edit: This has kind of been discussed to death, and here are some of the conclusions drawn:
It might do a tad too much damage It's about the same effectiveness as a cloaked banshee or blue flame hellion drop It's gas cost, range, and fragility make up for it's damage It still has some utility later in the game if your harass gets completely blocked It gives Protoss a much needed harass option
So here's a VOD of a match I managed to get in before the servers went down, highlighting the Oracle changes and how crazy strong they are. Note: my build wasn't even optimized for this and I was severely distracted by the fact that group chat is unable to be hidden while in game (at least currently, probably one of the many reasons the servers went down so fast).
For those who can't watch for whatever reason, I fly 3 Oracles into Zerg's mineral line at about 11:30 (could you imagine if I rushed for them? lol) and destroy like 15 drones in a matter of seconds and then get two queen kills, losing only a single Oracle due to some sloppiness on my part.
Anyway, thoughts? Is it really too strong? I just feel like they kill workers way too fast compared to a flock of Mutas or a drop of stimmed marines, especially considering this was only 3 oracles (450 gas cost)
Yeah, I mean, the guy didn't have any defenses and had slow reaction time, but damn. Those workers died FAST, and then the oracles STILL had enough energy to take out 2 queens.
can it attack buildings anymore? I feel like early sporecrawler is a must but at the rate of which it kills workers, people might just suicide them in to rape mineral lines.... Not sure I like this either.
They sure kill workers fast, but not faster than equivalent cost stimmed marine drops or hellion drops. And unlike drops, 2 or three spore crawlers / turrets / photon canons will shut down Oracle harass easily.
might need two spore crawlers if you scout early stargate considering that tempest rush is much harder to do now, early star would just mean phoenix oracles.
On December 06 2012 16:18 Rabiator wrote: That is crazy ... sure they go through a lot of energy in the process, BUT that is a silly excuse for being OP.
It's a hard brake. Compare the timing to Hellion arrivals - and Hellions don't run out of energy. Then compare them to Marine drops. The gas commitment in either case isn't what you require in order to field a single Oracle. Oracles are good, but only so good - and their beam doesn't benefit from upgrades, does it?
On December 06 2012 16:06 Empirimancer wrote: They sure kill workers fast, but not faster than equivalent cost stimmed marine drops or hellion drops. And unlike drops, 2 or three spore crawlers / turrets / photon canons will shut down Oracle harass easily.
Oracle doesn't need to drop anything, they just fly in and fly out, which is far faster and easier.
They're fragile and have short range, so they don't work well in deathballs. And you have to be sure you're not caught with that precious harass unit.
If you have just 5 marines... you can fend one off. Compare that with the banshee, where you can cloak and infinitely kite marines. Oracle is a different harass unit though; it has interesting abilities and is faster, so it harasses in its own way. It can fly in and pick off marines as they build, unlike banshees (because banshees can't run away from marines if they get a surround on you)
Also don't you think these air units need to be GREAT at harassing? Otherwise they will just die to a straight up fight.
On December 06 2012 16:05 neoghaleon55 wrote: I feel like early sporecrawler is a must
Void Rays with Prismatic.
That only does bonus damage vs armored. Unless...hrm, are buildings armored? o_O Something I should definitely know.
On December 06 2012 16:31 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: They're fragile and have short range, so they don't work well in deathballs. And you have to be sure you're not caught with that precious harass unit.
If you have just 5 marines... you can fend one off. Compare that with the banshee.
Also don't you think these air units need to be GREAT at harassing? Otherwise they will just die to a straight up fight.
Hmmm, maybe. It all depends on where the balance is struck between catering to high level games where players are much more map aware and less likely to take horrible damage to some Oracle harass, and Johnny Noobzerg with 30 APM screaming about how imba Oracles are. I think Blizzard has made their stance on this sort of thing fairly clear, but maybe they will surprise us.
I'll have to play a lot more games tomorrow to really get a feel for them, I think. I'll make sure to stream/record everything, too.
I watched that video and your opponent did nothing, that video is proof that new units throw people off and that's it. He could of pulled workers and got his queens together, instead he did absolutely nothing.
If 3 banshees show up and you don't repond, your workers melt. 5 Mutas show up, your mineral line will melt.
On December 06 2012 16:33 KrazyTrumpet wrote: That only does bonus damage vs armored. Unless...hrm, are buildings armored? o_O Something I should definitely know.
Yes, they are. But Queens aren't, so there is still a counter.
On December 06 2012 16:33 KrazyTrumpet wrote: That only does bonus damage vs armored. Unless...hrm, are buildings armored? o_O Something I should definitely know.
Yes, they are. But Queens aren't, so there is still a counter.
On December 06 2012 16:41 archonOOid wrote: oracle + zealots might work well together now either as a timing attack or as a early/mid army in some matchups.
Yeah ling-centric builds seems so bad now in ZvT/P. They get destroyed by units that you can get early enough to make a big impact.
On December 06 2012 16:33 KrazyTrumpet wrote: That only does bonus damage vs armored. Unless...hrm, are buildings armored? o_O Something I should definitely know.
