Thanks for everyone's feedback regarding the Oracle. We wanted to give you guys an update on where we're at right now.
1. Revelation is same as before.
2. Pulsar Beam - Passive anti structure ability that deals 20 damage per second. Drains 2 energy per second while channeling. Auto-cast on.
We feel that Pulsar Beam is better as a core harassing ability compared to Entomb. This ability makes better use of the unit's main traits of fast mobility + low durability, and doesn't have Entomb's biggest issue of forcing almost the whole army to stay at the mineral line.
Not only that, we feel this ability has a much greater skill differentiation depending on how well the ability is used. Entombs, no matter who uses them, had pretty much the same effect. Whereas Pulsar Beam will greatly reward players who are able to pay close attention and not lose the Oracles while quickly moving around all over the place in order to harass the opponent's base.
3. Time Warp - Creates a warp field at the target location that reduces enemy ground units' movement speed by 50%
We were aiming for a spell that gets us two main things with this last spell. One was something players can use in combination with Pulsar Beam when harassing the opponent's base. Second was something Protoss players can use in combination with their army. We feel this ability meets both requirements.
One thing we're discussing with Time Warp is if it should also be a time altering spell for timed life units as well. In this scenario, it would have an additional component that speeds up the timer on timed life units such as locusts, infested terrans, or mules.
Our current plan is to patch in the initial ability as fast as possible, and continue discussing/gathering feedback regarding the second component.
Oracle now feels like a unit that you build a few of and harass throughout the course of the whole game. Please let us know your thoughts and when the Oracle patch goes out, please take your time to play with it. Thanks~
Pretty interesting, I like the abilities. And I like what they are thinking about Time Warp, something that Sase actually suggested(well, kind of).. ^^
We will see how it will turn out. Btw, now with 2-3 Oracles, you can actually fly around enemy base, and snipe some key structures pretty quickly. ;O
I'm not sure how going from entombing minerals to just building damage helps with harassment potential. Also depending on what stats time-warp ends up with it may be too good of a combat spell to waste it on workers and mineral lines. I'm also pretty sure it will be soon decried as anti-micro.
I like it, it means that it can kill constructing expansions really fast and can destroy key tech structure in a lategame situation and there's no defense. It can nibble away at building.
Time Warp is great. It has the potential to makes zealots much better against roaches.
Pulsar beam is just a banshee attack that only hits buildings and costs 2 energy. I can't even hit overlords with it. What am I supposed to kill with a 20 DPS attack that only hits buildings? Not supply depots because I can't build an oracle against Terran. Not pylons because oracles are flatly worse than phoenixes in PvP. I guess I'm supposed to kill Z's third hatchery before he gets queens over there. And that's it.
This is a combat buff for the oracle but a big harass nerf. Buildings have hundreds or thousands of hit points. 20 DPS isn't enough to kill anything.
hmm...not sure how I feel about the Oracle's primary harass being anti-structure.
Like, I like the idea of darting around the base using timewarps to stay ahead of defense. But how often will players build a unit just to snipe structures? I mean, say you want to take out an Engineering bay--even at 20 damage a second, it'll take over 40 seconds to take out the building, and thats assuming no response from the opponent. You can build multiple Oracles, but it seems like the gas cost would get prohibitive--your opponent is just gonna go kill you with basic units while you're stuck channeling his tech structures down.
Time Warp is a nice support spell, but again, is it enough that Protoss players will see Stargate as more attractive than robo, or if they do go Stargate, building Oracles as more attractive than other units? I guess it does slow down mining some if you use it on a mineral line, but will the impact be enough?
My concern is that the idea of a unit that flies around the base, using time warp to stay one step ahead while it channels down key tech sounds fun and all...but it really doesn't cripple the opponent's economy in a way that would justify building the Oracle over other units. Like for the cost of a stargate and 2 oracles, you could just have a much stronger army. You could have a warp prism and some units to load into it, and just go kill a bunch of workers. In what way is 20dps to buildings only preferable to a unit that can actually fight.
On October 25 2012 02:21 kcdc wrote: This is a combat buff for the oracle but a big harass nerf. Buildings have hundreds or thousands of hit points. 20 DPS isn't enough to kill anything.
Adding on to this, a greater spire has 1k hp. This means that if you make 5 oracles (reasonable assumption for a lategame scenario), it takes 10 seconds to kill it...10 seconds is a whole lot of time for such an expensive unit.
Earlier on in the game, a single Oracle isn't going to kill anything except a third.
I wish they just gave up and also gave it something that kills workers.
On October 25 2012 02:21 kcdc wrote: Time Warp is great. It has the potential to makes zealots much better against roaches.
Pulsar beam is just a banshee attack that only hits buildings and costs 2 energy. I can't even hit overlords with it. What am I supposed to kill with a 20 DPS attack that only hits buildings? Not supply depots because I can't build an oracle against Terran. Not pylons because oracles are flatly worse than phoenixes in PvP. I guess I'm supposed to kill Z's third hatchery before he gets queens over there. And that's it.
This is a combat buff for the oracle but a big harass nerf. Buildings have hundreds or thousands of hit points. 20 DPS isn't enough to kill anything.
With too of them, you have 40 DPS, its like 5 marauders. 5 marauders kill hatcheries very very fast. It has the potential to be a very good spell.
So I am understanding this correctly in that the Oracle now could serve as a semi functional raiding unit with that open warp field?
I think it would be interesting if the acted as perhaps a very small, temporary, two way recall. So you could select a small group of units, recall them to the Zerg Hatchery that is morphing, and either wait for the spell to run out or manually cast the recall back to an established power field.
If the Oracle were destroyed, or the units were pulled out of the field they would be stuck at the forward location. As I write this fungal would be a pain in the ass to deal with, and vipers could potentially snatch high value targets, but kind of an interesting idea in my opinion. inb4 balance.
This is the first Oracle version where I can't honestly pinpoint anything as obviously bad or horrible. Pulse might end up being useful for sniping key structures and odds/ends, but this will prevent midgame viability because you can't rely on that to survive. So, it will take some testing to see if if 20 building DPS really does anything. My other minor complaint is that Blizzard is being too close minded again with the changes with Time Warp. It should hit air units too, because the Oracle is already extremely vulnerable to air threats. The Widow Mine gets everything and the kitchen sink, Fungal and Storm and EMP all hit air too. It should start with air/ground to see what dynamics look good, then adjust afterward. I can see great synergy with Tempest/Time Warp if they would just allow it to happen.
On October 25 2012 02:21 kcdc wrote: Time Warp is great. It has the potential to makes zealots much better against roaches.
Pulsar beam is just a banshee attack that only hits buildings and costs 2 energy. I can't even hit overlords with it. What am I supposed to kill with a 20 DPS attack that only hits buildings? Not supply depots because I can't build an oracle against Terran. Not pylons because oracles are flatly worse than phoenixes in PvP. I guess I'm supposed to kill Z's third hatchery before he gets queens over there. And that's it.
This is a combat buff for the oracle but a big harass nerf. Buildings have hundreds or thousands of hit points. 20 DPS isn't enough to kill anything.
100% agreed. For Pulsar Beam to be at all meaningful and worthwhile as a core harass spell, it needs to be *really* good at killing buildings. There's a reason harass targets workers not buildings--buildings take forever to kill. 20 dps doesn't cut it at all. Maybe like 40 dps--then 2 Oracles could focus down most buildings in 10 or 15 seconds if the enemy doesn't react.
20 dps means it takes 40+ seconds for an Oracle to kill any buildings worth using it on. That is just stupid.All that will happen is the Oracle does a tiny bit of damage to a building, the enemy sends some units to drive it off, and the Oracle flies away having wasted some energy for no result. Congrats, you've just spent 150 gas to partially damage a building. Enjoy losing your games.
On October 25 2012 02:21 kcdc wrote: Time Warp is great. It has the potential to makes zealots much better against roaches.
Pulsar beam is just a banshee attack that only hits buildings and costs 2 energy. I can't even hit overlords with it. What am I supposed to kill with a 20 DPS attack that only hits buildings? Not supply depots because I can't build an oracle against Terran. Not pylons because oracles are flatly worse than phoenixes in PvP. I guess I'm supposed to kill Z's third hatchery before he gets queens over there. And that's it.
This is a combat buff for the oracle but a big harass nerf. Buildings have hundreds or thousands of hit points. 20 DPS isn't enough to kill anything.
With too of them, you have 40 DPS, its like 5 marauders. 5 marauders kill hatcheries very very fast. It has the potential to be a very good spell.
No, 40 DPS is 2 stimmed marauders. Pulsar beam has the same DPS vs buildings as a stimmed marauder. Oracles fly, but marauders cost one sixth as much gas and can target units. If you can get a bunch of oracles, the attack will be powerful because it's hard to catch oracles. But I question whether you can afford to get a bunch of oracles. We'll see.
With too of them, you have 40 DPS, its like 5 marauders. 5 marauders kill hatcheries very very fast. It has the potential to be a very good spell.
40 dps takes 20+ seconds to kill even an ebay, and nearly 40 seconds to kill a hatchery. Given that the Oracle is fragile and easily driven away once the enemy responds to it, and given that 2 Oracles will set you back 300 gas...thats actually complete shit. Plus Marauders can, you know, actually fight. Building them doesn't cripple your ability to defend yourself. Whereas Oracles set you back so much you have to do damage to make it worth it.
If a unit's core harassment spell is anti-building only, and that unit is also fragile as hell and extremely expensive, then that spell needs to really, really fuck up buildings badly to be worth it. 20 dps does not cut it.
On October 25 2012 02:21 kcdc wrote: Time Warp is great. It has the potential to makes zealots much better against roaches.
Pulsar beam is just a banshee attack that only hits buildings and costs 2 energy. I can't even hit overlords with it. What am I supposed to kill with a 20 DPS attack that only hits buildings? Not supply depots because I can't build an oracle against Terran. Not pylons because oracles are flatly worse than phoenixes in PvP. I guess I'm supposed to kill Z's third hatchery before he gets queens over there. And that's it.
This is a combat buff for the oracle but a big harass nerf. Buildings have hundreds or thousands of hit points. 20 DPS isn't enough to kill anything.
With too of them, you have 40 DPS, its like 5 marauders. 5 marauders kill hatcheries very very fast. It has the potential to be a very good spell.
No, 40 DPS is 2 stimmed marauders. Pulsar beam has the same DPS vs buildings as a stimmed marauder. Oracles fly, but marauders cost one sixth as much gas and can target units. If you can get a bunch of oracles, the attack will be powerful because it's hard to catch oracles. But I question whether you can afford to get a bunch of oracles. We'll see.
I think honestly that Pulsar beam is just really a matter of adusting numbers. The concept is pretty neat. It's a hell lot better then Void Sinphon
I don't really see any channeled harass ability from the oracle do anything in PvT to be honest. Channeling to deal damage also doesn't seem very exciting.
I like the AoE slow a lot. I wonder how long it lasts. It could even be used on workers if the area/duration are long enough.
I wonder if it wouldn't be an easier/better solution to just give the Oracle a regular attack instead of the channeled ability. I'd think that an AoE slow and Revelation should already offer enough versatility, and the oracle would still be very unique in that it is a fast flying unit that can attack worker lines and contribute in battles.
acturally the warp field thing is a great harrassment tool. cast it in a mineral line = only half the income which is insanely good.
4 oracles do 80 dps so they kill a spore in 5 seconds which is also pretty good. so yeah 20 dps might not seem that much but it has its use.
especially since oracles can do a lot more than that with warp field and revelation. seems like really nice 3 spells but we´ll see how it works out. much better than entombed anyway.
I just hope that they will make Forcefield destructible now that there is a slow spell in the protoss arsenal. Else, it will probably ridiculously... op
1) Make it splash to units that are standing next to the building. It can then be used to break chokes (target the supply depot, kill marines) as well as proper worker harass (target the CC). When you're trying to chase the Oracle away, it might require more than an a-move.
2) Make it lock down buildings that it targets (replace contaminate with something more overseer-y). Will be great against primarily research buildings and turrets.
I don't think that "simply damage a building" is very useful spell for a fragile and gas heavy unit, unless the numbers are very high.
i will need to see spell cost on time warp but i see it as an entomb replacement. worker movement speed is reduced by 50%, mining speed is probably the same, so you end up having a bit of a backlog of workers ... but you are still mining.
it would be cool to see it in combination with storm but then, it just overlaps with forcefield to restrict unit movement, and unlike forcefield, doesn't actually trap units. further by description, sounds like it doesnt reduce unit dps anyways.
4 oracles do 80 dps so they kill a spore in 5 seconds which is also pretty good. so yeah 20 dps might not seem that much but it has its use.
4 Oracles is 600 gas. Plus the Stargate, thats 750 gas. Given the build time for SG and Oracles, it will take 4 to 5 minutes (depending on chrono) from when you start building a stargate to when you have 4 Oracles.
Do you know what happens to a Protoss who ties up 700 gas in the early/mid game in units that can't attack or defend?
They die. You won't have any FFs. You'll barely have Stalkers. You'll be stuck with slow Zealots and Cannons. And meantime, your precious "investment" is chipping away at buildings. Not workers. Not army. Buildings. If they fail to snipe a key structure, you lose the game. If they succeed, you might survive...but chances are your opponent will just kill you before you can pull it off anyway.
Protoss are not Terran or Zerg. Even with Chrono, we have limited ability to make non-WG units quickly. We are also gas starved as hell in the early and midgame, and very, very vulnerable if we skimp on stalkers and sentries. So if we committ to Stargate harass, we need to do good damage, or we're hopelessly behind and totally vulnerable. Just targetting buildings makes it so there's a good chance all that tech won't actually accomplish anything meaninful.
For Pulsar to be worth it, it needs to do a lot of damage to buildings. Not like as much as a stimmed Marauder...more like as much as an Immortal (35 dps vs buildings). Or alternatively, it needs another effect, like shutting down buildings effected like contaminate or something.
4 oracles do 80 dps so they kill a spore in 5 seconds which is also pretty good. so yeah 20 dps might not seem that much but it has its use.
4 Oracles is 600 gas. Plus the Stargate, thats 750 gas. Given the build time for SG and Oracles, it will take 4 to 5 minutes (depending on chrono) from when you start building a stargate to when you have 4 Oracles.
Do you know what happens to a Protoss who ties up 700 gas in the early/mid game in units that can't attack or defend?
They die. You won't have any FFs. You'll barely have Stalkers. You'll be stuck with slow Zealots and Cannons. And meantime, your precious "investment" is chipping away at buildings. Not workers. Not army. Buildings. If they fail to snipe a key structure, you lose the game. If they succeed, you might survive...but chances are your opponent will just kill you before you can pull it off anyway.
Protoss are not Terran or Zerg. Even with Chrono, we have limited ability to make non-WG units quickly. We are also gas starved as hell in the early and midgame, and very, very vulnerable if we skimp on stalkers and sentries. So if we committ to Stargate harass, we need to do good damage, or we're hopelessly behind and totally vulnerable. Just targetting buildings makes it so there's a good chance all that tech won't actually accomplish anything meaninful.
For Pulsar to be worth it, it needs to do a lot of damage to buildings. Not like as much as a stimmed Marauder...more like as much as an Immortal (35 dps vs buildings). Or alternatively, it needs another effect, like shutting down buildings effected like contaminate or something.
dont quote parts of my posts.
i also said that warp field halfs the opponents income and revelation will be effectively later on to gain vision for tempest or scouting.
no one ever said go 4 oracle rush, thats not needed. 1-2 oracles might easily do it and warp field harrass into later on building harrass etc. might work out very fine.
Time Warp seems to be a good spell. Usable in attacking, defending, and harassing. You could use it on workers to decrease mining time, which is what Entomb was doing.
In order to keep an Oracle from killing a Barracks (because it'll run out of energy first), a Terran player needs 1 SCV repairing to keep it from being sniped. 1 SCV is actually overkill if you're trying to snipe an engineering bay. With 1 SCV repairing, an Oracle is just barely able to kill a tech lab by expending all of its energy.
I've never used Pulsar beam before, but with these stats, how could it be good?
i also said that warp field halfs the opponents income and revelation will be effectively later on to gain vision for tempest or scouting.
its not clear warp field halves income. it obviously slows it down some--but mining time is not just the back and forth movement from minerals (and gas) to the main structure, it also involves the time the workers is actually at the patch harvesting resources. unless it also halves minining time (which their note doesn't say anything about), then warp field will slow mining some by disrupting movement, but not by the full 50% since it won't effect mining time when the workers are actually harvesting patches. The precise impact is something people will need to calculate by figuring out how much time spent mining is actually spent on patches vs. moving back and forth. on the other hand, it does effect gas mining, which is a nice buff.
but regardless, even if warp field is effective harass, it isn't clear that Pulsar is useful. How often are Oracles gonna be better served trying to channel a lot of energy for a long time to bring down a building, vs. saving their energy to slow mining?
