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What distresses me about the Oracle is that it isn't just supply efficient or "numbers" efficient against hydras. It's very nearly cost efficient. Consider:
Oracle
150/150/3
160 health
29.1 dps
2 Hydralisk
200/100/4
160 health
28.9 dps
This is probably okay because Oracles are so hard to get in decent numbers (and all other non-splash units are terrible against hydras), because gas is so precious, and because zerg can get a large number of hydras so quickly. In other words, this isn't unlike the relationship between banshees and stalkers, where stalkers are technically worse per cost than banshees, but they're just so much easier to get that it doesn't matter. But still, I'm quite surprised they made a harassment-based unit capable of this. Would it be so hard to give them a bonus to damage (vs workers) instead of (vs light) - I know it requires adding a new keyword to the game... but do we want early air units to be reasonable against marines and hydras.
Looking at the banshee, maybe we do?
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I would say so, otherwise there is no way to defend a counter push if you go for air openings. It should be hard, but doable, which I think is part of the reason why they added a 25 energy activation cost.
You never want going for a harassment unit to cripple your ability to defend counter pushes, or else what is the point of ever trying to go for those units?
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They should really remove the light armor of the hydras..
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The thing I really like about Oracles is that they make your opponent want to go air...and the new Toss army owns at air superiority. its like "sure Zerg, build that spire in response to Oracles, now I'll just build like one Phoenix and a bunch of Voids, and I literally hardcounter any air unit you have. Enjoy."
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On December 15 2012 10:12 awesomoecalypse wrote:
The thing I really like about Oracles is that they make your opponent want to go air...and the new Toss army owns at air superiority. its like "sure Zerg, build that spire in response to Oracles, now I'll just build like one Phoenix and a bunch of Voids, and I literally hardcounter any air unit you have. Enjoy."
sounds perfectly fair
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My second game vs early oracles went much better. I went 3 base-spire and prevented significant harass by building some spores and splitting workers. I think one thing that differentiates oracles from banshees is that when they have enough to challenge the spores, even if they take away the static def, they are out of energy. So they really should pack more of a punch for the same cost compared to banshees.
After a couple of mutas and corruptors I switched back to hydras and swarm hosts and crushed the opponent. He tried to keep up with phoenix (vs mutas) and then voidrays (vs corruptors) but since I had a faster third he lost to my hydra-swarmhost army. Z tech-switches is good 
So far I am fine with them, better slightly too good than UP and never used.
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You never want going for a harassment unit to cripple your ability to defend counter pushes, or else what is the point of ever trying to go for those units?
I think the best balance would be if you need to complement your harass unit with something more defensive, to stop counterpushes. A game where you only need one unit is not fun, something most non-zerg would agree with at this point no? =)
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On December 15 2012 20:54 KrosusZorg wrote:Show nested quote +
You never want going for a harassment unit to cripple your ability to defend counter pushes, or else what is the point of ever trying to go for those units?
I think the best balance would be if you need to complement your harass unit with something more defensive, to stop counterpushes. A game where you only need one unit is not fun, something most non-zerg would agree with at this point no? =)
I believe he was trying to say that it is nice to have a unit that is good at harass with some fight capability, for example, the old oracle (the one with phase shield) could do nothing in a fight, you could only build then if you had an army strong enough to defend yourself from a counter push, otherwise you die before the economic damage came into effect.
It was the only harass unit that could do nothing to help defend the counter push.
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PvZ feels like a breeze in HotS, FFE into stargate harass into a eventual colossus + voidray/oracle feels really strong again. The broodlord is pretty easy to counter now and voidrays are much better than before against corruptors. Swarm hosts do quite little against a critical mass of colossi and hitting a swarm host timing before that is pretty hard if toss opened air.
Oracles are just really good now, I feel they are better than phoenix at anything except countering air. They harass better, you don't need a critical mass and most importantly they are far better against lings and even hydra's. Quite usefull as well is they are just simpler to micro than phoenix in bigger battles because you just flick on their ability while good phoenix micro while managing the rest of the fight is really hard.
In PvZ I just get phoenix in reaction to spire or muta's now, I don't really see any need to get them earlier. Phoenix range buff makes them good enough as a reactive counter to muta's if you have stargate already.
I think hydra's need just a tiny buff still to be viable, speed is not really of that much use if their combat stats were the problem in the first place. They are simply equal to stalkers without the bonus to armored or blink capabilities. +10 hp on the hydra's would make em just strong enough to not roll over to oracles or colossi armies so hard.