Yes, they are. But Queens aren't, so there is still a counter.
On December 06 2012 16:33 KrazyTrumpet wrote: That only does bonus damage vs armored. Unless...hrm, are buildings armored? o_O Something I should definitely know.
Yes, they are. But Queens aren't, so there is still a counter.
What units is Z going to have at 8:30 (right about the timing you can push out with a stargate / gateway timing)?
Lings? Maybe a few roaches, a spine or two, some queens. Head-on, stalkers rape queens + roaches in equal numbers. Lings are not a problem because of the oracle, which can also destroy or force reposition of spines if need be. If roach masses are a problem, you could even throw in a void ray.
Oracles might be surprisingly decent against non-light units as well. I was playing around in the unit tester, and one Oracle beats one Stalker apparently. However, one Oracle does not beat one Archon. I have yet to do more tests, howerver.
If it ends up countering too many units, then they could change the 10+15 vs light damage to something different like 5+20 vs light or nerf the damage altogether.
On December 06 2012 17:58 eviltomahawk wrote: Oracles might be surprisingly decent against non-light units as well. I was playing around in the unit tester, and one Oracle beats one Stalker apparently. However, one Oracle does not beat one Archon. I have yet to do more tests, howerver.
If it ends up countering too many units, then they could change the 10+15 vs light damage to something different like 5+20 vs light or nerf the damage altogether.
On December 06 2012 16:36 TheFrankOne wrote: I watched that video and your opponent did nothing, that video is proof that new units throw people off and that's it. He could of pulled workers and got his queens together, instead he did absolutely nothing.
If 3 banshees show up and you don't repond, your workers melt. 5 Mutas show up, your mineral line will melt.
This.
Your attack starts at about 11:30 min. In a real game (high level) at that time Z will have at least 70 workers, and either, a shitload of roach-ling to deny your 3rd for ever, infestors out, or 10-12 mutas about to pop out and take out your 3 oracles into a lead.
With the new oracle build time (50), Z will have enough time to defend as aganist banshees (spores and queens, no problem).
The real buff to the Oracle is that it can take some workers as a banshee before escape (WoL Void rays suck hard at that) AND, very important, still be usefull to aid with phoenixes for a potential muta tech.
I'm just jerking off to how smooth your upload is. I'm assuming it's 720p/60fps and a bitrate around 2.8k+? I really wish every stream was like this :<
I'm a Zerg player but... that's what a beta is for! New units are supposed to be too powerful. If anything they've been a bit shy with some new units in HotS.
With lair speed hydras and general spore defense I don't see this cause that much trouble, but used right it can be effective even vs competent foes. I think this opens up the game even more though which is great IMHO
On December 06 2012 17:58 eviltomahawk wrote: Oracles might be surprisingly decent against non-light units as well. I was playing around in the unit tester, and one Oracle beats one Stalker apparently. However, one Oracle does not beat one Archon. I have yet to do more tests, howerver.
If it ends up countering too many units, then they could change the 10+15 vs light damage to something different like 5+20 vs light or nerf the damage altogether.
Let's face it, lots of things beat stalkers....
I think i read somewhere that unmicroed stalkers (so, not relevant in gameplay in the first place) actually aren't cost efficient vs workers.
On December 06 2012 16:52 Fragile51 wrote: Oh shit, it's like a banshee without cloak!
...That relies on energy to attack..
I'm sorry, what is the big issue here again?
It's 2x as fast, less expensive, and comes out of a tier 2 tech structure instead of tier 3 (with a tech lab requirement) and does roughly 2x the dps with 0 overkill as it is a channeled ability. So I guess it's really not very similar to a banshee...
On December 06 2012 16:52 Fragile51 wrote: Oh shit, it's like a banshee without cloak!
...That relies on energy to attack..
I'm sorry, what is the big issue here again?
It's 2x as fast, less expensive, and comes out of a tier 2 tech structure instead of tier 3 (with a tech lab requirement) and does roughly 2x the dps with 0 overkill as it is a channeled ability. So I guess it's really not very similar to a banshee...
Enough with the bias. Faster but not cloack threat. No overkill but weak non-light dmg. Also dmg need energy.
And banshee tier 3 wtf??? Then cybercore is a tier too now uh? /sarcasm
On December 06 2012 16:52 Fragile51 wrote: Oh shit, it's like a banshee without cloak!
...That relies on energy to attack..
I'm sorry, what is the big issue here again?
Has twice the anti-light dps, and flies much faster. Also, zero overkill, so no wasted shots.
It also has 4 range, that's the same as a roach. Do you understand how vulnerable a 4 range flying unit with 100 hp is? Also it's way more expensive than a banshee as well, 200 gas that early in the game is a massive investment and leaves you very vulnerable to counter attacks.
On December 06 2012 18:17 digmouse wrote: I don't think it kills workers faster than a normal marine marauder drop, or hellions, or mutas.