On October 25 2012 03:05 Treehead wrote: In order to keep an Oracle from killing a Barracks (because it'll run out of energy first), a Terran player needs 1 SCV repairing to keep it from being sniped. 1 SCV is actually overkill if you're trying to snipe an engineering bay. With 1 SCV repairing, an Oracle is just barely able to kill a tech lab by expending all of its energy.
I've never used Pulsar beam before, but with these stats, how could it be good?
exactly. 20 dps vs buildings only,requiring energy, channeling, and from a unit that costs 150 gas...is just shit. it really is. the concept is a good one. but the numbers are way too low.
On October 25 2012 03:02 raf3776 wrote: Well wouldnt time warp be adding to the death ball is my only issue
It needs to be very short range. If it can only be cast right near the Oracle, then it will be good for harass and in small enganements, but if you try to fly it close to an enemy deathball to slow them you'll get shot down almost instantly. it would take actual cleverness and tactics to use it in a giant deathball engagement.
On October 25 2012 03:05 Treehead wrote: In order to keep an Oracle from killing a Barracks (because it'll run out of energy first), a Terran player needs 1 SCV repairing to keep it from being sniped. 1 SCV is actually overkill if you're trying to snipe an engineering bay. With 1 SCV repairing, an Oracle is just barely able to kill a tech lab by expending all of its energy.
I've never used Pulsar beam before, but with these stats, how could it be good?
exactly. 20 dps vs buildings only,requiring energy, channeling, and from a unit that costs 150 gas...is just shit. it really is. the concept is a good one. but the numbers are way too low.
Numbers can be tweaked easily though, if they feel it doesn't do enough damage they can buff it. It's really at this stage of the beta the concepts of the spell that should be good.
I think Pulsar beam could be cool if it had some tweaks. Aside from changing dps it could:
- Charge like a Void Ray
I think if you break channeling the spell it shouldnt hold its charge though. Oracles are pretty weak so they need to be babysat, but this would mean good micro/multitask would make it more powerful since they're so fast you can do maximum damage and get away
- Link to another nearby building and do damage in a chain the longer you channel the spell.
This way it would spread to 2 or 3 buildings and do "splash damage". It would punish bad building placement or just make the spell more damaging. Right now the damage won't do much vs high hp buildings but if you set 4 depots that are clumped up on fire and force your opponent to react or lose a bunch of supply it could be good harassment.
EDIT: Second thought: Time Warp could be really good if it did shorten the lifespan of timed life units. Would make fighting infested terran spam easier since they are too slow to escape it
I like that the oracle now makes zealots a lot better, especially against terran. My initial reaction to the anti building attack is positive, it kind of depends on the range. I think it can make for good synergy between VRs, pheonix and oracles when harassing and fighting base defenses.
ow no this is awful.. Terribly unfun abilities. Pulsar beam? Just a crappy attack against buildings that costs energy? kcdc pointed this out well but it has virtually no use, what are you going to kill with it really?
Time warp is even more terrible, it increases protoss reliability on chokes and forcefield.. Attacking into a protoss is already tricky with zerg given forcefield, now with timewarp you can't even retreat. Another anti-movement ability is too much for protoss, you get plays where you try to prod vs protoss, then they timewarp you, chase you, and FF you.. Making it too risky to play aggresive promotes passive/deathball play..
Ugh dustin browder just stinks, there were quite some interesting abilities proposed and they came up with this... They only make the protoss changes for HotS worse and worse... Just fire the guy already..
Seriously buff or change that pulsar beam and just get rid of time warp please.
Second thought: Time Warp could be really good if it did alter the lifespan of timed life units. Would make fighting infested terran spam easier since they are too slow to escape
The only thing I dont like about this is its counterintuitive and doesn't really work in terms of flavor.
That is, the "idea" behind the spell is the Oracle is slowing down time so enemy units move slower. But slowing down time would logically make timed life units last longer. "This spell slows down time for movement purposes, but speeds it up for lifespan purposes" just isn't very sensible or intuitive. Not that every power needs to make "sense" in this way, but its just a minor annoyance.
Pulsar beam? Just a crappy attack against buildings that costs energy? kcdc pointed this out well but it has virtually no use, what are you going to kill with it really?
Pulsar Beam does suck, but thats a matter of number tweaking, not concept. If it did more like 40 dps, it could actually be quite useful and fun to use.
Time warp is even more terrible, it increases protoss reliability on chokes and forcefield.. Attacking into a protoss is already tricky with zerg given forcefield, now with timewarp you can't even retreat. Another anti-movement ability is too much for protoss, you get plays where you try to prod vs protoss, then they timewarp you, chase you, and FF you.. Making it too risky to play aggresive promotes passive/deathball play.
In what way does Time Warp increase Protoss reliability on Forcefields? You need forcefields less when you have Time Warp--you can actually catch enemies with slow zealots if they're time warped, and you can retreat fairly easily, etc. And since Oracles come out early and cost so much gas, Oracle builds are not gonna have many Sentries for FF. And there are actually pretty bad diminishing returns in trying to use them together: good forcefields will trap the enemy anyway so they cant move where they want. Who cares if they're slowed while not moving? Sure, slowing enemies makes it easier to land good ffs...but thats a crutch. Good players land good FF's in real time at normal speed anyway. Slowing down units is something you want to do when for whatever reason you cant just forcefield them. Basically, all this does is make it so the gas cost of Oracles doesnt outright cripple you since you cant really afford many FFs.
What Time Warp actually does is decrease Protoss reliability on Forcefield, by introducing another unit that offers Crowd Control functionality, but which doesn't mix that well with FF due to both cost and just the nature of the two abilities.
Gonna be fun to dodge storm when your bio is slowed Oo
The only way that will ever happen is if for some reason they make Time Warp long range, which I doubt they will. Assuming its fairly short range, any bioball will pretty much oneshot any Oracle trying to get close enough to Timewarp. Timewarp might help in small engagements, but probably not in big army fights (unless, as I said, they give it long range. but that would be so stupid I'm assuming they won't. If Timewarp is short range, like range 3 or something, then dropping it on a giant deathball will be suicide for the Oracle.)
You can now use the oracle to kill rocks? It would mean that you can destroy the collapsible rocks in the hots map pool. Time warp seems cool but what if pulsar beem removed the targeted building from the opponents production. For example if you use the pulsar beem on the spawning pool the opponent wouldn't be able to make zerglings and stop eventual upgrades.
On October 25 2012 03:02 raf3776 wrote: Well wouldnt time warp be adding to the death ball is my only issue
Seems like it would reduce it. Would force splitting of units, and in terms of the DPS battles that can often occur lategame it won't actually add to the Toss's power, but make getting into that position for Zerg more difficult. Hopefully.
I'm sure they have the visual assets for Time Warp lying around. It was one of the spells that the Mothership had when it was first introduced years ago, and it still had the spell at the very start of the WoL beta before it got removed in one of the first patches.
I really like the Time Warp idea, although I kinda feel that maybe it would've been a good replacement for Force Field on the Sentry. I'm iffy about Pulsar Beam considering how ineffective the old Siphon spell was, but 20 dps seems like a lot. Doesn't a single Marauder do 20 dps against buildings?
Should add a poll about what people think of the changes.
At first blush I think Pulsar sounds completely uninspired. I'm not one to bash ideas but it doesn't sounds interesting from a players perspective or from an esport watching fan's perspective. Who's going to get excited by watching a passive ability slowly damage buildings?!
The time warp sounds fundamentally flawed as well. It's an AWFUL idea to have abilities that discourage or deny micro. That's one of the reasons why people hate fungal and force field so vehemently! I'm not sure that I believe these are accurate changes and if so I'm equally dumbfounded and disappointed...
Do not know if anyone thought of it yet. But i think it would work on expansion under constructions. Wouldn't that mean if zerg take a early third with out any anti air or creep spread it will keep on getting denied. Doesn't this shut down early third hatch completely????. sounds awesome if it works like that changing zvp allot!.
I also believe that they stated that the Oracle change they are testing out is going to almost always denies zerg an early third so it must be this one ^^
Yea, I'm going to withhold judgement until we know the full details and feel for how things actually interact with other units. I like the direction they're going with the Oracle though.
Non-Committal harass that is micro/positioning based. Possible offensive synergy. i.e. Attack the front, Pulsar Beam a tech lab down or something like that.
And support role ability that will add to Protoss's capability to defend without NEEDING! force field. The 50% slow to me sounds like Zealot/Stalker/Oracle could be a sick early-game defensive combination, making Stargate a viable opener. Especially with Purify. Depending on the cost and duration of Time Warp.
Also, I like that Blizzard is exploring abilities that would benefit from multiple Oracles acting upon the same location. Entomb felt very "I only ever want one Oracle" and I feel that's boring.
The time warp sounds fundamentally flawed as well. It's an AWFUL idea to have abilities that discourage or deny micro. That's one of the reasons why people hate fungal and force field so vehemently! I'm not sure that I believe these are accurate changes and if so I'm equally dumbfounded and disappointed...
Time Warp isn't like Fungal, which immobilizes, or FF which outright stops movement. Its a slow, so people can still micro under it, its just reduced. Hasn't changing Fungal to a slow been exactly what everyone is asking for, because it "allows for countermicro"?
Not all Crowd Control is inherently bad for gameplay.
One thing that would be interesting is if Time Warp also slowed other things, like: 1.) Rate at which structures build. Cast it on a key structure while its building to delay it for a bit. 2.) Rate at which units build and upgrades research 3.) Rate at which creep spreads
Time Warp seems pretty cool. I think it should slow down mining rate to make it a useful harassing tool. And if it speeds up timed units lifespan imagine using it on a clump of MULES. I like the idea since it can be used in so many ways, i.e. using it to slow hellions so you can kill them and escape with your probes. They should limit its range so that the oracale is able to be sniped easily if used in a big confrontation however.
As for Pulsar Beam I think the general idea is good, but it needs some more flavor I think. The suggestion above about stopping production/research is a good one, giving it more of a tactical component. If they do this they should make Revelation reveal what buildings are researching/producing to give the abilities some synergy.
I don't think just doubling its DPS to 40 or whatever is a good idea. It was the one of the main reason Void Ray speed got removed as it was too effective at burning down buildings all over the map late game before the enemy could react. It wouldn't be very interesting from a player or spectator perspective either.
Yeah I think Pulsar needs at least one of the following changes: -Higher damage output -Prevent repair / natural regen -AOE effect on multiple buildings, possibly with a cap (3 building perhaps) -Have some kind of "lightning shield" around the effected building, hurting any repairing worker or bypassing enemy unit. -Able to cast while moving, possibly with a movement reduction while casting.
I actually like the new oracle spells, but I feel like Pulsar Beam could use an extra bit of utility.
I think Pulsar beam would be perfect if it not only did 20 DPS to buildings, but also applies a debuff for 15 seconds that slows production by a %, something like 25%. This way a good/fast player can quickly hit enemy buildings and get out, or even kill a key structure later on in the game when the gas investment is not that intensive relative to the overall gas investment of the Protoss army.
On October 25 2012 03:48 Masayume wrote: I actually like the new oracle spells, but I feel like Pulsar Beam could use an extra bit of utility.
I think Pulsar beam would be perfect if it not only did 20 DPS to buildings, but also applies a debuff for 15 seconds that slows production by a %, something like 25%. This way a good/fast player can quickly hit enemy buildings and get out, or even kill a key structure later on in the game when the gas investment is not that intensive relative to the overall gas investment of the Protoss army.
Good job on this on Blizzard! <3
Great suggestion! +1 for this
edit/ Perhaps On top of slowing production & research, also slows attack speed, or repair / regen speed so this is also effective against static defences.
On October 25 2012 02:43 myRZeth wrote: can you slow down enemy orkers with that time field?
I guess that's sort of the point Like it! I thought dealing damage to buildings regenerates energy for the oracle though? So the more you channel the more you can slow down his eco?
On October 25 2012 03:57 LuisFrost wrote: Oh wow, that time warp ability seems like an alternative to force fields. Maybe you could have an oracle / gateway army with no sentries. I like it.
Thats exactly what I'm thinking. Oracles cost so much gas you cant have a sentry-heavy gateway force to support them. This lets you get aggressive in different ways though--you can march across the map with some slow Zealots, and use Oracles to make sure they can close the distance when the fight goes down. Or you can poke a bit, then use Time Warp to cover your army's retreat. The one time you don't want to use it, is when you're forcefielding, because then its redunant (who cares about slowing down units that are trapped in place anyway). Its a nice way to give Protoss a different option for a support spell for Gateway armies in the early game. You can have the traditional Sentry with FF, or you can spend your gas on Oracles and use Time Warp for either harass, or army support.
On October 25 2012 02:21 kcdc wrote: This is a combat buff for the oracle but a big harass nerf. Buildings have hundreds or thousands of hit points. 20 DPS isn't enough to kill anything.
Adding on to this, a greater spire has 1k hp. This means that if you make 5 oracles (reasonable assumption for a lategame scenario), it takes 10 seconds to kill it...10 seconds is a whole lot of time for such an expensive unit.
Earlier on in the game, a single Oracle isn't going to kill anything except a third.
I wish they just gave up and also gave it something that kills workers.
voidray is way better then oracle then . killing third voidray charge does almost same damage and costs no energy + you can snipe overlords and queens aswel .
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 04:05 kcdc wrote: Can the oracle be cheaper now? The abilities actually sound fun, but 150/150 is way too expensive for what you get.
agreed. I'd much rather have the Oracle be given powers that aren't too strong, but be cheap enough that you can get a couple Oracles and/or mix up with other units, rather than making Oracles super expensive and then trying to give them abilities powerful enough to justify the high cost.
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.
I agree with both these points. Pulsar numbers seem wonky, but those can be fixed it the basic idea is sound. Time Warp is an awesome way to expand Protoss gameplay and open up options that don't rely on FF
On October 25 2012 02:21 kcdc wrote: This is a combat buff for the oracle but a big harass nerf. Buildings have hundreds or thousands of hit points. 20 DPS isn't enough to kill anything.
Adding on to this, a greater spire has 1k hp. This means that if you make 5 oracles (reasonable assumption for a lategame scenario), it takes 10 seconds to kill it...10 seconds is a whole lot of time for such an expensive unit.
Earlier on in the game, a single Oracle isn't going to kill anything except a third.
I wish they just gave up and also gave it something that kills workers.
True, but it could be useful versus assimilators, refineries, extractors, no? All low HP but important.
Btw, it's great that you post consistently on HOTS, Grubby. Your thoughts are always appreciated.
Edit/ Oh, and yeah, I am excited about Time Warp. For the first time, I actually like the Oracle.
I see Pulsar Beam killing Tech buildings with 2-5 Oracles. Maybe DPS should be 30. If too much Turrets/Spores, focus on using TimeWarp/Revelation. They now spent money on static defense. If greater spire only defended by Spores, that's when you use Zealot warpins from speedprism. If only spines, you use oracles. If Spores protect all and no battles happening for Timewarp, you can use Timewarp on Drones to slow down mineral mining, or use Pulsar Beam to kill all the outlying Extractors. So many possibilities.
On October 25 2012 03:48 Masayume wrote: I actually like the new oracle spells, but I feel like Pulsar Beam could use an extra bit of utility.
I think Pulsar beam would be perfect if it not only did 20 DPS to buildings, but also applies a debuff for 15 seconds that slows production by a %, something like 25%. This way a good/fast player can quickly hit enemy buildings and get out, or even kill a key structure later on in the game when the gas investment is not that intensive relative to the overall gas investment of the Protoss army.
Good job on this on Blizzard! <3
Great suggestion! +1 for this
edit/ Perhaps On top of slowing production & research, also slows attack speed, or repair / regen speed so this is also effective against static defences.
That actually does seem pretty cool (and also fits the new "time distortion" theme of the oracle). Slowing production and static defense attack speed would be a interesting addition to the attack.
On October 25 2012 02:21 kcdc wrote: This is a combat buff for the oracle but a big harass nerf. Buildings have hundreds or thousands of hit points. 20 DPS isn't enough to kill anything.
Adding on to this, a greater spire has 1k hp. This means that if you make 5 oracles (reasonable assumption for a lategame scenario), it takes 10 seconds to kill it...10 seconds is a whole lot of time for such an expensive unit.
Earlier on in the game, a single Oracle isn't going to kill anything except a third.
I wish they just gave up and also gave it something that kills workers.
voidray is way better then oracle then . killing third voidray charge does almost same damage and costs no energy + you can snipe overlords and queens aswel .
That's exactly why Pulsar Beam shouldn't have crazy DPS on buildings, it would make Void Rays even less useful. They should just add an additional tactical factor to the ability instead. And on that note I think giving Void Rays bonus damage vs buildings, say when fully charged, would be a great way to give the unit an actual defined role that it could actually do well, rather than the completely unrefined (and mostly useless) role it currently serves.
