Oracle Changes - Page 10

On October 25 2012 15:30 Rad wrote:
Love Time warp. I suggested this recently, and looks like a bunch of other people did too lol.

In addition though, I'd like to see it regenerate shields (or, say, speed up shield regeneration). This would open up some additional possibilities with it and give it even more uses. The user can then decide how they want to use the spell and we can listen to interesting analysis from (for example) Artosis on whether they used it properly at that point in time or not.

Thank you David for opening up this discussion.

I have an idea I would like to throw out for the Oracle.

An ability that shoots a beam/orb (or more than 1 beam) below the Oracle and rotates around the Oracle, only hurting units in the ring, but not within the ring. (Think of something like the old Mothership's Planet Cracker animation). This could be modified to be a laser shooting a very small, fixed area in front of the Oracle.

Why could this be good?

1) It creates high micro potential and rewards skillful use.

When harassing, you can't just go in and attack with the super fast Oracle and come back out. You have to manage the beam/orb around the Oracle, as it rotates around the Oracle. If you want to kill workers, you would have to keep moving the Oracle so that the beam continues to damage the workers. This can be complicated if enemy defenses are arriving, and thus you want to continue to do as much damage as possible while retreating. The beam does not have to be weak if the AOE (or thickness) of the beam is kept very small -- the damage could be adjusted, but if the range of the beam is to be relatively small such as 2 units away from the Oracle, the damage can be increased to something even as high as 50 per second (the thickness of the beam probably being less than 1 unit squared).

If it is to be a fixed beam in front of the Oracle, positioning when going in to harass one's opponent can be important, as you will want to consider the best path to harass, retreat, and possibly do some damage back to the defending units. This could also allow Oracles to flank armies from the side (even if they're fragile and may die quickly in big battles) more easily than a rotating beam.

2) It creates a variety of uses and is not limited only to harassing economy.

Not only can you kill workers, you can also control space with it. It can help in PvZ where Roaches make it hard for Protoss to take bases -- because Roaches can't shoot up, Oracles can reduce the incentive for Zerg to move his Roaches out on the map. Sure, you can use Void Rays to do this already, but Void Rays can't harass well. You can open with Oracles and more safely advance your Stargate tech without having to invest in too many combat units yet.

3) It can control space.

You can place Oracles around the map, such as behind brush, so that if the enemy's units walk through the brush, he may not notice and may run into the beam and receive some damage. However, this damage does not need to be significant to be useful, as the simple information that there is an enemy force there is already valuable. Because of the Oracle's speed, it can safely retreat. This kind of interaction is not one sided though -- both sides need to stay aware of the units, or else they may lose more than the other -- The Protoss player needs to pay attention so the fragile Oracle doesn't get sniped, and the opponent needs to be careful of Oracles around the map and can punish the Protoss with superior map awareness.

4) It does not fit well into the deathball.

Instead, it is suitable for air play because it takes advance of key components of air units -- mobility and map control.

It is NOT like a flying Colossus because it is fragile, hard to reliably do damage, and is not as cost efficient in a straight up fight. You could even make the Oracle's beam do friendly fire damage to dissuade players from keeping it with the army.

5) It creates interesting tactics.

You could harass with some Gateway units (which won't scale very well late game alone if you're going very Air heavy due to a lack of ground upgrades) by keeping an Oracle with them. You could keep the Oracle above or around the Gateway units, protecting them from Zerglings or such. The Gateway units can safely stay inside the ring of the Oracle's beam if you are careful.

This is not a one sided thing again -- the opponent can also get within the Oracle's rotating beam to snipe it without taking damage, or even dodge the beam. This can create really intense micro, with each player predicting the others' next movement.

If the range of the beam is something like 3-4, imagine a Terran stimming forward some Marines past the beam (dodging or not dodging) to try to snipe the Oracle. This can be exciting as a spectator to see how they mindgame each other and micro their units. As the Marines stim in, tension is created -- if the Oracle predicts the Marine's movement and goes a different direction, the Marines may suffer some damage. Even if the Oracle retreats successfully, tension is created and released without units having to actually die.