I will explain the differences. A marine drop takes like 5 seconds to even unload if they can even reach the mineral line without getting scouted that is (rarely). By the time the marines are out the drones would be already dead from oracles, plus drops can be stopped by lings, roach, etc. Drones can run away and use buildings etc as a shield from marines, and typically drops cannot escape, these things do not apply to the Oracle, not to mention it simply is much faster. As far as hellions it's just ridiculous. Trading 6 hellions for 10-15 drones is seen as a very successful trade and the mineral value of the units is basically even. The oracles however took almost no damage, and he wiped out every drone, and 2 queens despite botching the harass and focus firing the hatchery for like 5 seconds. You're right about mutas though. They can do this if you build like 25 of them, which is 50 supply.
On December 06 2012 16:52 Fragile51 wrote: Oh shit, it's like a banshee without cloak!
...That relies on energy to attack..
I'm sorry, what is the big issue here again?
It's 2x as fast, less expensive, and comes out of a tier 2 tech structure instead of tier 3 (with a tech lab requirement) and does roughly 2x the dps with 0 overkill as it is a channeled ability. So I guess it's really not very similar to a banshee...
Enough with the bias. Faster but not cloack threat. No overkill but weak non-light dmg. Also dmg need energy.
And banshee tier 3 wtf??? Then cybercore is a tier too now uh? /sarcasm
You have to have a factory to build a starport and then add a tech lab. Banshees are considered tier 2.5/3. You can go straight from cyber core (only minerals lololz) to starport, do it is much faster and less gas intense.
On December 06 2012 18:17 digmouse wrote: I don't think it kills workers faster than a normal marine marauder drop, or hellions, or mutas.
You might be correct here, BUT it flys, is god damn fast and the standart Zerg Army isnt build to reflect them at this stage (roach/ling)
Though the zerg queens are, and you want a decent number of them at every stage of the game anyways.
Except the guy in the video did engage the 3 oracles with 4 queens and even after obliterating the entire mineral line (in a total of 5 seconds--starts at 13:27 and already attacking hatch at 13:32) the oracles traded favorable with the queens as 2 queens died and only 1 oracle (then about 1 minute later in the game the 2 oracles kill another queen.)
Just admit it. They are imba. This is the beta so it will surely be changed.
Edit-Actually there are 5 queens that engage the oracles in the video, one died so fast I didn't realize...
Terran tech doesn't fit into tiers that easily, considering you don't have to "then add a tech lab", but rather float your newly built starport onto a techlab from the factory or barracks that can be already built. Battlecruisers are basically the only true "T3" Terran has.
Honestly, the damage might be a bit too much. 10+15 with a damage period (cooldown?) of 0.86 does seem like a ton of DPS, especially considering that most light units have low hit points compared to other units, unless my match is wrong.
But I like how the ability can be used in a wider variety of situations outside of mineral line harass or building harass now that it can target all ground units, although it needs to be balanced with this in mind.
On December 06 2012 18:17 digmouse wrote: I don't think it kills workers faster than a normal marine marauder drop, or hellions, or mutas.
You might be correct here, BUT it flys, is god damn fast and the standart Zerg Army isnt build to reflect them at this stage (roach/ling)
Though the zerg queens are, and you want a decent number of them at every stage of the game anyways.
Except the guy in the video did engage the 3 oracles with 4 queens and even after obliterating the entire mineral line (in a total of 5 seconds--starts at 13:27 and already attacking hatch at 13:32) the oracles traded favorable with the queens as 2 queens died and only 1 oracle (then about 1 minute later in the game the 2 oracles kill another queen.)
Just admit it. They are imba. This is the beta so it will surely be changed.
Edit-Actually there are 5 queens that engage the oracles in the video, one died so fast I didn't realize...
Eh, not exactly. The oracles engage a single queen 3 on1 and kill it. Another single queen comes into the picture, and is reduced to 50% 3on1 before a 2nd queen enters. A 3rd queen enters like 1.5 seconds after that, and the hurt queen goes down + an oracle goes down, and the protoss retreats. The oracle does good dps while it has energy, and perhaps slightly too much atm, but had the oracles ACTUALLY faced off against 4 queens together, they would have lost with a couple transfuse.
What is up with saying it has 2x the dps of a banshee?
Banshee dps which is not energy based and has 6 range is 2x12/1.25 = 19.2 Oracle dps which requires energy, has 4 range is (10+15)/0.86 = 29.1 vs light or 10/0.86 = 11.62 vs non-light (queen/stalker)
On December 06 2012 18:17 digmouse wrote: I don't think it kills workers faster than a normal marine marauder drop, or hellions, or mutas.
You might be correct here, BUT it flys, is god damn fast and the standart Zerg Army isnt build to reflect them at this stage (roach/ling)
Though the zerg queens are, and you want a decent number of them at every stage of the game anyways.
Except the guy in the video did engage the 3 oracles with 4 queens and even after obliterating the entire mineral line (in a total of 5 seconds--starts at 13:27 and already attacking hatch at 13:32) the oracles traded favorable with the queens as 2 queens died and only 1 oracle (then about 1 minute later in the game the 2 oracles kill another queen.)
Just admit it. They are imba. This is the beta so it will surely be changed.
