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Ok i was wondering how the new time warp would work as a harassment spell to slow down mining.
So I made a little calculation to see how effective it would be.
Time warp only stops movement speed, not mining speed so far i've seen.
Basically I followed the method in this thread http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=140055 showing exactly how you can calculate mining speed and showing it gets the same results as real tests.
All time mentioned from here is in game seconds by the way
A worker gets 5 minerals at a time and require a Mining time M and a Travel time T to ge that => Thus for the unsaturated case (patches less then 3 workers) we get:
gather speed per worker = 5 / (M+T)
Taken from the thread the values for M and T are:
M = 2.94 s
T = 3.8 - 4.8 s (depends on distance of patch)
This results in a gather speed in the range 0.65 - 0.74 per sec or 39 - 45 per minute
Applying time warp let's workers move at half speed thus it doubles the travel time =>
gather speed = 5/(M + 2T)
This results in a speed 24-28 minerals per minute.
So each worker on a unsaturated patch works gathers roughly 15-17 minerals less per minute.
For the saturated case it's different because workers also wait but with time warp they are traveling instead, ie time warp is less efficient here.
A saturated patch gives 102 minerals / minute => 34 per worker per minute
If time warp is applied the patch is no longer saturated, ie workers don't have to wait because the travel time is more than twice the mining time then thus gather speed also becomes 24-28 minerals per minute.
So each worker on a saturated patch gathers roughly 6-10 minerals less per minute
Time warp lasts 30 seconds and in my (quick) testing you can only cover the travel path of 6 patches (maybe 7 but don't think so).
Ideal case scenario
You hit 6 patches affecting 12 workers which were mining at optimal speed. Each worker gathers ~16 minerals less per minute =>
12 * 16 * 0.5 = ~96 minerals lost
I made a graph to show the expected damage you do (assuming you affect the mining of 6 patches). Ofcourse it matters which patches you hit and how many are mining those patches but this graph is just an expected value, for example if he has 20 workers 4 patches are saturated and 4 are not so you probably hit 3 saturated patches (9 workers) and 3 non-saturated (6 workers)
![[image loading]](http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/6842/rplot01.jpg)
Conclusion
At most you damage for roughly 100 minerals when time warping a mineral line which will happen if they optimal mining going on which many good players have anyway (16 mineral workers). If they have more or less workers effectiveness goes down.
Overall time warp is probably not useful for mineral harass, 75 energy on an expensive unit to just do ~80-100 mineral damage over 30 seconds seems a poor choice. Saving your time warps for other uses or just using the damage spell seems a far better use of energy.
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was waiting for sth like this
it s as i expected, just slightly worse
timewarp is worse then i expected 
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This is a good post to show those people who believe time warp is OP when used to slow down mining.
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Don't even bother anaylsing this. Time warp is a completely broken ability which will be removed in the next patch. It is yet another uncounterable battlefield manipulating protoss spell. Mineral harassment is completely secondary in comparision to its ridiculous battlefield power.
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they should make it slow down the mining time as well as travel time. its a simple fix, makes intuitive sense, doesn't effect anything else, and makes Oracle harass significantly more multifaceted. Plus, you can use it on gas--since you likely wouldn't hit both geysers at once, timewarp would cause a 25% reduction in gas mining rate for a player who's taken both gas.
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Appreciate the graph. Yeah, it doesn't seem worth it.
The oracle cost:
150m
150g
3supply
Take 60 seconds of production time
Which in turns requires a stargate for production:
150m
150g
60 seconds
That doesn't seem to be worth it for the chance to not do 100 minerals worth of damage, but to delay 100 minerals of mining (their base will be allowed to mine out later so this can't be considered literal damage).
Then you factor in how gas is worth much more than minerals and this looks worse...
Then you factor in what you could have bought with the supply/minerals/gas/time instead of a stargate+oracle and you have some serious opportunity cost.
You have to consider that there is a HIGH probability that the oracle will get shotdown once the opposition reaches a certain stage in tech.
It's kind of horrible if you think about it as a protoss player.
But wait...there is time warp for military units! Watched White-ra's stream a bunch last night and this looked like a joke. No reduction in DPS or health...and a mere 50% movement reduction? Imagine if the infestor got the time-warp spell...zerg players would never use it! Let's compare fungal growth to time warp:
Damage, TW: None
Damage, FG: Lot's and chainable
Detection, TW: Nope
Detection, FG: You bet
Movement Reduction, TW: 50%
Movement Reduction, FG: 100%
Escaping the spell, TW: You simply walk out of it (effective for terran bio-balls from White-Ra's stream)
Escaping the spell, FG: Sorry, you're stuck
This isn't funny Or let's compare this to forcefields...in what way is time warp superior to forcefields? White-ra tried to use time-warp on the ramps while he attack expansions, but it just wasn't effective. In fact white-Ra tried a lot of creative uses for the time warp and time and time again, it was either like...so what. I'll just keep attacking even though I'm in a time warp, or I'll just walk through a time warp...50% movement speed for such a small area isn't a big deal.