I like oracles being so strong as they are right now as that opens up real possibilities to try them in PvP and PvT a little
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Generally I like the new oracle but it could use some tweaking;
1) Reduce initial energy cost. Why? Because what we want to see in the oracle is a unit that constantly can harass different unit bases. Right now it takes to long to generate new energy which reduces the required action/multitasking.
2) Reduce damage slightly as a way to balance initial energy cost. Also I think it's a bit too unforgiven against players with mediocore reaction abilties.
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On December 15 2012 23:14 Hider wrote:
Generally I like the new oracle but it could use some tweaking;
1) Reduce initial energy cost. Why? Because what we want to see in the oracle is a unit that constantly can harass different unit bases. Right now it takes to long to generate new energy which reduces the required action/multitasking.
2) Reduce damage slightly as a way to balance initial energy cost. Also I think it's a bit too unforgiven against players with mediocore reaction abilties.
The initial energy cost is a great way to balance the unit I think explained before by someone else.
It makes it very unefficient to kill single units like a zergling at the watchtower or a creep tumor or just a single drone, but quite efficient for a prolonged fight/harass. It's an interesting way to give it a very powerful attack while having a serious drawback, just sweeping in killing single drones is no longer that effective now while killing an entire mineral line is.
I really like it and think they need to keep it, without a high initial energy cost the attack is far too good for harass killing in 1-2 drones and backing out to regenerate shields. Now you can still do that but you are limited by energy so zerg can actually defend this without having an abnormal amount of spores they would otherwise need.
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The initial energy cost is a great way to balance the unit I think explained before by someone else.
It makes it very unefficient to kill single units like a zergling at the watchtower or a creep tumor or just a single drone, but quite efficient for a prolonged fight/harass. It's an interesting way to give it a very powerful attack while having a serious drawback, just sweeping in killing single drones is no longer that effective now while killing an entire mineral line is.
I really like it and think they need to keep it, without a high initial energy cost the attack is far too good for harass killing in 1-2 drones and backing out to regenerate shields. Now you can still do that but you are limited by energy so zerg can actually defend this without having an abnormal amount of spores they would otherwise need.
This is exactly right. As I explained above, the break-even point on Oracle energy pre and post patch is killing 6 workers, which cost the old Oracle 48 energy and the new one 49. Killing 5 workers cost the old Oracle 40 energy and the new one 45 energy, and as you kill fewer and fewer workers the new Oracle becomes less efficient, down to 29 energy to kill just one worker, which the old Oracle could do for just 8 energy. But over 6 workers, or for straight up engagements, the new Oracle is actually better. To kill 12 workers, for example, took the old Oracle 96 energy. It takes the new Oracle 73 energy.
The old Oracle was sort of silly, in that since Protoss units regenerate shields, and Oracle take only 1.72 seconds to kill a worker, and flies very quickly...unless the opponent had enough anti air defense to deal 60 damage to the Oracle in under 2 seconds completely covering the worker line at every single base, the Oracle was guaranteed free worker kills periodically while taking no real damage whatsoever--even Banshees, to which Oracles are often compared, need to be repaired. And yet at the same time, if an opponent was totally unprepared, there was still a cap on how much damage an Oracle could do before its energy ran down. And if an Oracle tried to pitch in in a direct engagement with pulsar beam dps rather than timewarp support (which is super helpful for chargelots but less so for some other compositions), then you'd run out after only killing a few units. Killing a single Hydralisk took 16 energy, and with 50 energy you'd be empty by the time you killed 3.
The new Oracle can still do irritating "fly in, snipe a worker or two, fly out to regen shields" attacks, but they are super energy inefficient--if you waste time on that, you won't have enough energy to do real damage if you catch them unawares, or to chip in in an engagement with either timewarp or pulsar beam, or to use pulsar to help defend a marine drop or ling runby. On the other hand, if you do catch them out of position, you can lay serious hurt down because the "cap" on workers killed before you run out of energy is a lot higher. Its much better at defending ling runbys--a single Oracle with 100 energy can defend against 19 lings, or kill a decent number of zealots, marines or hydras in a pinch.
I think its a change for the better.
