1)
8%
13 total votes
Your vote: Should there be an drastic overhaul of core protoss gameplaymechanics
(Vote): Yes it should. (Vote): No it should not. (Vote): Im not sure.
Poll: Which unit has to be redone out of all existing WOL protoss units?
Colossus (206)
65%
Carrier (36)
11%
Void Ray (24)
8%
Sentry (18)
6%
None of them , they are all good the way they are (maybe a little tweaking in numbers). (18)
6%
Stalker (6)
2%
Zealot (3)
1%
Dark Templar (2)
1%
Archon (2)
1%
Phonix (2)
1%
High Templar (1)
0%
Immortal (1)
0%
319 total votes
Your vote: Which unit has to be redone out of all existing WOL protoss units?
(Vote): Zealot (Vote): Stalker (Vote): Sentry (Vote): High Templar (Vote): Dark Templar (Vote): Immortal (Vote): Colossus (Vote): Archon (Vote): Phonix (Vote): Void Ray (Vote): Carrier (Vote): None of them , they are all good the way they are (maybe a little tweaking in numbers).
Poll: Is the warpgate-mechanic an important part of protoss gameplay ?
Yes, its unic , like creepspread or flying buildings. Its ok that earlygame units are weaker then. (32)
35%
I like it, but it shoud be an upgrade in the lategame and therefore early units shoud be stronger. (31)
34%
The cooldowntime shoud be longer, as an tradeoff for the warpin, so that early units can be stronger (11)
12%
Mechanics which mess around with basic rts designrules , like defender's advantage shoudnt be part. (11)
12%
The warpin shoud cost additional minerals and/or gas or be only able on special, expensive pylons. (7)
8%
92 total votes
Your vote: Is the warpgate-mechanic an important part of protoss gameplay ?
(Vote): Yes, its unic , like creepspread or flying buildings. Its ok that earlygame units are weaker then. (Vote): I like it, but it shoud be an upgrade in the lategame and therefore early units shoud be stronger. (Vote): The cooldowntime shoud be longer, as an tradeoff for the warpin, so that early units can be stronger (Vote): Mechanics which mess around with basic rts designrules , like defender's advantage shoudnt be part. (Vote): The warpin shoud cost additional minerals and/or gas or be only able on special, expensive pylons.
This leads to the conclusion that most of the protoss units in WOL need a serious redesign and NOT the warpgate in the first place.
1. Nerf the Colossus heavily (make the lasers into a cast ability and give the colossus energy to increase its micro and lower its damage output, perhaps let the laser fire in a straight line away from the Colossus) and add therefore a micro-intensive lategame unit with high damage output and low HP which is very difficult to micro. It could be the Reaver but if it must not it can also be some new unit.
2. Protoss needs more support units like a mobile shieldbattery or teleporter which can be also used for quick earlygame harass. The Oracle would be good for that purpose if it had useful spells, which it doesn't the way it is now.
3. Give the protoss more expensive high tech units and especially buildings , like cloaked probes (lategame) or Mothership Core transforming into a mobile Nexus which can be set up in an mineral field. It can mine out of it and can flee if the enemy is coming.
On October 16 2012 03:24 Mo0Rauder wrote: Re-do carrier so it has the same leash micro mechanics as it did in BW.
Agreed, especially when NoNY showcased exactly the differences between SC2 carrier vs the BW version.
definitely carrier should be brought to be the same as the BW version as per Tyler's suggestions. More choices/options for protoss is a good thing, so that the Collosus is not always the go-to choice.
I like how the comments say carriers but the votes say collossus.
Thinking of all the relevent MU's: PvP Collosus wars are stupid and uninteresting to watch PvT If Terran doesn't get Vikings and/or a good engagement they lose vs Collossus, also due in part to the warp in mechanic PvZ Collosus is VERY hard to deal with when in a deathball especially considering how early some players get them
well i think we had already like 10+ polls which showed that almost noone likes the design of the colossus... but it's such a core unit, that it would require drastic changes of the protoss race if they change the colossus... so i doubt blizzard will do this... sc2 without the colossus could only get better imo :D
The thing at the end of the day, is especially in PvT. If Protoss DON'T get the ridiculous aoe splash units (Colossi, Templar), they melt in absolutely every single engagement. The problem isn't with the unit itself, the problem is the REASON behind it. If Protoss don't get Colossus (and or HT's) they lose the game past early blink pushes.
Colossi are very one directional, boring, extremely strong units, but if we don't have them, we can't win. The problem lies deeper within the Protoss design.
Reduce the damage, build time, resource and food cost, and size of the colossus; but increase speed and redo the attack animation to make it trigger faster; they could be used for more cliffing / risky harassment and retreat functions, but still augment the army with splash later... but die easier and require more colossus, splash is less focused. OR just replace the unit with the reaver and be good to go.
Protoss would be fine if they had a reaper-like unit. Then there would be different styles of playing protoss while fitting the Dark Templar theme of "assassin" units, and the other two races (even in mirrors) would have to decide on how to play the game rather than just watch and see if P is going to warpgate push, go ht, or go colossus. Colossus is fine, it's a hard and dumb unit which there's nothing wrong with it. The problem is that in replacing the reaver it lost its harassment potential due to cost and linear splash. In HotS this should have been addressed by a unit that comes from the gateway, not from the stargate. Making a unit like the oracle from the stargate is a very poor design choice that repeats the problem of limited tech choices for Protoss and the inability to engage efficiently outside of a deathball situation.
I'd be curious to see how much of a difference changing the Colossi attack from an Arc to a straight directional attack (like the Hellions) would have.
The biggest issue with Colossi as I understand it is how much their AOE scales when in large numbers. But that's not because of the fact it's an AOE attack but rather how much they overlap with other Colossi shots making it near impossible to engage without taking massive damage in one section of an army.
Having a directional attack (like the Hellions) would promote mirco so that your Colossi would hit as many units as possible rather than 1 at a time.
---
Perhaps someone could set up a custom map to test this? I know nothing of the map editor so it's not something I can do lol
On October 16 2012 04:45 lost_artz wrote: I'd be curious to see how much of a difference changing the Colossi attack from an Arc to a straight directional attack (like the Hellions) would have.
The biggest issue with Colossi as I understand it is how much their AOE scales when in large numbers. But that's not because of the fact it's an AOE attack but rather how much they overlap with other Colossi shots making it near impossible to engage without taking massive damage in one section of an army.
Having a directional attack (like the Hellions) would promote mirco so that your Colossi would hit as many units as possible rather than 1 at a time.
Would be way to weak against a bio ball IMO. I think having a flying slow simple splash shot(kinda like a flying baneling,but not with such a huge splash) would be better. It shouldnt be to fast since it would encourage splitting against it to avoid high damage. But i dont know the design sounds kinda lame lol
On October 16 2012 04:45 lost_artz wrote: I'd be curious to see how much of a difference changing the Colossi attack from an Arc to a straight directional attack (like the Hellions) would have.
The biggest issue with Colossi as I understand it is how much their AOE scales when in large numbers. But that's not because of the fact it's an AOE attack but rather how much they overlap with other Colossi shots making it near impossible to engage without taking massive damage in one section of an army.
Having a directional attack (like the Hellions) would promote mirco so that your Colossi would hit as many units as possible rather than 1 at a time.
Would be way to weak against a bio ball IMO. I think having a flying simple splash shot(kinda like a flying baneling) would be better. It shouldnt be to fast since it would encourage splitting against it to avoid high damage. But I don't know the design sounds kinda lame lol
There's also storm for that. Rather than going going robo > robo bay you can go a chargelot Archon build which are already proven to be good vs BIO. Researching storm is the same as getting Thermal Lance in cost and then it's just a matter of getting a few HT out (storm also researches 30 seconds faster). Granted you still need Robo tech at some point for Obs but that's something you have to integrate as you're going.
On October 16 2012 04:44 rpgalon wrote: my biggest reason for hating the colossus is because when zerg/terran counter it, they are already denying any air transition.
lol, out of the 9 units in the robotics+stargate, 8 can be hit by AA weapons.
Such a good point.... Extremely poor foresight on Blizzard's part IMO.
On October 16 2012 04:45 lost_artz wrote: I'd be curious to see how much of a difference changing the Colossi attack from an Arc to a straight directional attack (like the Hellions) would have.
The biggest issue with Colossi as I understand it is how much their AOE scales when in large numbers. But that's not because of the fact it's an AOE attack but rather how much they overlap with other Colossi shots making it near impossible to engage without taking massive damage in one section of an army.
Having a directional attack (like the Hellions) would promote mirco so that your Colossi would hit as many units as possible rather than 1 at a time.
Would be way to weak against a bio ball IMO. I think having a flying simple splash shot(kinda like a flying baneling) would be better. It shouldnt be to fast since it would encourage splitting against it to avoid high damage. But I don't know the design sounds kinda lame lol
There's also storm for that. Rather than going going robo > robo bay you can go a chargelot Archon build which are already proven to be good vs BIO. Researching storm is the same as getting Thermal Lance in cost and then it's just a matter of getting a few HT out (storm also researches 30 seconds faster). Granted you still need Robo tech at some point for Obs but that's something you have to integrate as you're going.
Storms are good yes nobody denied that. But having an alternative that is not screwed up once a few emps fly around is pretty handy. Though i feel like some smarter warp prism play with HT would be pretty good against ghost
What about the whole concept in SC2 about building "counter units".
Both terran and zerg have dedicated anti-air flyer units with 9 range which can outrange ground armies and deal with colossus and flying units alike with ease. I dont recall any such units in BW.
And HT vs Ghost fights are stupid. This isn't so much micro as it is who can catch the other guy off guard and cast the spells the quickest. Again, Ghost EMP was made to counter HT. Competitive games cant be about X > Y unit type matchups, it needs to be able X vs X unit and whoever has the better decision making, micro, and unit composition comes out on top.
Everybody hates the Colossus and is totally right about it, but Blizzard does not listen. To improve Protoss just gameplaywise you have to consider the following units:
1. Collossus: Get Rid of A-Move ability, I wont go into details, because there are plenty of suggestions for the collosus out there. 2. Carrier: Useless but so easy to fix (leash range micro) 3. Voidray: Well yes it might be okay, but it is most of the time not very effective. Remember the neat little Micro that was possibile with them (keeping the charge) Fixing the Voidray might be the easiest of all listed 4. Phoenix: Still relativly unused. How I wish they would be able to get their overpower ability back again.
IMO, Colossus is the very reason WOL is only a shadow of BW. Colossus' design FORCES other races to have a dull air-to-air superiority fighter, thus making Protoss' own air force weak in comparison - try to mass any combination of air units as Protoss vs Viking/Corrupter armies and see what happens. Do I have to mention how interesting late game 'war of the worlds' are in PvPs?
I once thought about changing the Colossus into more of a support unit, instead of the main damage dealer. Here's an old post of mine. + Show Spoiler +
Let's call the unit a Ravager.
I don't really know if it should be attackable from both air and ground or what it's movement speed should be - but probably not faster than the colossus so microing it with warp prisms would be rewarding.
The main point is that it would shoot a wide beam of energy in a straight line that would deal minimal damage and apply a stacking debuff to every enemy unit on its path. The units affected by the debuff would receive increased damage for a short amount of time - be it a percentage increase or X damage per hit increase like Devourer in brood war did.
The unit could possibly have an ability that would shot a beam dealing a lot more damage, but firing it would cost resources and require a channel time before the improved beam is shot.
So, in a nutshell, it's a slow hellion with pathetic-dps, siege-range beam attack that makes units affected more vulnerable. It doesn't do much damage on its own, but combined with stalkers and zealots it is a deadly threat.
Here are some example stats that will probably be heavily op or up: -hp, shields, armor, resource cost and build time the same as colossus -attack damage: 12(+1) -attack range: 10 -beam width: 1 (hellion's is 0.15 and storm's aoe is 1.5) -cooldown: 2 seconds -projectile speed: let's say a half of the tempest's one, so you can perhaps use blink micro or dodge it with stimmed bio -every attack applies a debuff that increases damage taken by 1 per stack, stacks 3 times.
ability overcharge: costs 75 minerals, 6 seconds channeling time before fire, beam width and range the same as in Ravager's normal attack deals 60 damage + 80 vs armored and buildings - you can wreck some serious havoc in the worker line or quickly kill defensive buildings; the enemy can see the direction where the beam will travel, so it won't be so easy to kill workers with it, unless you catch the enemy by surprise.
The design isn't perfect, but it at least solves the PvP issue. But with proper balancing and testing it would make the game more interesting to play (The enemy makes Colossi? No problemo, just produce a bunch of Vikings/Corrupters and a-move them while your deathballs are engaging. A pinnacle of micro and strategy I say!) and there would no longer be need for Vikings/Corrupters in their current, dull form.
Do something with the colossus. It's everything wrong with the game. It pretty much has to be in a deathball and has little to no capacity for micro beyond basic repositioning and focus firing.
well yeah the collussus is a fucking awful unit especially when you consider that an e-sport unit like the reaver (which created tension, excitement, micro,...) got dropped for it.
But I'd say the sentry ties with the collussus. I never 'aw' at someone using good forcefields. I rather get annoyed by seeing all the units of the opponent stuck between them unable to do anything.
Collussus, forcefield and no disadvantage for using warp gates versus gate ways are the things that make the game play of sc2 when protoss is involved rather boring.
I voted for the Carrier because I loved Brood War Carriers. I also love the Colossus as is frankly because of Marauders and how less expensive Colossus are than Archons. I feel like there should be some redesign in terms of being less linear and more interesting gameplay-wise (for me, it's interesting aesthetic-wise). I've been thinking about how to do this without changing the shock factor of the Colossus, but without making it have slower DPS or making it a bit like the Void Ray where the damage is at its peak the longer it fires, I'm not exactly sure. People are outcrying for the Reaver back, but frankly I don't think it would do well enough in SC2 since everything is a lot faster-paced in terms of gameplay. They could also further make issues of Protoss AoE being too overbearing for the other races (because that is a concern that needs to be recognized).
What if they would change the line of attack from horizontal to vertical.
All units ingame create a concave during fights, therefore extremely increasing vertical splash damage. If the colossus had a horizontal line of attack then the protoss would have to try to flank with colossi, maybe even in warpprisms to bring them in position.
That way the unit could be more interesting, not be changed too much and still be a siege weapon. If needed the numbers could be tweaked to balance out for the different splashway.
Alternatively change colossi to a mainly anti light unit..... They are meant to hardcounter marines, lings, and zealots anyway, right?
Maybe make Colossus weaker somehow (and ideally more "skillful"), and make sentries/forcefields better? That way you would have incentive (there is some now but not much) to try to trap enemy units in a donut like MC does and watch them melt, but ofc that wouldn't happen all the time because the sentries would need to get close enough to die for that.
Or instead of replacing the colossus with reaver like many suggest, why not change immortals' attack into scarabs? That way immortal is like anti armored and splash (to deal with marauder and mech without having to get charge/blink fast) and colossus is more like anti-light splash, and the immortal could be used to drop and kill workers, giving protoss more harass options through the robo tech.
They could make the immortal scarab attack do little damage to light units, but decent against armor, so as to not make it very strong with the AOE. That way it can help deal with MMM early with some weak splash so protoss doesn't always need to, no matter the tech, turtle TvP. The anti-armor splash could help with roaches too so they can take 3 bases.
Just saying it's an option, doesn't have to be the colossus that must be removed.
On October 16 2012 06:44 Qgelfich wrote: What if they would change the line of attack from horizontal to vertical.
