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Ever since Blizzard finally acknowledged that Entomb was a shitty spell (and therefore that the Oracle wasn't working, since Entomb was its primary spell), the SC2 community has been crawling with suggestions for a replacement.
As we all know, Blizzard announced the new spell yesterday, Time Warp
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.
While the exact numbers in terms of range, size of aoe, energy cost, duration of effect may all need fine tuning... think for once Blizzard has gotten the concept of the spell exactly right. With Time Warp as its primary spell, the Oracle is actually a good unit. I don't mean good just in the sense of "effective", I mean it is well-designed, good for gameplay, and will add new strats to Protoss gameplay without rendering old units pointless.
So what makes Time Warp such a good, smart addition to the Protoss arsenal?
1.) It opens up Protoss gameplay options, and therefore gives map makers more freedom.
Protoss have a problem--they basically cannot hold bases right now without heavy reliance on forcefield.. 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 "15 min no rush" type gameplay. Regardless of whether it is "balanced", locking Protoss into needing forcefields to hold bases has severe and unfun implications for the game overall.
Time Warp fulfills a lot of what Forcefield gave Protoss, albeit in different ways. It allows Zealots to much more easily close the distance, and it breaks up enemy forces in a way that means, for example, it becomes much harder to overrun Protoss with a big Roach Timing Push. Forcefield does this in a very hard-control way, by literally preventing any movement. Time Warp isn't quite that severe--it actually allows for at least some countermicro--but it will definitely really break up the concentrated dps of stuff like Roach balls, and it certainly makes Zealots more effective and allows Stalkers and Immortals to get in more free shots before enemies close the distance.
But there are important differences between them. Oracles aren't slow like Sentries, and Time Warp isn't as utterly dependant on a narrow choke that you can totally block off. Time Warp is much less map dependant than Forcefield for effectiveness, and much easier to deploy across larger distances. This means it isn't nearly as limiting for map makers--you can put a 3rd base farther away or make it more open, and know that Time Warp can effectively support a base defense in a way that FF would not.
2.) It allows for harassment without being one dimensional.. The Oracle was created to be a harassing unit that wouldn't sit around in the deathball. Entomb did that, but in an extremely binary way that allowed for exactly one use. You hit the mineral line, over and over again. There was no thought to it, nor skill.
Time Warp, like Entomb, slows down mining without killing things directly. In this case, it literally slows the workers' movement as they mine (and unlike Entomb, it can therefore effect gas mining). But there are so many other uses for Time Warp beyond slowing down mining. You can use it to slow down an enemy force to allow for defenses/reinforcements to arrive. You can use it mid-fight to let Zealots close the distance. You can use it to help cover your own retreat. You can use it to set up Storms, making sure fewer units escape. This is a multifaceted spell that can contribute to many different compositions and strategies in many different ways.
3.) It meshes well with the Protoss army...except for Forcefield. I've seen some people complaining that Protoss, the race with forcefield, is getting more crowd control.
But what these people ignore is that Time Warp isn't a supplement to Forcefield, its a replacement. It isn't about "Time Warp AND Forcefield", its "Time Warp OR Forcefield."
Why is this?
First, there's the simple matter of cost. Oracles cost a boatload of gas, and so do Sentries, and at the stage of the game when you'll be getting either unit Protoss are very gas starved. If you're getting Oracles for Time Warp, you are simply not going to be able to afford many Sentries.
Second, the two abilities have very, very low synergy--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. Any time an enemy is both forcefielded and time warped, one of those abilities is being wasted.
The great benefit of Time Warp isn't that it works well with FF--it doesn't. Its that it offers an alternative to FF. You need forcefields less when you have Time Warp--you can actually catch enemies with slow zealots if they're time warped, you can retreat fairly easily, enemy balls will be broken up by passing through them, etc. This means that a player can decide to put their gas in Oracles rather than Sentries, and open up a more mobile playstyle, without either crippling their defense or leaving their gateway forces way too weak without FF support.