Edit-Actually there are 5 queens that engage the oracles in the video, one died so fast I didn't realize...
Eh, not exactly. The oracles engage a single queen 3 on1 and kill it. Another single queen comes into the picture, and is reduced to 50% 3on1 before a 2nd queen enters. A 3rd queen enters like 1.5 seconds after that, and the hurt queen goes down + an oracle goes down, and the protoss retreats. The oracle does good dps while it has energy, and perhaps slightly too much atm, but had the oracles ACTUALLY faced off against 4 queens together, they would have lost with a couple transfuse.
No one is arguing that. We are talking about how the game is actually played. The point was raised that a "standard" zerg army cannot reflect them. The counter-point was that queens can reflect them and you should have a "decent number of them anyway." My point was that this zerg did have a decent number of queens as there are a total of 6 shown and that is just the amount that we see there may be more on the map. A zerg can't have 4 queens at every base all the time just b/c of the threat of 3 oracles. Maybe 4 queens could win, but if 3 oracles fly in and see 4 queens they will just leave lol they do not have to engage, and if zerg is putting 4 queens at every hatch then it doesn't take a pro to realize who is going to win that game... You are completely missing the point.
1. It has 4 range. 2. Spores don't need evolution chamber. 3. It costs 150/150 and 50s build.
Even if you build two spores in a mineral line and completely shut a harass down of 2+ Oracles I think the minerals in that case were totally worth it since the Protoss just spend 300/300 and maybe more to harass.
This seems totaly fine. I can show you the same with a single DT. Zerg needs to scout, build Spores/Hydras/more Queen, move away Drones or else he is screwed. I really like the possibilities of having new harrasment units.
On December 06 2012 20:36 blackbrrd wrote: What is up with saying it has 2x the dps of a banshee?
Banshee dps which is not energy based and has 6 range is 2x12/1.25 = 19.2 Oracle dps which requires energy, has 4 range is (10+15)/0.86 = 29.1 vs light or 10/0.86 = 11.62 vs non-light (queen/stalker)
Exactly. Banshee is still a stronger harass unit even without cloak.
Oracles will only be useful because they are faster and have other support spells.
On December 06 2012 16:52 Fragile51 wrote: Oh shit, it's like a banshee without cloak!
...That relies on energy to attack..
I'm sorry, what is the big issue here again?
Has twice the anti-light dps, and flies much faster. Also, zero overkill, so no wasted shots.
If my math is right, banshee kills a worker in 2.5s while the oracle now kills a worker in 1.72s. That's pretty damn good Only in range it's much inferior to the banshee.
I must admit, I LOVE the idea of what the Oracle has become. It's a superfast scout that can harass and can also defend itself by dropping Time Warps left and right.
Hell I love what they're doing to Protoss air full stop.
Theyre super fragil. Plus if you scout them theyre pretty easy to shut down. It does however seem to be a really nice harass unit.. prolly get toned down a bit but still seems really good for toss. just what they need
Something a lot of people have not seemed to notice about this is how good Voids are against Spores now. Two voids with no upgrades (and charge active) kill a spore in about 7 seconds (this is the time it takes a spore to get just past a void ray's shields). With the charge, they roughly have the dps of an immortal (and only slightly less health/no hardened shell). Void/Zealot/Oracle has some definite promise in PvZ (imo).
On December 06 2012 23:49 Karpfen wrote: they have 4 months to get rid of all these stupid changes.
lol, you are either trolling or don't play/watch competitive SC2
while infestor corruptor broodlord is (was?) really obnoxious and terrible to watch and imba and and etc... I really think that all the changes they've made were too drastic and cut off options from the Z point of view (see mutas not being that good at catching medivacs while still not being able to harrass all that well with mines around, ultras losing their mobility spell).
On December 06 2012 23:49 Karpfen wrote: they have 4 months to get rid of all these stupid changes.
lol, you are either trolling or don't play/watch competitive SC2
while infestor corruptor broodlord is (was?) really obnoxious and terrible to watch and imba and and etc... I really think that all the changes they've made were too drastic and cut off options from the Z point of view (see mutas not being that good at catching medivacs while still not being able to harrass all that well with mines around, ultras losing their mobility spell).
Mutas are now much faster and more useful vs protoss (just as harassing units should be) and ultras with proper support will now start murdering most things on the ground If it's still not the case, further buffs can be applied. The important thing is the game design, and the game design has IMHO been greatly improved with all these changes
I also like the new oracle a lot - cool micro-intensive harasser
Gas-for-gas an oracle is the same as 1.5 Banshees: 1 Oracle = 29.1 DPS vs light = 19.4 DPS per 100 gas 1 Banshee = 19.2 DPS per 100 gas, against both light and armored
Oracles have 1 less range, have 160 hp+shields (107 hp / 100 gas) versus 140 HP for a banshee, and cannot cloak. Oh yeah, and their attack costs energy. In return they move a heckuva lot faster.