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right now oracles seem overpowered but i got a good idea IMO that seems like it would work
make oracles have a buildtime of 100 seconds, up from 50
i know your thinking wtf that makes them worthless. but thats not true. heres my thought process behind this.
blue flame upgrade costs 150/150
my change to oracles is essentially saying that as a protoss, you need to spend an extra 150/150 (on an extra stargate) to produce your 50 second oracles
comparing the speed at which oracles hit the field and their incredible potential compared to blue flame hellions is no comparison, oracles need some kind of nerf mostly in the timings at which they can be deployed. I think my change is a perfect one, if your going for the strong harass you open a stargate and make a oracle then while your first oracle is building you can make your second stargate which functions as your "blue flame upgrade". then once two stargates are done you are making your 50second oracles.
this should slow down the timings of the oracles to make them no longer as extremely crazy as they are now.
also i believe this should happen to combat the high buildtimes of carriers
GIVE STARGATES a 150/150 upgrade called Fleetgate , this upgrade is a 10 second building transformation which doubles the stargates health and reduces the buildtime of all units in the stargate by 50%.
this will allow protoss to increase their air production with fleetgates, by cutting down unit buildtimes. i think thats a great idea
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On December 15 2012 23:01 Markwerf wrote:
PvZ feels like a breeze in HotS, FFE into stargate harass into a eventual colossus + voidray/oracle feels really strong again. The broodlord is pretty easy to counter now and voidrays are much better than before against corruptors. Swarm hosts do quite little against a critical mass of colossi and hitting a swarm host timing before that is pretty hard if toss opened air.
Oracles are just really good now, I feel they are better than phoenix at anything except countering air. They harass better, you don't need a critical mass and most importantly they are far better against lings and even hydra's. Quite usefull as well is they are just simpler to micro than phoenix in bigger battles because you just flick on their ability while good phoenix micro while managing the rest of the fight is really hard.
In PvZ I just get phoenix in reaction to spire or muta's now, I don't really see any need to get them earlier. Phoenix range buff makes them good enough as a reactive counter to muta's if you have stargate already.
I think hydra's need just a tiny buff still to be viable, speed is not really of that much use if their combat stats were the problem in the first place. They are simply equal to stalkers without the bonus to armored or blink capabilities. +10 hp on the hydra's would make em just strong enough to not roll over to oracles or colossi armies so hard.
I like oracles being so strong as they are right now as that opens up real possibilities to try them in PvP and PvT a little
wrong. PvZ is even easier than that
you 1gate double gas greedy expand and are immune to early pressure thanks to mothership core while applying incredible amounts of pressure to the zerg
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The Oracle relies on energy, but now zerg had to learn to deal with early harass especially since protoss can handle the early pushes with MSC. If i recall they changed the oracle cost to 2 energy per sec. The orcale is not overpowered, it is just that all zergs must now learn to scout more and be ready for those oracle harasses (which work amazingly)
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IMO Oracles are the best new unit.
They add a truly new dimension to Toss.
They can be OP if you aren't ready but I think it's good for each race to have some OP units in certain situations.
Now Toss can realistically go any tech path (Robo/Gateway/Stargate) thanks to the Oracle/MSC.
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On December 20 2012 03:50 RinconH wrote:
IMO Oracles are the best new unit.
They add a truly new dimension to Toss.
They can be OP if you aren't ready but I think it's good for each race to have some OP units in certain situations.
Now Toss can realistically go any tech path (Robo/Gateway/Stargate) thanks to the Oracle/MSC.
I really think it's a bit early to say that. People used to think you could open phoenixes in PvT - but as it turns out, most of the time, the Terran can just attack and you'll die. I hope this is the case, but we should probably watch what happens in the first few large HotS tournaments first.
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In oracle vs hydra or oracle vs marine thing you guys are missing something: without oracle being a little efficient vs hydra and marine skytoss would not be viable at all. It would be like mech terran without thor's anti air.
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On December 20 2012 05:28 Treehead wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 03:50 RinconH wrote:
IMO Oracles are the best new unit.
They add a truly new dimension to Toss.
They can be OP if you aren't ready but I think it's good for each race to have some OP units in certain situations.
Now Toss can realistically go any tech path (Robo/Gateway/Stargate) thanks to the Oracle/MSC. I really think it's a bit early to say that. People used to think you could open phoenixes in PvT - but as it turns out, most of the time, the Terran can just attack and you'll die. I hope this is the case, but we should probably watch what happens in the first few large HotS tournaments first.
True. My feeling is with great micro oracle/MSC would be able to hold a bust but ofc til it is proven at the top level...
It will also be map dependent... if you can FE but have the nexus in range of the ramp when MSC casts its super cannon thing it will be very hard to break Toss. But if the Terran can run by...
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EPT