All units ingame create a concave during fights, therefore extremely increasing vertical splash damage. If the colossus had a horizontal line of attack then the protoss would have to try to flank with colossi, maybe even in warpprisms to bring them in position.
That way the unit could be more interesting, not be changed too much and still be a siege weapon. If needed the numbers could be tweaked to balance out for the different splashway.
Alternatively change colossi to a mainly anti light unit..... They are meant to hardcounter marines, lings, and zealots anyway, right?
In a way. It's meant to counter units below Tier 3, which is why Protoss needs it badly to counter M/M/M and a lot of Zerg compositions. It would still have to be a splash unit to accomplish that. It couldn't be just anti-light because it needs to be able to stop Marauders and Hydralisks. I would say Roaches since they are in that tier range, but Roaches are wickedly cost-effective against the Colossus when they focus fire or catch it exposed. Either way, Protoss needs that siege-AoE unit that can tackle those solid Terran lower tiered compositions.
The more I've been thinking about it, the more I concede that warp gate actually IS the problem with protoss. However, I don't expect this to ever be changed and Blizzard just needs to find better solutions to getting around the weakness of unmicroed/unupgraded gateway units, and I'm okay with that. Here are my thoughts:
The difficulty with protoss, and especially going into HotS against widow mines and swarm hosts, is that protoss needs a big army in order to control an area, sparing only handful of zealots, DTs, or HTs for harassment. This is particularly evident in PvP, where we see deathball face off against deathball and the better army composition and battle positioning wins. This is because, while vortex can delay a push, it cannot stop a push; in fact, nothing can stop 12 colossus from walking into your base except 12 of your own colossus.
The colossus needs to be redone, but I also think protoss really needs a unit aside from the archon that is produced at a warp gate, but powerful enough to deal with stuff without needing constant micro. Right now protoss lacks any real meaty units and cannot control space like it did in BW; zealots are literally cannon fodder so colossus/stalker/storms can kill everything, stalkers themselves are super-impressive micro units with no ability to hold their ground in a direct engagement, and DTs literally melt to everything as soon as detection is made readily available. I propose that protoss needs a meatier mid-tier gateway unit that can deal with roaches/MMM in a straight up engagement; a multipurpose unit akin to the warhound. With a stronger mid-tier unit protoss can begin to feel a little less fragile in so many areas. In fact, even a unit much like the widow mine or the old shredder would work well for protoss and allow it that much-needed space control.
I would go so far as to say it might be okay to bring back shield batteries even to make it more possible to control space. In fact, protoss should probably have easy access to shield regeneration, despite the new way shields work in SC2. I think this is becoming more and more apparent.
Warpgate is still one of the main issue with Protoss at the moment. It is the main reason why toss's timings are so good, and why gateway units are so bad. So to compensate for the bad gateway units on the late game, protoss needs good support units (colo and HT). Colossi need to be redesigned from the ground up, even though it is a needed unit at the moment. Zealot charge needs to be re-done: It should be a castable ability where you can use it to flank the enemy units (charge behind them, pincer). Add more skill required for this race and I might consider switch back to it, because it is simply not fun at the moment.
PvP is simply unplayable because of warpgate and colossi. A matchup that ends in 1 base play 80% of the time is NOT a Starcraft matchup, it is a WC3 one.
Get rid of Warpgate, balance things with that in mind, and the game will be better (especially pvp, oh my god).
Also sentries need a re-work. Forcefields being undestroyable, and sentries having no cooldown to cast them makes it very hard for a T or Z to deal with a good toss (if the units were balanced). Maybe breakable forcefields (but the opponents needs to manually aim them), would be a good idea. Why doesn't Blizzard do massive changes to the Protoss design instead of tweaking the Mcore and the Oracle? Really, who gives a shit about those units? It's not them that will change the overall design of hte Protoss race which is a race that REQUIRES a deathball in order to compete. Army splitting with Toss is suicidal, except vs a medivac drop. Support units need their gateway tanking units, and gateway units need their DPS units.. and all of them need the sentry to avoid a studder step bioball or a roach ball to close up.
I think the colossus needs some kind of deploy mechanic, something similar to siege mode, and when deployed it shouldn't be vulnerable to aerial attacks. That is actually very similar to the way reaver + shuttle worked, when loaded in the shuttle it was mobile and vulnerable but unable to attack, but once dropped in the right position it was very deadly and in the end allows for great micro battles and positional play and it would also make the coloussus a very good defensive unit.
That plus warpgate beeing a later optional tech with drawbacks to production rate, a slight buff to warpgate units and the carrier fixed would make protoss a race that's fun to play once again.
On October 16 2012 07:24 rollAdice wrote: I think the colossus needs some kind of deploy mechanic, something similar to siege mode, and when deployed it shouldn't be vulnerable to aerial attacks. That is actually very similar to the way reaver + shuttle worked, when loaded in the shuttle it was mobile and vulnerable but unable to attack, but once dropped in the right position it was very deadly and in the end allows for great micro battles and positional play and it would also make the coloussus a very good defensive unit.
That plus warpgate beeing a later optional tech with drawbacks to production rate, a slight buff to warpgate units and the carrier fixed would make protoss a race that's fun to play once again.
Just give us the Reaver back =/
It's superior to the Colossus in every way in terms of spectating, and it gives Protoss a unit that can actually harass mineral lines.
You said it right in the OP. To gain much traction, Protoss is being steered towards acquiring 3 bases every game which is reflected in the map selection we're currently dealing with. It leaves little room for diversity in the map pool. It's not quite as clear cut as you've put it.
On October 16 2012 04:12 fickazzz wrote: well i think we had already like 10+ polls which showed that almost noone likes the design of the colossus... but it's such a core unit, that it would require drastic changes of the protoss race if they change the colossus... so i doubt blizzard will do this... sc2 without the colossus could only get better imo :D
Ya unfortunately it is a core unit so nothing will happen. It seems pretty clear to me that blizzard doesn't want to mess with the WoL side of the game too much, which is unfortunate.
If they do decide to do anything though, the change wouldn't be too drastic. I think if they were to give the colossus some sort of weakness, like slower movement speed, and then try to focus on making the carrier as the core lategame unit, HotS would be soooo much better for it.
Protoss need reaver.... Good enough for early mis game defense. Strong in late game with warp prism micro. We should actually stop creating such threads, it is a common knowledge colossus are retarded and Protoss need tier3 to get their splash. But will blizzard add in a reaver like unit? Don't think so. Have fun defending with gateway while waiting for colossus in HOTS.
On October 16 2012 08:13 Zaurus wrote: Protoss need reaver.... Good enough for early mis game defense. Strong in late game with warp prism micro. We should actually stop creating such threads, it is a common knowledge colossus are retarded and Protoss need tier3 to get their splash. But will blizzard add in a reaver like unit? Don't think so. Have fun defending with gateway while waiting for colossus in HOTS.
Actually I need think that the more we talk about things that we, as a community, annoy us, the more Blizzard can listen. The warhound episode showed that to us.
They screwed D3, they won't screw a second franchise out of 3... no?
On October 16 2012 08:13 Zaurus wrote: Protoss need reaver.... Good enough for early mis game defense. Strong in late game with warp prism micro. We should actually stop creating such threads, it is a common knowledge colossus are retarded and Protoss need tier3 to get their splash. But will blizzard add in a reaver like unit? Don't think so. Have fun defending with gateway while waiting for colossus in HOTS.
Actually I need think that the more we talk about things that we, as a community, annoy us, the more Blizzard can listen. The warhound episode showed that to us.
They screwed D3, they won't screw a second franchise out of 3... no?
imo they've already screwed up sc2. But they can still change it, it's not too late.
If I see how sc2 turned out (as a game, online experience,...), i'm scared for wc4.
This hurt me so much in my nazi grammar organ (which is most likely the sphincter) that I had to do this:
On October 16 2012 03:16 StandAloneComplex wrote: 0. Introduction
Nearly all Protoss players of the community, and many players of other races, like the concept of an alien high tech race which is technological superior against its enemies but are unhappy (to say the least) with the way Protoss has to be played in WOL to be successful. But is the reason the Protoss race seems boring in WOL, which is only a shadow of the Aiur-spirit of the past, really the warpgate? Or is it something else, something even more disturbing?
I. The Warpgate
Almost all of the concerns are concentrating on the gameplay-mechanic of the warpgate. The argumentation is that warpgates allow, with their quick cooldown (and which can produce even faster with chronoboost), a reinforcing advantage against other races. In combination with a pylon, which can be placed nearly everywhere on the map with the exception of on creep, the Protoss can reinforce nearly anywhere on the map very quickly which negates the defender's advantage. Also, counterattacks can be taken care of with quick warp ins without splitting up the Protoss main army.
Following this argumentation Blizzard balanced this advantage of the Protoss race against the others by balancing the earlygame units, which are weaker compared to earlygame units of the other races, even though they cost equal amounts. So, in order to survive the earlygame, Protoss must either go all in with a timing push or rely heavily on the sentry's spell Force Field to hold the enemy out of their bases long enough to tech up to a healthy amount of expensive lategame units.
II. General design concept of the Protoss race.
The general overlaying design concept of the race is that the protoss units are very weak in the earlygame; without extensive micro and spell usage of Force Field and Blink. But if they survive long enough and are able to take 3 bases they can accumulate enough resources to build their expensive but very strong lategame-units such as Colossi, Archons, Immortals and the Mothership.
So:
Weak when not micro'd correctly in the earlygame, but strong in the lategame.
Important to know is , that this decision was not a design accident made by Blizzard, they wanted to design it that way. A race which is technological superior and has units that are stronger, but more expensive than the units of the other races. Balancing this concept so that all races have similar chances of winning, is very difficult and lead to the design toss is known for in WOL.
And that design is generally not a bad idea but the way Blizzard implemented it was not optimal because the lategame units are all strong but very boring to use because they are all non-microintensive-a-movers (Colossus, Immortal and Archon). It wouldn't be a bad idea that earlygame units are weak and must rely on support units if the lategame units are strong if the lategameunits would be more micro intensive and multidimensional. This would differ the way Protoss is played clearly form the other races. It creates a tension of surviving the earlygame and then, if you managed that, it's payback time.
So even if the warpgate would be a lategame upgrade in the twilight council or would be completely taken out of the game it would lead to the same unit composition in the lategame:
1. x Stalkers + 5-6 Colossi + Mothership against ground based armies.
2. x Stalkers + y Archons + Mothership against air based armies.
Because these two combinations are the most effective way to deal with the most unit compositions of the enemy. Only change there would be, if for instance warpgate were to be taken out and Stalker would be buffed, is that we would see more early Stalker + Sentry deathballs instead of Colossi + Stalker deathballs. But a deathball is a deathball.
Their is no reason for toss to go anything else, except maybe some immortals against a meching Terran.
III.Conclusion
And that leads to a situation in which nearly all Protoss games look the same. It's the bad and boring unit ideas, with the Colossus as a too powerful all-round unit, which hurt protoss gameplay and diversity in lategame unit compositions, not warpgates. The decision of being weak when not micro'd correctly earlygame but strong lategame would be good if the units would be more versatile and would lead to more different openings and more potent lategame compositions so that for example airplay would be an option. If i start Phoenix airplay in WOL it's a loss in most games if the enemy is on an even skill level because of the weakness of toss air units in the followup (carriers are a joke against target-firing vikings/corruptors).
Think about it. Which units of the protoss race in WOL are really fun to play ?
Poll: Which unit has to be redone out of all existing WOL protoss units?
Colossus (206)
65%
Carrier (36)
11%
Void Ray (24)
8%
Sentry (18)
6%
None of them , they are all good the way they are (maybe a little tweaking in numbers). (18)
6%
Stalker (6)
2%
Zealot (3)
1%
Dark Templar (2)
1%
Archon (2)
1%
Phonix (2)
1%
High Templar (1)
0%
Immortal (1)
0%
319 total votes
Your vote: Which unit has to be redone out of all existing WOL protoss units?
(Vote): Zealot (Vote): Stalker (Vote): Sentry (Vote): High Templar (Vote): Dark Templar (Vote): Immortal (Vote): Colossus (Vote): Archon (Vote): Phonix (Vote): Void Ray (Vote): Carrier (Vote): None of them , they are all good the way they are (maybe a little tweaking in numbers).
In my opinion only the Sentry, Phoenix, Warp Prism and High Templar are deep in design and benefit from good micro. All the lategame units are boring because they all a-move.
This leads to the conclusion that most of the protoss units in WOL need a serious redesign and NOT the warpgate in the first place.
1. Nerf the Colossus heavily (make the lasers into a cast ability and give the colossus energy to increase its micro and lower its damage output, perhaps let the laser fire in a straight line away from the Colossus) and add therefore a micro-intensive lategame unit with high damage output and low HP which is very difficult to micro. It could be the Reaver but if it must not it can also be some new unit.
2. Protoss needs more support units like a mobile shieldbattery or teleporter which can be also used for quick earlygame harass. The Oracle would be good for that purpose if it had useful spells, which it doesn't the way it is now.
3. Give the protoss more expensive high tech units and especially buildings , like cloaked probes (lategame) or Mothership Core transforming into a mobile Nexus which can be set up in an mineral field. It can mine out of it and can flee if the enemy is coming.
Plz discuss.
I don't know what kind of loving relationship you have with your spacebar and your comma-key, but FUCK YOU FOR MAKING ME DO THAT.
Btw, I counted 93 corrections. 93. Ninety three. I'm not saying I'm not glad that people who have imperfect English still post on the forums, but I don't like having my Nazi Grammar rectum disturbed like this. I'm going to go wash my eyes now.
Edit: I just realised my signature is more fitting than it has ever been before.
On October 16 2012 03:16 StandAloneComplex wrote: 0. Introduction
Nearly all Protoss players of the community, and many players of other races, like the concept of an alien high tech race which is technological superior against its enemies but are unhappy (to say the least) with the way Protoss has to be played in WOL to be successful. But is the reason the Protoss race seems boring in WOL, which is only a shadow of the Aiur-spirit of the past, really the warpgate? Or is it something else, something even more disturbing?
I. The Warpgate
Almost all of the concerns are concentrating on the gameplay-mechanic of the warpgate. The argumentation is that warpgates allow, with their quick cooldown (and which can produce even faster with chronoboost), a reinforcing advantage against other races. In combination with a pylon, which can be placed nearly everywhere on the map with the exception of on creep, the Protoss can reinforce nearly anywhere on the map very quickly which negates the defender's advantage. Also, counterattacks can be taken care of with quick warp ins without splitting up the Protoss main army.
Following this argumentation Blizzard balanced this advantage of the Protoss race against the others by balancing the earlygame units, which are weaker compared to earlygame units of the other races, even though they cost equal amounts. So, in order to survive the earlygame, Protoss must either go all in with a timing push or rely heavily on the sentry's spell Force Field to hold the enemy out of their bases long enough to tech up to a healthy amount of expensive lategame units.
II. General design concept of the Protoss race.
The general overlaying design concept of the race is that the protoss units are very weak in the earlygame; without extensive micro and spell usage of Force Field and Blink. But if they survive long enough and are able to take 3 bases they can accumulate enough resources to build their expensive but very strong lategame-units such as Colossi, Archons, Immortals and the Mothership.
So:
Weak when not micro'd correctly in the earlygame, but strong in the lategame.
Important to know is , that this decision was not a design accident made by Blizzard, they wanted to design it that way. A race which is technological superior and has units that are stronger, but more expensive than the units of the other races. Balancing this concept so that all races have similar chances of winning, is very difficult and lead to the design toss is known for in WOL.