The oracle seems almost as good as a banshee in harass. The oracle moves faster and kills workers a little faster, but at the cost of shorter range and no shoot-and-scoot micro. If defense is in place, you can still get kills with a banshee by using the 6 range and micro potential. The oracle won't do that.
you tried 1 queen + 1 spore vs 3 oracle ? i would love to see that and aswel stargate is pretty much a big investment . do i have to mention oracle takes 50 seconds now to build ? so it will take around 1 minute and 15 seconds with full chronoboost to have 3 oracles out ??
test them more intensive then just vs 1 queen , cuz if you didnt know 2 oracles > 1 spore even before patch .
On December 07 2012 01:08 kcdc wrote: The oracle seems almost as good as a banshee in harass. The oracle moves faster and kills workers a little faster, but at the cost of shorter range and no shoot-and-scoot micro. If defense is in place, you can still get kills with a banshee by using the 6 range and micro potential. The oracle won't do that.
Taken on its own. the Oracle is slightly worse at harassment than the Banshee for cost. However, it has better support spells, and more importantly Protoss air looks like it will synergize better--in particular, the new Void Ray, with no need for charge up time, is much better at flying in to quickly snipe defenses. Adding static defense may shut down pure Oracle comps, but there's no reason for Protoss to limit themselves to pure Oracle, given that their air units complement each other's capabilities.
At the moment zerg don't even need to react to toss air more than spore + queen per base (WOL).
Contrast this with muta play, if the toss scouts too late and he doesn't have enough stalkers, he straight up loses, and even if he does, he is forced to abandon any plans he made and play stalker -> templar, or die. All while the zerg gets massive map control.
It's about time toss air play get taken semi-seriously, though we still need something that deals with spores when they get critical mass, like muta deal with cannons in PvZ. Right now this may just force 2 spores instead of 1, while zerg just goes mass roach / infestorling.
I would take a muta esc unit anyday vs this crappy "harras" oracle, I don't see how oracle > phoenix at worker harras, but right know I'll take what I can get.
It's about time toss air play get taken semi-seriously, though we still need some thing that deals with spores when they get critical mass, like muta in PvZ. Right now this may just force 2 spores instead of 1, while zerg just goes mass roach / infestorling.
The new Void Rays owns spores hard. With its new ability, it does higher dps vs armored (including buildings) than the old Void Ray did charged, and it can do that damage right away and upfront rather than charging up, making it perfect to complement harassment.
I don't see how oracle harras > phoenix, but right know I'll take what I can get.
A Phoenix needs at least 1, preferably 2 or 3 other Phoenixes to harass. At that point, they become capable of killing 1 worker per 50 energy. It does 18 dps vs workers, but the one lifting can't attack, reducing their effective dps for cost when harassing.
Oracles can deal damage to workers without support. They deal 29 dps to workers--3 Oracles will deal 87 dps to workers. 3 Phoenixes will deal 36 dps to workers since one will need to lift. And they are vastly more energy efficient--it takes an Oracle 8 energy to kill 1 worker (they kill a worker every 1.72 seconds, meaning they need to channel their ability for 2 seconds per worker and it costs 4 energy a second), compared to 50 for a phoenix. With 50 energy, an Oracle can kill 6 workers compared to the Phoenix's 1 kill.
So in what way is Oracle harass not > phoenix harass?
On December 06 2012 16:52 Fragile51 wrote: Oh shit, it's like a banshee without cloak!
...That relies on energy to attack..
I'm sorry, what is the big issue here again?
It's 2x as fast, less expensive, and comes out of a tier 2 tech structure instead of tier 3 (with a tech lab requirement) and does roughly 2x the dps with 0 overkill as it is a channeled ability. So I guess it's really not very similar to a banshee...
Um, it would be more reasonable to consider Stargates on the same tech as Stargate. Gateway>Cyber>Stargate.
Also it's not less expensive.. it's 50 more gas.
And the range is 4, so that means you can't kite marines.
You're right, it's not very similar to a banshee, but it's definitely not overpowered. They are similar in that they should both be decent harass units, but different in that their different designs will allow different kinds of harass.
On December 06 2012 23:49 Karpfen wrote: they have 4 months to get rid of all these stupid changes.
lol, you are either trolling or don't play/watch competitive SC2
while infestor corruptor broodlord is (was?) really obnoxious and terrible to watch and imba and and etc... I really think that all the changes they've made were too drastic and cut off options from the Z point of view (see mutas not being that good at catching medivacs while still not being able to harrass all that well with mines around, ultras losing their mobility spell).
Mutas are now much faster and more useful vs protoss (just as harassing units should be) and ultras with proper support will now start murdering most things on the ground If it's still not the case, further buffs can be applied. The important thing is the game design, and the game design has IMHO been greatly improved with all these changes
I also like the new oracle a lot - cool micro-intensive harasser
I we are talking about game design only i completely agree, stuff is much better now under that aspect.
On December 07 2012 01:18 AfricanPsycho wrote: At the moment zerg don't even need to react to toss air more than spore + queen per base (WOL).
Contrast this with muta play, if the toss scouts too late and he doesn't have enough stalkers, he straight up loses, and even if he does, he is forced to abandon any plans he made and play stalker -> templar, or die. All while the zerg gets massive map control.
