Oracle Changes - Page 6

On October 25 2012 05:14 Skyro wrote:


It wouldn't make any sense if the Oracle were a Spore-killer as there is no way the Pulsar Beam will be 8+ range.

On October 25 2012 05:26 Inf-badguy wrote:


That's also assuming you could even get an oracle out in time to harass the third if you fast expand yourself.

On October 25 2012 05:29 awesomoecalypse wrote:


Having it work against Queens but not against other casters doesn't make sense--Queens aren't buildings, they're units. You'd literally have to make an ability read "Drains energy from buildings, and queens too, but not other units". Making a spell that works differently on one unit than every other unit is bad game design. OTOH, if it worked on every spellcaster, it could easily be way too strong, effectively giving Protoss their own version of EMP.

On October 25 2012 05:35 awesomoecalypse wrote:
One thing I wonder...

If Time Warp really does end up being an effective replacement of sorts for Forcefield for people who go Stargate tech, might it actually open up map design possibilities?

That is, right now map makers are very limited, in that Protoss is overly reliant on FF for defense. This makes it all but impossible to take a 3rd base, unless the map has a 3rd base that is easily defended with FF. This forces map makers to limit themselves, and make every map have an easy-to-take, easy-to-defend 3rd, which leads to stale gameplay.

But Oracles aren't slow like Sentries, and Time Warp isn't as utterly dependant on a narrow choke that you can totally block off. Might it be possible to actually defend your 3rd base on more open maps by investing in Oracles to use Timewarp to help defend? And if so, might this solve some of the current issues with Protoss and map design?

On October 25 2012 05:45 Inf-badguy wrote:


It may be a bit of a stretch comparing a single target drain of 1-2 energy per second to an instant aoe 100 energy drain. As is, protoss already has their own version of EMP, feedback, which is way stronger than what I am proposing, but higher up the tech tree.

After I've thought about it more I don't believe it would be that bad to allow it to drain from units as well. It wouldn't actually be that effective against most casters given that they are normally accompanied by a host of units that should chase the oracle away, or have abilities themselves to mitigate it. Even harassing the queen 1 on 1 would be difficult given that the queen can just kill the fucking oracle (range of oracle beam permitting). But perhaps we would see players draining energy from queens until the oracle shields are depleted, backing off to restore their shields and then re-engaging?

I'm getting excited just thinking about it! :D

On October 25 2012 04:07 Grubby wrote:
Remember, judge mostly the ability (Pulsar), not just the numbers. Numbers can be tweaked easily. Is it more balanced at 10 DPS? 30 DPS? Don't discard the ability just on its numbers.

In Time Warp I see an alternative to FF's which is great and opens up Protoss strategies like nothing else ever has. Absolutely wonderful idea.

Yea i like to ^^. Also emp already works on buildings if i am not wrong so don't see the problem with the oracles doing it also. So i don't get the complaint u got about your suggestion being bad game design. As far as i know the emp skill does not mention it works on building.

Time Warp - Creates a warp field at the target location that reduces enemy ground units' movement speed by 50%

On October 25 2012 06:03 Lorch wrote:
Pulsar Beam sounds fucking retarded, especially since it's another auto cast ability (where is the skill gap when you don't even have to manually cast it).

Time whatever sounds really awesome!

On October 25 2012 06:05 Caissa wrote:
Pulsar Beam should also have the corsair's disruption web effect. Might mimic bw a tad bit, but if it disabled the building and killed it slowly, would actually be capable of doing some fun things. Not to mention 1 spore wouldnt shut down the oracle, and they would need fast reaction time

On October 25 2012 04:07 Grubby wrote:
Remember, judge mostly the ability (Pulsar), not just the numbers. Numbers can be tweaked easily. Is it more balanced at 10 DPS? 30 DPS? Don't discard the ability just on its numbers.

In Time Warp I see an alternative to FF's which is great and opens up Protoss strategies like nothing else ever has. Absolutely wonderful idea.

On October 25 2012 05:59 awesomoecalypse wrote:


The point is, abilities in SC2 dont work differently on different units. They might have categorical modifiers, like "only works on buildings" or "does +10 damage to psionic" or "cannot effect massive". But there is no unit or spell in the game that has something like "only works on High Templars" or "does +10 vs. ravens."

Given this, you could have a spell which drains energy from buildings, in which case its inherently useless against Zerg. Or you could have a spell which drains energy from everything. Which could actually be pretty versatile and powerful if balanced properly, especially if the Oracles absorbed the energy they drained to use for their own spells.

But what you can't do is have a spell that drains energy from the nexus, orbital command, and queens, but nothing else. That would just be breaking fundamental design principles.