And that design is generally not a bad idea but the way Blizzard implemented it was not optimal because the lategame units are all strong but very boring to use because they are all non-microintensive-a-movers (Colossus, Immortal and Archon). It wouldn't be a bad idea that earlygame units are weak and must rely on support units if the lategame units are strong if the lategameunits would be more micro intensive and multidimensional. This would differ the way Protoss is played clearly form the other races. It creates a tension of surviving the earlygame and then, if you managed that, it's payback time.
So even if the warpgate would be a lategame upgrade in the twilight council or would be completely taken out of the game it would lead to the same unit composition in the lategame:
1. x Stalkers + 5-6 Colossi + Mothership against ground based armies.
2. x Stalkers + y Archons + Mothership against air based armies.
Because these two combinations are the most effective way to deal with the most unit compositions of the enemy. Only change there would be, if for instance warpgate were to be taken out and Stalker would be buffed, is that we would see more early Stalker + Sentry deathballs instead of Colossi + Stalker deathballs. But a deathball is a deathball.
Their is no reason for toss to go anything else, except maybe some immortals against a meching Terran.
III.Conclusion
And that leads to a situation in which nearly all Protoss games look the same. It's the bad and boring unit ideas, with the Colossus as a too powerful all-round unit, which hurt protoss gameplay and diversity in lategame unit compositions, not warpgates. The decision of being weak when not micro'd correctly earlygame but strong lategame would be good if the units would be more versatile and would lead to more different openings and more potent lategame compositions so that for example airplay would be an option. If i start Phoenix airplay in WOL it's a loss in most games if the enemy is on an even skill level because of the weakness of toss air units in the followup (carriers are a joke against target-firing vikings/corruptors).
Think about it. Which units of the protoss race in WOL are really fun to play ?
Poll: Which unit has to be redone out of all existing WOL protoss units?
Colossus (206)
65%
Carrier (36)
11%
Void Ray (24)
8%
Sentry (18)
6%
None of them , they are all good the way they are (maybe a little tweaking in numbers). (18)
6%
Stalker (6)
2%
Zealot (3)
1%
Dark Templar (2)
1%
Archon (2)
1%
Phonix (2)
1%
High Templar (1)
0%
Immortal (1)
0%
319 total votes
Your vote: Which unit has to be redone out of all existing WOL protoss units?
(Vote): Zealot (Vote): Stalker (Vote): Sentry (Vote): High Templar (Vote): Dark Templar (Vote): Immortal (Vote): Colossus (Vote): Archon (Vote): Phonix (Vote): Void Ray (Vote): Carrier (Vote): None of them , they are all good the way they are (maybe a little tweaking in numbers).
In my opinion only the Sentry, Phoenix, Warp Prism and High Templar are deep in design and benefit from good micro. All the lategame units are boring because they all a-move.
This leads to the conclusion that most of the protoss units in WOL need a serious redesign and NOT the warpgate in the first place.
1. Nerf the Colossus heavily (make the lasers into a cast ability and give the colossus energy to increase its micro and lower its damage output, perhaps let the laser fire in a straight line away from the Colossus) and add therefore a micro-intensive lategame unit with high damage output and low HP which is very difficult to micro. It could be the Reaver but if it must not it can also be some new unit.
2. Protoss needs more support units like a mobile shieldbattery or teleporter which can be also used for quick earlygame harass. The Oracle would be good for that purpose if it had useful spells, which it doesn't the way it is now.
3. Give the protoss more expensive high tech units and especially buildings , like cloaked probes (lategame) or Mothership Core transforming into a mobile Nexus which can be set up in an mineral field. It can mine out of it and can flee if the enemy is coming.
Plz discuss.
I don't know what kind of loving relationship you have with your spacebar and your comma-key, but FUCK YOU FOR MAKING ME DO THAT.
Btw, I counted 93 corrections. 93. Ninety three. I'm not saying I'm not glad that people who have imperfect English still post on the forums, but I don't like having my Nazi Grammar rectum disturbed like this. I'm going to go wash my eyes now.
Humans have more than 1 sphincter. Your error caused a disturbing contraction of both my outer and inner anal sphincter. (lol)
On October 16 2012 08:13 Zaurus wrote: Protoss need reaver.... Good enough for early mis game defense. Strong in late game with warp prism micro. We should actually stop creating such threads, it is a common knowledge colossus are retarded and Protoss need tier3 to get their splash. But will blizzard add in a reaver like unit? Don't think so. Have fun defending with gateway while waiting for colossus in HOTS.
The idea of Reaver drops with chargelot warp ins terrifies me in theory alone. I couldn't imagine seeing that in a pro match, it would be fantastic to watch.
This hurt me so much in my nazi grammar organ (which is most likely the sphincter) that I had to do this:
I don't know what kind of loving relationship you have with your spacebar and your comma-key, but FUCK YOU FOR MAKING ME DO THAT.
Btw, I counted 93 corrections. 93. Ninety three. I'm not saying I'm not glad that people who have imperfect English still post on the forums, but I don't like having my Nazi Grammar rectum disturbed like this. I'm going to go wash my eyes now.
Edit: I just realised my signature is more fitting than it has ever been before.
Wow 93, this is really a new record. And im proud of every single one of them. Im also very glad that i could provide something for you ,to really dislike, because people with an nazi organ need some things to dislike from time to time, orelse they are not happy.
I have put some errors in this one too, to keep you happy.
PS: I love my _____ space bar , _____________ its soo big.
On October 16 2012 09:13 Illiterate wrote: This hurt me so much in my nazi grammar organ (which is most likely the sphincter) that I had to do this:
On October 16 2012 03:16 StandAloneComplex wrote: 0. Introduction
Nearly all Protoss players of the community, and many players of other races, like the concept of an alien high tech race which is technological superior against its enemies but are unhappy (to say the least) with the way Protoss has to be played in WOL to be successful. But is the reason the Protoss race seems boring in WOL, which is only a shadow of the Aiur-spirit of the past, really the warpgate? Or is it something else, something even more disturbing?
I. The Warpgate
Almost all of the concerns are concentrating on the gameplay-mechanic of the warpgate. The argumentation is that warpgates allow, with their quick cooldown (and which can produce even faster with chronoboost), a reinforcing advantage against other races. In combination with a pylon, which can be placed nearly everywhere on the map with the exception of on creep, the Protoss can reinforce nearly anywhere on the map very quickly which negates the defender's advantage. Also, counterattacks can be taken care of with quick warp ins without splitting up the Protoss main army.
Following this argumentation Blizzard balanced this advantage of the Protoss race against the others by balancing the earlygame units, which are weaker compared to earlygame units of the other races, even though they cost equal amounts. So, in order to survive the earlygame, Protoss must either go all in with a timing push or rely heavily on the sentry's spell Force Field to hold the enemy out of their bases long enough to tech up to a healthy amount of expensive lategame units.
II. General design concept of the Protoss race.
The general overlaying design concept of the race is that the protoss units are very weak in the earlygame; without extensive micro and spell usage of Force Field and Blink. But if they survive long enough and are able to take 3 bases they can accumulate enough resources to build their expensive but very strong lategame-units such as Colossi, Archons, Immortals and the Mothership.
So:
Weak when not micro'd correctly in the earlygame, but strong in the lategame.
Important to know is , that this decision was not a design accident made by Blizzard, they wanted to design it that way. A race which is technological superior and has units that are stronger, but more expensive than the units of the other races. Balancing this concept so that all races have similar chances of winning, is very difficult and lead to the design toss is known for in WOL.
And that design is generally not a bad idea but the way Blizzard implemented it was not optimal because the lategame units are all strong but very boring to use because they are all non-microintensive-a-movers (Colossus, Immortal and Archon). It wouldn't be a bad idea that earlygame units are weak and must rely on support units if the lategame units are strong if the lategameunits would be more micro intensive and multidimensional. This would differ the way Protoss is played clearly form the other races. It creates a tension of surviving the earlygame and then, if you managed that, it's payback time.
So even if the warpgate would be a lategame upgrade in the twilight council or would be completely taken out of the game it would lead to the same unit composition in the lategame:
1. x Stalkers + 5-6 Colossi + Mothership against ground based armies.
2. x Stalkers + y Archons + Mothership against air based armies.
Because these two combinations are the most effective way to deal with the most unit compositions of the enemy. Only change there would be, if for instance warpgate were to be taken out and Stalker would be buffed, is that we would see more early Stalker + Sentry deathballs instead of Colossi + Stalker deathballs. But a deathball is a deathball.
Their is no reason for toss to go anything else, except maybe some immortals against a meching Terran.
III.Conclusion
And that leads to a situation in which nearly all Protoss games look the same. It's the bad and boring unit ideas, with the Colossus as a too powerful all-round unit, which hurt protoss gameplay and diversity in lategame unit compositions, not warpgates. The decision of being weak when not micro'd correctly earlygame but strong lategame would be good if the units would be more versatile and would lead to more different openings and more potent lategame compositions so that for example airplay would be an option. If i start Phoenix airplay in WOL it's a loss in most games if the enemy is on an even skill level because of the weakness of toss air units in the followup (carriers are a joke against target-firing vikings/corruptors).
Think about it. Which units of the protoss race in WOL are really fun to play ?
Poll: Which unit has to be redone out of all existing WOL protoss units?
Colossus (206)
65%
Carrier (36)
11%
Void Ray (24)
8%
Sentry (18)
6%
None of them , they are all good the way they are (maybe a little tweaking in numbers). (18)
6%
Stalker (6)
2%
Zealot (3)
1%
Dark Templar (2)
1%
Archon (2)
1%
Phonix (2)
1%
High Templar (1)
0%
Immortal (1)
0%
319 total votes
Your vote: Which unit has to be redone out of all existing WOL protoss units?
(Vote): Zealot (Vote): Stalker (Vote): Sentry (Vote): High Templar (Vote): Dark Templar (Vote): Immortal (Vote): Colossus (Vote): Archon (Vote): Phonix (Vote): Void Ray (Vote): Carrier (Vote): None of them , they are all good the way they are (maybe a little tweaking in numbers).
In my opinion only the Sentry, Phoenix, Warp Prism and High Templar are deep in design and benefit from good micro. All the lategame units are boring because they all a-move.
This leads to the conclusion that most of the protoss units in WOL need a serious redesign and NOT the warpgate in the first place.
1. Nerf the Colossus heavily (make the lasers into a cast ability and give the colossus energy to increase its micro and lower its damage output, perhaps let the laser fire in a straight line away from the Colossus) and add therefore a micro-intensive lategame unit with high damage output and low HP which is very difficult to micro. It could be the Reaver but if it must not it can also be some new unit.
2. Protoss needs more support units like a mobile shieldbattery or teleporter which can be also used for quick earlygame harass. The Oracle would be good for that purpose if it had useful spells, which it doesn't the way it is now.
3. Give the protoss more expensive high tech units and especially buildings , like cloaked probes (lategame) or Mothership Core transforming into a mobile Nexus which can be set up in an mineral field. It can mine out of it and can flee if the enemy is coming.
Plz discuss.
I don't know what kind of loving relationship you have with your spacebar and your comma-key, but FUCK YOU FOR MAKING ME DO THAT.
Btw, I counted 93 corrections. 93. Ninety three. I'm not saying I'm not glad that people who have imperfect English still post on the forums, but I don't like having my Nazi Grammar rectum disturbed like this. I'm going to go wash my eyes now.
Humans have more than 1 sphincter. Your error caused a disturbing contraction of both my outer and inner anal sphincter. (lol)
Sadly I was so busy being clever I forgot to be correct
This hurt me so much in my nazi grammar organ (which is most likely the sphincter) that I had to do this:
I don't know what kind of loving relationship you have with your spacebar and your comma-key, but FUCK YOU FOR MAKING ME DO THAT.
Btw, I counted 93 corrections. 93. Ninety three. I'm not saying I'm not glad that people who have imperfect English still post on the forums, but I don't like having my Nazi Grammar rectum disturbed like this. I'm going to go wash my eyes now.
Edit: I just realised my signature is more fitting than it has ever been before.
Wow 93, this is really a new record. And im proud of every single one of them. Im also very glad that i could provide something for you ,to really dislike, because people with an nazi organ need some things to dislike from time to time, orelse they are not happy.
I have put some errors in this one too, to keep you happy.
PS: I love my space bar , its soo big.
Thank you... I guess. Feel free to update your original post with my version if you want more people to keep reading through it.
Ughhhh, that OP! you should really improve it. Im not being a grammar/spelling nazi, but it interrupted the natural flow of reading to the point that I had to read at a snails pace. It also caused the meaning of some sentences to be quite ambiguous.
And that leads to an situation , that nearly all protoss games look the same.
I think you can say that for pretty much any match up. PvP is very dynamic until the lategame though. PvT is not as deathbally as it was a couple of years ago, now you get a lot more back and forth games with extended Zealot/Archon/Templar battles. PvZ is still pretty much turtle up for 20 minutes to get your deathball vs deathball battle.
so that for example airplay would be an option. If i start phonix airplay in WOL , its a lose in most games
Phoenix play is a very strong opening in PvP and pretty decent in PvZ. Its probably one of the most versatile units that protoss has. Phoenix can harass, gain map control, defend and even snipe some units in some situation. They also take a lot of micro and skill to use.
I think the warpgate and colossus issues are just as important as each other. The warpgate makes too many games that are decided within the first 15 minutes from one allin timing by protoss. The colossus makes too many "turtle up for 20mins and get an A-move deathball" games. If these two issues are fixed, we will see more longer macro games that revolve around back and forth constant action like we see in TvZ and all BW matchups.
the reason air not a valid strat is because zerg and terran have corruptors and vikings specifically to deal with colossi. Remove all three units and do something else!
On October 16 2012 03:16 StandAloneComplex wrote: This leads too the conclusion , that most of the protoss units in WOL need a serious redesign ,and NOT the warpgate in the first place.
1. Nerf the colossi heavily (make the lasers into an castability and give the colossus energy to increase its micro and lower its damageoutput, perhaps let the laser run in an strait line away from the colossus) and add therefore an microintensive lategame-unit , with high damage output and low HP , which is very difficult to micro . It could be the reaver but it must not , it can also be some new unit.
2. Protoss needs more supportunits , like mobile shieldbatterys or teleporter which can be also used for quick earlygame harass. The oracle would be good for that purpose ,if it had useful spells , which it hasn't , the way it is now.
3. Give the protoss more expensive high tech units and especially buildings , like cloaked probes (in lategame) , or mothershipcore transforming into an mobile nexus ,which can be set up in an mineralfield.It can mine out of it and can flee if the enemy is coming .
I dont share your conclusion that the Warp Gate doesnt need a redesign. It does, but it is a very basic and minor one and doesnt change any of the units. Warp Gate should be changed to give the production speed boost to the Gateway and not the Warp Gate. Thus Protoss will have to make a choice just as Terrans have to choose between Reactor or Tech Lab as an addon.
1) The idea to give the Colossus energy is scary, because energy units tend to lean themselves to "burst fire" and that isnt a good thing for a siege unit. There was a good reason why Blizzard took out the first version of the Thors "strike cannons", which was used to AoE attack a unit (and thus place) and it wasnt really that it shares the job with the Siege Tank.
The Colossus needs a limitation to its mobility (half speed maybe) and require more room among the Gateway units between its legs in exchange for a little more survivability.
2) Mobile Shield batteries are too strong, because they basically "instantly" negate an EMP. I could agree to static ones as that would give the race a defenders advantage. As a race it seems ridiculous how they could "forget" that technology in the few short years after BW.