- If you bubble a building does it slow production / upgrades? - If you bubble minerals or a gas extractor does it slow down gathering? - If you bubble a turret/cannon/spine/spore, does it slow down the attack speed and/or projectiles? - If projectiles pass through a bubble (say stalker shots or muta glaives) are they also slowed?
So many questions... if it does all these things it's going to be an awesome ability with many uses.
On October 25 2012 04:12 Grubby wrote: I see Pulsar Beam killing Tech buildings with 2-5 Oracles. Maybe DPS should be 30. If too much Turrets/Spores, focus on using TimeWarp/Revelation. They now spent money on static defense. If greater spire only defended by Spores, that's when you use Zealot warpins from speedprism. If only spines, you use oracles. If Spores protect all and no battles happening for Timewarp, you can use Timewarp on Drones to slow down mineral mining, or use Pulsar Beam to kill all the outlying Extractors. So many possibilities.
grubby already getting creative
will you stream some hots games for us? please lovely grubby
see Pulsar Beam killing Tech buildings with 2-5 Oracles. Maybe DPS should be 30. If too much Turrets/Spores, focus on using TimeWarp/Revelation. They now spent money on static defense. If greater spire only defended by Spores, that's when you use Zealot warpins from speedprism. If only spines, you use oracles. If Spores protect all and no battles happening for Timewarp, you can use Timewarp on Drones to slow down mineral mining, or use Pulsar Beam to kill all the outlying Extractors. So many possibilities.
extractor sniping is a good idea. Even one Oracle can snipe an Extractor in just 25 seconds which isn't bad at all. Also, unlike Entomb, Time Warp can slow down gas minining as well as mineral mining.
I think people are missing out on how good the pulsar beam is when it comes to harassing.It might need to be tweked with the numbers but the basic idea sounds nice!.
For Terran you are able to drain energy from orbital and in that sense limiting the mule and doing economic damage that way. mule=50 energie and it takes 25 sec to drain 50 energie energy(keep in mind this is blizzard seconds so its less then 25 sec). 20 seconds to destroy reactors, tech lab and supply depot. For every Oracle u add the time is lessen with 50%.
For protos it works similar where u limit the chrono boost for your opponent. Its 12,5 blizzard secs to remove 1 potential chrono with one oracel.
For zerg u can probably deny an early hatch (hopefully when the building is under construction also). Think of it like this: a fully charged void ray does 13(+1.79) and the Oracle does 20. Old void ray openings normally hit around when the third base was under construction. The build time is the same and the cost is 100 minerals less makes it so that the oracle might hit before that with its increased speed over the void ray. If we then add to the fact it has an increased dps it should deny the third with out any problem. This means that an stargate opening can punish zerg that goes for an earlier third. So instead of opening void ray to deny the third opening with Oracle does the job better. Also blizard have said in a earlier with a blue post that they are looking in to changing the voidray also.
Why don't they just give it an x energy spell that snatches minerals from workers? Shift clickable, but uses energy even if it targets a worker that isn't carrying minerals. Stores minerals in the oracle, cap of say...300...and it returns them to the nexus like a probe would. SNAP, doing econ damage, not killing workers, requires micro.
On October 25 2012 04:05 kcdc wrote: Can the oracle be cheaper now? The abilities actually sound fun, but 150/150 is way too expensive for what you get.
A stimmed marine has better DPS than the Oracle and can actually target workers. I do not see how this is worth building for harassment purposes.
A Zealot has higher DPS, so why would I not just drop Zealots with a Warp Prism instead?
A stimmed marine has better DPS than the Oracle and can actually target workers. I do not see how this is worth building for harassment purposes.
well, Time Warp can slow down worker movement and thereby slow mining rates on both minerals and gas. whether its strong enough to make it preferable to just getting some phoenixes or something remains to be seen.
On October 25 2012 02:21 kcdc wrote: This is a combat buff for the oracle but a big harass nerf. Buildings have hundreds or thousands of hit points. 20 DPS isn't enough to kill anything.
Adding on to this, a greater spire has 1k hp. This means that if you make 5 oracles (reasonable assumption for a lategame scenario), it takes 10 seconds to kill it...10 seconds is a whole lot of time for such an expensive unit.
Earlier on in the game, a single Oracle isn't going to kill anything except a third.
I wish they just gave up and also gave it something that kills workers.
voidray is way better then oracle then . killing third voidray charge does almost same damage and costs no energy + you can snipe overlords and queens aswel .
That's exactly why Pulsar Beam shouldn't have crazy DPS on buildings, it would make Void Rays even less useful. They should just add an additional tactical factor to the ability instead. And on that note I think giving Void Rays bonus damage vs buildings, say when fully charged, would be a great way to give the unit an actual defined role that it could actually do well, rather than the completely unrefined (and mostly useless) role it currently serves.
You would actually see more use of Voids in their only time slot (~1-2 min of midgame PvZ) because the main deterrent of Voids is Spores, so if an Oracle becomes a Spore-killer, you could see a resurgence of Void harass. I wouldn't worry about Void Rays because they're a mess to begin with. They're one of the WoL units that needs looking at once the HotS units are squared away.
I think people have forgotten that David Kim has said denying expansions under construction with the oracle is a breeze with a couple of oracles channeling Pulsar Beam, 20x2 or 20x3 dps kills constructing buildings fast. Fast zerg thirds are no more with an oracle + zealot combo, reminds me of the old void + zealot style but a hell of a lot faster.
On October 25 2012 04:05 kcdc wrote: Can the oracle be cheaper now? The abilities actually sound fun, but 150/150 is way too expensive for what you get.
A stimmed marine has better DPS than the Oracle and can actually target workers. I do not see how this is worth building for harassment purposes.
A Zealot has higher DPS, so why would I not just drop Zealots with a Warp Prism instead?
Wait wait wait wait wait...
According to Liquipedia, doesn't a stimmed Marine do 10.5 dps and a Zealot do 13.3 dps? And it seems that Pulsar Beam will do 20 dps.
see Pulsar Beam killing Tech buildings with 2-5 Oracles. Maybe DPS should be 30. If too much Turrets/Spores, focus on using TimeWarp/Revelation. They now spent money on static defense. If greater spire only defended by Spores, that's when you use Zealot warpins from speedprism. If only spines, you use oracles. If Spores protect all and no battles happening for Timewarp, you can use Timewarp on Drones to slow down mineral mining, or use Pulsar Beam to kill all the outlying Extractors. So many possibilities.
extractor sniping is a good idea. Even one Oracle can snipe an Extractor in just 25 seconds which isn't bad at all. Also, unlike Entomb, Time Warp can slow down gas minining as well as mineral mining.
Hah, wow, when you put it that way, 20 dps sounds like chump change. 25s of unmitigated harass should be thousands of resources lost at that point.
There was some pretty strong support for this general concept, I was one of them.
We were calling it "Chrono Field". Glad they saw the value in it, I'm very interested to see how its going to turn out.
I felt that the spell would be more effective if it slowed down units in the field, on an increasing basis the longer you held the field over the units.
ie. The slowing effect would increase over time (30 seconds?) until the speed of the units in the field came to a complete stop. This would make high-skill harassment of mineral lines high value.
Also - it would be very cool to see ranged units firing shots / missles in slow motion inside the field Missiles hanging in mid-air until the Oracle was forced away / destroyed etc ...
Oracle + Warp Prism harass might complement eachother well. As Grubby said you can use zealot warp in vs Greater Spire with spore defense or use Pulsar if its guarded by spines.
With the speed upgrade both Warp Prism and Oracle will be super fast and hard to deal with simultaneously.
Think of using Time Warp on enemy workers to slow them down while dropping/warping in Zealots to the mineral line. Or you could warp in at their mineral line and Time Warp their ramp so units coming back to defend will be slowed down. Then send your Oracle to Pulsar some buildings in the opposite corner while they try to clean up your Zealots.
On October 25 2012 04:52 Lightscythe wrote: I think people have forgotten that David Kim has said denying expansions under construction with the oracle is a breeze with a couple of oracles channeling Pulsar Beam, 20x2 or 20x3 dps kills constructing buildings fast. Fast zerg thirds are no more with an oracle + zealot combo, reminds me of the old void + zealot style but a hell of a lot faster.
You're not the first one to mention that with a few oracles you could kill a Zerg's third while it's in construction in PvZ.
Care to enlighten the poor WoL player that I am ( no beta access ).
What are the timings to get, say, 2 oracles out of a stargate in HOTS, out of a forge FE ?
Considering you *start* a stargate at 6' and Zerg's third is *done* at that same timing in WoL, I'm wondering if I'm missing something or if everybody forgot timings in HOTS.
Blizzard have Protosses A LOT OF harrasing options. M-Core, Oracle 2 abilities, tempest at tier 2. Why they do it all time? I mean why they over-buff, over-nerf or over-do something?
On October 25 2012 02:21 kcdc wrote: This is a combat buff for the oracle but a big harass nerf. Buildings have hundreds or thousands of hit points. 20 DPS isn't enough to kill anything.
Adding on to this, a greater spire has 1k hp. This means that if you make 5 oracles (reasonable assumption for a lategame scenario), it takes 10 seconds to kill it...10 seconds is a whole lot of time for such an expensive unit.
Earlier on in the game, a single Oracle isn't going to kill anything except a third.
I wish they just gave up and also gave it something that kills workers.
voidray is way better then oracle then . killing third voidray charge does almost same damage and costs no energy + you can snipe overlords and queens aswel .
That's exactly why Pulsar Beam shouldn't have crazy DPS on buildings, it would make Void Rays even less useful. They should just add an additional tactical factor to the ability instead. And on that note I think giving Void Rays bonus damage vs buildings, say when fully charged, would be a great way to give the unit an actual defined role that it could actually do well, rather than the completely unrefined (and mostly useless) role it currently serves.
You would actually see more use of Voids in their only time slot (~1-2 min of midgame PvZ) because the main deterrent of Voids is Spores, so if an Oracle becomes a Spore-killer, you could see a resurgence of Void harass. I wouldn't worry about Void Rays because they're a mess to begin with. They're one of the WoL units that needs looking at once the HotS units are squared away.
Your right abouth teh voidray part ^^. Sentence taken from a blue post by dustin browder: "We will be looking some at the Void Ray soonish. I don't know what if anything we will decide to do with him but your feedback on this unit has certainly been heard." http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6794032960?page=2
Ok so I got really excited about the oracle's pulsar beam ability because I misread it as saying that it would deal 20 damage per second to buildings AND drain 2 energy from a building per second, as opposed to costing to 2 oracle energy per second. Now that I've re-read that I'm a bit disappointed.
That said though, I think that would actually be a really neat idea for an active harassment tool. If you could use the oracle to drain Nexus, Orbital Command and Queen energy, you could achieve the goal of indirect economic harassment while still maintaining a mechanic that scales with micro.
On October 25 2012 02:21 kcdc wrote: This is a combat buff for the oracle but a big harass nerf. Buildings have hundreds or thousands of hit points. 20 DPS isn't enough to kill anything.
Adding on to this, a greater spire has 1k hp. This means that if you make 5 oracles (reasonable assumption for a lategame scenario), it takes 10 seconds to kill it...10 seconds is a whole lot of time for such an expensive unit.
Earlier on in the game, a single Oracle isn't going to kill anything except a third.
I wish they just gave up and also gave it something that kills workers.
voidray is way better then oracle then . killing third voidray charge does almost same damage and costs no energy + you can snipe overlords and queens aswel .
That's exactly why Pulsar Beam shouldn't have crazy DPS on buildings, it would make Void Rays even less useful. They should just add an additional tactical factor to the ability instead. And on that note I think giving Void Rays bonus damage vs buildings, say when fully charged, would be a great way to give the unit an actual defined role that it could actually do well, rather than the completely unrefined (and mostly useless) role it currently serves.
You would actually see more use of Voids in their only time slot (~1-2 min of midgame PvZ) because the main deterrent of Voids is Spores, so if an Oracle becomes a Spore-killer, you could see a resurgence of Void harass. I wouldn't worry about Void Rays because they're a mess to begin with. They're one of the WoL units that needs looking at once the HotS units are squared away.
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 05:13 Inf-badguy wrote: Ok so I got really excited about the oracle's pulsar beam ability because I misread it as saying that it would deal 20 damage per second to buildings AND drain 2 energy from a building per second, as opposed to costing to 2 oracle energy per second. Now that I've re-read that I'm a bit disappointed.
That said though, I think that would actually be a really neat idea for an active harassment tool. If you could use the oracle to drain Nexus, Orbital Command and Queen energy, you could achieve the goal of indirect economic harassment while still maintaining a mechanic that scales with micro.
Thoughts?
I dunno about draining an opponent's energy...but what if Pulsar Beam could help regenerate Oracle energy? Like even if the anti-building attack is fairly weak, it'd be useful because you could use to get energy back quicker for more warp fields. It would really reward staying active at all times with your Oracle.
On October 25 2012 05:13 Inf-badguy wrote: Ok so I got really excited about the oracle's pulsar beam ability because I misread it as saying that it would deal 20 damage per second to buildings AND drain 2 energy from a building per second, as opposed to costing to 2 oracle energy per second. Now that I've re-read that I'm a bit disappointed.
That said though, I think that would actually be a really neat idea for an active harassment tool. If you could use the oracle to drain Nexus, Orbital Command and Queen energy, you could achieve the goal of indirect economic harassment while still maintaining a mechanic that scales with micro.
Thoughts?
ty for clearing it up. I misread it too xD. they should add the draining effect on energy then but i dont know about the queens ^^. Draining energy makes it more useful harassing in pvt and pvp also.
On October 25 2012 05:13 Inf-badguy wrote: Ok so I got really excited about the oracle's pulsar beam ability because I misread it as saying that it would deal 20 damage per second to buildings AND drain 2 energy from a building per second, as opposed to costing to 2 oracle energy per second. Now that I've re-read that I'm a bit disappointed.
That said though, I think that would actually be a really neat idea for an active harassment tool. If you could use the oracle to drain Nexus, Orbital Command and Queen energy, you could achieve the goal of indirect economic harassment while still maintaining a mechanic that scales with micro.
Thoughts?
I dunno about draining an opponent's energy...but what if Pulsar Beam could help regenerate Oracle energy? Like even if the anti-building attack is fairly weak, it'd be useful because you could use to get energy back quicker for more warp fields. It would really reward staying active at all times with your Oracle.
That's the thing about beta numbers in that they are always fluctuating and pointless to argue over. If the core ability was just able to drain energy at a hypothetical rate of 1 per second and do away with the building damage, I think you'd have a pretty cool ability that would be entertaining to watch.
I envision a combination DT / oracle rush (silly for a rush of course given two required tech paths) where a terran can't scan because his Orbital Command is harassed below 50 energy; or a push where queens are sapped and unable to transfuse static defenses because of the harassment provided by oracles.
On October 25 2012 04:52 Lightscythe wrote: I think people have forgotten that David Kim has said denying expansions under construction with the oracle is a breeze with a couple of oracles channeling Pulsar Beam, 20x2 or 20x3 dps kills constructing buildings fast. Fast zerg thirds are no more with an oracle + zealot combo, reminds me of the old void + zealot style but a hell of a lot faster.
Yeah, let's wait to see how it plays out before we trust that the platinum players at Blizzard have exhausted all options to take a fast third. Methinks Zergs will find a way to handle this.
On October 25 2012 05:13 Inf-badguy wrote: Ok so I got really excited about the oracle's pulsar beam ability because I misread it as saying that it would deal 20 damage per second to buildings AND drain 2 energy from a building per second, as opposed to costing to 2 oracle energy per second. Now that I've re-read that I'm a bit disappointed.
That said though, I think that would actually be a really neat idea for an active harassment tool. If you could use the oracle to drain Nexus, Orbital Command and Queen energy, you could achieve the goal of indirect economic harassment while still maintaining a mechanic that scales with micro.
Thoughts?
ty for clearing it up. I misread it too xD. they should add the draining effect on energy then but i dont know about the queens ^^. Draining energy makes it more useful harassing in pvt and pvp also.
But the harass would effectively be removing energy.
My biggest issue is that blizzard is trying way to hard to make a "not kill anything" unit. Harass threatens tech and workers alike. And this poor DPS and per second energy costs is really kinda disappointing in its current state. The idea is cool but it is far from guaranteed damage. When I harass, I want to do guaranteed damage. I am going to stick with 2 immortal drops in PvP for sure.
PvZ this might help if it along with a couple zealots can out DPS a building hatchery it can be very cool.
On October 25 2012 05:13 Inf-badguy wrote: Ok so I got really excited about the oracle's pulsar beam ability because I misread it as saying that it would deal 20 damage per second to buildings AND drain 2 energy from a building per second, as opposed to costing to 2 oracle energy per second. Now that I've re-read that I'm a bit disappointed.