Sad to see how the oracle has been kicked around in this expansion. I like the original concept of a pacifist/non-deathball unit and there is a ton of creative potential still for this unit. I would personally love to see it become a 'thief unit'. For example...it would have an energy steal ability...in which it could transfer mana from enemy buildings/units and accumulate it as say a glowing blueball. It would then have to drag this ball back to the home base (like a dropship) and whatever protoss unit touched the blueball, they would get a boost in mana. If the oracle gets shotdown in the middle of the map...the energy would be stranded there and both players might scramble to get this.
Another thief ability would be the ability to steal from enemy mineral patches (only if they've been broken/mined). The oracle could then (try) to drag say 500 minerals back to home to be mined.
Or perhaps an idea to steal upgrades. The oracle attaches itself to the say the evo-chamber...and if they are able to remain attached at the very momement the ability completes, protoss steal the equivalent upgrade (attack, health, air attack, air health, etc...). The protoss player would have to know the upgrade timings very well to effectively sneak in and pull this off without being killed.
The revelation spell is so boring and nobody uses it. Why not bring back the parasite from BW? Give it a protoss name, and let the oracle cast it on the enemy. The enemy has to decide...what do I with the parasite? Keeping mining/guarding my base? Do I attack? Do I pretend to attack?
With the right changes, the oracle could become an incredibly fun unit.
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Probably not worth it but a time warped mineral line is gonna have a hard time getting pulled vs storm drops.
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On October 27 2012 23:16 awesomoecalypse wrote:
they should make it slow down the mining time as well as travel time. its a simple fix, makes intuitive sense, doesn't effect anything else, and makes Oracle harass significantly more multifaceted. Plus, you can use it on gas--since you likely wouldn't hit both geysers at once, timewarp would cause a 25% reduction in gas mining rate for a player who's taken both gas.
If they want to buff it's effect as an eco harassment spell something like this could be done, I don't like the spell for that functionality though because it's even worse as entombment in the category of 'boring riskless harass', with 9 range there is absolutely no stopping it, nor can you micro against it (entomb at least had that) or can you perform the spell in a pro way.
As a gas harassment spell it will probably never be any good though as geysers are to spaced out, if you timewarp the geyser I think you can hit only 1 or 2 patches as well, affecting the workers inside the building doesn't make much sense either.
I actually agree with the other poster that time warp is just a shitty spell and should be removed. Too much 'anti-micro' or 'positional' spells on early units is bad for the game. It disencourages harassment, back and forth play etc and forces deathball play.
Time warp is just another mechanism causing players not to be able to attack while being able to retreat. Zergs keeping their roach ball back just because a time warp could cause them to lose 10 before they can retreat is not fun gameplay.
Even more silly, the oracle is just not much of harass unit anymore. The buidling attack is cute but rarely does anything except canceling new bases and it's range is so short + the oracle so fragile you'll never kill anything but a building hatchery in PvZ. Oracle more feels like a support unit for the tempest now, you use it to gain vision for the tempest, slow units so you can retreat or kite with your tempests or help to take down a building quickly. On their own tempests are more a deathball addition / army control unit than a harasser.