3) Having a mobile nexus is too much like a Terran CC and this is a bad idea, since the Mothership is supposed to be a fighting unit and not a mineral gatherer. What would be the point of cloaked probes in a game with a low amount of detection? Answer: Risk-free resource gathering. Terrible idea and no one would probably build them anyways, because a bunch of 16 cloaked probes would create such a blur that even the blindest mole would notice them. Too many support units are a bad thing and we see with the Oracle how bad the concepts are which Blizzard can come up with. So be careful what you ask for.
On October 16 2012 14:39 Rimak wrote: IMO what Protoss need is not redisign of high-tier units or adding more support, but rather adding a core gateway unit, like the widow mine.
There are only so many designs which are useful for core units (or even support casters). Thus you cant really add something new easily without making it "look and feel the same" as units from other races. In BW only Terrans had mines and Zerg had a burrowed Lurker who attacked an area. If you want something similar put a DT on patrol in an area ...
Asking for something new to "fix something" is a bad concept and totally overlooks the possibility to fix things by changing the stuff you already have.
Finally! After two hundreds thread of automining-warpgate, someone have seen the real protoss problem, the colossus. I hope someone with a very good game knowledge write down a big wot on why this units ruin the protoss race, it's not only a micro\spectacular problem, analyze the metagame of this two w.o.l. years and take some conclusion on what role the colossus has played, someone will be amazed. I hope the devs too.
voidrays are pretty useless in current metagame thanks to marines/vikings and infestor/corruptor. they have some use as early game harrassment unit vs zerg and some use as all-in weaponry against terran. otherwise they are pretty boring and have no usage in pvp.
Carriers are starting to find their way in the metagame as ultra-late-game-weapon against broodlord infestor.Still they are being hard countered by corruptor remax which takes out the mothership too and thats what makes them being hard to use...still they are viable in some situations.
On October 16 2012 15:37 bGr.MetHiX wrote: voidrays are pretty useless in current metagame thanks to marines/vikings and infestor/corruptor.
Void Rays have the same problem as every other expensive unit has: You can kill them very easily with a bunch of rather cheap units, because they can be packed very closely in a tight area. In BW Marines didnt clump that easily and you only had 12 per control group anyways. This is the REAL culprit which makes several units useless ... Battlcruisers, Carriers, Void Rays, Phoenix.
The only exception there is the Broodlord, because it creates free ground units which block the movement of ground units and give additional targets to shoot at. You basically cant win against Broodlords without specifically targeting them ... and that is harder with a bunch of other units right below them.
On October 16 2012 04:16 osiris17 wrote: Reduce the damage, build time, resource and food cost, and size of the colossus; but increase speed and redo the attack animation to make it trigger faster; they could be used for more cliffing / risky harassment and retreat functions, but still augment the army with splash later... but die easier and require more colossus, splash is less focused. OR just replace the unit with the reaver and be good to go.
On October 16 2012 04:45 lost_artz wrote: I'd be curious to see how much of a difference changing the Colossi attack from an Arc to a straight directional attack (like the Hellions) would have.
The biggest issue with Colossi as I understand it is how much their AOE scales when in large numbers. But that's not because of the fact it's an AOE attack but rather how much they overlap with other Colossi shots making it near impossible to engage without taking massive damage in one section of an army.
Having a directional attack (like the Hellions) would promote mirco so that your Colossi would hit as many units as possible rather than 1 at a time.
---
Perhaps someone could set up a custom map to test this? I know nothing of the map editor so it's not something I can do lol
I think an combination of both of these ideas would make the colossus to an much more interesting unit , which would be viable for harass and dropplay . Colossus-drops are even now really fun to watch, but noboady does them, because of the high cost and the value of them for the lategamearmy. I dont think, that colossi firering in a straight directional line, would be to weak. It would be much more microintensive because you must find an good angle to fire. Perhaps let the colossus also use blink, when its researched.Then it can blink into an good angle for the straight directional line fire, when the enemy splits up his units.
On October 16 2012 06:34 Jasiwel wrote: I voted for the Carrier because I loved Brood War Carriers. I also love the Colossus as is frankly because of Marauders and how less expensive Colossus are than Archons. I feel like there should be some redesign in terms of being less linear and more interesting gameplay-wise (for me, it's interesting aesthetic-wise). I've been thinking about how to do this without changing the shock factor of the Colossus, but without making it have slower DPS or making it a bit like the Void Ray where the damage is at its peak the longer it fires, I'm not exactly sure. People are outcrying for the Reaver back, but frankly I don't think it would do well enough in SC2 since everything is a lot faster-paced in terms of gameplay. They could also further make issues of Protoss AoE being too overbearing for the other races (because that is a concern that needs to be recognized).
Totally agree with the artdesign part. The colossus looks very impressive/unic and has become an important part of the visual-identity of the protoss race , like the carrier. So i can understand why blizzard won´t take it away. But it must be altered gameplaywise.
Plz also discuss, in this post, the meaning of the tempest changes for the possibility of going airplay in the lategame.Thx.
Just posting this here, thread chosen at random from "fuck protoss"-threads
Make the colossus more reaver-like by making it build charges for its attack; slower attack speed, superOP damage and stuff. Attack looking like this: (first seconds) (also watch that awesome movie)
Ofc cost, movespeed, tech level and other stuff could be changed if needeed.
This would make the colossus into more of a siege unit. In the deathball, the enemy would try triggering bad shots to waste its' power. You would not want to use a few shots to kill a small group of zerglings for example.
The colossus is already the baby of the p army, needing intensive sitting. make that role a little more dynamic, bigger risk/bigger reward
I posted this idea in another thread once, but I don't remember where. I think it fits here with talk of changing the colossus.
With the incredible range, bonus damage vs massive units, and removal of the Fleet Beacon requirement for the Tempest, I think it might make the void ray obsolete. However, I think the prismatic beam charge mechanic is good, the reaver was good, and the colossus is not so good, but it is pretty "cool". This presents an interesting opportunity.
Remove the void ray and give the colossus the prismatic beam, but make the third stage into an AoE explosion. This would combine the timing of the reaver, the charge management of the void ray and the "coolness" of the colossus.
The exact numbers for damage and charge times could be - and probably would need to be - adjusted to find a good balance and some other changes might be needed. For example, one change I think would be necessary would be for the charge to not automatically drop upon switching/losing targets. There could be a small grace period, a range requirement, the counter could reverse and charge down or something else, but I think it would be necessary to make the unit effective in the AoE role.
I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if they just downright nerfed the colossus. Likely P would just be overall weaker in direct engagements (obviously), but it would also possibly highlight what other units that the colossus has carried.
Nerfing a unit isn't how you go about it. If colossus gets messed with it will get nudered and be useless, they might as well remove it if they make it any weaker. The units the protoss has that NEVER get used are what needs to be tweaked right?? I mean the whole reason they aren't being used is because they suck or are not worth the investment.
We had/have this problem with every single protoss air unit. The phoenix barely started seeing its use, and the majority of the Hots changes are revolving around the carrier, tempest, oracle and mother-ship (even though its not out of stargate). Protoss needs a stronger air army. When im playing hots i have the same mentality i did in WoL. I have to get my upgrades going and start some colossus production. I agree colossus is too much of a great unit that its like required in every fight, but i still hold to my belief that it is because there are no other good units to choose from really.
On October 17 2012 07:12 Cabinet Sanchez wrote: Your warpgate / gateway poll is missing all the relevant options it needs.
Which would be.... ?
Just flip the build time and cooldown for units from gateway to warpgate and warpgate to gateway. That's all that's needed to make the game actually make sense.
Have you seen the history of Zealot build times, both in PTR and post-patch? Or seen the trialed build times for Zealot, Stalker, Sentry for the final WG nerf patch, 1.3.3 IIRC? And you want Zealots out of gates in, possibly, 18 seconds with CB?
Look they may need to initially tweak the times, I admit that. However I don't feel the current mechanic is logical in the slightest. It would be much much cooler to have a tradeoff against the advantage :/ Risk / reward. I've posted this extensively across this forum and most people seem to be in agreement.
Not that I think there's a hope in hell Blizz would pay attention but I'm quite convinced this would make for more exciting matches when spectating. Sigh.
On October 17 2012 09:47 FoxShine wrote: Nerfing a unit isn't how you go about it. If colossus gets messed with it will get nudered and be useless, they might as well remove it if they make it any weaker. The units the protoss has that NEVER get used are what needs to be tweaked right?? I mean the whole reason they aren't being used is because they suck or are not worth the investment.
We had/have this problem with every single protoss air unit. The phoenix barely started seeing its use, and the majority of the Hots changes are revolving around the carrier, tempest, oracle and mother-ship (even though its not out of stargate). Protoss needs a stronger air army. When im playing hots i have the same mentality i did in WoL. I have to get my upgrades going and start some colossus production. I agree colossus is too much of a great unit that its like required in every fight, but i still hold to my belief that it is because there are no other good units to choose from really.
I disagree. My point was that only by removing the one unit that protoss falls back on in almost every game can we discover exactly how weak the alternatives are. And only by nerfing colossus can we provide a stronger alternative without making P too strong overall.
Basically I want the colossus to never get build for a while. If not then there is no way to safely say what such a nerf would do to P styles of play.
On October 16 2012 06:25 SnipedSoul wrote: Do something with the colossus. It's everything wrong with the game. It pretty much has to be in a deathball and has little to no capacity for micro beyond basic repositioning and focus firing.
Puck/Leiya has had the collossus do some amazing things.
Though, in the lategame its stupid.
I hate collossus wars PvP
I know blizz wants some easier to use units in the game but man, the collossus, it makes me sad.
The problem with protoss is the sentry. It is too necessary to have sentries in your army for early to mid game. It counters everything. This always leads to the same progressive composition towards the late game. Also, most if not all protoss all-ins rely on the sentry, which also makes the game boring. The other races can use different compositions to create a dynamic situation, but; if protoss does not make sentries he/she loses.
On October 17 2012 12:06 InFkHand wrote: The problem with protoss is the sentry. It is too necessary to have sentries in your army for early to mid game. It counters everything. This always leads to the same progressive composition towards the late game. Also, most if not all protoss all-ins rely on the sentry, which also makes the game boring. The other races can use different compositions to create a dynamic situation, but; if protoss does not make sentries he/she loses.
Thats no different from any other core unit. How many sentries you can make and what they are for makes differences
There are 4 sentry builds PvT, 2 sentry builds, 1 sentry PvP, many sentry PvP etc etc
On October 17 2012 10:24 aZealot wrote: Have you seen the history of Zealot build times, both in PTR and post-patch? Or seen the trialed build times for Zealot, Stalker, Sentry for the final WG nerf patch, 1.3.3 IIRC? And you want Zealots out of gates in, possibly, 18 seconds with CB?
There is an easy fix for this which was not tried yet. Make gateways produce at the same speed they do now and warpgates produce at the speed gateways do now. After warp gate research is done it enables gateways to turn into warpgates and has the secondary effect of speeding up gateway production to the speed that warpgates have now.
I would like to simply see a movement speed (and possibly acceleration speed) reduction for the collossus The reaver was mainly micro intensive because for it to get anywhere you needed a shuttle along too. This would also add into breaking apart the death ball because more supply would go into transports so the collosi could keep up with the army. But would add risk because if you got caught with your pants down and a few vikings/corruptors flew by and shot at all of your warp prisms well good bye protoss army. Also with warp prisms automatically added into the army this would hopefully encourage more harrassment with the prisms. I mean might as well I am building them anyway.
Or we could simply have two separate researches on the cyber core. Warp Gate, and something that makes Gateways build faster (without which the time would be the same for both Gateways and Warp Gates). Simple, elegant, and effective.
And if the time is the main cost of both researches, it becomes a build priority issue rather than a resource cost issue. Both upgrades can be cheap.
what you say is true that boring death ball type units lead to boring death ball play. But it is NOT true that warp gates do not help the death ball. you sais urself that the mean that players can warp in units to deal with counter attacks meaning that they dont have split up their army. So the death ball can just keep rolling an never be picked away at like say terran mech. ALSO! if protos looses some units from their army, it becomes weaker much faster than the other races as P needs to have a well balance unit compersition, how ever warpgates mean that the death ball can allways be patched up with no risk of looseing renforcing units, agains in the way say that if a mech army looses a bunch of units a situation arises where the army must stay seidge in a defencive spot unit terran can figure out how to get some renforcements over there to help out so it can get moving around. Warp gate ruines that type of tention and patches up the weaknesses of an inmonlies strong army making it an un-exsplotable strat which is boring to play against and watch. But if say the death ball was weaker and gateway units where better then protoss could make use of the warpgate in some really fun all over the map moblie plays. with multipronged attack and what not. Warp gate can be cool, its really unique but it is being used to prop up lame strats
On October 17 2012 11:38 Cabinet Sanchez wrote: Look they may need to initially tweak the times, I admit that. However I don't feel the current mechanic is logical in the slightest. It would be much much cooler to have a tradeoff against the advantage :/ Risk / reward. I've posted this extensively across this forum and most people seem to be in agreement.
Not that I think there's a hope in hell Blizz would pay attention but I'm quite convinced this would make for more exciting matches when spectating. Sigh.
I'm not sure I understand? What would improve, for a spectator, from swapping gateway/warpgate build times? Even with undefined 'tweaks' (whatever they may be)? Why is it cooler to have a tradeoff? What kind of tradeoff? Why?
I'm not too concerned about other people's agreement. A lot of recent Protoss theory crafting has been idiotic, IMO.
On October 17 2012 10:24 aZealot wrote: Have you seen the history of Zealot build times, both in PTR and post-patch? Or seen the trialed build times for Zealot, Stalker, Sentry for the final WG nerf patch, 1.3.3 IIRC? And you want Zealots out of gates in, possibly, 18 seconds with CB?
There is an easy fix for this which was not tried yet. Make gateways produce at the same speed they do now and warpgates produce at the speed gateways do now. After warp gate research is done it enables gateways to turn into warpgates and has the secondary effect of speeding up gateway production to the speed that warpgates have now.
That's an interesting idea. And a good one to the problem of fast gateway production, too early (I could hear the Zerg wail at 18 second Zealots). But why would I, as a Protoss, want a Zealot at 28 seconds out of a Gateway when I can have a Zealot out of a Warpgate at 28 seconds and also with the advantage of producing anywhere on the map with a pylon or a warp prism?
I think there might just be a small tweaking of gateway/warpgate mechanics needed, firstly I just want to sum up the following facts:
Standard Production (only going to mention Stalker Zealot Sentry here): Zealot (38), Stalker (42), Sentry (37)
Warp in cooldown: Zealot (28), Staker, (32), Sentry (32)
Secondly I want to mention my idea regarding warpgate/gateway mechanics:
I think it would be a good idea (as many people mentioned before (in other posts here on TL) to even out warp in cooldowns and gateway build duration.
I don't really want to mention numbers but it could look like a middle-path compared to right now. (For example Stalker warp-in cd and build time 37).
The main problem of protoss units is not that gateway units are too weak but they are cost inefficent (which is no doubt some kind of weakness, but their actualy strenght in combat is really good and I think making units themselves stronger would be hard to balance). This does not allow to protoss to trade efficently without high tier support units enhanching deathball play.
I would like to hear you opinion on making equal times for warp cooldown (Warpgate) and build time (Gateway) while adding a 20% reduced cost in gas and minerals if a unit is build in a gateway. (I say 20% here cause it would feel like a very round number right now, might be too much (Stalker would be 100/40, Zealot 80, Senry 40/80) this would allow protoss to produce units the "standard" way and allow to trade these more cost efficent while you still have the possibility to keep some gates warpgates for defense or harrasment via warp prism or an all in.
Please keep in mind that I just threw some numbers in here, so don't pay too much attention to them.