That said though, I think that would actually be a really neat idea for an active harassment tool. If you could use the oracle to drain Nexus, Orbital Command and Queen energy, you could achieve the goal of indirect economic harassment while still maintaining a mechanic that scales with micro.
Thoughts?
ty for clearing it up. I misread it too xD. they should add the draining effect on energy then but i dont know about the queens ^^. Draining energy makes it more useful harassing in pvt and pvp also.
Yeah I added Queens as well given that the whole idea of entomb was to provide some form of continuous economic harassment. I know its awkward to be able to target queens but given the zerg mechanic of spawn larva, it would have to work that way for the ability to be viable in all three match ups. It does of course introduce the problem of it scaling differently against each race since the abilities they can use with energy, and the amount of energy required vary so much.
On October 25 2012 04:52 Lightscythe wrote: I think people have forgotten that David Kim has said denying expansions under construction with the oracle is a breeze with a couple of oracles channeling Pulsar Beam, 20x2 or 20x3 dps kills constructing buildings fast. Fast zerg thirds are no more with an oracle + zealot combo, reminds me of the old void + zealot style but a hell of a lot faster.
Yeah, let's wait to see how it plays out before we trust that the platinum players at Blizzard have exhausted all options to take a fast third. Methinks Zergs will find a way to handle this.
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 05:13 Inf-badguy wrote: Ok so I got really excited about the oracle's pulsar beam ability because I misread it as saying that it would deal 20 damage per second to buildings AND drain 2 energy from a building per second, as opposed to costing to 2 oracle energy per second. Now that I've re-read that I'm a bit disappointed.
That said though, I think that would actually be a really neat idea for an active harassment tool. If you could use the oracle to drain Nexus, Orbital Command and Queen energy, you could achieve the goal of indirect economic harassment while still maintaining a mechanic that scales with micro.
Thoughts?
ty for clearing it up. I misread it too xD. they should add the draining effect on energy then but i dont know about the queens ^^. Draining energy makes it more useful harassing in pvt and pvp also.
Yeah I added Queens as well given that the whole idea of entomb was to provide some form of continuous economic harassment. I know its awkward to be able to target queens but given the zerg mechanic of spawn larva, it would have to work that way for the ability to be viable in all three match ups. It does of course introduce the problem of it scaling differently against each race since the abilities they can use with energy, and the amount of energy required vary so much.
I like the idea of the oracle attacking the macro mechanics that boost the income. It falls under the category of indirect economic damage as u mentioned. Blizzard could add energy on the hatchery an make the defult spawn larva function the hatch has cost energy and be autocast . It currently spawns 3 larva every 15 sec.
Yeah I added Queens as well given that the whole idea of entomb was to provide some form of continuous economic harassment. I know its awkward to be able to target queens but given the zerg mechanic of spawn larva, it would have to work that way for the ability to be viable in all three match ups. It does of course introduce the problem of it scaling differently against each race since the abilities they can use with energy, and the amount of energy required vary so much.
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 04:52 Lightscythe wrote: I think people have forgotten that David Kim has said denying expansions under construction with the oracle is a breeze with a couple of oracles channeling Pulsar Beam, 20x2 or 20x3 dps kills constructing buildings fast. Fast zerg thirds are no more with an oracle + zealot combo, reminds me of the old void + zealot style but a hell of a lot faster.
you dont play zerg/protoss, huh? ^^ when zerg takes a fast third base it finishes around the 6 minute mark. by that time you just begin to build your stargate(after ffe) so i dont see how this could deny a 3 hatch opening by zerg. zergs will just build some spores and be fine. maybe with a gateway opening but im still not sure how it is going to work out.
On October 25 2012 02:21 kcdc wrote: This is a combat buff for the oracle but a big harass nerf. Buildings have hundreds or thousands of hit points. 20 DPS isn't enough to kill anything.
Adding on to this, a greater spire has 1k hp. This means that if you make 5 oracles (reasonable assumption for a lategame scenario), it takes 10 seconds to kill it...10 seconds is a whole lot of time for such an expensive unit.
Earlier on in the game, a single Oracle isn't going to kill anything except a third.
I wish they just gave up and also gave it something that kills workers.
voidray is way better then oracle then . killing third voidray charge does almost same damage and costs no energy + you can snipe overlords and queens aswel .
That's exactly why Pulsar Beam shouldn't have crazy DPS on buildings, it would make Void Rays even less useful. They should just add an additional tactical factor to the ability instead. And on that note I think giving Void Rays bonus damage vs buildings, say when fully charged, would be a great way to give the unit an actual defined role that it could actually do well, rather than the completely unrefined (and mostly useless) role it currently serves.
You would actually see more use of Voids in their only time slot (~1-2 min of midgame PvZ) because the main deterrent of Voids is Spores, so if an Oracle becomes a Spore-killer, you could see a resurgence of Void harass. I wouldn't worry about Void Rays because they're a mess to begin with. They're one of the WoL units that needs looking at once the HotS units are squared away.
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.
Well it depends on the final values, but the Oracle will necessarily need to do a heavy amount of structural DPS, so 2-3 could snipe one quick enough. Void Rays never had a prayer of bruteforcing a Spore unless fully charged.
On October 25 2012 04:52 Lightscythe wrote: I think people have forgotten that David Kim has said denying expansions under construction with the oracle is a breeze with a couple of oracles channeling Pulsar Beam, 20x2 or 20x3 dps kills constructing buildings fast. Fast zerg thirds are no more with an oracle + zealot combo, reminds me of the old void + zealot style but a hell of a lot faster.
Yeah, let's wait to see how it plays out before we trust that the platinum players at Blizzard have exhausted all options to take a fast third. Methinks Zergs will find a way to handle this.
That's also assuming you could even get an oracle out in time to harass the third if you fast expand yourself.
the oracle should pop out a bit before a normal expansion star gate opening with void ray. It cost 100 minerals less and have the same build time. Since it have the same speed as a speed prism it should get there allot faster then an void ray.
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?
Yeah I added Queens as well given that the whole idea of entomb was to provide some form of continuous economic harassment. I know its awkward to be able to target queens but given the zerg mechanic of spawn larva, it would have to work that way for the ability to be viable in all three match ups. It does of course introduce the problem of it scaling differently against each race since the abilities they can use with energy, and the amount of energy required vary so much.
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.
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?
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?
LoL never thought about that. Maybe that's what they are aiming for. They did state they did not like how the current protoss is heavily reliant on force field. If it works out like you said it would be awesome to see how the maps would be like xD.
Yeah I added Queens as well given that the whole idea of entomb was to provide some form of continuous economic harassment. I know its awkward to be able to target queens but given the zerg mechanic of spawn larva, it would have to work that way for the ability to be viable in all three match ups. It does of course introduce the problem of it scaling differently against each race since the abilities they can use with energy, and the amount of energy required vary so much.
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.
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
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.
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.
Not that I could really disagree with Grubby anyway, but I happen to think his assessment of Time Warp is spot on. Provided it covers a large enough area to be relevant (if its so small that they come out of it and can start kiting by the time zealots attacks cooldown) and cheap enough on energy to be usable, it's a good change to add something other than the sentry which can help a zealot out before speed upgrades are available (and a change which doesn't discourage micro to boot). Zealots are still going to be pretty bad against roaches (don't get me wrong), but at least now they'll be able to do *something*. And it can't really be too good for zealots in the early game, because each race has a defense mechanism (spines, bunkers, FFs) which doesn't require mobility.
I think Pulsar is in a weird spot. You can't really use it against Terran (due to repair making your harassment approximately free to negate). Against protoss, you can only really get much out of it if you can go past the shields (which early game stalkers will be able to prevent). But then if you make it high enough dps to be decent against P or T, it'll be horrifying against Z. Zerg is a weird race to be effective against with a building-only attack, too, because they have so few buildings to begin with (and they tend to be all clustered up, at that). Even aside from this, stargate openers have the most trouble against zerg's early game anyway.
I have a hard time believing Pulsar can really be good in a way that's good for the game. Maybe if it makes its target building immune to repair or to the regeneration of hp/shields for an extended period of time (think wc3 batriders) - then I could see it being useful, given the right numbers. That would add a more strategic dimension to the ability too (i.e. you wouldn't have to "rush the building down", you could kill it slowly over time).
I think, with balancing, time warp affecting temporary units could be awesome, and really great for the pvz match-up. I could see it punishing a zerg player who goes too heavy on infestors and doesn't have much army backbone outside brood lords by stalling/diminishing the damage done by the first couple waves of broodlings.
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.
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.
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).
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!
It's basically an attack that cost energy. That's how I see it.
i definitely think Time Warp should be enemy-only--one of the things I'm most excited about it is it opens up options for getting aggressive with Zealots without needing Forcefields or Charge. If Zealots were slowed by it though it'd be pointless. Making it enemy-only turns it from something that is exclusively harassment, to something that really opens up Protoss gameplay in a positive way by giving them options that don't rely on forcefield.
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 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
Nah, it should just slow movement speed AND attack speed. It is a time warp, after all.
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.
Grubby getting pleasant flashbacks of his far seer reaching Level 6!
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.
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.
Yeah I agree with you completely. My first thought process was simply finding a way for the oracle's ability to influence the base economic ability of each race (chrono, mule, larva). No question that it would be a poor read for uninitiated players wondering why the oracle was draining buildings in 2 races but a unit in another.
Being able to energy drain both structures and units with the right balance seems like a pretty decent idea. Maybe someone with beta access could post it in one of the active HotS bnet threads?
Even if Time Warp affected friendlies, it would still help non-zealot units in chasing down kiters or runners, if used for that purpose. Also, if used in a choke behind the opponent, zealots will still be able to catch the units in front trying to path around the slower units.
I'm real excited. The ability provides for more synergy between the Stargate and Templar tech trees (Time Warp + Storm), allowing for Protoss to perhaps skip robo tech in PvZ if Storm proves to be more effective in a Time Warp against Roaches. I would go Stargate in a Templar opening PvT too, since it's got more speed and only 1 less vision than an observer but a lot more utility. I would gladly use these instead of observers when enemy gets ghosts!
On October 25 2012 06:05 awesomoecalypse wrote: i definitely think Time Warp should be enemy-only--one of the things I'm most excited about it is it opens up options for getting aggressive with Zealots without needing Forcefields or Charge. If Zealots were slowed by it though it'd be pointless. Making it enemy-only turns it from something that is exclusively harassment, to something that really opens up Protoss gameplay in a positive way by giving them options that don't rely on forcefield.
Well not necessarily. Again speculating on something that we don't know the area affected, cost to cast, duration, etc. is difficult. However, I think it would identify better with protoss spells (forcefield, psi storm, vortex) if it influenced the protoss units as well. Yes it wouldn't help a zealot chasing a unit directly, but it could potentially force an opponent to move in a different direction from the time warp which if used well, could produce a more favorable path for your zealot(s) to engage. I struggle with the idea that protoss units can't walk through forcefields (massive omitted), can't pass through a vortex, can take friendly damage from psi storm, but are able to ignore the effects of time warp.
I apologize if this has been posted already, but I haven't had the time to read through the entire thread just yet.
1. Pulsar Beam - We all agree 20dps is too low. So how about it stacks with charges like a void ray, but it has unlimited amount of charges that all increase it's dps by a fixed amount on each tick of damage. Example: First 2 seconds while attacking on a building, it does 20dps, then each consecutive tick (2 seconds) it does 20 more (so 40, 60, 80..) It would require to really take down or chase away that Oracle, and it would make it formidable and a worthy investment.
2. Time Warp - While I think this ability has potential and it is well designed, why don't we expand it's use? It seems Blizzard already considers this but maybe in a wrong way. Why not allow it to slow down everything in that area? For instance, if cast on infested terran eggs, it would take them 50% more time to hatch. If cast on a forge, upgrades are 50% slowed, if casted on a building that is being constructed it will slow it down by 50%. And ofcourse if casted on units it slows them down just the same. Would this make it more interesting, like a reverse chrono boost that works on everything?
3. Revelation - I would really like the detection back ;(
On October 25 2012 06:19 CikaZombi wrote: 3. Revelation - I would really like the detection back ;(
In my opinion it was kind of unfair to the Robo tech tree to give detection to a Stargate unit. That kind of ability overlap in tech trees also ruins the effectiveness of all cloaked units against Protoss.
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.
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.
The idea i liked and presented the message u just quoted was to make it work on all energy bases units and not only queens. I agree with you that it be weird if it only worked on buildings and queen. i also stated before that i am not sure abouth the queen being targetable and the ability we are talking about is 20 damage against build with the addition of doing 2 energy drain on the attack. Second of all i actually dont get your argument on game design. did u know that consive shell doesnt not effect massive but everything else or that force field can only be broken by massive units and nothing else. How about guardian shield only decreasing ranged damage and not melee or phoenix can lift everything expect massive units.
I agree on it might be confusing to have it work on the queen only but not because of the reasons u stated.
2. Time Warp - While I think this ability has potential and it is well designed, why don't we expand it's use? It seems Blizzard already considers this but maybe in a wrong way. Why not allow it to slow down everything in that area? For instance, if cast on infested terran eggs, it would take them 50% more time to hatch. If cast on a forge, upgrades are 50% slowed, if casted on a building that is being constructed it will slow it down by 50%. And ofcourse if casted on units it slows them down just the same. Would this make it more interesting, like a reverse chrono boost that works on everything?
Because, there is no way to counter that... You can move your units away from it, but you will have to cancel building and place it at different location so you don't have to wait for it to build 50% longer. And for upgrades, it is even worse. There would be some retarded timings with it, or delaying enemy timings by a lot.
Yes, Overseer can stop the production or research, but Overseer isn't an useful for anything else except scouting, and they pumped the Contaminate cost to 125 energy. There is no way that you would mass them without crippling yourself, while Oracle will actually be really useful unit after this, and isn't as slow as Overseer.
I really like both abilities, and Oracle is quite decent now, maybe they will need some number tweaking, but they are good design wise.
On October 25 2012 06:51 happyness wrote: The oracle is still too expensive to justify it's cost. As long as it's 200 gas, I don't think we will see much of it.
Raven's cost 200 gas while at 2 supply. units should be expensive. If the abilities don't justify the cost, I'd rather they buff the abilities than decrease the cost.
Edit: @Anomi I'm pretty sure that's wrong, but willing to be proven otherwise.
On October 25 2012 06:50 Teoita wrote: Infestor Broodlord Oracle OP in team games.
On a serious note, i guess it's to improve hallucination? Either way yeah it's a wierd statement.
Huh? I think you're taking it to mean that the timed life gets slowed down, which would be the logical thing. But the devs are proposing the exact opposite, which wouldn't make much sense.
On October 25 2012 06:53 SarcasmMonster wrote: Raven's cost 200 gas while at 2 supply. units should be expensive. If the abilities don't justify the cost, I'd rather they buff the abilities than decrease the cost.
Edit: @Anomi I'm pretty sure that's wrong, but willing to be proven otherwise.
I gave u the link so you can check. here is the balance update 2:
We have removed the oracle’s Preordain ability. We have added a new area of effect ability for the oracle called Phase Shield. Targeted friendly units are shielded from harmful effects for 5 seconds. Fungal Growth, Corruption, Contaminate, Graviton Beam, Concussive Shells, Abduct, Revelation, Vortex, and 250mm Strike Cannons – Phase Shield removes the effect and prevents units from being affected. EMP – Phase Shield removes the anti-cloaking effect but not the damage dealt. Neural Parasite – Phase Shield will not remove this effect but it will prevent units from being affected. The energy upgrade has been removed. Entomb’s duration has been reduced to 25 sec, but the health per Entomb has increased to 100. The cost per unit has changed from 150/200 to 150/150.
Edite:For future reference don't say your pretty sure if u dont know. Ether u know or u don't and in this case u did not.
Argh, I really wish they would give the Oracle some actual fighting ability. I mean, really...an only anti-structure attack that does almost nothing for the expense of the oracle, AND IT WASTES ENERGY. What were they thinking?
I didn't like entomb either, but at least it did SOMETHING to harass the enemy and make them worry. This new ability does practically nothing to worry the opponent.
On October 25 2012 06:53 SarcasmMonster wrote: Raven's cost 200 gas while at 2 supply. units should be expensive. If the abilities don't justify the cost, I'd rather they buff the abilities than decrease the cost.
Edit: @Anomi I'm pretty sure that's wrong, but willing to be proven otherwise.