And as an alternative to FF, Time Warp is simply much more fun. Enemies can at least move some, so there are opportunities for countermicro. And Oracles are fast, so you can get aggressive and not have it be an all-in the way it usually is with Sentries (since Sentries are so slow they tend to get picked off during retreats).
4.) It synergizes well with the Oracle's other stats, and allows for more skill in use. Oracles are fragile, expensive, fast flyers. This gives them a valuable getaway ability, and opens up possibilities to better harass Terran and Zergs with Queen-heavy compositions, by allowing you to slow some marines or queens in one area, then fly over and hit somewhere else. And precise placement can have a big effect in army engagements. Basically, there is much more potential for a skilled player to use an Oracle better than an average player--and since unlike Fungal or FF this doesn't entirely stop movement, it doesn't simply end all enemy micro either.
I genuinely think Blizzard has knocked this out of the park. This is exactly what Protoss needs to open up a more fun and flexible playstyle--and if Protoss are more flexible, that means better maps, better matchups and better games.
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How do you know its good? Are you a beta-tester? Did you try it?
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You say that its an option between FF and time warp and not both.
When given a choice I would have to guess that an overwhelming percentage of toss players would choose FF.
Why wouldn't you? Who cares about slowing down units when you can take them out of the fight completely (by keeping them out of range).
However you are wrong, It will be used in conjuction with the army and be OP as hell. Which is fine.
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Good summary of why the ability is a good add. My biggest worry about the ability is that they won't want to give it the specifics it needs to be useful (specifically, I'm worried they'll make the radius too small or make it too much of an energy hog).
I actually like the concept of the building-only attack, too. But I'm not sure it's useful enough to spend energy on, and I'm not sure it does enough damage. Also, if it's going to be a serious ability it's going to need to turn off repair/regeneration for an extended period of time. Shield damage on protoss buildings and non-critical damage to terran buildings just isn't going to matter.
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I disagree, I don't like the skill at all:
-It does not replace forcefield, forcefield can split the enemy army and buy time in defenses, the only way Time Warp can replace FF is in retreating/catching situations, and I believe the sentry would still be better.
-I don't see it being good in Harass lol, with 24 workers in a mineral line slowing workers does not mean shit since the workers would still harvest in the same speed... also, if the AoE and duration is good enough to make it anywhere near useful for harass, it will be totally broken in battle situation. You maybe could use it with some WP and HT, but that is robo, stargate and templar tech...
-It practically does not synergize with any stargate unit since it doesn't affect air and the units used to counter protoss air are usually air units too, you can't use it to retreat your carriers/tempest or even to make your void-rays catch the vikings who are kiting.
-why the fuck Blizz wants to add another skill to use while controlling the protoss deathball... this is not warcraft.
EDIT: also, like the guy after me pointed out, TW+Storm looks stupidly strong.
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Not sure if another AoE is need for Protoss. Time wrap plus storm seems like a deadly combo.
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On October 26 2012 00:00 rpgalon wrote:
I disagree, I don't like the skill at all:
-It does not replace forcefield, forcefield can split the enemy army and buy time in defenses, the only way Time Warp can replace FF is in retreating/catching situations, and I believe the sentry would still be better.
-I don't see it being good in Harass lol, with 24 workers in a mineral line slowing workers does not mean shit since the workers would still harvest in the same speed... also, if the AoE and duration is good enough to make it anywhere near useful for harass, it will be totally broken in battle situation. You maybe could use it with some WP and HT, but that is robo, stargate and templar tech...
-It practically does not synergize with any stargate unit since it doesn't affect air and the units used to counter protoss air are usually air units too, you can't use it to retreat your carriers/tempest or even to make your void-rays catch the vikings who are kiting.
-why the fuck Blizz wants to add another skill to use when controlling the protoss deathball... this is not warcraft.