6) It allows Stargate tech some sort of AOE without turning Stargate tech into just another ground deathball.

What I mean by this is that the Oracle will not allow Protoss to just mass Oracles -- it's not a flying Colossus. Yes, you have some sort of AOE, but you can't just destroy high "DPS Density" armies like Marine/Medivac because the damage is unreliable (depends on micro).

However, such an ability will allow Protoss to defend things like Stim pushes or fight dense DPS armies (like mass hydras) in a unique way, different than the way opening Robo or Templar tech does (Colossus/Immortal/Forcefield and Archons/Storm).
Unlike the latter two, if you want to defend against such threats (if devoting the Oracle to harass isn't the most helpful in the situation, such as when they are all-ining you instead of trying to rebuild their economy), you can chip away his army as he moves out and tries to kill you with your Oracle by flying in and flying out. This kind of engagement is not just "A-move", therefore keeping this new for Protoss. You must micro your Oracles well, taking advantage of their mobility [as air units] to harass, rather than relying on raw power like you can with Colossi or Storms in a straight up fight.

7) A variety of conditions may be added to this ability to fill in any necessary gaps in the Protoss' gameplay.

You could make the beam hit cloaked units, therefore giving Protoss another way to clear creep and gain map control.

You could have the beam be a rotating vertical pillar around the Oracle and hit air units as well, giving Protoss another option to deal with Mutalisks.

You could make the beam cost minerals, which a heavy-Stargate Protoss user will have a surplus of.

You could make the distance between the beam and the Oracle change uncontrollable during the duration of the spell -- for example, it could start at a range of 1 from the Oracle, then expand out to a range of 6, allowing the Oracle to help deal with certain units without getting too close.

You could adjust the "AOE" of the beam so that it's not true AOE, but only hits 1 enemy unit at a time.

You can make it have 2 or more beams, if the visual aesthetic is not confusing.

You can make the beam hit or not hit buildings.

More interesting things about the spell can be created if the mechanics of the spell are tweaked:

For example, it could drain energy per second, or have a one time cost but the spell turns off if attacked or loses all shields or etc., or possibly even costs minerals, which Protoss can have a surplus of if they choose to go heavy Stargate tech).

These are just some of the things I have brainstormed for this kind of a spell.

If anyone considers this, then thank you so much for spending the time to read this!

Thanks Blizzard!

On October 25 2012 09:00 Belisarius wrote:
20 dps is nothing.

Time warp is.... well... frankly, it's what force field probably should have been. It's a nice ability, but I'm disappointed because the oracle having a slow means there's pretty much zero chance of FF and fungal being changed to slow.

Revelation should detect again.

On October 25 2012 02:33 Jjhg wrote:
Time Warp should be what fungal does.

SC2 needs less abilities that reduce micro potential.

On October 25 2012 18:41 Salteador Neo wrote:
I was thinking possible abilites for the oracle a few days ago and ended with Pulsar Beam myself. Problem with it is that it needs to do A LOT of damage to be of any use... Just dealing a few points of damage to an OC before being driven away by 2 marines is not a good investment in a unit. 20 dps is bad.

Time Warp sounds awesome.

On October 25 2012 17:28 Ramiz1989 wrote:

Blizzard like how Force Fields are designed, so no, they wouldn't change it anyway, and they said that they will change fungal. Don't know why people keep saying this.

On October 25 2012 20:13 aklambda wrote:
I don't know if it has already been suggested but what about you make the Beam charge up like with Voidrays? So initially the Oracle does 20 dps but after 3 seconds it does 30 dps and 6 seconds it does 40 dps etc. (numbers can be tweaked of course). This means that the other player would have to react quickly while still having a bit of time even if 2-3 Oracles are appearing in his base. On the other hand, if he does not react you get to kill buildinds pretty fast.