I gave u the link so you can chek.
here is the balance update 2:
We have removed the oracle’s Preordain ability. We have added a new area of effect ability for the oracle called Phase Shield. Targeted friendly units are shielded from harmful effects for 5 seconds. Fungal Growth, Corruption, Contaminate, Graviton Beam, Concussive Shells, Abduct, Revelation, Vortex, and 250mm Strike Cannons – Phase Shield removes the effect and prevents units from being affected. EMP – Phase Shield removes the anti-cloaking effect but not the damage dealt. Neural Parasite – Phase Shield will not remove this effect but it will prevent units from being affected. The energy upgrade has been removed. Entomb’s duration has been reduced to 25 sec, but the health per Entomb has increased to 100. The cost per unit has changed from 150/200 to 150/150.
In that case I'm wrong.
Now I'm a bit dissapointed 100/200/2 Raven vs 150/150/3 Oracles... units should cost more but are stronger.
On October 25 2012 06:53 SarcasmMonster wrote: Raven's cost 200 gas while at 2 supply. units should be expensive. If the abilities don't justify the cost, I'd rather they buff the abilities than decrease the cost.
Edit: @Anomi I'm pretty sure that's wrong, but willing to be proven otherwise.
I gave u the link so you can chek.
here is the balance update 2:
We have removed the oracle’s Preordain ability. We have added a new area of effect ability for the oracle called Phase Shield. Targeted friendly units are shielded from harmful effects for 5 seconds. Fungal Growth, Corruption, Contaminate, Graviton Beam, Concussive Shells, Abduct, Revelation, Vortex, and 250mm Strike Cannons – Phase Shield removes the effect and prevents units from being affected. EMP – Phase Shield removes the anti-cloaking effect but not the damage dealt. Neural Parasite – Phase Shield will not remove this effect but it will prevent units from being affected. The energy upgrade has been removed. Entomb’s duration has been reduced to 25 sec, but the health per Entomb has increased to 100. The cost per unit has changed from 150/200 to 150/150.
In that case I'm wrong.
Now I'm a bit dissapointed 100/200/2 Raven vs 150/150/3 Oracles... units should cost more but are stronger.
they might change the raven cost who knows. Oracle cost might even increase if its to strong. Numbers are never final.
On October 25 2012 06:53 SarcasmMonster wrote: Raven's cost 200 gas while at 2 supply. units should be expensive. If the abilities don't justify the cost, I'd rather they buff the abilities than decrease the cost.
Edit: @Anomi I'm pretty sure that's wrong, but willing to be proven otherwise.
I gave u the link so you can chek.
here is the balance update 2:
We have removed the oracle’s Preordain ability. We have added a new area of effect ability for the oracle called Phase Shield. Targeted friendly units are shielded from harmful effects for 5 seconds. Fungal Growth, Corruption, Contaminate, Graviton Beam, Concussive Shells, Abduct, Revelation, Vortex, and 250mm Strike Cannons – Phase Shield removes the effect and prevents units from being affected. EMP – Phase Shield removes the anti-cloaking effect but not the damage dealt. Neural Parasite – Phase Shield will not remove this effect but it will prevent units from being affected. The energy upgrade has been removed. Entomb’s duration has been reduced to 25 sec, but the health per Entomb has increased to 100. The cost per unit has changed from 150/200 to 150/150.
In that case I'm wrong.
Now I'm a bit dissapointed 100/200/2 Raven vs 150/150/3 Oracles... units should cost more but are stronger.
The protoss unit were more expensive but everyone was like " Huh ! I will never build this unit if it cvost so much ! "
On October 25 2012 06:51 happyness wrote: The oracle is still too expensive to justify it's cost. As long as it's 200 gas, I don't think we will see much of it.
Dont know if anyone said that before but 1 Oracle can deny fast 3rd by zerg. 20dps by Oracle hatchery has 1500 hp so 1500/20=75 sec It takes 100 sec to build hatchery. They said it was one of their intensions with these new spells.
2. Time Warp - While I think this ability has potential and it is well designed, why don't we expand it's use? It seems Blizzard already considers this but maybe in a wrong way. Why not allow it to slow down everything in that area? For instance, if cast on infested terran eggs, it would take them 50% more time to hatch. If cast on a forge, upgrades are 50% slowed, if casted on a building that is being constructed it will slow it down by 50%. And ofcourse if casted on units it slows them down just the same. Would this make it more interesting, like a reverse chrono boost that works on everything?
Because, there is no way to counter that... You can move your units away from it, but you will have to cancel building and place it at different location so you don't have to wait for it to build 50% longer. And for upgrades, it is even worse. There would be some retarded timings with it, or delaying enemy timings by a lot.
Yes, Overseer can stop the production or research, but Overseer isn't an useful for anything else except scouting, and they pumped the Contaminate cost to 125 energy. There is no way that you would mass them without crippling yourself, while Oracle will actually be really useful unit after this, and isn't as slow as Overseer.
I really like both abilities, and Oracle is quite decent now, maybe they will need some number tweaking, but they are good design wise.
You can't really compare a unit that requires little to no tech, is always available, that costs no supply but rather gives supply and also costs 3 times less gas then the oracle to the freaking oracle. And I have no clue why contaminate isn't used more often to delay timing pushes from Protoss, because Zerg definitely scouts with them, often times getting out without even dying and still dies to that chrono boosted immortal push. You don't have to cancel anything, because it only slows it down by 50%, not 100%, and it will probably last a lot shorter than the building time itself. It could be tuned easily for it's power. It only delays and it's really really versatile and has different uses in different times of the game. It is an incredibly interesting spell that varies from person to person.
As for upgrades, building a couple of turrets or a mine nullifies oracle's harass, and if the spell did land the Protoss player invested money in the oracle and his attacking units are lacking so he is slowing himself down to possibly slow you down. It is the basic concept of the entire unit, and it should work like this. And if it only lasts like 10 seconds it really isn't such a big deal. Alternatively, EMP or some future spell could dispel it if it was deemed too strong.
Time warp would have to have a pretty meaningful radius to be a real benefit. Figure anything caught in the middle will attempt to walk straight out by the most direct path, and this is the window of opportunity a zealot would have to run something down without the benefit of forcefield (although pursuit melee is pretty wonky anyway). Would radius 7 at 75 energy for a 50% movement impediment actually amount to much?
Also, restricting it to ground only means the oracle will be deader than disco against protoss that goes stargate. If it affects air, it can discourage muta harass, phoenix harass (and protecting the mothership core against phoenix seems pretty difficult), drop play of all stripes... and it seems like it would give the oracle some real traction as a viable response. The tempest, lest we forget, was originally conceived for HotS as an answer for muta harass, which is a role it can no longer fill - so why not give the oracle a tool for that?
Second thought: Time Warp could be really good if it did alter the lifespan of timed life units. Would make fighting infested terran spam easier since they are too slow to escape
The only thing I dont like about this is its counterintuitive and doesn't really work in terms of flavor.
That is, the "idea" behind the spell is the Oracle is slowing down time so enemy units move slower. But slowing down time would logically make timed life units last longer. "This spell slows down time for movement purposes, but speeds it up for lifespan purposes" just isn't very sensible or intuitive. Not that every power needs to make "sense" in this way, but its just a minor annoyance.
This kinda bothers me too. If time is moving faster inside the bubble, then lifespans would actually increase. (and rate of fire would decrease)
Otherwise, I like the changes. Heading in the right direction.
Second thought: Time Warp could be really good if it did alter the lifespan of timed life units. Would make fighting infested terran spam easier since they are too slow to escape
The only thing I dont like about this is its counterintuitive and doesn't really work in terms of flavor.
That is, the "idea" behind the spell is the Oracle is slowing down time so enemy units move slower. But slowing down time would logically make timed life units last longer. "This spell slows down time for movement purposes, but speeds it up for lifespan purposes" just isn't very sensible or intuitive. Not that every power needs to make "sense" in this way, but its just a minor annoyance.
This kinda bothers me too. If time is moving faster inside the bubble, then lifespans would actually increase. (and rate of fire would decrease)
Otherwise, I like the changes. Heading in the right direction.
On October 25 2012 07:05 discator wrote: they just fucked ZvP muta slowed mutas + storm + pheonix
=dead zerg
like the ideas though.
DOESN'T AFFECT AIR
Which is strange, because it theoretically has more reason to affect air than Fungal does.
It should affect friendlies too like storm
I'm no quantum-physicist but time doesn't discriminate.
Well, neither do EMPs or ensnaring goo shit. I want a spell to be useful before we gimp it into oblivion.
EMP does affect friendlies. I think Time Bomb affecting friendlies would make it worse within a deathballing. That's my only real complaint.
I stand corrected then. Lore discussion aside, I don't see much design benefit for slowing down your own units. Because it stops any offensive use of the unit, pursuit is no longer feasible. It could only be used defensively and possibly on workers, but the numbers seem weak to be useful for that.
I don't really see how pulsar beam is going to be viable harassment in it's current implementation. You'll still need to build 2-3 oracles to snipe anything of importance, and that alone is such a valuable tech and time investment that the return just has to be greater than a possible chance to snipe a single tech structure. Don't get me wrong - tech structure sniping is extremely powerful harassment, but it's such an all-or-nothing kind of endeavor that I don't think most players will think they're worth the risk. What happens if you build 3 oracles and don't do the kind of damage you need to do? There's no real alternative usage for them that justifies the investment that early, and you are almost certainly behind. Mutas and drops on the other hand are a constant threat, and even if they do no real damage themselves, they require such a specific and targeted response that just knowing they're on the field changes the game immensely. Will oracles have that sort of influence? I doubt it, unfortunately, at least in this current state.
I think it'd be a much better unit if they just made the beam target units (ground and air), and allowed it to sneak in and pick off 2-3 workers at a time, even if no structures could be sniped. It increases the justification of building just one or two, and forces the opponent to account for them all game, as even a few seconds of free casting could destroy a few workers. That adds up over time, but I'd definitely not call it overpowered considering how devastating a single drop or a handfull of mutas can be to a mineral line. They may have to tinker with the numbers on pulsar beam, and the health and movement speed of the oracle, but ultimately it feels more like a complete, dynamic unit if it can attack units as well. Best of all, it basically would fill the role of the void ray, and they can remove it from the game entirely since it's (at least in my opinion) an unexciting, underwhelming part of the air arsenal for protoss.
Just my .02. The other abilities seem very strong.
Time warp needs to last a long time and/or cost 50 Energy for me to want to use it. Infestors already have an ability that not only slows, but completely stops units. AND it does a good amount of damage. I hope this ability is like an Ensnare in the form of a Distruption Web.
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.
Pulsar beam should keep it's 20dps, but in addition deny all healing to the target such as transfuse or repair during the channel.
This would make it more of a tactical spell, as well as a more powerful harassing tool. Casting it on that bunker as your army pushes the front prevents SCVs from repairing it. Put it on the planetary fortress while your army hits the third prevents the mineral line from repairing it. Hit that Spore Crawler that's hitting your void ray harass so the queen can't transfuse.
On October 25 2012 02:21 kcdc wrote: Time Warp is great. It has the potential to makes zealots much better against roaches.
Pulsar beam is just a banshee attack that only hits buildings and costs 2 energy. I can't even hit overlords with it. What am I supposed to kill with a 20 DPS attack that only hits buildings? Not supply depots because I can't build an oracle against Terran. Not pylons because oracles are flatly worse than phoenixes in PvP. I guess I'm supposed to kill Z's third hatchery before he gets queens over there. And that's it.
This is a combat buff for the oracle but a big harass nerf. Buildings have hundreds or thousands of hit points. 20 DPS isn't enough to kill anything.
Remember that damage adds up, though. The Oracle is a fast, flying unit. If you do 100 damage every time you're in the opponent's base, you only need to be in their base 4 times to kill a Supply Depot.
(Yes, a Supply Depot. There's no reason you can't build an Oracle against Terran.)
On October 25 2012 09:36 architecture wrote: Depending on AOE, time warp could be the end of bio viability vs P.
You mean, depending on AOE, range and duration. I could see storm + timewarp being insanely good, if you can pull it off. If it effects friendly units then it could work against you as your zealots slow down and get killed off.
Oracle vs Zerg cancels the 3rd every time I think. Like, zerg might as well not go for that super fast 3rd vs protoss. Once the zerg puts down a spore or even gets some creep up for the queen that's 'harass' is done.
Timewarp on workers could be good, especially on maps where the gasses are next to each other. If 1 timewarp can get both 'gas lines' and if the duration is half decent then that could potentially be a good way to slow down your opponent.
Not sure how I feel about these spells atm. I guess I'll see how they do in playtesting. People will definitely have a slew of QQ threads about why Blizz fucked up yet again. But...we'll see.
I just want to point this out, since people seem to be missing it. Time warp slows ground units, and that includes workers, by 50%. This means their workers will get to resources 50% slower. The energy drain means the more you micro to stay alive and drain buildings, the more you can spam your slow. I'd assume the damage portion is just to alert the enemy you are recharging, it's doubtful blizzard expects anyone to kill something of worth with it. I really like this new oracle, and the slow feels like one of those spells that has a lot of uses without any awkward gimmicks.
On October 25 2012 11:18 Gono wrote: I just want to point this out, since people seem to be missing it. Time warp slows ground units, and that includes workers, by 50%. This means their workers will get to resources 50% slower. The energy drain means the more you micro to stay alive and drain buildings, the more you can spam your slow. I'd assume the damage portion is just to alert the enemy you are recharging, it's doubtful blizzard expects anyone to kill something of worth with it. I really like this new oracle, and the slow feels like one of those spells that has a lot of uses without any awkward gimmicks.
there is no energy recharge. its an energy cost. if there was an energy drain it'd be an awesome spell, but there isn't and its a pretty shitty one. your point about workers is accurate, although its worth noting that mining time is only partially movement, the rest is harvesting the resources. this slows the movement part but not the harvesting part, so it is not a full 50% mining time decrease. however unlike entomb, it can be used to slow down gas mining.
On October 25 2012 11:18 Gono wrote: I just want to point this out, since people seem to be missing it. Time warp slows ground units, and that includes workers, by 50%. This means their workers will get to resources 50% slower. The energy drain means the more you micro to stay alive and drain buildings, the more you can spam your slow. I'd assume the damage portion is just to alert the enemy you are recharging, it's doubtful blizzard expects anyone to kill something of worth with it. I really like this new oracle, and the slow feels like one of those spells that has a lot of uses without any awkward gimmicks.
Slow also has synergy with High templar Storm, and reducing stimmed marine rushes. Having slow + FF will greatly help carriers stay alive longer.
Questioning the numbers is good and all, but I feel like the direction of these spells is more solid.
Pulsar Beam is actually quite similar to Void Siphon, and as usual the numbers seem low on paper... this change makes the Oracle in an entirely better direction. It allows for the Oracle to leave/come back/leave and come back for a higher DPS then Void Siphon was. Aka It's stronger and can be more Micro'd. Blizzard can change the numbers (Stronger) or give in more 'Depth' (Ex. Dmg nearby (touching) units... or EnergyDestruction(2ps) on building and nearby units). It'd be nice if they didn't allow 'Repair' or 'Shield/Hp regen" on the buildings. Overall Conceptually = I'm going to try and defend this spell.
Time Bomb sounds very tricksy to me. As a concept Players should be happy they are dealing with Time Spells (fairly uncommon for Sc) I neither approve nor disapprove until I see it in action. If it can be used as a Harassment spell, the AoE might be too big for Battles... and vice versa. However, for the 'time' being, I am glad that they didn't just add another "Corruption spell" that thing was either stupidly bad or stupidly good (no possible betweens).
I think Revelation is good in its current spot, probably no changes are needed. -Adding detection is a Sad idea. I truly hope it isn't needed. I think it'd be cool if it had some depth into its sight mechanic. "It can see equal to the sight range of the units within the scan".. (Xel'Naga Towers) Probably to powerful, but I think that's a way cooler direction then just adding another Detection system into this game.
We still dont know the range of the Pulsar Beam. If it was range 8/9, then it could take out spore crawlers/turrets/cannons. Then it would be REALLY powerful, and I wouldnt want to buff the dmg at all. If its lower range though, I think 30dps is probably better (as its only anti-building). I am hoping that Time Warp affects a very large area, and affects all units (including flying), but only last like 10 sec or less.
That's actually really cool, shame time warp won't exist in WoL PvZ, otherwise it'd be a great way to either stop infestors from getting into position, or at least keep the brood lords in place to snipe
On October 25 2012 09:07 Rnevermore wrote: Pulsar beam should keep it's 20dps, but in addition deny all healing to the target such as transfuse or repair during the channel.
This would make it more of a tactical spell, as well as a more powerful harassing tool. Casting it on that bunker as your army pushes the front prevents SCVs from repairing it. Put it on the planetary fortress while your army hits the third prevents the mineral line from repairing it. Hit that Spore Crawler that's hitting your void ray harass so the queen can't transfuse.
Sounds a lot like a batrider.... Next we just need them to suicide into air units and deal splash damage!
In my opinion if they move the warp prism to the stargate it will make for a good combination slow the workers and drop four zelots on the mineral line that way they cant run away or give the oracle warp in ability might be to OP and give the WP the beam ability.
also with fungal they can make it do the same damaged and make units unable to attack, but still use abilities like blink and stim.