It's about time toss air play get taken semi-seriously, though we still need something that deals with spores when they get critical mass, like muta deal with cannons in PvZ. Right now this may just force 2 spores instead of 1, while zerg just goes mass roach / infestorling.
I would take a muta esc unit anyday vs this crappy "harras" oracle, I don't see how oracle > phoenix at worker harras, but right know I'll take what I can get.
Yes, but isnt this the old "force the Zerg to build X and then attack them with stuff that is good against X" tactic? It seems a tad overpowered AND Oracles do more than just deal damage and thus are far better than Banshees.
On December 06 2012 18:31 BeyondCtrL wrote: I'm just jerking off to how smooth your upload is. I'm assuming it's 720p/60fps and a bitrate around 2.8k+? I really wish every stream was like this :<
Yeah, those are exactly my stream settings, actually
After reading some of the thoughts in this thread, I'm starting to be a little more convinced that the buff isn't horribly OP. I would still be in favor of a bit of a tone down.
I think, regardless, it's nice to have a more reliable harass unit than Phoenix, and I now have a few more ideas on how to do fun things with Skytoss. Thanks for all the feedback and helping me make sense of my initial "WTF?!??!" reaction lol
On December 06 2012 18:31 BeyondCtrL wrote: I'm just jerking off to how smooth your upload is. I'm assuming it's 720p/60fps and a bitrate around 2.8k+? I really wish every stream was like this :<
Yeah, those are exactly my stream settings, actually
After reading some of the thoughts in this thread, I'm starting to be a little more convinced that the buff isn't horribly OP. I would still be in favor of a bit of a tone down.
I think, regardless, it's nice to have a more reliable harass unit than Phoenix, and I now have a few more ideas on how to do fun things with Skytoss. Thanks for all the feedback and helping me make sense of my initial "WTF?!??!" reaction lol
We understand, the thought of Protoss having one of the premier worker-killing units in the game is a little disorienting. It's almost like Blizzard wanted Protoss players to use their APM.
On December 06 2012 18:31 BeyondCtrL wrote: I'm just jerking off to how smooth your upload is. I'm assuming it's 720p/60fps and a bitrate around 2.8k+? I really wish every stream was like this :<
Yeah, those are exactly my stream settings, actually
After reading some of the thoughts in this thread, I'm starting to be a little more convinced that the buff isn't horribly OP. I would still be in favor of a bit of a tone down.
I think, regardless, it's nice to have a more reliable harass unit than Phoenix, and I now have a few more ideas on how to do fun things with Skytoss. Thanks for all the feedback and helping me make sense of my initial "WTF?!??!" reaction lol
We understand, the thought of Protoss having one of the premier worker-killing units in the game is a little disorienting. It's almost like Blizzard wanted Protoss players to use their APM.
Agreed. I doubt the unit is over powered, but it is a massive change to everything protoss normally has. Standard XvP do not account for them being able to harass the mineral line with an airborn unit. Even builds that use the WP still rely on ground units to do the damage. People are not used to respecting the Stargate in any way.
I am ok with it feeling overpowered. I have seen the medivac upgrade.
Yeah the one full game that I managed to fit in last night fell along similar lines. I got out a quick couple of oracles against my terran opponent and went pretty savage on his SCVs in a short amount of time. It was pretty entertaining.
On December 07 2012 00:55 Piousflea wrote: Gas-for-gas an oracle is the same as 1.5 Banshees: 1 Oracle = 29.1 DPS vs light = 19.4 DPS per 100 gas 1 Banshee = 19.2 DPS per 100 gas, against both light and armored
Oracles have 1 less range, have 160 hp+shields (107 hp / 100 gas) versus 140 HP for a banshee, and cannot cloak. Oh yeah, and their attack costs energy. In return they move a heckuva lot faster.
I think it's balanced.
What about their attack mechanism? I think the banshee can't actually kill workers as quickly as the current oracle given the way the damage is distribute, despite their DPS being identical.
On December 07 2012 00:55 Piousflea wrote: Gas-for-gas an oracle is the same as 1.5 Banshees: 1 Oracle = 29.1 DPS vs light = 19.4 DPS per 100 gas 1 Banshee = 19.2 DPS per 100 gas, against both light and armored
Oracles have 1 less range, have 160 hp+shields (107 hp / 100 gas) versus 140 HP for a banshee, and cannot cloak. Oh yeah, and their attack costs energy. In return they move a heckuva lot faster.
I think it's balanced.
What about their attack mechanism? I think the banshee can't actually kill workers as quickly as the current oracle given the way the damage is distribute, despite their DPS being identical.
Huh? Banshees 2 shot workers. How is the damage "distributed" to prevent they from killing workers quickly?
The damage seems a tad high, but not too ridiculous(maybe a slight nerf to non-light targets). Remember, this is mostly what they are designed to do at this point; they don't have a lot of straight-up fight effectiveness like mutas or stimmed marines or hellions might.
They are basically flying reapers with a little more utility (spells) now, so they need to be able to kill workers fast, as that is their primary purpose (a far cry from the "worker-friendly" entomb oracle we saw in the beginning).