I'd love if posts had an "like button"
I tottatly agree...I can't see any commentator sayind "OMFG, look at that TimeWarp well placed...such a nice micro"
lol
Another retarded spell...blizz spells is like 100mana for 10 seg effect then 60 sec waiting till next use ! LOL
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I agree with the guy above me, however I do like how it helps to kill a deathball and mindless 1a gameplay because if you get all your units caught in it, your gonna be in trouble..
They can work on fine tuning the balance later, I like how they made a spell that is good in concept rather than just mindlessly changing numbers around to fiddle with the balance
edit: the guy 2 posts above me
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On October 26 2012 00:00 rpgalon wrote:
I disagree, I don't like the skill at all:
-It does not replace forcefield, forcefield can split the enemy army and buy time in defenses, the only way Time Warp can replace FF is in retreating/catching situations, and I believe the sentry would still be better.
-I don't see it being good in Harass lol, with 24 workers in a mineral line slowing workers does not mean shit since the workers would still harvest in the same speed... also, if the AoE and duration is good enough to make it anywhere near useful for harass, it will be totally broken in battle situation. You maybe could use it with some WP and HT, but that is robo, stargate and templar tech...
-It practically does not synergize with any stargate unit since it doesn't affect air and the units used to counter protoss air are usually air units too, you can't use it to retreat your carriers/tempest or even to make your void-rays catch the vikings who are kiting.
-why the fuck Blizz wants to add another skill to use when controlling the protoss deathball... this is not warcraft.
You're right about the harassment part. Slowing movement speed by 50% reduces mining speed by about 25% (slightly more - a little more than half a worker's time is spent moving), so assuming it lasts 15 seconds or less, it shouldn't result in more than 200 resouces lost per use (assuming 16 workers on minerals and 6 on gas, and that it can hit all these simultaneously, which is quite a bit larger than I assume they'll let Time Warp be). Realistically, I don't think it'll result in more than 100 resources lost (if they design it to have a wider area and a lower duration).
It isn't supposed to synergize with other stargate units. It's supposed to synergize with zealots and Stalkers (the earliest unit you can get for defense). It's actually designed quite thoughtfullly for that purpose - provided sufficient area and small enough energy cost.
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I think we're gonna have to try it before passing this kind of judgement, that's the problem with this community always over thinking and jumping waaaaaaaaay ahead of the present, looking towards the future is good, but an essay on how a spell will change a race with no real info on the spell or testing is absurd
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On October 26 2012 00:15 Slago wrote:
I think we're gonna have to try it before passing this kind of judgement, that's the problem with this community always over thinking and jumping waaaaaaaaay ahead of the present, looking towards the future is good, but an essay on how a spell will change a race with no real info on the spell or testing is absurd
Really? What if i told you that marines can now fly?
Wouldnt you be able to figure out that it woudl be OP?
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Where did Blizz announce this?
Anyway. It sounds good, but it will be hard to balance so it would be good harass and not too strong in the battle.
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On October 26 2012 00:15 Treehead wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2012 00:00 rpgalon wrote:
I disagree, I don't like the skill at all:
-It does not replace forcefield, forcefield can split the enemy army and buy time in defenses, the only way Time Warp can replace FF is in retreating/catching situations, and I believe the sentry would still be better.
-I don't see it being good in Harass lol, with 24 workers in a mineral line slowing workers does not mean shit since the workers would still harvest in the same speed... also, if the AoE and duration is good enough to make it anywhere near useful for harass, it will be totally broken in battle situation. You maybe could use it with some WP and HT, but that is robo, stargate and templar tech...
-It practically does not synergize with any stargate unit since it doesn't affect air and the units used to counter protoss air are usually air units too, you can't use it to retreat your carriers/tempest or even to make your void-rays catch the vikings who are kiting.