The colossus is definitely one of the core problems of the protoss army, it is so strong that everything that can support it must be weaker than it has to be. It is so strong that ground armies can not kill a deathball, leaving only anti air as an effective counter. This however means that protoss must have the worst anti-air unit in order to balance things. Also transitioning from colossus based grounds armies to air-armies is therefore impossible. Even psi storm could be stronger if it wasn't for the colossus. The whole protoss arsenal is crippled because of the colossus and that's also why we need sentries to support gateway units until the mighty colossus arrives.This leads to the ever repeating core unit composition in all matchups!
Hots won't fix that with the new units that are getting introduced. The only way to fix this is by fixing the colossus by either getting rid of it or completely overhauling the unit.
What if the collosi is juyst made into a defensive unit. Just make it move very slow. Therefore if you want it to be offensive you need a warp prism (like the reaver.) However doing this toss would need a buff in another area to deal with mass groups of units.
I would like to hear you opinion on making equal times for warp cooldown (Warpgate) and build time (Gateway) while adding a 20% reduced cost in gas and minerals if a unit is build in a gateway. (I say 20% here cause it would feel like a very round number right now, might be too much (Stalker would be 100/40, Zealot 80, Senry 40/80) this would allow protoss to produce units the "standard" way and allow to trade these more cost efficent while you still have the possibility to keep some gates warpgates for defense or harrasment via warp prism or an all in.
Please keep in mind that I just threw some numbers in here, so don't pay too much attention to them.
I think that warpgates are not the biggest issue of toss in WOL . But i admit that they are an issue . Their is no need to denial that.
In my opinion the best solution for the warpgate would be to switch the building times of gateway and warpgate, like it was said in posts before.So that the warpgates take longer to warp in then the gateways to build an unit. I think the developer took the idea of warping in units a little bit too far,because the don't realized that warping in units on nearly every point on the map, is an powerful ability on its own and that adding also the benefit of shorter buildtimes than the gateway has causes balancing issues.
Switching buildtimes between warpgate and gateway has the following benefits:
1. It would add an strategic reason for transforming an warpgate back into an gateway. This would lead to an deeper gameplaymechanic, where the players must figure out at which time is it good to have which amount of gateways and which amount of warpgates. And so the gateways would become useful in the lategame.
2.Early units could be made a bit stronger, because of the cooldown nerf and so toss would feel more powerful in the earlygame.
The Downside would be, that their would be no more intense timing-pushes where you try to hold on against an pushing toss and even if you kill his units he is warping in again and again.
So even better is the idea of giving warpgates energy instead of cooldown , in an way like the nexus has it for chronoboost or the commandcenter has it for mules.You could balance the energy which is needed for one warpin so, that the time between warpins would take longer then the gateway needs to build.This would have following additional benefits:
In combination with an alter version of the mothershipcore´s abillity energize , could it be possible, in my opinion, to balance warping in bigger units like the colossus or immortal.
This would work as follow:
The gateway could save up a max of 200 energy. Zealot and stalker coast each 200 energy to warp in but , and this would be the important point, i would give the mothershipcore the ability to suck up 800 energy max with the reinvented ability energize, similar to the viper sucking up energy, only with the difference that the mothershipcore would not damage the building but rater transports the energy from the building to itself and from their, if the player wants, to another building or unit , which can save energy. So that the new energize works in both directions , suck up energy and save it on the mothershipcore and the other direction would be to give an unit/building energy form the mothersipcore. And if the mothershipcore sucks 4 warpgates dry and gets up to 800 energy it could generate an stationary field and warp in 2 Immortals or 2 Colossi for the warpin-coast of 400 for each warping in an unit out of the robotic facility.
On October 16 2012 06:25 SnipedSoul wrote: Do something with the colossus. It's everything wrong with the game. It pretty much has to be in a deathball and has little to no capacity for micro beyond basic repositioning and focus firing.
It could be cool in a speed prism though, no? Much like a reaver drop
I would like to hear you opinion on making equal times for warp cooldown (Warpgate) and build time (Gateway) while adding a 20% reduced cost in gas and minerals if a unit is build in a gateway. (I say 20% here cause it would feel like a very round number right now, might be too much (Stalker would be 100/40, Zealot 80, Senry 40/80) this would allow protoss to produce units the "standard" way and allow to trade these more cost efficent while you still have the possibility to keep some gates warpgates for defense or harrasment via warp prism or an all in.
Please keep in mind that I just threw some numbers in here, so don't pay too much attention to them.
I think that warpgates are not the biggest issue of toss in WOL . But i admit that they are an issue . Their is no need to denial that.
In my opinion the best solution for the warpgate would be to switch the building times of gateway and warpgate, like it was said in posts before.So that the warpgates take longer to warp in then the gateways to build an unit. I think the developer took the idea of warping in units a little bit too far,because the don't realized that warping in units on nearly every point on the map, is an powerful ability on its own and that adding also the benefit of shorter buildtimes than the gateway has causes balancing issues.
Switching buildtimes between warpgate and gateway has the following benefits:
1. It would add an strategic reason for transforming an warpgate back into an gateway. This would lead to an deeper gameplaymechanic, where the players must figure out at which time is it good to have which amount of gateways and which amount of warpgates. And so the gateways would become useful in the lategame.
2.Early units could be made a bit stronger, because of the cooldown nerf and so toss would feel more powerful in the earlygame.
The Downside would be, that their would be no more intense timing-pushes where you try to hold on against an pushing toss and even if you kill his units he is warping in again and again.
So even better is the idea of giving warpgates energy instead of cooldown , in an way like the nexus has it for chronoboost or the commandcenter has it for mules.You could balance the energy which is needed for one warpin so, that the time between warpins would take longer then the gateway needs to build.This would have following additional benefits:
In combination with an alter version of the mothershipcore´s abillity energize , could it be possible, in my opinion, to balance warping in bigger units like the colossus or immortal.
This would work as follow:
The gateway could save up a max of 200 energy. Zealot and stalker coast each 200 energy to warp in but , and this would be the important point, i would give the mothershipcore the ability to suck up 800 energy max with the reinvented ability energize, similar to the viper sucking up energy, only with the difference that the mothershipcore would not damage the building but rater transports the energy from the building to itself and from their, if the player wants, to another building or unit , which can save energy. So that the new energize works in both directions , suck up energy and save it on the mothershipcore and the other direction would be to give an unit/building energy form the mothersipcore. And if the mothershipcore sucks 4 warpgates dry and gets up to 800 energy it could generate an stationary field and warp in 2 Immortals or 2 Colossi for the warpin-coast of 400 for each warping in an unit out of the robotic facility.
i think the developer knew exactly what they were doing by creating warpgate. They originally intended for wg to work as a harass tool, but wanted to balance it out so that the harass doesnt snowball out of control. To make toss not to dependent on successful harass, they created the high-tier power units colossus and ht to make the army composition strong enough to fight in late game. To give toss a tool to not loose the game immediately to an early all-in they created the sentry as the strongest defensive unit in the game.
And then the problems begin. They nerfed gateway to the point where it cant fight offensively as long as you dont all in. The problem is that toss basic unit design is high hp low dps, which makes them bad as harass-units. As a result gw-units are so immobile, expensive, and weak in dps that every harass is a great risk with low reward. The result is that it's only being used in the way it was intended in pvp to counterattack or in pvz late as mineral sink. The idea of harass just didnt get in the game. Instead toss became a turtling high-tech race.
i like your idea of making wg energy based, but i think 200 is to much. making it like 50 energy seems more like the cooldown they should have, it's still increasing the cooldown by like 70 seconds. of course they would need to rebalance stalker, zealot, colossus and potentially sentry and ht.
They nerfed gateway to the point where it cant fight offensively as long as you dont all in. The problem is that toss basic unit design is high hp low dps, which makes them bad as harass-units. As a result gw-units are so immobile, expensive, and weak in dps that every harass is a great risk with low reward. The result is that it's only being used in the way it was intended in pvp to counterattack or in pvz late as mineral sink. The idea of harass just didnt get in the game. Instead toss became a turtling high-tech race.
Any proof for this? As far as I remember there hasn't been any crucial unit buffs/nerfs for gateway units, apart from the sentry nerf. (all in the WoL beta) -10 HP for zealot (nerf), charge hit guarantee (buff) +2dmg for stalker, -1vs armor per upgrade -2damage for sentries
Any other nerfs were nerfs to warpgate and blink timings, so that they actually dont have to nerf stalkers or zealots or sentries. They never touched gateway units.
Some of these posts had me thinking that yes it sure is tough for Protoss to be interesting once the other races get anti air superiority. Beefy units that don't get countered by anti air are restricted to the archon and immortal, two a-move units. Bring back reavers at T3 and make sure they slow as slugs so they need warp prism investments and u put that good bw feel back in the game.
@Big J They obviously did it when they designed the units, because that's the way every person with a brain would do it. Btw it is the way e.g. DoW did it with the eldar. If you watch gateway and compare it to bw you will immediately notice that the units became weaker than their counterpart, while marines were buffed and zerg got a new t1.5 ground fighting unit (roach). the whole colossus and sentry design makes only sense in combination with that.
edit: bringing back the reaver wont change much. toss still has no map control and the reaver in a way also has the air weakness.
I would like to hear you opinion on making equal times for warp cooldown (Warpgate) and build time (Gateway) while adding a 20% reduced cost in gas and minerals if a unit is build in a gateway. (I say 20% here cause it would feel like a very round number right now, might be too much (Stalker would be 100/40, Zealot 80, Senry 40/80) this would allow protoss to produce units the "standard" way and allow to trade these more cost efficent while you still have the possibility to keep some gates warpgates for defense or harrasment via warp prism or an all in.
Please keep in mind that I just threw some numbers in here, so don't pay too much attention to them.
I think that warpgates are not the biggest issue of toss in WOL . But i admit that they are an issue . Their is no need to denial that.
In my opinion the best solution for the warpgate would be to switch the building times of gateway and warpgate, like it was said in posts before.So that the warpgates take longer to warp in then the gateways to build an unit. I think the developer took the idea of warping in units a little bit too far,because the don't realized that warping in units on nearly every point on the map, is an powerful ability on its own and that adding also the benefit of shorter buildtimes than the gateway has causes balancing issues.
Switching buildtimes between warpgate and gateway has the following benefits:
1. It would add an strategic reason for transforming an warpgate back into an gateway. This would lead to an deeper gameplaymechanic, where the players must figure out at which time is it good to have which amount of gateways and which amount of warpgates. And so the gateways would become useful in the lategame.
2.Early units could be made a bit stronger, because of the cooldown nerf and so toss would feel more powerful in the earlygame.
The Downside would be, that their would be no more intense timing-pushes where you try to hold on against an pushing toss and even if you kill his units he is warping in again and again.
So even better is the idea of giving warpgates energy instead of cooldown , in an way like the nexus has it for chronoboost or the commandcenter has it for mules.You could balance the energy which is needed for one warpin so, that the time between warpins would take longer then the gateway needs to build.This would have following additional benefits:
In combination with an alter version of the mothershipcore´s abillity energize , could it be possible, in my opinion, to balance warping in bigger units like the colossus or immortal.
This would work as follow:
The gateway could save up a max of 200 energy. Zealot and stalker coast each 200 energy to warp in but , and this would be the important point, i would give the mothershipcore the ability to suck up 800 energy max with the reinvented ability energize, similar to the viper sucking up energy, only with the difference that the mothershipcore would not damage the building but rater transports the energy from the building to itself and from their, if the player wants, to another building or unit , which can save energy. So that the new energize works in both directions , suck up energy and save it on the mothershipcore and the other direction would be to give an unit/building energy form the mothersipcore. And if the mothershipcore sucks 4 warpgates dry and gets up to 800 energy it could generate an stationary field and warp in 2 Immortals or 2 Colossi for the warpin-coast of 400 for each warping in an unit out of the robotic facility.
i think the developer knew exactly what they were doing by creating warpgate. They originally intended for wg to work as a harass tool, but wanted to balance it out so that the harass doesnt snowball out of control. To make toss not to dependent on successful harass, they created the high-tier power units colossus and ht to make the army composition strong enough to fight in late game. To give toss a tool to not loose the game immediately to an early all-in they created the sentry as the strongest defensive unit in the game.
And then the problems begin. They nerfed gateway to the point where it cant fight offensively as long as you dont all in. The problem is that toss basic unit design is high hp low dps, which makes them bad as harass-units. As a result gw-units are so immobile, expensive, and weak in dps that every harass is a great risk with low reward. The result is that it's only being used in the way it was intended in pvp to counterattack or in pvz late as mineral sink. The idea of harass just didnt get in the game. Instead toss became a turtling high-tech race.
i like your idea of making wg energy based, but i think 200 is to much. making it like 50 energy seems more like the cooldown they should have, it's still increasing the cooldown by like 70 seconds. of course they would need to rebalance stalker, zealot, colossus and potentially sentry and ht.
btw they removed energyze from hots
Your tongue is as sharp as your thinking.
I knew that they patched out energize , but that must not mean that it wont come back. Im not to keen on developerbashing. Generally i liked what they did in WOL a lot (creepspread,baelings,hellions,medivec,phonix...). Im just slightly mad about what they did in Hots so far with protoss, especially with the oracle. But beta had only started a few weeks ago and so they have time for changes.
At the moment i wrote it, i didn't thought about how slow energy is accumulating in SC, so you are absolute right, 200 energy for one zealot/starker warpin is to much, round about the factor 4. So warpgate should only accumulate up to 50 energy max and not up to 200 as it is the case for the nexus. That is also needed because their shoudnt be multiple warpins per warpgate able at once.That would mean, that the mothershipcore would get a max energy about 200 and to warpin one colossus/immortal would be done from the MSC for 100 energy.
On October 18 2012 05:46 HowardRoark wrote: Blizzard would be crazy not to remove Colossus from HotS. It could be the worst designed RTS unit of all time.
The colossus is not the worst unit. Oracle is even worst, in its current form. That there are only twelve answers in the poll allowed and that content is still shifting in the beta, are the reasons why i dint include the hots units in the redone - poll.
On October 18 2012 07:26 sona wrote: Blizzard we are begging you to fix the colossus, next to the oracle its most likely the worst unit ever made in this game.
They don't hear you in this forum, so if you like this post feel free to put an post with an link to this post in the us-battlenet-hots betaforum.
I would like to hear you opinion on making equal times for warp cooldown (Warpgate) and build time (Gateway) while adding a 20% reduced cost in gas and minerals if a unit is build in a gateway. (I say 20% here cause it would feel like a very round number right now, might be too much (Stalker would be 100/40, Zealot 80, Senry 40/80) this would allow protoss to produce units the "standard" way and allow to trade these more cost efficent while you still have the possibility to keep some gates warpgates for defense or harrasment via warp prism or an all in.
Please keep in mind that I just threw some numbers in here, so don't pay too much attention to them.
I think that warpgates are not the biggest issue of toss in WOL . But i admit that they are an issue . Their is no need to denial that.
In my opinion the best solution for the warpgate would be to switch the building times of gateway and warpgate, like it was said in posts before.So that the warpgates take longer to warp in then the gateways to build an unit. I think the developer took the idea of warping in units a little bit too far,because the don't realized that warping in units on nearly every point on the map, is an powerful ability on its own and that adding also the benefit of shorter buildtimes than the gateway has causes balancing issues.
Switching buildtimes between warpgate and gateway has the following benefits:
1. It would add an strategic reason for transforming an warpgate back into an gateway. This would lead to an deeper gameplaymechanic, where the players must figure out at which time is it good to have which amount of gateways and which amount of warpgates. And so the gateways would become useful in the lategame.