On December 06 2012 16:31 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: They're fragile and have short range, so they don't work well in deathballs. And you have to be sure you're not caught with that precious harass unit.
If you have just 5 marines... you can fend one off. Compare that with the banshee, where you can cloak and infinitely kite marines. Oracle is a different harass unit though; it has interesting abilities and is faster, so it harasses in its own way. It can fly in and pick off marines as they build, unlike banshees (because banshees can't run away from marines if they get a surround on you)
Also don't you think these air units need to be GREAT at harassing? Otherwise they will just die to a straight up fight.
I feel that making units great is the best idea Blizzard had in this patch. I want units that people fear and I am happy about building.
On December 07 2012 00:55 Piousflea wrote: Gas-for-gas an oracle is the same as 1.5 Banshees: 1 Oracle = 29.1 DPS vs light = 19.4 DPS per 100 gas 1 Banshee = 19.2 DPS per 100 gas, against both light and armored
Oracles have 1 less range, have 160 hp+shields (107 hp / 100 gas) versus 140 HP for a banshee, and cannot cloak. Oh yeah, and their attack costs energy. In return they move a heckuva lot faster.
I think it's balanced.
What about their attack mechanism? I think the banshee can't actually kill workers as quickly as the current oracle given the way the damage is distribute, despite their DPS being identical.
Huh? Banshees 2 shot workers. How is the damage "distributed" to prevent they from killing workers quickly?
I'm having difficulty finding the exact numbers for this but the banshee's attack rate is slower than the oracles and there is a more significant period of cool down between shot fired than what is seen with the current oracle pulsar beam. A banshee needs to fire, wait and fire again whereas the oracle attack period is much shorter and once a worker dies it can immediately swap to its next target, without needing to wait for weapon fire cool down.
edit: I should also add that the oracle has a faster movement and acceleration which allows it to effectively make up the distance between targets, an area where the banshee's range would give it a hypothetical advantage.
On December 06 2012 18:31 BeyondCtrL wrote: I'm just jerking off to how smooth your upload is. I'm assuming it's 720p/60fps and a bitrate around 2.8k+? I really wish every stream was like this :<
Yeah, those are exactly my stream settings, actually
After reading some of the thoughts in this thread, I'm starting to be a little more convinced that the buff isn't horribly OP. I would still be in favor of a bit of a tone down.
I think, regardless, it's nice to have a more reliable harass unit than Phoenix, and I now have a few more ideas on how to do fun things with Skytoss. Thanks for all the feedback and helping me make sense of my initial "WTF?!??!" reaction lol
We understand, the thought of Protoss having one of the premier worker-killing units in the game is a little disorienting. It's almost like Blizzard wanted Protoss players to use their APM.
I know, right?!?! Madness!!!
On December 07 2012 04:04 ThirdDegree wrote: OT: What are the icons/counters above the minimap? I assume one is the worker count, but what are the others?
From left to right: Idle Workers, Army, Warpgates (the number reflects how many are off cooldown)
On December 06 2012 16:05 neoghaleon55 wrote: can it attack buildings anymore? I feel like early sporecrawler is a must but at the rate of which it kills workers, people might just suicide them in to rape mineral lines.... Not sure I like this either.
I belive that it can still attack buildings. In the video the hatchery is damaged by Oracles.
On December 06 2012 16:52 Fragile51 wrote: Oh shit, it's like a banshee without cloak!
...That relies on energy to attack..
I'm sorry, what is the big issue here again?
That they can deal with an entire mineral line before they run out of energy. Obviously nobody can tell if this is going to be OP since this is just one game, but if consider that Marines without Shield only have 5 more hp than Drones, i really fear what a few Oracles can do.
One thing I wonder is how much Oracles will help on defense.
That is, typically the response in WoL to seeing that a Protoss has really committed a lot of gas to Stargate is to either just go kill him (if you're Toss or Terran), or else expand like crazy with a bunch of queens and maybe some spores and know he cant really punish you well enough to stop it (Zerg).
Obviously, Oracles are way too effective at killing workers for the "mass expand with minimal adjustments" strat to work.
But what about the "just go kill him" approach? That is, if an opponent just decides to counter and go all-in with ground units, can Protoss stop them? Often in WoL, the answer was no.
But that was before Protoss got a unit that can 2 shot lings and marines and kill a Zealot in 6 seconds. And here's how they stack up against T1 anti-air (calculations based on dps for hp, and accounting that these units have higher range than the Oracle and will therefore hit first): An Oracle will only take 12 damage from a marine before it kills it. In fact, an Oracle can take on 4 marines directly and win. An Oracle kills a Queen straight up, with about 50 hp to spare--although a transfuse will even things out. An Oralce will take about 70 damage killing a Stalker
So while ideally you want to be out harassing with the Oracle, if the opponent does just decide to go all-in with ground units, the Oracle can pitch in and be quite useful. Not just by timewarping, but by attacking straight up.
Factor in the fact that Voids now deal better damage both overall and while charged, Stargate units might not leave you so vulnerable on defense.