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+ Show Spoiler +On October 27 2012 23:36 Fungal Growth wrote:Appreciate the graph. Yeah, it doesn't seem worth it. The oracle cost: 150m 150g 3supply Take 60 seconds of production time Which in turns requires a stargate for production: 150m 150g 60 seconds That doesn't seem to be worth it for the chance to not do 100 minerals worth of damage, but to delay 100 minerals of mining (their base will be allowed to mine out later so this can't be considered literal damage). Then you factor in how gas is worth much more than minerals and this looks worse... Then you factor in what you could have bought with the supply/minerals/gas/time instead of a stargate+oracle and you have some serious opportunity cost. You have to consider that there is a HIGH probability that the oracle will get shotdown once the opposition reaches a certain stage in tech. It's kind of horrible if you think about it as a protoss player. But wait...there is time warp for military units! Watched White-ra's stream a bunch last night and this looked like a joke. No reduction in DPS or health...and a mere 50% movement reduction? Imagine if the infestor got the time-warp spell...zerg players would never use it! Let's compare fungal growth to time warp: Damage, TW: None Damage, FG: Lot's and chainable Detection, TW: Nope Detection, FG: You bet Movement Reduction, TW: 50% Movement Reduction, FG: 100% Escaping the spell, TW: You simply walk out of it (effective for terran bio-balls from White-Ra's stream) Escaping the spell, FG: Sorry, you're stuck This isn't funny Or let's compare this to forcefields...in what way is time warp superior to forcefields? White-ra tried to use time-warp on the ramps while he attack expansions, but it just wasn't effective. In fact white-Ra tried a lot of creative uses for the time warp and time and time again, it was either like...so what. I'll just keep attacking even though I'm in a time warp, or I'll just walk through a time warp...50% movement speed for such a small area isn't a big deal. Sad to see how the oracle has been kicked around in this expansion. I like the original concept of a pacifist/non-deathball unit and there is a ton of creative potential still for this unit. I would personally love to see it become a 'thief unit'. For example...it would have an energy steal ability...in which it could transfer mana from enemy buildings/units and accumulate it as say a glowing blueball. It would then have to drag this ball back to the home base (like a dropship) and whatever protoss unit touched the blueball, they would get a boost in mana. If the oracle gets shotdown in the middle of the map...the energy would be stranded there and both players might scramble to get this. Another thief ability would be the ability to steal from enemy mineral patches (only if they've been broken/mined). The oracle could then (try) to drag say 500 minerals back to home to be mined. Or perhaps an idea to steal upgrades. The oracle attaches itself to the say the evo-chamber...and if they are able to remain attached at the very momement the ability completes, protoss steal the equivalent upgrade (attack, health, air attack, air health, etc...). The protoss player would have to know the upgrade timings very well to effectively sneak in and pull this off without being killed. The revelation spell is so boring and nobody uses it. Why not bring back the parasite from BW? Give it a protoss name, and let the oracle cast it on the enemy. The enemy has to decide...what do I with the parasite? Keeping mining/guarding my base? Do I attack? Do I pretend to attack? With the right changes, the oracle could become an incredibly fun unit.
Ye it's mostly just terrible now. Oracle does build in 35 secs now which is a considerable buff.
At the moment I think the oracle is only good as 1-of in PvZ just because it builds so fast and other stargate units are actually quite useful (tempest worker harass or just phoenix/voids).
An oracle in combination with phoenixes is quite good for stopping 4th and 5th bases or just controlling creep a little bit. In a sense the oracle can replace the 1-of voidray you sometimes got before for damage buildings. The time warp has some use against stephano roach style attacks by slowing them down so you can catch some with FF. On it's own the radius of time warp is indeed so small it doesn't do all that much (most units move out of it very quickly).
Any other roles are hardly effective imo except the lategame combo with storm. I doubt you'll ever want to make a stargate in PvT still if they go bio and if they go mech you're better off putting everything into carriers if you go air. PvP oracle is also a joke, the building harass does nothing and slow is not really that useful ("nice slow, I blink out of it").
So basically they created another very marginal unit that is useful in one matchup (PvZ) and probably takes much of the same role of another marginally used unit (the voidray in it's role as building harass / creep controller).
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On October 27 2012 23:13 AbideWithMe wrote:
Don't even bother anaylsing this. Time warp is a completely broken ability which will be removed in the next patch. It is yet another uncounterable battlefield manipulating protoss spell. Mineral harassment is completely secondary in comparision to its ridiculous battlefield power.
It's not OP if you break up your deathball.
Imo it will work out pretty well in PvP in breaking up deathballs, but in TvP and ZvP the Toss deathball is still too powerful not to consider. I think Terran needs a bit more powerful splash and Zerg needs to not rely on BLs and Infestors every damn game.