2.Early units could be made a bit stronger, because of the cooldown nerf and so toss would feel more powerful in the earlygame.
The Downside would be, that their would be no more intense timing-pushes where you try to hold on against an pushing toss and even if you kill his units he is warping in again and again.
So even better is the idea of giving warpgates energy instead of cooldown , in an way like the nexus has it for chronoboost or the commandcenter has it for mules.You could balance the energy which is needed for one warpin so, that the time between warpins would take longer then the gateway needs to build.This would have following additional benefits:
In combination with an alter version of the mothershipcore´s abillity energize , could it be possible, in my opinion, to balance warping in bigger units like the colossus or immortal.
This would work as follow:
The gateway could save up a max of 200 energy. Zealot and stalker coast each 200 energy to warp in but , and this would be the important point, i would give the mothershipcore the ability to suck up 800 energy max with the reinvented ability energize, similar to the viper sucking up energy, only with the difference that the mothershipcore would not damage the building but rater transports the energy from the building to itself and from their, if the player wants, to another building or unit , which can save energy. So that the new energize works in both directions , suck up energy and save it on the mothershipcore and the other direction would be to give an unit/building energy form the mothersipcore. And if the mothershipcore sucks 4 warpgates dry and gets up to 800 energy it could generate an stationary field and warp in 2 Immortals or 2 Colossi for the warpin-coast of 400 for each warping in an unit out of the robotic facility.
i think the developer knew exactly what they were doing by creating warpgate. They originally intended for wg to work as a harass tool, but wanted to balance it out so that the harass doesnt snowball out of control. To make toss not to dependent on successful harass, they created the high-tier power units colossus and ht to make the army composition strong enough to fight in late game. To give toss a tool to not loose the game immediately to an early all-in they created the sentry as the strongest defensive unit in the game.
And then the problems begin. They nerfed gateway to the point where it cant fight offensively as long as you dont all in. The problem is that toss basic unit design is high hp low dps, which makes them bad as harass-units. As a result gw-units are so immobile, expensive, and weak in dps that every harass is a great risk with low reward. The result is that it's only being used in the way it was intended in pvp to counterattack or in pvz late as mineral sink. The idea of harass just didnt get in the game. Instead toss became a turtling high-tech race.
i like your idea of making wg energy based, but i think 200 is to much. making it like 50 energy seems more like the cooldown they should have, it's still increasing the cooldown by like 70 seconds. of course they would need to rebalance stalker, zealot, colossus and potentially sentry and ht.
btw they removed energyze from hots
Your tongue is as sharp as your thinking.
I knew that they patched out energize , but that must not mean that it wont come back. Im not to keen on developerbashing. Generally i liked what they did in WOL a lot (creepspread,baelings,hellions,medivec,phonix...). Im just slightly mad about what they did in Hots so far with protoss, especially with the oracle. But beta had only started a few weeks ago and so they have time for changes.
At the moment i wrote it, i didn't thought about how slow energy is accumulating in SC, so you are absolute right, 200 energy for one zealot/starker warpin is to much, round about the factor 4. So warpgate should only accumulate up to 50 energy max and not up to 200 as it is the case for the nexus. That is also needed because their shoudnt be multiple warpins per warpgate able at once.That would mean, that the mothershipcore would get a max energy about 200 and to warpin one colossus/immortal would be done from the MSC for 100 energy. ...
Well thank you^^. I dont want to bash the developers, i also liked sc2 a lot and many things they tried and i dont think they are incompetent in any way nor that i would do a better job. But i'd love them more if they fixed the things that didnt work, since I wish for sc2 to be the perfect rts
i think the idea of warpgate is pretty cool on paper, almost as cool as the DoW eldar gates, but similar to the eldar gates it is hard to balance and has to have some drawback in order not to be op. The fact that toss is a low dps race with low mobility is a way to balance it out anyways. In addition the fact that all three races have strong defensive mechanisms (creeps, wall-in+repair, warp-in) makes this pretty ineffective too. The result is just that it is too much drawback to use it for harass except for dumping mins in late game. Therefore toss dont use the one way mobility for something else than all-ins.
The result is that warpgate is a concept that is used for all-ins and instantly resupplying the dying army, which makes it hard to buff the toss units to a point where harass could be good. A friend of mine thought that they should just change the way the cooldown works to the way the normal gateway works, so that all-ins come in like 30 seconds later and that resupplying isnt possible in 5 seconds but in 35, which seems reasonable to me. Afterwards gateway-units could be buffed to the point where the push would be 30 seconds later (so one more round of warp-in) and you would have pretty much the same situation balance wise (although not exactly cost-wise). Afterwards the colossus and the phoenix or the vr could be rebalanced to normal units.
ofc this is a ton of work, i highly doubt that blizz wants to pay that much just to fix the issues one race has with their mechanic. But creating something like harder hitting blink stalker that are used to harass could be worth it in terms of fun by watching.
On October 18 2012 07:12 Blackfeather wrote: @Big J They obviously did it when they designed the units, because that's the way every person with a brain would do it. Btw it is the way e.g. DoW did it with the eldar. If you watch gateway and compare it to bw you will immediately notice that the units became weaker than their counterpart, while marines were buffed and zerg got a new t1.5 ground fighting unit (roach). the whole colossus and sentry design makes only sense in combination with that.
edit: bringing back the reaver wont change much. toss still has no map control and the reaver in a way also has the air weakness.
zealot BW: 18.8dps dragoon BW: 8.3 (12.5 vs med, 16.6 vs large) dps zergling BW (without adrenalin glands): 15.625 dps hydralisk BW: 8.3 (12.5 vs med, 16.6 vs large) dps marine BW(pre stim): 10dps firebat BW(pre stim): 4.54 (9.09 vs medium, 18.18 vs small) dps (real seconds, fastest speed)
No, I don't see what you are saying. There have been a few shifts, marines have more health but stim is also only 50% more damage instead of 100% compared to BW, zerglings have been nerfed hugely.
Roaches and Marauders are a factor, so is pathing. In the end its a different game - and that's the crux. BW bio was not playable vs Protoss for several reasons, therefore it didn't matter all that much that marines wreck basic gateway units. BW hydrabusts? Of course they were a thing. Pretending the roach is the problem is just wrong, hydras also had the potential to destroy pure gateway units.
And it's a simple myth that you have to nerf gateway units to introduce warpgate. You can just nerf warpgate over and over again if there is a problem with timings. Oh, wait, that's what they did. Now Protoss has to sit in his base for a while before a warpgate rush and then move his initial army over the whole map, just like any other race. Reinforcement distance is just a small part of the package that is defenders advantage and only influences the amounts of units you have to stockpile to move out initially and to reinforce with.
On October 18 2012 07:12 Blackfeather wrote: @Big J They obviously did it when they designed the units, because that's the way every person with a brain would do it. Btw it is the way e.g. DoW did it with the eldar. If you watch gateway and compare it to bw you will immediately notice that the units became weaker than their counterpart, while marines were buffed and zerg got a new t1.5 ground fighting unit (roach). the whole colossus and sentry design makes only sense in combination with that.
Actually, it's not obvious. It's especially not obvious when the developers say that this is not the case. Yet the myth continues. Big J articulates the numbers well above, so I don't need to elaborate the point. Simply put, Gateway units are not weak.
(To be honest, I have no idea how you came by the notion that Protoss is high HP and low DPS. We are the manly race.)
Think hard about when and in what context Gateway units appear weak. Against Terran, by and large it is when Terran production and research has kicked in (typically stim or especially, stim and medivacs). Against Zerg, by and large it is when Zerg production kicks in (along with research like speed on lings). This is complicated by the hard counters implemented in the game. In this instance, it is that the Roach counters the Zealot and the Marauder hard counters the Stalker.
This results in Protoss being reliant on a melee unit vs Terran whose army is made up of ranged units. This is why +1 armour is so important, and Charge, and the Sentry. The armour allows tanking so that Zealots can get in range, and forces kiting from Terran thus minimising overall DPS damage against Protoss. Charge serves a similar function. The Sentry FF prevents kiting, or more generally, adds +2 by way of Guardian Shield to support closing Zealots. Against Zerg, Protoss is reliant on the Stalker. Unfortunately, the Stalker is a generalist unit which has low DPS. It is strong in the early game, but weak in the mid-game until it has access to Blink research. Then it can be very powerful indeed. This does mean, however, that its raw DPS cannot be too high. If it were, that damage output combined with good Blink micro would make it OP. In this matchup damage output is usually prioritized leading to fast weapons upgrades, but more important is the Sentry and the control of opposing unit numbers by good FF. Without these, core Protoss gateway units just die to the sheer number of units produced by the swarm.
At these times, Protoss require higher tech to compete in the form of Colossus and High Templar. And so the game goes.
I have no idea what nonsense about swapping Gateway and WG timings etc is meant to achieve. If anything, it will incentivise greater Protoss turtle play, especially if Gateway timings are faster than current WG timing. I'll simply sit in my base and max to 200/200 faster before converting to WG (with stored Chrono) and march out to attack. Other notions involve giving Protoss more clicks for Gate/WG management when I am still surprised by the number of top Protoss players I see with their WG on cooldown but not producing (Gateway macro production is easier). It also confuses adding clicks to adding meaningful clicks. Simply adding an APM requirement does nothing significant to the game or Protoss if those clicks are meaningless.
So many touted changes to Protoss ignore the fact that Protoss design is not isolated, and is part of a greater game design (i.e. inclusive of Terran and Zerg). Any substantive changes to "fix" Protoss must also consider changes to the other races those "fixes" would necessitate; and therefore, probable wholesale changes to the basics of the game itself.
Simple wish-lists that "solve" Protoss won't achieve anything.
Why is everyone so keen on removing warpgate tech? It puts a lot of restrictions on the race (just like other things in this game: larvae mechanics, marines ...) but it's a unique dynamic which can't be found in any other game out there and interesting to play with/against. Right now the balance is also quite fine.
Most people that say changes are needed don't seem to realise that the whole game (or at least the whole protoss race needs to be changed) if you change warpgates. We have seen already with the old 160sec warpgate proposal from Blizzard that even -5sec buildtime on zealot and stalker was too much in the early game and it no matter how high in the tech tree you move warpgates up, you still can't really buff those units due to lategame mass reinforcement possibilities. From all units that can be warped in chargelots and blink stalkers are the only fighting unit that is rdy from the get-go (apart from archons which are a bit delayed and not always worth the 300gas cost ... normally you would need to wait for storm energy).
Dustin Browder also stated in the official Blizzard forums already that warpgates are not the reason gateway units are not as cost efficient as others. It's the synergy with sentries which can be really strong if used correctly and later on the synergy with aoe units which lets them be cost efficient and fine as they are. No change needs to be made here in the current state.
Changing warpgates is like saying "change the marine". It's as substantial to the terran race as warpgates are to protoss and require a whole redesign of the race and every single timing/build orders/unit compositions would be screwed and sc2 balance would start from wol-beta-state again.
Last point that has been brought up a lot in this thread again, why is everyone so keen on removing sc2 units and replacing them with sc:bw units? It's a new game and apart from a higher screen resolution it should be different from sc:bw. There are a million ways to balance the game and introduce new units and Blizzard is trying the right approach in thinking of cool new stuff and giving it a try. If things don't work out they are cut from the game or altered to fit in accordingly. If you want goliaths and reavers etc all back, install sc:bw again on your pc and play it. It's perfectly balanced and you have all there you want. Don't forget that it took sc1 quite a while to be balanced as well and sc:bw also took a while to be where it is now. You can't expect sc2 with the first addon not even out yet for a few more months to be the same and still sc:wol has already a pretty good overal balance so so far.
I don't think you're getting the point here. The game is well balanced, that's not the problem but the protoss race is getting boring because it is restricted to use sentries/colossus throughout every game because gateway units are just too weak without them.
On October 18 2012 20:24 rollAdice wrote: I don't think you're getting the point here. The game is well balanced, that's not the problem but the protoss race is getting boring because it is restricted to use sentries/colossus throughout every game because gateway units are just too weak without them.
I definitely get the point. But a lot of people (including yourself it seems) don't seem to get that about 2 years (maybe even more) of Blizzard's work on unit design and balancing would be gone. It's too late to change the whole dynamic of a race that requires a complete redesign of several units key units at once. It's already way more than enough work to tweak the new units and change some of the old ones.
One important point I tried to get across is though that also the other races in SC2 have things that put a lot of restrictions on them. For example marine dps and versatility and general high stim dps (means terran can't have matching aoe to protoss), larvae mechanics, creep vision + speed (zerg low tier will never ever be able to stay on par with the other two races here due to these mechanics), late game zerg tech switches because only one building is required (if zerg needs to build multiple spires mutas would have way way stronger stats for example) and many more. Some aspects might be possible to rework at this stage of the game (hots beta in the works, wol came out 2 years ago) but others won't. I simply can't see a complete redesign of a race working. No matter how you would do it, apart from the huge work it would create it would also introduce new issues.
On October 18 2012 20:24 rollAdice wrote: I don't think you're getting the point here. The game is well balanced, that's not the problem but the protoss race is getting boring because it is restricted to use sentries/colossus throughout every game because gateway units are just too weak without them.
And why is that a bad thing? Protoss has an airpath a mechanical path and a high tech gateway path to complement those basic gateway units. Look at how the other races play: Terran bio: marine/marauder needs ghosts, vikings and medivacs as complementation and in TvZ Terran mech: Tank/Hellion/Thor needs banshees and Vikings as complementation and early on some marines to get going Zerg: Needs basically all of their units in all matchups, in most games (minus hydralisks)
And yes, it's boring if there aren't a lot of options and you need sentry/Colossus every game. That's why blizzard tries hard to really make that airtech option available in HotS.
The bad thing is that protoss has to get gas-heavy units (sentries) to be able to compete with simple marine/marauder or roach or ling/baneling compositions that are also much more cost-efficient. Gas that could be invested into tech. With the gas that is left for tech you need a robo in most cases and colossus tech in order to further compete with upgrades like stim and medivacs. There is resource-wise not much room for other units/tech. And when colossi are on the field the enemy will have air-superiority, all the new units that are getting introduced for protoss are air units and you will not see them used very often when protoss still has to rely on sentries/colossus because of mentioned reasons.
Actually, it's not obvious. It's especially not obvious when the developers say that this is not the case. Yet the myth continues. Big J articulates the numbers well above, so I don't need to elaborate the point. Simply put, Gateway units are not weak.
(To be honest, I have no idea how you came by the notion that Protoss is high HP and low DPS. We are the manly race.)
The numbers are fairly obvious to me.
Cost comparison: 100 minerals and 2 supply of zealot is: 13.3dps. 150 hp 100 minerals and 2 supply of zerglings are: 28.8dps, 140 hp(no armor) 100 minerals and 2 supply of marines are: 14dps(21 with stim), 90 hp(no armor)
Stalker is harder to compare since it is significantly more gas heavy than its counterparts. But if we count 1:1 conversion, which is very favorable to the stalker, these are the numbers:
4 stalkers are: 640 hp and 27.6 dps(38.8 to armor) 5 stalkers are: 800 hp and 34.5 dps(48.5 to armor) 7 roaches(4 stalkers) are: 1015 hp and 56 dps. If you count 6 roaches and 1 overlord due to extra supply, it is 870 hp and 48 dps. 7 marauders (5 stalkers): 875 hp and 46.9 dps(93.8 to armor, 70.35/140.7 with stim). 6 marauders and supply depot is 750 hp and 40.2dps (80.4 to armor)
Conclusion: Protoss units have a significantly lower dps per cost, even taking into account the fact that stalkers are very supply efficient. Im not even talking about the fact that stalkers scale less well than their counterparts from upgrades.