-why the fuck Blizz wants to add another skill to use when controlling the protoss deathball... this is not warcraft. You're right about the harassment part. Slowing movement speed by 50% reduces mining speed by about 25% (slightly more - a little more than half a worker's time is spent moving), so assuming it lasts 15 seconds or less, it shouldn't result in more than 200 resouces lost per use (assuming 16 workers on minerals and 6 on gas, and that it can hit all these simultaneously, which is quite a bit larger than I assume they'll let Time Warp be). It isn't supposed to synergize with other stargate units. It's supposed to synergize with zealots and Stalkers (the earliest unit you can get for defense). It's actually designed quite thoughtfullly for that purpose - provided sufficient area and small enough energy cost.
the thing is, early/mid game the sentry synergize with stalker and zealot better than the oracle will ever be able to. and later you want to stay away from zealots and stalkers, also, the stalker don't need the oracle, blink stalkers can retreat/catch without any help from the oracle.
Blizz can do so much better than this, I even think that phase shield and phase shift were overall better skills...
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wow, cool when do we get to play with it?
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On October 26 2012 00:15 Slago wrote:
I think we're gonna have to try it before passing this kind of judgement, that's the problem with this community always over thinking and jumping waaaaaaaaay ahead of the present, looking towards the future is good, but an essay on how a spell will change a race with no real info on the spell or testing is absurd
As I don't have the Beta i have to think, and by thinking this hability will be powerful or useless. If it gets powerful they will nerf so it'll be useless !
I can only see this going well with storms, but HT and Stargate is kinda veryyyy late and it does not help with protoss early game problem !
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On October 26 2012 00:15 Slago wrote:
I think we're gonna have to try it before passing this kind of judgement, that's the problem with this community always over thinking and jumping waaaaaaaaay ahead of the present, looking towards the future is good, but an essay on how a spell will change a race with no real info on the spell or testing is absurd
Using your logic, so are threads decrying the Warhound.
I mean, when you haven't even seen the release version of the unit - how can you know whether it'll be a good unit or a bad unit? The answer is that you can tell either from past experiences with the unit or through well-thought-out analysis of the unit's potential. Analysis without testing can be wrong, but so can testing without proper analysis. For instance, how long after the WG nerf did people not realize you could have enough sentries that you didn't have to worry about 4-gate in tech builds if you hit your FFs right?
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On October 25 2012 23:50 hpTheGreat wrote:
You say that its an option between FF and time warp and not both.
When given a choice I would have to guess that an overwhelming percentage of toss players would choose FF.
Why wouldn't you? Who cares about slowing down units when you can take them out of the fight completely (by keeping them out of range).
However you are wrong, It will be used in conjuction with the army and be OP as hell. Which is fine.
Because, on a map that doesn't guarantee FF to be effective, players WILL want to use a more versatile time warp.
I think time warp is needed to have quite a long duration AND big aoe to work well for early base defense though. That might in turn be absolutely devastating for terran bio as soon as HTs are out
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On October 26 2012 00:15 Slago wrote:
I think we're gonna have to try it before passing this kind of judgement, that's the problem with this community always over thinking and jumping waaaaaaaaay ahead of the present, looking towards the future is good, but an essay on how a spell will change a race with no real info on the spell or testing is absurd
I can't imagine what you mean: nobody *ever* does that here /SARCASM OVERLOAD -- "HELP ME SHARON I CAN'T STOP BEING SARCASTIC!!!"
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On October 26 2012 00:23 The_DarkAngelz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2012 00:15 Slago wrote:
I think we're gonna have to try it before passing this kind of judgement, that's the problem with this community always over thinking and jumping waaaaaaaaay ahead of the present, looking towards the future is good, but an essay on how a spell will change a race with no real info on the spell or testing is absurd As I don't have the Beta i have to think, and by thinking this hability will be powerful or useless. If it gets powerful they will nerf so it'll be useless ! I can only see this going well with storms, but HT and Stargate is kinda veryyyy late and it does not help with protoss early game problem !
I disagree, this makes Stargate openings a lot more viable (or it should, anyway)
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EPT