Im not sure how I feel about another ability that slows/limits movement being added into the game.
It makes retreating from a battle extremely hard, a slightly bad engagement which you can retreat from to cut loses suddenly turns into a huge loss with slow/rooting abilities like fungal and concuss. It makes battles alot less back and forth and more likely to be one sided (that could potentially end a game in a single short battle).
However, seeing as all 3 races kinda have a slow/root ability, it may balance and cancel each other out.
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.
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.
At least now all three races have slow/bind effect: 1. Zerg: Creep / Fungal 2. Terran: Concussive shell 3. Protoss HOTS: Vortex/Time Warp
I think these are ok but this still goes along with the Oracle having abilities (or at least just the building attack one) that are NOT flexible. Also Time Warp makes Protoss have even more spells. Don't we want a unit that can somewhat fight, but happens to be great at harassing?
I got an idea that I posted in the Oracle thread on Bnet, that I believe solves many things while meeting many of the criteria we would like to see in a unit in an esports game.
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!
Wonder what kind of effect time warp is going to have on mass colossus PvP. Is that even a thing in HOTS PvP right now, or is the Tempest already succesful in discouraging people from massing colossus?
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.
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.
Overall a positive change for the oracle. Not sure how the changes will work out exactly. It will be interesting to see whether oracle+6gate type strategies work given that oracles can tear down bunker and/or spines quickly.
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.
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.
If DPS gets any higher it would be broken, 2 oracles would be able to destroy refineries and depots too quickly, people seem to forget that there are also necessary buildings with not that much HP -_-
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.
If DPS gets any higher it would be broken, 2 oracles would be able to destroy refineries and depots too quickly, people seem to forget that there are also necessary buildings with not that much HP -_-
Stargate tech, plus 300/300 for 2 oracles... to kill a refinery.
I would just go and kill the protoss who has no AOE, nor even immortals probably.
so you go stargate after your 3base turtle and then harass the fuck out of the terran with 2 or 3 oracles? They're like impossible to kill because of their speed, anything above 20 dps is broken.
If pulsar beam had an additional effect it would be great. It could disable the building it's attacking, or perhaps prevent repair/transfuse. Either of those would be really nice.
- doubles the spawn time of infested terrans and locusts under the AoE
- slows the burrow time of widow mines and maybe slows its missile to make it dodgeable (!!!), so protoss players are not forced to get Robo to counter widow mines
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.
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.
Where exactly was it said that fungal will change? It doesn't sound much like Blizzard. 'We would love to but...' is more their style.
it can kill add ons, which would be pretty huge maybe adding an effect to slow down the production/research by x% while damaging would make is really viable and open up cool timings.
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.
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.
as long as they remove void rays, i'm fine with that.
- That it feels like a one-trick-pony in many ways. Entomb makes the unit only viable if used to directly fly from the starport to the closest mineral line and then entomb as much as possible - that´s it. Compare with other great harass units as warp prism, medivac and mutas, there you got units with multiple uses. The medivac can be a support unit for a ground offensive as well as a harass dropper, and may help to relocate units as a logistic tool all as well. Same goes for the warp prism, it can support a ground attack as a mobile pylon. Mutas can grant map controll as well as harass. etc. etc. I love that flexibility in those units, and I really dislike the narrow use that the Oracle get, due to what it´s spells dictate. OK, entomb is going away, and the building-ray comes instead of it. Still only one use, it can´t hit troops in the field. Timewarp is better that way, but I´d like the oracle as a whole to be a more flexible unit, viable in more roles.
- That Timewarp together with spells as forcefield and storm etc. will be extremly effective. I feel a lot of frustration when spells in SC2 deny control of the units and armies - it makes battles very messy and you often end up losing a game when you lose a battle. Fungle shut down micro, force fields as well, timewarp, the locust from the swarm host and the broodlings from the broodlords - they all mess up the unit AI, it hinders you from moving your troops. Tanks do a ton of damage but allows you to retreat, run in etc. I´d like more freedom of movement in SC2, not less - so the Timewarp feel "oh my God nooooo" for me.
#EDIT
I do think that if battles where less deciding and game-ending in one swift blow, the current rather boring meta of "macroing for 15 minutes before one epic clash" could change into something more dynamic. And that is what I´d like to play and watch!
I completely dislike the slow spell. It reduce micro capabilities, and it empowers the Deathball aspect endgame protoss army. I suppose you could say the same thing with fungal and tier 3 zerg.
On October 25 2012 21:31 killy666 wrote: I completely dislike the slow spell. It reduce micro capabilities, and it empowers the Deathball aspect endgame protoss army. I suppose you could say the same thing with fungal and tier 3 zerg.
It incentivizes the enemy to not keep his units in a deathball. If he does, all of it will get slowed and he'll be in big trouble. This is a good thing.
This "it reduces micro" complaint has never been a good one. Using those spells is micro.
My 2 cents on the Timewarp ability: Blizzard didn't think a few inches out of the box at all. It may be a funny spell, when you look at the Oracle's harassment possibilities ONLY. Do you know how it will actually be used? Imagine a standard WoL PvT with the usual Protoss Deathball vs. the Terran Bio+Medivac+Viking (in HotS with some BattleHellions maybe, but that doesn't care). A Protoss player will now not only split the Terran army in half with Forcefields, he will also cast the Orcale's slow spell aka Timewarp at least onto parts of the Terran Bio, (1) making stutterstepping useless and (2) prevent any units from retreating. On the other side (what I'm argueing over and over again) a Protoss player that overcommits and decides to retreat, has usually his expensive hightech units (mainly the Colossi) surviving, while losing the expendable Warpgate units to slow down the chasing opponent (to compare: Terran's and Zerg's expensive hightech and AoE damage units are slow, so will never survive a retreat). Now you give Protoss another spell (FFs can do the job too) to retreat safely, even with quite much the whole army in case something goes wrong. Just a few Timewarps behind the army and noone is ever going to catch you.
Another thing that bugs me hard. Even before beta I said on a few occasions that Terrans would need a slow field of some kind (like that turret in the campaign for example) for the 200/200 battles that are won by the Protoss warping in 20 Zealots. Usually this results in the Zealots running into the Terrans production line, which has just started to get to work again, and leveling it, while single units pop out here and there. With a slow field, Terrans would have a slightly better chance to gather some units again before the Zealots come charging into the base. Now, there is the slow field... and it is... wtf? For Protoss?!? Are you kidding?
Honestly, Protoss does not need another Crowd Control ability! Terran needs this one a lot more.
(And for the ones that say Terran's have a slow in Concussive Shells already: Yes, they have, but this is a single target slow, while Timewarp is AoE slow. You'd need 20 Marauders on the field to slow down 20 freshly warped in Zealots.)
They should give the Oracle an attack that does very little damage, but massive damage to workers carrying minerals/gas. Like a destabilization beam or something. Make it short range, so if you camp it behind a mineral line you'll only hit workers that are actively drilling i.e. wont do damage. That way it has to be micro'd closer to the base, and can be massively effective in pro hands but lame if the user has little macro ability.
On October 25 2012 21:55 BurningRanger wrote: My 2 cents on the Timewarp ability: Blizzard didn't think a few inches out of the box at all. It may be a funny spell, when you look at the Oracle's harassment possibilities ONLY. Do you know how it will actually be used? Imagine a standard WoL PvT with the usual Protoss Deathball vs. the Terran Bio+Medivac+Viking (in HotS with some BattleHellions maybe, but that doesn't care). A Protoss player will now not only split the Terran army in half with Forcefields, he will also cast the Orcale's slow spell aka Timewarp at least onto parts of the Terran Bio, (1) making stutterstepping useless and (2) prevent any units from retreating. On the other side (what I'm argueing over and over again) a Protoss player that overcommits and decides to retreat, has usually his expensive hightech units (mainly the Colossi) surviving, while losing the expendable Warpgate units to slow down the chasing opponent (to compare: Terran's and Zerg's expensive hightech and AoE damage units are slow, so will never survive a retreat). Now you give Protoss another spell (FFs can do the job too) to retreat safely, even with quite much the whole army in case something goes wrong. Just a few Timewarps behind the army and noone is ever going to catch you.
Another thing that bugs me hard. Even before beta I said on a few occasions that Terrans would need a slow field of some kind (like that turret in the campaign for example) for the 200/200 battles that are won by the Protoss warping in 20 Zealots. Usually this results in the Zealots running into the Terrans production line, which has just started to get to work again, and leveling it, while single units pop out here and there. With a slow field, Terrans would have a slightly better chance to gather some units again before the Zealots come charging into the base. Now, there is the slow field... and it is... wtf? For Protoss?!? Are you kidding?
Honestly, Protoss does not need another Crowd Control ability! Terran needs this one a lot more.
(And for the ones that say Terran's have a slow in Concussive Shells already: Yes, they have, but this is a single target slow, while Timewarp is AoE slow. You'd need 20 Marauders on the field to slow down 20 freshly warped in Zealots.)
Just give oracle to Terran and raven to Protoss... hehe
These changes sound quite interesting. Time warp seems like it would be good against stim (kind of like ensnare but without the rof debuff). Pulsar beam sounds like it's alright with the numbers(though it still needs testing), any stronger and it might be op (it's in between uncharged and charged void ray in damage, can be used repeatedly since it's not a huge cost, can micro while using it, and more importantly will likely have multiple oracles in late game). The one thing I'm wondering though, since pulsar is stated to be a passive ability, does that mean it will hit every structure in range? That would be quite good.
On October 26 2012 00:45 SuperYo1000 wrote: so pulsar beam takes energy to attack?
so supply depot will take 40 energy?
its starts off with 50 energy so most you can do is around 500 damage.
if you want to go for a harassment of a hatchery you have to wait till you have 150 energy to be even a threat?
am I reading this right? seems like a really poor ability
The idea, I assume, is to encourage building more than 1 or 2 Oracles now, as together they can cause quite a bit of damage if left unchecked.
Pulsar Beam from a few Oracles, keeping one in reserve to Time Warp seems like it would be a pretty effective tech sniping method.
On October 26 2012 00:49 Fyrewolf wrote: These changes sound quite interesting. Time warp seems like it would be good against stim (kind of like ensnare but without the rof debuff). Pulsar beam sounds like it's alright with the numbers(though it still needs testing), any stronger and it might be op (it's in between uncharged and charged void ray in damage, can be used repeatedly since it's not a huge cost, can micro while using it, and more importantly will likely have multiple oracles in late game). The one thing I'm wondering though, since pulsar is stated to be a passive ability, does that mean it will hit every structure in range? That would be quite good.
Wow, I didn't even think about that, but I can't imagine that's how it's actually going to work as that would be super OP. Run in with like 4 oracles, turn on Pulsar, wipe out a whole cluster of supply depots super quick and run out. The fact that's called "Beam" makes me think it is going to be single target, though.
On October 26 2012 00:45 SuperYo1000 wrote: so pulsar beam takes energy to attack?
so supply depot will take 40 energy?
its starts off with 50 energy so most you can do is around 500 damage.
if you want to go for a harassment of a hatchery you have to wait till you have 150 energy to be even a threat?
am I reading this right? seems like a really poor ability
The idea, I assume, is to encourage building more than 1 or 2 Oracles now, as together they can cause quite a bit of damage if left unchecked.
Pulsar Beam from a few Oracles, keeping one in reserve to Time Warp seems like it would be a pretty effective tech sniping method.
On October 26 2012 00:49 Fyrewolf wrote: These changes sound quite interesting. Time warp seems like it would be good against stim (kind of like ensnare but without the rof debuff). Pulsar beam sounds like it's alright with the numbers(though it still needs testing), any stronger and it might be op (it's in between uncharged and charged void ray in damage, can be used repeatedly since it's not a huge cost, can micro while using it, and more importantly will likely have multiple oracles in late game). The one thing I'm wondering though, since pulsar is stated to be a passive ability, does that mean it will hit every structure in range? That would be quite good.
Wow, I didn't even think about that, but I can't imagine that's how it's actually going to work as that would be super OP. Run in with like 4 oracles, turn on Pulsar, wipe out a whole cluster of supply depots super quick and run out. The fact that's called "Beam" makes me think it is going to be single target, though.
It may be called beam, but the description implies that it's still multi-target, not just the passive, but especially the auto-cast part.
"Passive anti structure ability that deals 20 damage per second. Drains 2 energy per second while channeling. Auto-cast on"
It sounds like a toggled channel ability. So if you are aiming for a specific building, you would have to turn auto-cast off and then target a specific building, or it hits everything and you just turn auto-cast off when you don't want to drain more energy. We'll just have to see when the patch actually hits how good the new oracle is, but I'm definitely intrigued.
On October 25 2012 21:31 killy666 wrote: I completely dislike the slow spell. It reduce micro capabilities, and it empowers the Deathball aspect endgame protoss army. I suppose you could say the same thing with fungal and tier 3 zerg.
It incentivizes the enemy to not keep his units in a deathball. If he does, all of it will get slowed and he'll be in big trouble. This is a good thing.
This "it reduces micro" complaint has never been a good one. Using those spells is micro.
And where is the Terran AoE which forces the Protoss (besides casters) to have to spread? Maybe widow mine splash damage should be increased so Protoss have to learn to spread as well. Or maybe make seekers missile have more range or travel faster.
On October 25 2012 21:31 killy666 wrote: I completely dislike the slow spell. It reduce micro capabilities, and it empowers the Deathball aspect endgame protoss army. I suppose you could say the same thing with fungal and tier 3 zerg.
It incentivizes the enemy to not keep his units in a deathball. If he does, all of it will get slowed and he'll be in big trouble. This is a good thing.
This "it reduces micro" complaint has never been a good one. Using those spells is micro.
And where is the Terran AoE which forces the Protoss (besides casters) to have to spread? Maybe widow mine splash damage should be increased so Protoss have to learn to spread as well. Or maybe make seekers missile have more range or travel faster.
Protoss don't really need to split that much because their units are huge so it's like they are naturally spread out. of course spreading casters helps a lot, but protoss have also other problems to think about like putting their very different range units in the correct position.
On October 25 2012 21:31 killy666 wrote: I completely dislike the slow spell. It reduce micro capabilities, and it empowers the Deathball aspect endgame protoss army. I suppose you could say the same thing with fungal and tier 3 zerg.
It incentivizes the enemy to not keep his units in a deathball. If he does, all of it will get slowed and he'll be in big trouble. This is a good thing.
This "it reduces micro" complaint has never been a good one. Using those spells is micro.
And where is the Terran AoE which forces the Protoss (besides casters) to have to spread? Maybe widow mine splash damage should be increased so Protoss have to learn to spread as well. Or maybe make seekers missile have more range or travel faster.
EMP? Just because Protoss players don't spread their units, doesn't mean that they shouldn't.
On October 25 2012 21:31 killy666 wrote: I completely dislike the slow spell. It reduce micro capabilities, and it empowers the Deathball aspect endgame protoss army. I suppose you could say the same thing with fungal and tier 3 zerg.
It incentivizes the enemy to not keep his units in a deathball. If he does, all of it will get slowed and he'll be in big trouble. This is a good thing.
This "it reduces micro" complaint has never been a good one. Using those spells is micro.
And where is the Terran AoE which forces the Protoss (besides casters) to have to spread? Maybe widow mine splash damage should be increased so Protoss have to learn to spread as well. Or maybe make seekers missile have more range or travel faster.
On October 25 2012 21:31 killy666 wrote: I completely dislike the slow spell. It reduce micro capabilities, and it empowers the Deathball aspect endgame protoss army. I suppose you could say the same thing with fungal and tier 3 zerg.
It incentivizes the enemy to not keep his units in a deathball. If he does, all of it will get slowed and he'll be in big trouble. This is a good thing.
This "it reduces micro" complaint has never been a good one. Using those spells is micro.
And where is the Terran AoE which forces the Protoss (besides casters) to have to spread? Maybe widow mine splash damage should be increased so Protoss have to learn to spread as well. Or maybe make seekers missile have more range or travel faster.
EMP? Just because Protoss players don't spread their units, doesn't mean that they shouldn't.
EMP is great but they only remove shields. If you have TvP engagement with EMPs hitting Protoss army and storms hitting Terran army, guess which one wins?
On October 25 2012 21:31 killy666 wrote: I completely dislike the slow spell. It reduce micro capabilities, and it empowers the Deathball aspect endgame protoss army. I suppose you could say the same thing with fungal and tier 3 zerg.
It incentivizes the enemy to not keep his units in a deathball. If he does, all of it will get slowed and he'll be in big trouble. This is a good thing.
This "it reduces micro" complaint has never been a good one. Using those spells is micro.
And where is the Terran AoE which forces the Protoss (besides casters) to have to spread? Maybe widow mine splash damage should be increased so Protoss have to learn to spread as well. Or maybe make seekers missile have more range or travel faster.