The zealot has the highest hitpoint / cost ratio in the game, according to this: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=317592 . The stalker has 80hp / supply, which is more than zealots and zerglings and before T3, more than anything in fact.
Think hard about when and in what context Gateway units appear weak. Against Terran, by and large it is when Terran production and research has kicked in (typically stim or especially, stim and medivacs). Against Zerg, by and large it is when Zerg production kicks in (along with research like speed on lings). This is complicated by the hard counters implemented in the game. In this instance, it is that the Roach counters the Zealot and the Marauder hard counters the Stalker.
Stim only increases an already existing difference. Bio gets even less health and even more damage compared to gateway units. There are two reasons why bio gets better as the game progresses. First it is because they are all ranged with much better damage to cost ratio. Meaning you can kill stuff before it gets close, and that means the fight is skewed from the get go. Melee units always get worse in larger numbers because of this and the ultralisk is suffering from this exact issue.
Secondly, you can chose when to fight with bio. In fact, against protoss, both races can pick their fights. The issue is that there is a considerable speed difference in the mid game. Look at these numbers:
Thats not even including creep. On creep, both roaches and lings are as fast or faster than stalkers even without speed upgrades.
What does speed cost? Lings: 100/100 Roach: 100/100 Stim: 150/150 +50/25 for tech lab Blink: 150/150 +150/100 for TC Charge: 200/200
How long does it take? Ling: 130s Roach: 110s Stim: 180s +25s TC: 50s Charge/Blink: 140s
Not only is it significantly slower to research speed upgrades for protoss, even compared to stim. It also costs more than much more. I know it is not fair to consider stim a permanent 3.3 movement speed, but as far as mobility in combat goes, it has a pretty good uptime. I also chose to not include CC at all since it complicates things a fair amount. Cyber core and roach warren are considered trivial in their cost since you want them anyway. Technically speaking the tech lab falls under the same cathegory, but I wanted to make a point with the stim research.
Cost for cost, roaches destroy stalkers in a straight up fight. Blink is good, but on creep against speed roaches, you are at an almost 1.0 difference.
Even without medivacs, bio rolls over gateway units if there are no force fields. And how exactly do you catch these units when you are travelling 1.05 speed slower than them?
At these times, Protoss require higher tech to compete in the form of Colossus and High Templar. And so the game goes.
So many touted changes to Protoss ignore the fact that Protoss design is not isolated, and is part of a greater game design (i.e. inclusive of Terran and Zerg). Any substantive changes to "fix" Protoss must also consider changes to the other races those "fixes" would necessitate; and therefore, probable wholesale changes to the basics of the game itself.
Simple wish-lists that "solve" Protoss won't achieve anything.
Protoss is always the first to go for tech in almost every game. From the start you know you are going to expand and get colossus or templars. The matchup doesnt even matter in that regard. You can do a 6-7-8 gate allin, but frankly people stopped doing it for two reasons. Reason number 1 is that when scouted it gets stopped. Reason number 2 is that it is a dead end. You leave yourself with almost no option if you agression fails. A terran or zerg can at least fall back and rely on a stronger T1 to catch back up.
Obviously people are aware that the races are not isolated. By pointing out that they want gateway units to become stronger, they mean precisely that. Stronger compared to everything. Even PvP will stand to benefit from stronger baseline units, as colossus wars will be much less prominent.
The only hitch is that with every change to gateway units, warp tech becomes stronger as well. Hence they suggest warp tech be changed to have less of an impact, at least in the early and mid game. Late game remaxes are still an issue but not at all as big as the early game issues would be.
Another good point, part of the problem are the roach and marauder. From the other side of the table you could also rework/remove these units together with sentries and things look much better for gateway units. But then again would blizzard go as far as committing to the removal of three of their own non-bw unit designs?
On October 18 2012 07:12 Blackfeather wrote: @Big J They obviously did it when they designed the units, because that's the way every person with a brain would do it. Btw it is the way e.g. DoW did it with the eldar. If you watch gateway and compare it to bw you will immediately notice that the units became weaker than their counterpart, while marines were buffed and zerg got a new t1.5 ground fighting unit (roach). the whole colossus and sentry design makes only sense in combination with that.
edit: bringing back the reaver wont change much. toss still has no map control and the reaver in a way also has the air weakness.
zealot BW: 18.8dps dragoon BW: 8.3 (12.5 vs med, 16.6 vs large) dps zergling BW (without adrenalin glands): 15.625 dps hydralisk BW: 8.3 (12.5 vs med, 16.6 vs large) dps marine BW(pre stim): 10dps firebat BW(pre stim): 4.54 (9.09 vs medium, 18.18 vs small) dps (real seconds, fastest speed)
No, I don't see what you are saying. There have been a few shifts, marines have more health but stim is also only 50% more damage instead of 100% compared to BW, zerglings have been nerfed hugely.
Roaches and Marauders are a factor, so is pathing. In the end its a different game - and that's the crux. BW bio was not playable vs Protoss for several reasons, therefore it didn't matter all that much that marines wreck basic gateway units. BW hydrabusts? Of course they were a thing. Pretending the roach is the problem is just wrong, hydras also had the potential to destroy pure gateway units.
And it's a simple myth that you have to nerf gateway units to introduce warpgate. You can just nerf warpgate over and over again if there is a problem with timings. Oh, wait, that's what they did. Now Protoss has to sit in his base for a while before a warpgate rush and then move his initial army over the whole map, just like any other race. Reinforcement distance is just a small part of the package that is defenders advantage and only influences the amounts of units you have to stockpile to move out initially and to reinforce with.
marines got 1 of their upgrades for free (150/150 before), and 5 health +10 with an upgrade, which is essentially an increase by over 1/3. Therefore stim now also costs less. How is that not being buffed? Zergling got nerfed, but since zerg got a faster production creating roach-armies is way easier and roaches need less upgrades to be effective.
While you compare the dps of these units, you completely ignore that zealots had 10 and dragoons 20 health more, zealots and dragoons scaled better with upgrades and zealots didnt have multiple attacks that scale down against armor and have a slower attack animation. There's nothing mythical about it.
if toss has to move the whole army over the mapi dont see how you can say that warpgate was a success.
the reason of my wish for a buff of gateway units (which results in the need for a nerf for warpgate) with warpgate is that it potentially could make warpgate a harass tool, something i would have created it for. If you ask the average viewer he will tell you that he hates toss. Not because toss is bad by art design or something, but because toss mu are turtle into deathball into one big battle that decides the game. Even the other two races mirrors are more interesting in terms of action and harass than every single toss mu. The reason is that toss lacks the possibility to harass, because the "cheap" units are slow and have low dps. And the only reason i could imagine for that is warpgate.
In hots blizz obviously tries to bring in more harass options because they recognized that. That's the reason for the oracle to give a lot of harass/cost and why the tempest is tweaked into what blizz thinks could become a harass unit with a late game upgrade. And why the msc gets recall to give warp ins a way to get back.
Btw the bad thing about sentry into colossus is that both units are 100% deathball units.
On October 18 2012 07:12 Blackfeather wrote: @Big J They obviously did it when they designed the units, because that's the way every person with a brain would do it. Btw it is the way e.g. DoW did it with the eldar. If you watch gateway and compare it to bw you will immediately notice that the units became weaker than their counterpart, while marines were buffed and zerg got a new t1.5 ground fighting unit (roach). the whole colossus and sentry design makes only sense in combination with that.
edit: bringing back the reaver wont change much. toss still has no map control and the reaver in a way also has the air weakness.
zealot BW: 18.8dps dragoon BW: 8.3 (12.5 vs med, 16.6 vs large) dps zergling BW (without adrenalin glands): 15.625 dps hydralisk BW: 8.3 (12.5 vs med, 16.6 vs large) dps marine BW(pre stim): 10dps firebat BW(pre stim): 4.54 (9.09 vs medium, 18.18 vs small) dps (real seconds, fastest speed)
No, I don't see what you are saying. There have been a few shifts, marines have more health but stim is also only 50% more damage instead of 100% compared to BW, zerglings have been nerfed hugely.
Roaches and Marauders are a factor, so is pathing. In the end its a different game - and that's the crux. BW bio was not playable vs Protoss for several reasons, therefore it didn't matter all that much that marines wreck basic gateway units. BW hydrabusts? Of course they were a thing. Pretending the roach is the problem is just wrong, hydras also had the potential to destroy pure gateway units.
And it's a simple myth that you have to nerf gateway units to introduce warpgate. You can just nerf warpgate over and over again if there is a problem with timings. Oh, wait, that's what they did. Now Protoss has to sit in his base for a while before a warpgate rush and then move his initial army over the whole map, just like any other race. Reinforcement distance is just a small part of the package that is defenders advantage and only influences the amounts of units you have to stockpile to move out initially and to reinforce with.
marines got 1 of their upgrades for free (150/150 before), and 5 health +10 with an upgrade, which is essentially an increase by over 1/3. Therefore stim now also costs less. How is that not being buffed? Zergling got nerfed, but since zerg got a faster production creating roach-armies is way easier and roaches need less upgrades to be effective.
While you compare the dps of these units, you completely ignore that zealots had 10 and dragoons 20 health more, zealots and dragoons scaled better with upgrades and zealots didnt have multiple attacks that scale down against armor and have a slower attack animation. There's nothing mythical about it.
if toss has to move the whole army over the mapi dont see how you can say that warpgate was a success.
the reason of my wish for a buff of gateway units (which results in the need for a nerf for warpgate) with warpgate is that it potentially could make warpgate a harass tool, something i would have created it for. If you ask the average viewer he will tell you that he hates toss. Not because toss is bad by art design or something, but because toss mu are turtle into deathball into one big battle that decides the game. Even the other two races mirrors are more interesting in terms of action and harass than every single toss mu. The reason is that toss lacks the possibility to harass, because the "cheap" units are slow and have low dps. And the only reason i could imagine for that is warpgate.
In hots blizz obviously tries to bring in more harass options because they recognized that. That's the reason for the oracle to give a lot of harass/cost and why the tempest is tweaked into what blizz thinks could become a harass unit with a late game upgrade. And why the msc gets recall to give warp ins a way to get back.
Btw the bad thing about sentry into colossus is that both units are 100% deathball units.
yeah, I know that. But stim is only +50% now, not +100% like in BW. But that's not the crux. The point is that everything is quite close to each other in terms of stats. So close that you absolutly can't say whether it has been a buff or a nerf, just with the overall new gameplay in SC2.
Just take pathing. The pathing alone is probably a huge "buff" for zerglings. The removal of the selection cap is a huge buff to every playstyle that focuses on many cheap units (like MMM; zergling/roach). The clumping is quite a buff for ranged units when fighting low ranged units, smartcast is a buff for anything involving casters etc.
I don't believe that gateway units were made weaker because of warpgate. I think that the intention of keeping the basic units similarily strong statswise and then balancing everything around those basic units is quite clear in SC2.
Actually, it's not obvious. It's especially not obvious when the developers say that this is not the case. Yet the myth continues. Big J articulates the numbers well above, so I don't need to elaborate the point. Simply put, Gateway units are not weak.
(To be honest, I have no idea how you came by the notion that Protoss is high HP and low DPS. We are the manly race.)
The numbers are fairly obvious to me.
Cost comparison: 100 minerals and 2 supply of zealot is: 13.3dps. 150 hp 100 minerals and 2 supply of zerglings are: 28.8dps, 140 hp(no armor) 100 minerals and 2 supply of marines are: 14dps(21 with stim), 90 hp(no armor)
Stalker is harder to compare since it is significantly more gas heavy than its counterparts. But if we count 1:1 conversion, which is very favorable to the stalker, these are the numbers:
4 stalkers are: 640 hp and 27.6 dps(38.8 to armor) 5 stalkers are: 800 hp and 34.5 dps(48.5 to armor) 7 roaches(4 stalkers) are: 1015 hp and 56 dps. If you count 6 roaches and 1 overlord due to extra supply, it is 870 hp and 48 dps. 7 marauders (5 stalkers): 875 hp and 46.9 dps(93.8 to armor, 70.35/140.7 with stim). 6 marauders and supply depot is 750 hp and 40.2dps (80.4 to armor)
Conclusion: Protoss units have a significantly lower dps per cost, even taking into account the fact that stalkers are very supply efficient. Im not even talking about the fact that stalkers scale less well than their counterparts from upgrades.
The zealot has the highest hitpoint / cost ratio in the game, according to this: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=317592 . The stalker has 80hp / supply, which is more than zealots and zerglings and before T3, more than anything in fact.
Those are interesting numbers, but I was responding to the claim that basic Toss unit design (see the second post in the page) is high HP low DPS (i.e. all of Protoss). I was not referring specifically to the 3 core Gateway units. In any case, that would be an incorrect way to view it in any case as the Sentry is a support unit (by definition low DPS), and the Stalker has issues already aforementioned. As a race, I fail to see how Protoss can credibly be argued as high HP and low DPS.
Also, arguments about the cost efficiency or inefficiency of units are context dependent and situational. Therefore, for example, a Zealot may be cost efficient against a Marauder without Concussive Shell, but the moment the Marauder has Concussive shell, the Zealot becomes so cost inefficient as to be almost worthless. More to the point though, I don't see how any of this relates to arguments about the weakness of Gateway units because of Warpgate. Something that is simply false.
Think hard about when and in what context Gateway units appear weak. Against Terran, by and large it is when Terran production and research has kicked in (typically stim or especially, stim and medivacs). Against Zerg, by and large it is when Zerg production kicks in (along with research like speed on lings). This is complicated by the hard counters implemented in the game. In this instance, it is that the Roach counters the Zealot and the Marauder hard counters the Stalker.
Stim only increases an already existing difference. Bio gets even less health and even more damage compared to gateway units. There are two reasons why bio gets better as the game progresses. First it is because they are all ranged with much better damage to cost ratio. Meaning you can kill stuff before it gets close, and that means the fight is skewed from the get go. Melee units always get worse in larger numbers because of this and the ultralisk is suffering from this exact issue.
Secondly, you can chose when to fight with bio. In fact, against protoss, both races can pick their fights. The issue is that there is a considerable speed difference in the mid game. Look at these numbers:
Thats not even including creep. On creep, both roaches and lings are as fast or faster than stalkers even without speed upgrades.
What does speed cost? Lings: 100/100 Roach: 100/100 Stim: 150/150 +50/25 for tech lab Blink: 150/150 +150/100 for TC Charge: 200/200
How long does it take? Ling: 130s Roach: 110s Stim: 180s +25s TC: 50s Charge/Blink: 140s
Not only is it significantly slower to research speed upgrades for protoss, even compared to stim. It also costs more than much more. I know it is not fair to consider stim a permanent 3.3 movement speed, but as far as mobility in combat goes, it has a pretty good uptime. I also chose to not include CC at all since it complicates things a fair amount. Cyber core and roach warren are considered trivial in their cost since you want them anyway. Technically speaking the tech lab falls under the same cathegory, but I wanted to make a point with the stim research.
Cost for cost, roaches destroy stalkers in a straight up fight. Blink is good, but on creep against speed roaches, you are at an almost 1.0 difference.
Even without medivacs, bio rolls over gateway units if there are no force fields. And how exactly do you catch these units when you are travelling 1.05 speed slower than them?