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On October 27 2012 23:36 Fungal Growth wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Appreciate the graph. Yeah, it doesn't seem worth it. The oracle cost: 150m 150g 3supply Take 60 seconds of production time Which in turns requires a stargate for production: 150m 150g 60 seconds That doesn't seem to be worth it for the chance to not do 100 minerals worth of damage, but to delay 100 minerals of mining (their base will be allowed to mine out later so this can't be considered literal damage). Then you factor in how gas is worth much more than minerals and this looks worse... Then you factor in what you could have bought with the supply/minerals/gas/time instead of a stargate+oracle and you have some serious opportunity cost. You have to consider that there is a HIGH probability that the oracle will get shotdown once the opposition reaches a certain stage in tech. It's kind of horrible if you think about it as a protoss player. But wait...there is time warp for military units! Watched White-ra's stream a bunch last night and this looked like a joke. No reduction in DPS or health...and a mere 50% movement reduction? Imagine if the infestor got the time-warp spell...zerg players would never use it! Let's compare fungal growth to time warp: Damage, TW: None Damage, FG: Lot's and chainable Detection, TW: Nope Detection, FG: You bet Movement Reduction, TW: 50% Movement Reduction, FG: 100% Escaping the spell, TW: You simply walk out of it (effective for terran bio-balls from White-Ra's stream) Escaping the spell, FG: Sorry, you're stuck This isn't funny Or let's compare this to forcefields...in what way is time warp superior to forcefields? White-ra tried to use time-warp on the ramps while he attack expansions, but it just wasn't effective. In fact white-Ra tried a lot of creative uses for the time warp and time and time again, it was either like...so what. I'll just keep attacking even though I'm in a time warp, or I'll just walk through a time warp...50% movement speed for such a small area isn't a big deal. Sad to see how the oracle has been kicked around in this expansion. I like the original concept of a pacifist/non-deathball unit and there is a ton of creative potential still for this unit. I would personally love to see it become a 'thief unit'. For example...it would have an energy steal ability...in which it could transfer mana from enemy buildings/units and accumulate it as say a glowing blueball. It would then have to drag this ball back to the home base (like a dropship) and whatever protoss unit touched the blueball, they would get a boost in mana. If the oracle gets shotdown in the middle of the map...the energy would be stranded there and both players might scramble to get this. Another thief ability would be the ability to steal from enemy mineral patches (only if they've been broken/mined). The oracle could then (try) to drag say 500 minerals back to home to be mined. Or perhaps an idea to steal upgrades. The oracle attaches itself to the say the evo-chamber...and if they are able to remain attached at the very momement the ability completes, protoss steal the equivalent upgrade (attack, health, air attack, air health, etc...). The protoss player would have to know the upgrade timings very well to effectively sneak in and pull this off without being killed. The revelation spell is so boring and nobody uses it. Why not bring back the parasite from BW? Give it a protoss name, and let the oracle cast it on the enemy. The enemy has to decide...what do I with the parasite? Keeping mining/guarding my base? Do I attack? Do I pretend to attack? With the right changes, the oracle could become an incredibly fun unit.
I feel like Time Warp should also slow down the DPS and spells. Imagine a Blink happening at 50% the normal speed. I feel like the Slow should be a little bit higher (75%) but other then that it's pretty good.
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On October 28 2012 00:11 Seiniyta wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2012 23:36 Fungal Growth wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Appreciate the graph. Yeah, it doesn't seem worth it. The oracle cost: 150m 150g 3supply Take 60 seconds of production time Which in turns requires a stargate for production: 150m 150g 60 seconds That doesn't seem to be worth it for the chance to not do 100 minerals worth of damage, but to delay 100 minerals of mining (their base will be allowed to mine out later so this can't be considered literal damage). Then you factor in how gas is worth much more than minerals and this looks worse... Then you factor in what you could have bought with the supply/minerals/gas/time instead of a stargate+oracle and you have some serious opportunity cost. You have to consider that there is a HIGH probability that the oracle will get shotdown once the opposition reaches a certain stage in tech. It's kind of horrible if you think about it as a protoss player. But wait...there is time warp for military units! Watched White-ra's stream a bunch last night and this looked like a joke. No reduction in DPS or health...and a mere 50% movement reduction? Imagine if the infestor got the time-warp spell...zerg players would never use it! Let's compare fungal growth to time warp: Damage, TW: None Damage, FG: Lot's and chainable Detection, TW: Nope Detection, FG: You bet Movement Reduction, TW: 50% Movement Reduction, FG: 100% Escaping the spell, TW: You simply walk out of it (effective for terran bio-balls from White-Ra's stream) Escaping the spell, FG: Sorry, you're stuck This isn't funny Or let's compare this to forcefields...in what way is time warp superior to forcefields? White-ra tried to use time-warp on the ramps while he attack expansions, but it just wasn't effective. In fact white-Ra tried a lot of creative uses for the time warp and time and time again, it was either like...so what. I'll just keep attacking even though I'm in a time warp, or I'll just walk through a time warp...50% movement speed for such a small area isn't a big deal. Sad to see how the oracle has been kicked around in this expansion. I like the original concept of a pacifist/non-deathball unit and there is a ton of creative potential still for this unit. I would personally love to see it become a 'thief unit'. For example...it would have an energy steal ability...in which it could transfer mana from enemy buildings/units and accumulate it as say a glowing blueball. It would then have to drag this ball back to the home base (like a dropship) and whatever protoss unit touched the blueball, they would get a boost in mana. If the oracle gets shotdown in the middle of the map...the energy would be stranded there and both players might scramble to get this. Another thief ability would be the ability to steal from enemy mineral patches (only if they've been broken/mined). The oracle could then (try) to drag say 500 minerals back to home to be mined. Or perhaps an idea to steal upgrades. The oracle attaches itself to the say the evo-chamber...and if they are able to remain attached at the very momement the ability completes, protoss steal the equivalent upgrade (attack, health, air attack, air health, etc...). The protoss player would have to know the upgrade timings very well to effectively sneak in and pull this off without being killed. The revelation spell is so boring and nobody uses it. Why not bring back the parasite from BW? Give it a protoss name, and let the oracle cast it on the enemy. The enemy has to decide...what do I with the parasite? Keeping mining/guarding my base? Do I attack? Do I pretend to attack? With the right changes, the oracle could become an incredibly fun unit. I feel like Time Warp should also slow down the DPS and spells. Imagine a Blink happening at 50% the normal speed. I feel like the Slow should be a little bit higher (75%) but other then that it's pretty good.