EMP, siege tanks, HSM
Fine, if they make time wrap have HSM range and also a slow projectile...
On October 25 2012 21:31 killy666 wrote: I completely dislike the slow spell. It reduce micro capabilities, and it empowers the Deathball aspect endgame protoss army. I suppose you could say the same thing with fungal and tier 3 zerg.
It incentivizes the enemy to not keep his units in a deathball. If he does, all of it will get slowed and he'll be in big trouble. This is a good thing.
This "it reduces micro" complaint has never been a good one. Using those spells is micro.
And where is the Terran AoE which forces the Protoss (besides casters) to have to spread? Maybe widow mine splash damage should be increased so Protoss have to learn to spread as well. Or maybe make seekers missile have more range or travel faster.
EMP? Just because Protoss players don't spread their units, doesn't mean that they shouldn't.
EMP is great but they only remove shields. If you have TvP engagement with EMPs hitting Protoss army and storms hitting Terran army, guess which one wins?
it depends on how much units each skill hit dohh =D
On October 25 2012 21:31 killy666 wrote: I completely dislike the slow spell. It reduce micro capabilities, and it empowers the Deathball aspect endgame protoss army. I suppose you could say the same thing with fungal and tier 3 zerg.
It incentivizes the enemy to not keep his units in a deathball. If he does, all of it will get slowed and he'll be in big trouble. This is a good thing.
This "it reduces micro" complaint has never been a good one. Using those spells is micro.
And where is the Terran AoE which forces the Protoss (besides casters) to have to spread? Maybe widow mine splash damage should be increased so Protoss have to learn to spread as well. Or maybe make seekers missile have more range or travel faster.
EMP? Just because Protoss players don't spread their units, doesn't mean that they shouldn't.
EMP is great but they only remove shields. If you have TvP engagement with EMPs hitting Protoss army and storms hitting Terran army, guess which one wins?
And EMP is instant, while you can split in the middle of the Storm, and take just a bit of damage. But I don't even know why are you comparing these things? It is obvious that Terran requires more micro than other two races.
On October 25 2012 21:31 killy666 wrote: I completely dislike the slow spell. It reduce micro capabilities, and it empowers the Deathball aspect endgame protoss army. I suppose you could say the same thing with fungal and tier 3 zerg.
It incentivizes the enemy to not keep his units in a deathball. If he does, all of it will get slowed and he'll be in big trouble. This is a good thing.
This "it reduces micro" complaint has never been a good one. Using those spells is micro.
And where is the Terran AoE which forces the Protoss (besides casters) to have to spread? Maybe widow mine splash damage should be increased so Protoss have to learn to spread as well. Or maybe make seekers missile have more range or travel faster.
EMP? Just because Protoss players don't spread their units, doesn't mean that they shouldn't.
EMP is great but they only remove shields. If you have TvP engagement with EMPs hitting Protoss army and storms hitting Terran army, guess which one wins?
"only removes shields"??? that's a huge deal vs a protoss army lol. You can run out of Storms because stim makes your bio units faster than speedy gonzalez
Huge fan of the change. The new Pulsar Cannon is great and will add a lot to the gameplay. I am really excited to see how it factors into endgame. For the same supply cost as 5 stalkers, the protoss can have a fast moving building wrecking crew that are also spell casters. It makes for good multi tasking. Off the top of my head I can think of a few things these units could do endgame.
PvZ - destroy the spine crawler wall used to screen the brood lords. Slow brood lords or focus down the greaters spire when the army isn't at home. Remove assimilators from geysers on the 4-5 fifth base, cutting into the zergs gas. Assist with warp prism/zealots attacks by ripping down spine crawlers.
PvT - Remove add-ons like reactors and techlabs. Slow widow mine fields while they are removed by stalkers. Slow SCVs while they are repairing(hopefully it works like that). Slow bio-balls when they stim so the protoss army can do free damage without engaging.
I am really encouraged. I hope that time warp has a number of side effects, such as slowed repair. It will make it a more versatile spell. A raiding unit that does destroys builds at a high speed and also flies really sounds like it could have almost endless use in the end game.
On October 25 2012 21:31 killy666 wrote: I completely dislike the slow spell. It reduce micro capabilities, and it empowers the Deathball aspect endgame protoss army. I suppose you could say the same thing with fungal and tier 3 zerg.
It incentivizes the enemy to not keep his units in a deathball. If he does, all of it will get slowed and he'll be in big trouble. This is a good thing.
This "it reduces micro" complaint has never been a good one. Using those spells is micro.
And where is the Terran AoE which forces the Protoss (besides casters) to have to spread? Maybe widow mine splash damage should be increased so Protoss have to learn to spread as well. Or maybe make seekers missile have more range or travel faster.
If I understand correctly, the ability activates automatically if there's an enemy building nearby and does 20 damage at the cost of 2 energy.
The Oracle is fast, so you just fly-by a base a couple of time with a few oracle and soon enough, all the enemy building are blowing up left and right. Every time the enemy tries to move out without defense, you can poke inside his base and destroy all his buildings!
On October 25 2012 21:31 killy666 wrote: I completely dislike the slow spell. It reduce micro capabilities, and it empowers the Deathball aspect endgame protoss army. I suppose you could say the same thing with fungal and tier 3 zerg.
It incentivizes the enemy to not keep his units in a deathball. If he does, all of it will get slowed and he'll be in big trouble. This is a good thing.
This "it reduces micro" complaint has never been a good one. Using those spells is micro.
And where is the Terran AoE which forces the Protoss (besides casters) to have to spread? Maybe widow mine splash damage should be increased so Protoss have to learn to spread as well. Or maybe make seekers missile have more range or travel faster.
Toss doesn't have to spread against tanks because of Chargelots, doesn't bother spreading against EMP very often, doesn't have to worry about Widow Mine splash damage since it's only 40, can kill Ravens before they get close enough to cast, and can kill both Hellions and HellBats before they do much damage, except against Zeals with no Stalker support.
On October 26 2012 09:38 Tdelamay wrote: I like the new pulsar beam.
If I understand correctly, the ability activates automatically if there's an enemy building nearby and does 20 damage at the cost of 2 energy.
The Oracle is fast, so you just fly-by a base a couple of time with a few oracle and soon enough, all the enemy building are blowing up left and right. Every time the enemy tries to move out without defense, you can poke inside his base and destroy all his buildings!
It's also the ultimate unit for a base race!
I would imagine it works exactly like a medivac. No damage while moving.
On October 25 2012 21:31 killy666 wrote: I completely dislike the slow spell. It reduce micro capabilities, and it empowers the Deathball aspect endgame protoss army. I suppose you could say the same thing with fungal and tier 3 zerg.
It incentivizes the enemy to not keep his units in a deathball. If he does, all of it will get slowed and he'll be in big trouble. This is a good thing.
This "it reduces micro" complaint has never been a good one. Using those spells is micro.
And where is the Terran AoE which forces the Protoss (besides casters) to have to spread? Maybe widow mine splash damage should be increased so Protoss have to learn to spread as well. Or maybe make seekers missile have more range or travel faster.
Toss doesn't have to spread against tanks because of Chargelots, doesn't bother spreading against EMP very often, doesn't have to worry about Widow Mine splash damage since it's only 40, can kill Ravens before they get close enough to cast, and can kill both Hellions and HellBats before they do much damage, except against Zeals with no Stalker support.
Generalized bullshit post right here. Have you seen how fast hellions light up zealots? We don't spread against emp? I dunno what kind of toss you're playing against but if I get hit by an emp i can only watch as my army immediately evaporates if I try to fight. You can control click tanks to make them fire against stalkers while hellions destroy the zealots. Only 40 splash? Ok and 5 mines later? 5 mines isn't a huge investment. I'm gonna laugh when during the entire duration of HoTS terran gets nerfed because they still have more options than any other race.
On October 25 2012 21:31 killy666 wrote: I completely dislike the slow spell. It reduce micro capabilities, and it empowers the Deathball aspect endgame protoss army. I suppose you could say the same thing with fungal and tier 3 zerg.
It incentivizes the enemy to not keep his units in a deathball. If he does, all of it will get slowed and he'll be in big trouble. This is a good thing.
This "it reduces micro" complaint has never been a good one. Using those spells is micro.
And where is the Terran AoE which forces the Protoss (besides casters) to have to spread? Maybe widow mine splash damage should be increased so Protoss have to learn to spread as well. Or maybe make seekers missile have more range or travel faster.
They keyword that needs to be added is "Quality" AoE. Tanks are probably the only quality ones.
I also just don't get why an AoE slow is being introduced when so many people complain about concussive shell already. And AoE slow + FF seems overkill for trapping units and escaping (and escaping theres recall too)
On October 26 2012 09:38 Tdelamay wrote: I like the new pulsar beam.
If I understand correctly, the ability activates automatically if there's an enemy building nearby and does 20 damage at the cost of 2 energy.
The Oracle is fast, so you just fly-by a base a couple of time with a few oracle and soon enough, all the enemy building are blowing up left and right. Every time the enemy tries to move out without defense, you can poke inside his base and destroy all his buildings!
It's also the ultimate unit for a base race!
I would imagine it works exactly like a medivac. No damage while moving.
I think you can move while using it. It says in the op:
We feel that Pulsar Beam is better as a core harassing ability compared to Entomb. This ability makes better use of the unit's main traits of fast mobility + low durability, and doesn't have Entomb's biggest issue of forcing almost the whole army to stay at the mineral line.
Not only that, we feel this ability has a much greater skill differentiation depending on how well the ability is used. Entombs, no matter who uses them, had pretty much the same effect. Whereas Pulsar Beam will greatly reward players who are able to pay close attention and not lose the Oracles while quickly moving around all over the place in order to harass the opponent's base.
They want you to be using the oracles mobility to move around while the channeling is happening.
The oracle needs detection back on revelation, observers don't cut it against the swarm host/overseer/corrupter (or any anti-air really) combination that keeps pushing forever and can't be stopped because you can never get your detection close.
Cost: 150/150, 3 supply Stargate Cost: 150/150 Speed: That of a speed warp prism.
Oracle takes as long as a thor to build ... though you can chronoboost it from 60 seconds to 40 seconds (ingame seconds)... EDIT: that reminds me I didn't take into account the smaller energy accumulation of the first oracle in the case that you chronoboost the second... at worst it will accumulate 33.75/1.5 = 22.5 energy accumulated... means high energy oracle will have 42 energy instead of 50 at the end.
Damage Output: 20 dmg per second @ 2 energy per second
Casters pop with 50 energy, so lets say you made 2 oracles (you spent 450 gas and waited 120 seconds from the time your stargate completed)
So, the first oracle you made has an extra 33.75 energy according to the regen rate on liquipedia.
Now you have a 50 energy oracle and an 84 energy oracle. By the time you reach the enemy base lets assume 30 seconds pass. Oracles have 67 and 101.
Supposing you spend all your energy on building damage, you can do 1340 damage over 34 seconds. After these 34 seconds, the low energy oracle will have 19 energy remaining and the high energy oracle will have 53 energy remaining.
I definitely preferred entomb to this. I don't see how this is any different from sending void rays or warp prism or drops in general into the opponents base...Only difference is that this can't kill workers but does alot of damage per sec?
Also a slow spell? Playing vs toss is gonna be ridiculous. You are now gonna be forcefielded aand slowed?
On October 26 2012 16:44 Cereb wrote: I definitely preferred entomb to this. I don't see how this is any different from sending void rays or warp prism or drops in general into the opponents base...Only difference is that this can't kill workers but does alot of damage per sec?
Also a slow spell? Playing vs toss is gonna be ridiculous. You are now gonna be forcefielded aand slowed?
I dunno...
Depends on the area of the spell.
Remember, doubling the radius of a circle quadruples the area. 4 radius covers 16x as much space as 1.
Liking at least the direction of the changes. Have long felt that Stargate tech doesn't need a harassment unit, but a good support caster with some utility. Time warp may be ridiculous though, but it's the change in the proposed role of the oracle that I quite like
2. Pulsar Beam - Passive anti structure ability that deals 20 damage per second. Drains 2 energy per second while channeling. Auto-cast on.
We feel that Pulsar Beam is better as a core harassing ability compared to Entomb. This ability makes better use of the unit's main traits of fast mobility + low durability, and doesn't have Entomb's biggest issue of forcing almost the whole army to stay at the mineral line.
If it's channeling, isn't it sitting in one spot? And if it's sitting in one spot how is that utilizing it's speed? And if it's sitting in one spot, how is this very different from a energy based, limited voidray except that it doesn't get more powerful over time?
Possible alternative: make Pulsar beam like the planet cracker ability from the old old mothership that could hit an area of 1 mineral patch to a ~4 marine square. Make it channeled and usable while moving and do 5-10 dps vs units +20/30 to buildings. Adds to the idea that its a fragile fast unit that is pretty useless in straight up combat and relegated to a more support role.
Heck, make it be a trail of burning plasma that last for ~2 seconds doing damage to units/buidlings underneath.
^10dps would allow you to clear an entire mineral line in 10-15 real seconds, but bigger issues, if someone just builds 4 oracles they now have a stacking AOE on a flying unit capable of outrunning stimmed marines that will instantly kill workers.
Thats why i think the anti-building beam could be sweet - if you have 4 or 5 oracles, granted, its a massive gas cost - but time warp could allow them to have a very powerful combat use - if you have 4 or 5 oracles, you can REALLY mess with any race. Zerg has no t1 antiair other than spores and queens so are natively quite vunerable - but 5 oracles? You can kill a pylon in 2.88 real seconds. If protoss does not have cannons or stalkers around his production, or has moved out of his base, you can CRIPPLE him with half a dozen oracles in as little as 10-20 seconds. Terran? Addons.
2. Pulsar Beam - Passive anti structure ability that deals 20 damage per second. Drains 2 energy per second while channeling. Auto-cast on.
We feel that Pulsar Beam is better as a core harassing ability compared to Entomb. This ability makes better use of the unit's main traits of fast mobility + low durability, and doesn't have Entomb's biggest issue of forcing almost the whole army to stay at the mineral line.
If it's channeling, isn't it sitting in one spot? And if it's sitting in one spot how is that utilizing it's speed? And if it's sitting in one spot, how is this very different from a energy based, limited voidray except that it doesn't get more powerful over time?
Perhaps its tethered similar to how neural parasite works for the parasited unit? In other words... stay within a certain range and the spell continues so you try to dance around the target building.
I'm not really positive or negative over the beam addition. What i do find important is the reason why entomb was removed. The signal that blizzard sees skill differentiation as an important aspect gives a lot of hope.
On October 26 2012 17:27 Falling wrote: I don't understand this part
2. Pulsar Beam - Passive anti structure ability that deals 20 damage per second. Drains 2 energy per second while channeling. Auto-cast on.
We feel that Pulsar Beam is better as a core harassing ability compared to Entomb. This ability makes better use of the unit's main traits of fast mobility + low durability, and doesn't have Entomb's biggest issue of forcing almost the whole army to stay at the mineral line.
If it's channeling, isn't it sitting in one spot? And if it's sitting in one spot how is that utilizing it's speed? And if it's sitting in one spot, how is this very different from a energy based, limited voidray except that it doesn't get more powerful over time?
Perhaps its tethered similar to how neural parasite works for the parasited unit? In other words... stay within a certain range and the spell continues so you try to dance around the target building.
From what I've read I doubt that it will work that way - but to me this seems like an awsome idea
Its beta patch day. Hopefully we will see soon enough.
I got beta access this morning, havnt played yet (somehow managed to waste like 4 hours doing nothing but reddit/tl and staring at desktop) so il be reporting stats and usage etc. My skill level is somewhere around high dia/low master ATM.
On October 25 2012 21:31 killy666 wrote: I completely dislike the slow spell. It reduce micro capabilities, and it empowers the Deathball aspect endgame protoss army. I suppose you could say the same thing with fungal and tier 3 zerg.
It incentivizes the enemy to not keep his units in a deathball. If he does, all of it will get slowed and he'll be in big trouble. This is a good thing.
This "it reduces micro" complaint has never been a good one. Using those spells is micro.
And where is the Terran AoE which forces the Protoss (besides casters) to have to spread? Maybe widow mine splash damage should be increased so Protoss have to learn to spread as well. Or maybe make seekers missile have more range or travel faster.
Toss doesn't have to spread against tanks because of Chargelots, doesn't bother spreading against EMP very often, doesn't have to worry about Widow Mine splash damage since it's only 40, can kill Ravens before they get close enough to cast, and can kill both Hellions and HellBats before they do much damage, except against Zeals with no Stalker support.
Use hellbats against chargelots. The tanks are good against the stalkers that you think will save the lots.
It's their own damn fault if they don't spread against EMP. One EMP will instantaneously reduce your army life by between 1/3 and 1/2. That is serious business.