To be honest, I am not sure what your claim is here. Core Protoss gateway units can't be too fast because that would give them greater potency in the very early game. And bio can roll over Protoss without medivac true, but only if they have honed in on production (specifically reactors) at that specific timing or have stim. In both cases, if Protoss holds, he usually wins and it wont even be close. If the Terran wants to take a risk like that against an equal opponent, then fair play to him.
Also, given Protoss has the advantage in the late game vs Terran, Protoss does not have to catch these units. All we have to do is make them run away (waste stim, medivac energy etc). Against Zerg, the production of larvae injected units is the issue. I am not sure why Protoss should be fast enough to catch Zerg. The onus is on Protoss to attack more often in this match-up, so if I attack and the Zerg runs away from my FF, so be it. I just kill the hatchery and go home. Zerg speed here, especially on creep, also goes with the feel of the races. Zerg is fast and weak, while Protoss is strong and slow.
At these times, Protoss require higher tech to compete in the form of Colossus and High Templar. And so the game goes.
So many touted changes to Protoss ignore the fact that Protoss design is not isolated, and is part of a greater game design (i.e. inclusive of Terran and Zerg). Any substantive changes to "fix" Protoss must also consider changes to the other races those "fixes" would necessitate; and therefore, probable wholesale changes to the basics of the game itself.
Simple wish-lists that "solve" Protoss won't achieve anything.
Protoss is always the first to go for tech in almost every game. From the start you know you are going to expand and get colossus or templars. The matchup doesnt even matter in that regard. You can do a 6-7-8 gate allin, but frankly people stopped doing it for two reasons. Reason number 1 is that when scouted it gets stopped. Reason number 2 is that it is a dead end. You leave yourself with almost no option if you agression fails. A terran or zerg can at least fall back and rely on a stronger T1 to catch back up.
Obviously people are aware that the races are not isolated. By pointing out that they want gateway units to become stronger, they mean precisely that. Stronger compared to everything. Even PvP will stand to benefit from stronger baseline units, as colossus wars will be much less prominent.
The only hitch is that with every change to gateway units, warp tech becomes stronger as well. Hence they suggest warp tech be changed to have less of an impact, at least in the early and mid game. Late game remaxes are still an issue but not at all as big as the early game issues would be.
No, they want Gateway units to be stronger because Protoss does not allow as efficient and effective play in phases of the game as these players would like. If so, they should switch race to Terran or Zerg and play more they want to play rather than wanting to contort Protoss to fit their desired play style. Like it or not, Protoss has to usually defend in the mid-game.
In respect of WOL at least, Protoss gateway units are fine as they are.
As I pointed out above, the main concerns are 3 fold:
1. The Hard counters in the game which means that the basic Protoss army is lacking its other half in 2 of the P match-ups. 2. The production boosts that all races have in terms of CB/WG, larvae inject, and reactored units. 3. Terrible terrible damage so that, at certain times, core Gateway units will just evaporate. But, again, this is not specific to Protoss, but part of the overall game. You only have to hear Terran complaints when a bioball melts to Colossus/Archon.
As the discussion has become broader than just WG vs Gateway, I really don't believe that Protoss needs to be redesigned from the ground up. Given the sunk costs of the game, thus far, I also believe this is highly unlikely to occur. My own thoughts on improving Protoss are a small buff to SG tech, some way to pressure in the midgame (in return for which Protoss late game strength must be decreased - perhaps by a Colossus nerf), and a way to scout reliably in the early to midgame.
I agree with a lot of what you say, just a few things:
1. I think production is closely tied to cost efficiency of a unit. I mean, if you could produce out of 5 warpgates on one base, the actual cost of the infrastructure is rather low compared to the units. The first colossus pays for the robo bay itself, for example. If the units in a building are worth building, you make enough buildings to spend all your money, simply put.
2. I wanted to point out discrepancies in movement speed because I feel that when all protoss units are slower than all other T1 units across the board rather early in the game, it further reinforces defensive play. If you don't know for sure you can win an engagement you either want the option to retreat or you won't move out at all. In some ways, the MSC helps a great deal with this, but I would prefer if you could have at least one unit over 3.0 movement speed which isnt harmless in an engagement (phoenix and oracle). I don't want all protoss units to be fast, just one is enough, so that you can be more mobile on the map beyond 10 minutes. Maybe DTs are intended to fill that gap, but I don't know.
As you said "Like it or not, Protoss has to usually turtle in the mid-game". I dislike this situation since the options are limited.
3. I think we can both agree that there is a point in the game where warp gates hit and protoss has a short but noticable surge in production. 1 and 2 base warp gate timings have been very common and as much as I like them, they tend to be suicidal. Some warp gate timings would be completely unstoppable with stronger gateway units, and at the same time, without warpgate research we would likely see no gateway agression at all. Without warpgates, you could have stronger gateway units and the timing would still not be as strong.
I agree cost efficiency is more than just numbers, but when you start to take into account those other factors, I think the vast majority benefits the faster army. Getting flanks, spreading to avoid splash or simply just getting to the better position on the map. Thats why protoss has the sentry and I love the sentry. There is just much more defensive potential in the sentry than there is offensive potential.
Actually, it's not obvious. It's especially not obvious when the developers say that this is not the case. Yet the myth continues. Big J articulates the numbers well above, so I don't need to elaborate the point. Simply put, Gateway units are not weak.
(To be honest, I have no idea how you came by the notion that Protoss is high HP and low DPS. We are the manly race.)
The numbers are fairly obvious to me.
Cost comparison: 100 minerals and 2 supply of zealot is: 13.3dps. 150 hp 100 minerals and 2 supply of zerglings are: 28.8dps, 140 hp(no armor) 100 minerals and 2 supply of marines are: 14dps(21 with stim), 90 hp(no armor)
Stalker is harder to compare since it is significantly more gas heavy than its counterparts. But if we count 1:1 conversion, which is very favorable to the stalker, these are the numbers:
4 stalkers are: 640 hp and 27.6 dps(38.8 to armor) 5 stalkers are: 800 hp and 34.5 dps(48.5 to armor) 7 roaches(4 stalkers) are: 1015 hp and 56 dps. If you count 6 roaches and 1 overlord due to extra supply, it is 870 hp and 48 dps. 7 marauders (5 stalkers): 875 hp and 46.9 dps(93.8 to armor, 70.35/140.7 with stim). 6 marauders and supply depot is 750 hp and 40.2dps (80.4 to armor)
Conclusion: Protoss units have a significantly lower dps per cost, even taking into account the fact that stalkers are very supply efficient. Im not even talking about the fact that stalkers scale less well than their counterparts from upgrades.
The zealot has the highest hitpoint / cost ratio in the game, according to this: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=317592 . The stalker has 80hp / supply, which is more than zealots and zerglings and before T3, more than anything in fact.
Those are interesting numbers, but I was responding to the claim that basic Toss unit design (see the second post in the page) is high HP low DPS (i.e. all of Protoss). I was not referring specifically to the 3 core Gateway units. In any case, that would be an incorrect way to view it in any case as the Sentry is a support unit (by definition low DPS), and the Stalker has issues already aforementioned. As a race, I fail to see how Protoss can credibly be argued as high HP and low DPS.
Also, arguments about the cost efficiency or inefficiency of units are context dependent and situational. Therefore, for example, a Zealot may be cost efficient against a Marauder without Concussive Shell, but the moment the Marauder has Concussive shell, the Zealot becomes so cost inefficient as to be almost worthless. More to the point though, I don't see how any of this relates to arguments about the weakness of Gateway units because of Warpgate. Something that is simply false.
Think hard about when and in what context Gateway units appear weak. Against Terran, by and large it is when Terran production and research has kicked in (typically stim or especially, stim and medivacs). Against Zerg, by and large it is when Zerg production kicks in (along with research like speed on lings). This is complicated by the hard counters implemented in the game. In this instance, it is that the Roach counters the Zealot and the Marauder hard counters the Stalker.
Stim only increases an already existing difference. Bio gets even less health and even more damage compared to gateway units. There are two reasons why bio gets better as the game progresses. First it is because they are all ranged with much better damage to cost ratio. Meaning you can kill stuff before it gets close, and that means the fight is skewed from the get go. Melee units always get worse in larger numbers because of this and the ultralisk is suffering from this exact issue.
Secondly, you can chose when to fight with bio. In fact, against protoss, both races can pick their fights. The issue is that there is a considerable speed difference in the mid game. Look at these numbers:
Thats not even including creep. On creep, both roaches and lings are as fast or faster than stalkers even without speed upgrades.
What does speed cost? Lings: 100/100 Roach: 100/100 Stim: 150/150 +50/25 for tech lab Blink: 150/150 +150/100 for TC Charge: 200/200
How long does it take? Ling: 130s Roach: 110s Stim: 180s +25s TC: 50s Charge/Blink: 140s
Not only is it significantly slower to research speed upgrades for protoss, even compared to stim. It also costs more than much more. I know it is not fair to consider stim a permanent 3.3 movement speed, but as far as mobility in combat goes, it has a pretty good uptime. I also chose to not include CC at all since it complicates things a fair amount. Cyber core and roach warren are considered trivial in their cost since you want them anyway. Technically speaking the tech lab falls under the same cathegory, but I wanted to make a point with the stim research.
Cost for cost, roaches destroy stalkers in a straight up fight. Blink is good, but on creep against speed roaches, you are at an almost 1.0 difference.
Even without medivacs, bio rolls over gateway units if there are no force fields. And how exactly do you catch these units when you are travelling 1.05 speed slower than them?
To be honest, I am not sure what your claim is here. Core Protoss gateway units can't be too fast because that would give them greater potency in the very early game. And bio can roll over Protoss without medivac true, but only if they have honed in on production (specifically reactors) at that specific timing or have stim. In both cases, if Protoss holds, he usually wins and it wont even be close. If the Terran wants to take a risk like that against an equal opponent, then fair play to him.
Also, given Protoss has the advantage in the late game vs Terran, Protoss does not have to catch these units. All we have to do is make them run away (waste stim, medivac energy etc). Against Zerg, the production of larvae injected units is the issue. I am not sure why Protoss should be fast enough to catch Zerg. The onus is on Protoss to attack more often in this match-up, so if I attack and the Zerg runs away from my FF, so be it. I just kill the hatchery and go home. Zerg speed here, especially on creep, also goes with the feel of the races. Zerg is fast and weak, while Protoss is strong and slow.
At these times, Protoss require higher tech to compete in the form of Colossus and High Templar. And so the game goes.
So many touted changes to Protoss ignore the fact that Protoss design is not isolated, and is part of a greater game design (i.e. inclusive of Terran and Zerg). Any substantive changes to "fix" Protoss must also consider changes to the other races those "fixes" would necessitate; and therefore, probable wholesale changes to the basics of the game itself.
Simple wish-lists that "solve" Protoss won't achieve anything.
Protoss is always the first to go for tech in almost every game. From the start you know you are going to expand and get colossus or templars. The matchup doesnt even matter in that regard. You can do a 6-7-8 gate allin, but frankly people stopped doing it for two reasons. Reason number 1 is that when scouted it gets stopped. Reason number 2 is that it is a dead end. You leave yourself with almost no option if you agression fails. A terran or zerg can at least fall back and rely on a stronger T1 to catch back up.
Obviously people are aware that the races are not isolated. By pointing out that they want gateway units to become stronger, they mean precisely that. Stronger compared to everything. Even PvP will stand to benefit from stronger baseline units, as colossus wars will be much less prominent.
The only hitch is that with every change to gateway units, warp tech becomes stronger as well. Hence they suggest warp tech be changed to have less of an impact, at least in the early and mid game. Late game remaxes are still an issue but not at all as big as the early game issues would be.
No, they want Gateway units to be stronger because Protoss does not allow as efficient and effective play in phases of the game as these players would like. If so, they should switch race to Terran or Zerg and play more they want to play rather than wanting to contort Protoss to fit their desired play style. Like it or not, Protoss has to usually defend in the mid-game.
In respect of WOL at least, Protoss gateway units are fine as they are.
As I pointed out above, the main concerns are 3 fold:
1. The Hard counters in the game which means that the basic Protoss army is lacking its other half in 2 of the P match-ups. 2. The production boosts that all races have in terms of CB/WG, larvae inject, and reactored units. 3. Terrible terrible damage so that, at certain times, core Gateway units will just evaporate. But, again, this is not specific to Protoss, but part of the overall game. You only have to hear Terran complaints when a bioball melts to Colossus/Archon.
As the discussion has become broader than just WG vs Gateway, I really don't believe that Protoss needs to be redesigned from the ground up. Given the sunk costs of the game, thus far, I also believe this is highly unlikely to occur. My own thoughts on improving Protoss are a small buff to SG tech, some way to pressure in the midgame (in return for which Protoss late game strength must be decreased - perhaps by a Colossus nerf), and a way to scout reliably in the early to midgame.
i meant gateway's design is based on high hp low dps, because that would be the relevant units for harassing with wg, and their design makes the harass ineffective. Apart from that high hp low dps works for every single toss unit except for the colossus.
i think wg in the current meta is not what it could be. Essentially wg is used to defend or to resupply fast when the player has a bank, or to resupply at the front. Sometimes we see it in pvz as mineral sunk in the late game. Imo it's kinda sad that wg+pylon failed as a harass-mechanic, because the ability alone has lots of potential in that direction, just not the units.
blizzard is currently working on the problems you see with toss. the oracle is a way to harass in the midgame and hallucination is a way to reliably scout in the eg.
@ why the viewer-experience would possibly change if toss had stronger wg-units: Current toss play is pretty static, alias turtling till being attacked or till reaching 180-200 supply and then have the battle of doom. In the time between we either see all-ins or holds, which imo dont create good games. If toss had a cheap and effective harass mechanic like terran drop play or zerg runbys the MUs could be a lot more shifting back and forth, since the other player would be forced to find a balance between containing the toss to hard and potentially have a problem with offensive warp-ins and containing him not enough so that toss could get into a position to defend a third/fourth more easily. It wouldnt force the mapmakers to create unattackable expansions until toss is able to move more aggressively only to let them remain balanced. The way to do it is imo either give toss a reaper-like-gateway unit or buff gateway units and nerf high-tech and wg to a point where toss offensive warp-in can be cost-effective.
On October 17 2012 11:38 Cabinet Sanchez wrote: Look they may need to initially tweak the times, I admit that. However I don't feel the current mechanic is logical in the slightest. It would be much much cooler to have a tradeoff against the advantage :/ Risk / reward. I've posted this extensively across this forum and most people seem to be in agreement.
Not that I think there's a hope in hell Blizz would pay attention but I'm quite convinced this would make for more exciting matches when spectating. Sigh.
I'm not sure I understand? What would improve, for a spectator, from swapping gateway/warpgate build times? Even with undefined 'tweaks' (whatever they may be)? Why is it cooler to have a tradeoff? What kind of tradeoff? Why?
I'm not too concerned about other people's agreement. A lot of recent Protoss theory crafting has been idiotic, IMO.
The game improves in that there's another element of strategy added which the players need to be aware of and make decisions around. Furthermore it's MORE LOGICAL to do it this way. Spectators get to see players making decisions and try to figure out why they made them, if the decisions were smart - the whole point of being a specator is basically to see someone make cool, smart decisions quickly.
I know I'm clearly biased but I don't see to be honest how anyone could disagree. Warpgates and Gateways are silly. The better choice (warp) has no drawbacks. It's just illogical.
I read all the posts and the way i feel , there is a clear picture that the colossus must change in some way or another. But there is no clear picture, if the protoss community wants any drastic changes in the core gameplaymechanics, beside of changing one unit.For clarification on this point, i have included another poll in my topic.
Feel free to vote, if you like and thx for all the competent posts.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/s5ZjA.jpg)