I agree that it should slow down attack speed, like ensnare did. That or making your own units immune would create a great spell.
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People trolling much as it seems and demanding to make a ridiculously op spell even more op and fig: Time warp does not affect your own units. ;-)
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I think we should ask ourselves if Time warp is supposed to be an harassment tool before dealing with its effectiveness, as David Kim states otherwise (http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/7004040818)
however, i'd like TW to be a dual purpose spell and i see a simple fix* for becoming just that: have it affect the lenght of the mining animation (ie how much time a drone needs to chew a mineral field), this way it becomes a 50%(or more, or less, numbers are easily changed) fixed handicap on mining + a variable small amount based on the mineral field saturation (and perhaps helping mule expire faster)
@markwerf i actually see the spell being decent in pvp, both in combo with revelation and tempest (cannot outrun the tempest with 2-3 TWs, talking of late game) and being good in slowing down enemy colossi during colossi wars (and getting the all important better concave)... but as i said i however trust the numbers to be fixed in order to have a good all around spell, protoss doesn't need more marginal units
*as the op noted, it currently doesnt
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So how much worse than Entomb, is it? On average.
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On October 28 2012 01:39 ejozl wrote:
So how much worse than Entomb, is it? On average.
I think Entomb was estimated to be 200-300 minerals damage if you just a-moved your workers. Much more variability in that spell though. Time warp has no variability as you don't do anything against it, it's always 70-100 mineral damage. As harassment spell i'd say entomb was more than twice as good but time warp has some other uses (though in my own testing they look fringe so far).
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
1) What about time-warping mules and/or highly saturated bases with 16+ workers?
2) Is there are a big damage with Vespene Gas? I mean will it deal same amount of damage as if it used against mineral line workers?
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Time warp will be really good once it fits in a build with harass. Pheonix will make an appearance again because you can just slow the units that can attack it
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What if it's changed so it's generated from a killable object (like pdd, floating), then increase the amount of time it lasts. That would give people a chance to shut it down with good micro and increase its effectiveness as a potential harass tool.
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On October 27 2012 22:55 ArcLiTe wrote:
This is a good post to show those people who believe time warp is OP when used to slow down mining.
Its actually worse than Entomb - from a mechanic standpoint - since you could at least DO SOMETHING against Entomb, but there is no "counterspell" for Time Warp. Even if the minerals lost are not that many they do sum up if people dont do anything against it and forcing people to build air units for defense might have its own advantages as well.
On October 27 2012 23:36 Fungal Growth wrote:
Damage, TW: None
Damage, FG: Lot's and chainable
Detection, TW: Nope
Detection, FG: You bet
Movement Reduction, TW: 50%
Movement Reduction, FG: 100%
Escaping the spell, TW: You simply walk out of it (effective for terran bio-balls from White-Ra's stream)
Escaping the spell, FG: Sorry, you're stuck
That isnt really the important points of Time Warp and you totally miss the most important feature of it ...
Duration: TW: 30 seconds
Duration: FG: 4 seconds
The main point of TW is its flexibility for ... zoning out the enemy by preemptively casting it on or behind a choke point for example. Sure Marines and so on want to walk OUT of it when they are hit, but do they want to walk INTO IT if the enemy army is getting through the choke or setting up a giant concave? I bet you they dont want to do it.
Put together Time Warp is a MUCH WORSE spell than Entomb and that one was only badly designed and boring, but TW is looking ever more OP. People just need to get used again to having their Oracles on a different hotkey and to use them to zone out the enemy ... Creative use of the spell needs to be learned first.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/22/rplot01.jpg/)