One EMP and two mines and you've cleared out an entire army of stalkers, or almost an entire army of zealots. Doesn't sound so bad.
Anyone can kill anything before it gets close enough to cast. Unless, you know, your opponent uses micro too!
On October 25 2012 02:21 kcdc wrote: Time Warp is great. It has the potential to makes zealots much better against roaches.
Pulsar beam is just a banshee attack that only hits buildings and costs 2 energy. I can't even hit overlords with it. What am I supposed to kill with a 20 DPS attack that only hits buildings? Not supply depots because I can't build an oracle against Terran. Not pylons because oracles are flatly worse than phoenixes in PvP. I guess I'm supposed to kill Z's third hatchery before he gets queens over there. And that's it.
This is a combat buff for the oracle but a big harass nerf. Buildings have hundreds or thousands of hit points. 20 DPS isn't enough to kill anything.
It will probably get changed at some point to also slow down production/research in the buildings being attacked.
On October 25 2012 02:15 MyFirstProbe wrote: Seems like cool changes, I especially like the Time warp, Pulsar beam doesn't seem to exciting especially from a viewers' standpoint.
Called it, now it's just a question of calculating the necessary radious, duration and snare % in order to ensure some economic damage and then the spell can be used vs kiting etc. for added utility. I imagine it'll have a larger area of effect and longer duration than Force Field in order to differentiate the abilities between a soft counter and a hard counter for positional play.
Revelation and Pulsar Beam are just chaff, they may as well make the unit a detector and design two less conditional spells
On October 26 2012 20:26 gedatsu wrote: It's their own damn fault if they don't spread against EMP. One EMP will instantaneously reduce your army life by between 1/3 and 1/2. That is serious business.
One EMP and two mines and you've cleared out an entire army of stalkers, or almost an entire army of zealots. Doesn't sound so bad.
You say that as if EMP had an AoE of a full screen. One EMP will instantaneously reduce the life of some units, not your whole army, by between 1/3 and 1/2. It's no serious business, if you don't get carpet EMPed. One EMP and two mines and you've cleared out what? 6 or 7 Stalkers maybe or 10-12 Zealots? That's a small entire army indeed. And think about another thing. When you EMP Protoss Gateway units, they still have roughly as much HP left as undamaged Terran Bio units. In a Storm, Bio can die... in timewarp and storm, they will die. Does it sound bad enough now?
On October 26 2012 23:15 BurningRanger wrote: One EMP and two mines and you've cleared out what? 6 or 7 Stalkers maybe or 10-12 Zealots? That's a small entire army indeed.
1 Ghost 200/100+ 2 Mines 75/25 = Total 350/150
7 Stalker 125/50 = Total 875/350 12 Zealots 100 = Total 1200
Trading 350/150 for 875/350 or 1200 is something that will win you the game in my opinion. I am not saying the trading will be like that since the Protoss player will try to clear out the mines before engaging, but you wrote it like it would be a bad trade for the Terran while to me it looks like a top-notch-game-winning trade.
On October 26 2012 20:26 gedatsu wrote: It's their own damn fault if they don't spread against EMP. One EMP will instantaneously reduce your army life by between 1/3 and 1/2. That is serious business.
One EMP and two mines and you've cleared out an entire army of stalkers, or almost an entire army of zealots. Doesn't sound so bad.
You say that as if EMP had an AoE of a full screen. One EMP will instantaneously reduce the life of some units, not your whole army, by between 1/3 and 1/2. It's no serious business, if you don't get carpet EMPed. One EMP and two mines and you've cleared out what? 6 or 7 Stalkers maybe or 10-12 Zealots? That's a small entire army indeed. And think about another thing. When you EMP Protoss Gateway units, they still have roughly as much HP left as undamaged Terran Bio units. In a Storm, Bio can die... in timewarp and storm, they will die. Does it sound bad enough now?
No, I say it as if you can build more than one ghost. And I say it as if you think protoss players can keep their entire army in one clump and still be fine. They cannot.
Clearing out 6-7 stalkers or 10-12 zealots in the start of the fight is amazingly good. You've traded a 40 second recharge timer for 20 supply. Weren't those the zealots or stalkers that you expected to take care of the other terran splash? Too bad, they died before they could.
Raw hp numbers are not comparable like that. Bio has range and speed over the protoss gateway units. 1 unupgraded marine beats 1 unupgraded zealot, you know? Stuff like that? Your armies are supposed to be on even terms when protoss has shields, forcefields, and guardian shield. Terran just removed all that in a second. And sure, storm can kill units while EMP cannot. But Storm can be dodged and EMP does all its damage immediately. This is a big deal. If your bio is getting timewarped and stormed, load them into your medivacs. Timewarp doesn't affect air and medivacs can stomach one storm pretty well.
Is this really the best they can come up with after so long. Its abilties seem utterly trash compared to what other harrass units can accomplish, a well microd/timed medivac drop can EASILY win games, the oracle might be able to take a refinery or 2 down for a ridiculous gas investment and a weak as hell, risky tech path.
On October 27 2012 01:22 obsidia wrote: Is this really the best they can come up with after so long. Its abilties seem utterly trash compared to what other harrass units can accomplish, a well microd/timed medivac drop can EASILY win games, the oracle might be able to take a refinery or 2 down for a ridiculous gas investment and a weak as hell, risky tech path.
Yeah it's really funny how bad the beam is. It's literally the same DPS as a single Banshee. And how often do you see a Banshee take out a refinery? Plus the real reason you don't see Banshees attacking buildings is because they can attack anything on the ground with that DPS!
Since you can only target buildings, a single SCV can repair the damage, while you uselessly waste energy trying to "harass."
And then you realize that it isn't even constant damage. You have to spend 2 energy for each 20 damage! How can you even use other spells with this drain going on.
On October 27 2012 01:22 obsidia wrote: Is this really the best they can come up with after so long. Its abilties seem utterly trash compared to what other harrass units can accomplish, a well microd/timed medivac drop can EASILY win games, the oracle might be able to take a refinery or 2 down for a ridiculous gas investment and a weak as hell, risky tech path.
Yeah it's really funny how bad the beam is. It's literally the same DPS as a single Banshee. And how often do you see a Banshee take out a refinery? Plus the real reason you don't see Banshees attacking buildings is because they can attack anything on the ground with that DPS!
Since you can only target buildings, a single SCV can repair the damage, while you uselessly waste energy trying to "harass."
And then you realize that it isn't even constant damage. You have to spend 2 energy for each 20 damage! How can you even use other spells with this drain going on.
I was under the impression it did the same damage as a stimmed Marauder, which is more than a banshee when it shoots at armored units. And we will have to see how the ability works. When maxed at 200/200, the 8 supply that four of these would take up could be very useful for harassment, more so than four stalkers. Killing drones or SCVs at that point in the game is a bit pointless unless you kill an entire mineral line. Plus the other two spells for map awareness and slowing the opposing army.
On October 27 2012 01:22 obsidia wrote: Is this really the best they can come up with after so long. Its abilties seem utterly trash compared to what other harrass units can accomplish, a well microd/timed medivac drop can EASILY win games, the oracle might be able to take a refinery or 2 down for a ridiculous gas investment and a weak as hell, risky tech path.
Yeah it's really funny how bad the beam is. It's literally the same DPS as a single Banshee. And how often do you see a Banshee take out a refinery? Plus the real reason you don't see Banshees attacking buildings is because they can attack anything on the ground with that DPS!
Since you can only target buildings, a single SCV can repair the damage, while you uselessly waste energy trying to "harass."
And then you realize that it isn't even constant damage. You have to spend 2 energy for each 20 damage! How can you even use other spells with this drain going on.
I was under the impression it did the same damage as a stimmed Marauder, which is more than a banshee when it shoots at armored units. And we will have to see how the ability works. When maxed at 200/200, the 8 supply that four of these would take up could be very useful for harassment, more so than four stalkers. Killing drones or SCVs at that point in the game is a bit pointless unless you kill an entire mineral line. Plus the other two spells for map awareness and slowing the opposing army.
Yeah the DPS is basically the same (19.2 vs 20). And I'm sure that having 4 150/150 Stargate units will be better than 4 Blink Stalkers for harassing purposes lategame. But that's the problem, lategame. Protosses have ways to harass lategame, they need more early game harass.
And relying on energy based units to deal damage to even an undefended base is much worse than a medivac drop, and worse than 4 DT's from a warp prism for example. The Oracles may take out one or two tech structures, but then they will need to wait 4 minutes to be able to go in again. That's not very useful. In that amount of time, any other kind of drop or banshee would have destroyed the entire base.
Edit: and I just found out the Oracles are 3 supply... so sad
it can kill add ons, which would be pretty huge maybe adding an effect to slow down the production/research by x% while damaging would make is really viable and open up cool timings.
revelation for the oracle is really hard to cast much harder than time slow even. When vikings are out revelation usually is suizide. Also you can't see the units you are tracking on the minimap very well. It would be much better if it had something like sensortowers have on the minimap or atleast show the units a bit brighter or so. maybe someone can post on their forum for me?
On October 27 2012 15:56 Cyro wrote: Time Warp covers an area 4x as big as a forcefield, pulsar beam buffed slightly, and build time almost halved.
Yay (:
I know that pulsar beam isn't AMAZING OMG WTF but damn if massing them oracles isnt fun
I am not trying and am not playing people my usual MMR but some times Zerg puts a pool too close to open air and I just gotta 6 range leash that for some maximum trollage
Well, 25dps is not godlike, but with a chrono'd build time of ~16.5 real seconds you can sure as hell make 3-4 of them. 100dps is very scary.
I am also facing a mass of people in beta who seem to be like silver-plat league, so fun. People tryhard so much at that level, hidden expansions, lifting orbitals and flying away and building 10 barracks and supply depots with their bank :D:D
Has anybody actually played a game with time warp? It is yet another completely ridiculous uncounterable battle field manipulating spell by protoss. I'm not going to bother playing the beta until the next patch. Time Warp is the most ridiculous joke blizzard has come up with as of late. If something like this has to be in a game it should stay with something like a mothership but not a freakin 150/150 stargate unit.
On October 27 2012 23:21 AbideWithMe wrote: Has anybody actually played a game with time warp? It is yet another completely ridiculous uncounterable battle field manipulating spell by protoss. I'm not going to bother playing the beta until the next patch. Time Warp is the most ridiculous joke blizzard has come up with as of late. If something like this has to be in a game it should stay with something like a mothership but not a freakin 150/150 stargate unit.
If you've got a beta key, then you are in the unique position of being able to influence Blizzard by providing feedback. So post that on the Battle.net forums with less vitriol and more reasoning as to why you think so (devs gets nothing out of calling something a joke and leaving it at that) and that time warp might just be nerfed next week. You're not taking advantage of your key if you just rage on a TL forum and wait for Blizzard to act.
Also understand that things usually start off overpowered in testing, because it encourages players to use it, thus promoting more feedback. No one tests things they think are weaksauce in a public beta.
On October 25 2012 21:31 killy666 wrote: I completely dislike the slow spell. It reduce micro capabilities, and it empowers the Deathball aspect endgame protoss army. I suppose you could say the same thing with fungal and tier 3 zerg.
It incentivizes the enemy to not keep his units in a deathball. If he does, all of it will get slowed and he'll be in big trouble. This is a good thing.
This "it reduces micro" complaint has never been a good one. Using those spells is micro.
And where is the Terran AoE which forces the Protoss (besides casters) to have to spread? Maybe widow mine splash damage should be increased so Protoss have to learn to spread as well. Or maybe make seekers missile have more range or travel faster.
Toss doesn't have to spread against tanks because of Chargelots, doesn't bother spreading against EMP very often, doesn't have to worry about Widow Mine splash damage since it's only 40, can kill Ravens before they get close enough to cast, and can kill both Hellions and HellBats before they do much damage, except against Zeals with no Stalker support.
Use hellbats against chargelots. The tanks are good against the stalkers that you think will save the lots.
It's their own damn fault if they don't spread against EMP. One EMP will instantaneously reduce your army life by between 1/3 and 1/2. That is serious business.
One EMP and two mines and you've cleared out an entire army of stalkers, or almost an entire army of zealots. Doesn't sound so bad.
Anyone can kill anything before it gets close enough to cast. Unless, you know, your opponent uses micro too!
Unfortunately I don't have HotS, so all I can do is theorycraft. :/
Ok I played HotS and I can tell you pulsar beam is awesome. the oracle builds in no time at all and has all abilities without research.
3-4 oracles can kill almost any building before defense can arrive if it was undefended or only defended by structures. Terran's CC cannot save itself by lifting off. Single Turrets die to oracles in seconds.
And the oracle is faster than any air unit but maybe the phoenix and the mutalisk.
It is MUCH MUCH better now.
The last few games I literally just went straight up oracle with blink stalkers and some tempest (because I want to try them too) and I killed Expansions, extractors, infestation pits, spine crawlers and what not with the pulsar beam.
Seriously right now this units is the best protoss unit in the game. Trade off is that it dies very quickly and requires constant baby sitting to be effective. If used with an army you need control perfectly or it will always lead the charge and die instantly because it's faster than everything else.
a few things the oracle does right now (which immensely help protoss early game): - provide scouting information with little risk - reveal enemy armies and see their movements for 60 seconds - force enemy to have anti air in every base - either have many defense structures or some units or else risk to lose critical buildings - support gateway forces in various ways via timewarp - make gateway + stargate builds viable - make protoss air to ground more powerful (with timewarp + tempest)
4 Oracles kill an Orbital in 15 seconds for 30 energy apiece...but since they ignore armor entirely, they also kill Planetary Fortresses at the exact same speed.
On October 28 2012 04:54 Angry.Zerg wrote: Well... like 8 oracles came to my base... vaporized my Lair, then my natural... then my 3rd.
So I closed the beta client, and I'm downloading LOL client. Will be back to test the beta in a couple of weeks.
A low number of queens will kill a low number of oracles in no time at all.
If your opponent got up to 8 oracles without you seeing it coming or doing anything he probably was just better than you and could have killed you in any way he chose.
On October 28 2012 06:13 awesomoecalypse wrote: Fun fact:
4 Oracles kill an Orbital in 15 seconds for 30 energy apiece...but since they ignore armor entirely, they also kill Planetary Fortresses at the exact same speed.
And how many scvs repairing do you need to outrepair the dps? I would say 2-3? Just curious.
On October 28 2012 08:23 GoldenH wrote: with the time and gas it takes to get 8 oracles out, I expect you could a move their entire base with the muta flock you've accumulated.
With Chrono, Oracles technically build faster than Mutas--23 seconds vs 33 for Mutas (though obviously Zerg can mass units much more easily than Toss). Oracles do cost 50% more...
I dunno. 8 Oracles sounds pretty extreme. But getting out, say, 4 or 5 Oracles pretty quickly in the midgame wouldn't necessarily leave a huge window of vulnerability.
Oracles do 25 damage per second, Tech labs have 400 health 1 oracle will kill a tech lab in 16 seconds in game time 2 oracles will kill a tech lab in 8 seconds Reactors also have 400 hp I see two oracles as a reasonable investment to snipe attachments relatively quickly.
On October 28 2012 08:23 GoldenH wrote: with the time and gas it takes to get 8 oracles out, I expect you could a move their entire base with the muta flock you've accumulated.
With Chrono, Oracles technically build faster than Mutas--23 seconds vs 33 for Mutas (though obviously Zerg can mass units much more easily than Toss). Oracles do cost 50% more...
I dunno. 8 Oracles sounds pretty extreme. But getting out, say, 4 or 5 Oracles pretty quickly in the midgame wouldn't necessarily leave a huge window of vulnerability.
Oh you have vulnerability for sure. I have lost to people because I made more than 2 oracles. And these people are not 1000x better than me they are even at best.
On October 28 2012 08:23 GoldenH wrote: with the time and gas it takes to get 8 oracles out, I expect you could a move their entire base with the muta flock you've accumulated.
With Chrono, Oracles technically build faster than Mutas--23 seconds vs 33 for Mutas (though obviously Zerg can mass units much more easily than Toss). Oracles do cost 50% more...
I dunno. 8 Oracles sounds pretty extreme. But getting out, say, 4 or 5 Oracles pretty quickly in the midgame wouldn't necessarily leave a huge window of vulnerability.
Wait, are you saying that it's easier to mass oracles than mutas because oracles have a faster build time when chrono-boosted? You decided to factor in chrono-boost, and yet somehow neglected that zerg can (and obviously does) produce multiple mutas at the same time. It's blindingly obvious that it takes far longer to get out 8 oracles than 8 mutas, even with uninterrupted chrono-boost.
EPT
Missiles hanging in mid-air until the Oracle was forced away / destroyed etc ...
units should be expensive. If the abilities don't justify the cost, I'd rather they buff the abilities than decrease the cost.
but are stronger.