On December 07 2012 03:27 D4V3Z02 wrote: Looks like the oracle is finally a mutalisk with forcefields.
If this is what the Oracle looks like at release, I'm calling it now - this is going to be the "Banshees are flying DTs" comment of HotS forum-trolling.
On December 07 2012 04:17 awesomoecalypse wrote: One thing I wonder is how much Oracles will help on defense.
That is, typically the response in WoL to seeing that a Protoss has really committed a lot of gas to Stargate is to either just go kill him (if you're Toss or Terran), or else expand like crazy with a bunch of queens and maybe some spores and know he cant really punish you well enough to stop it (Zerg).
Obviously, Oracles are way too effective at killing workers for the "mass expand with minimal adjustments" strat to work.
But what about the "just go kill him" approach? That is, if an opponent just decides to counter and go all-in with ground units, can Protoss stop them? Often in WoL, the answer was no.
But that was before Protoss got a unit that can 2 shot lings and marines and kill a Zealot in 6 seconds. And here's how they stack up against T1 anti-air (calculations based on dps for hp, and accounting that these units have higher range than the Oracle and will therefore hit first): An Oracle will only take 12 damage from a marine before it kills it. In fact, an Oracle can take on 4 marines directly and win. An Oracle kills a Queen straight up, with about 50 hp to spare--although a transfuse will even things out. An Oralce will take about 70 damage killing a Stalker
So while ideally you want to be out harassing with the Oracle, if the opponent does just decide to go all-in with ground units, the Oracle can pitch in and be quite useful. Not just by timewarping, but by attacking straight up.
Factor in the fact that Voids now deal better damage both overall and while charged, Stargate units might not leave you so vulnerable on defense.
Yeah, I've been coming to similar conclusion. I am super happy, and going to try to play nothing but Stargate games for at least a week or two.
It can probably be balanced by making the attack cost more energy. It only looked slightly faster than phoenixes killing workers, but oracles are more fragile and cost more.
On December 06 2012 16:52 Fragile51 wrote: Oh shit, it's like a banshee without cloak!
...That relies on energy to attack..
I'm sorry, what is the big issue here again?
Lol so true - and of course all units are still subject to balancing.... I'm not worried about how fast units kill workers at this point. Hmmm get's me thinking though. I wonder how fast 3 reapers kill workers? They don't have energy and only require a barracks with a tech lab. They might even be faster than an oracle now...
On December 06 2012 16:05 neoghaleon55 wrote: can it attack buildings anymore? I feel like early sporecrawler is a must but at the rate of which it kills workers, people might just suicide them in to rape mineral lines.... Not sure I like this either.
I belive that it can still attack buildings. In the video the hatchery is damaged by Oracles.
However, it only deals 10 damage to buildings now as opposed to the 25 damage that it originally had with the Pulsar Beam, although the new DPS may be a little more than that due to a slightly faster fire rate.
I guess it can still be used as annoying building harass now, but there are better things to spend the energy on.
This version of the Oracle is amazing, because it means you can now open with Stargate against Terran. The Oracle can harass like no tomorrow because you can't stop it very well with plain marines. You either need a turret or a bunker or widow mine to protect your mineral lines. Also, unlike the phoenix, the oracle really can help on defense against early bio pushes. I can just imagine how awesome it will be to watch them play out. Picture a small MMM group moving in, Toss has a few Oracles and Zealot/Stalker. The toss will attack with the zealots, and it is imperative for the stalkers to focus fire medivacs now that they heal like crazy. And the Oracles will come in and turn on their beam, requiring quick targeting of only marines, so as not to waste energy on marauders. At the same time, the terran will be aiming his marauders at the stalkers, and using his marines to target down the Oracles whenever they come into range as they dart in and out, toggling on and off their beam.
Just a little engagement like that has now become highly skill intensive, each side being well-rewarded for their micro. A pro will be capable of getting much more out of the Oracle than even someone in masters. I love units like this.
On December 07 2012 06:37 movac wrote: lol, whatever happen to the oracle being meant to do economic damage without actually killing workers
You could always use Time Warp on a mineral line to do pacifist economic damage, but it isn't the most efficient use of energy unless you are trying to win with pacifism.
The nice thing about the new Oracle ability is that it isn't just for killing workers. Its pretty effective against most things on the ground, and against light t1 combat units its devastating. it actually fills an important hole in Stargate play, which was that if the opponent just made a bunch of cheap tier 1 units and went to go kill you, it was very hard to defend. Its not at all one dimensional, its a unit that you can use in lots of situations all over the map.
At the same time, it fulfills Blizzard's goal of not adding to the deathball. The combo of high mobility, low range and low health means that if you just put it in a control group with your army, it will fly out ahead and get instasniped by vikings or something. Once critical mass numbers of corruptors, marines, vikings, and other anti-air are reached, its hard to get Oracles in range to attack without them dying before they do any real damage. This means that while you might want to pitch into army fights with a Time Warp here and there, by and large you'll want your Oracle away from your army, harassing and doing stuff like punishing ling runbys.
On December 07 2012 06:45 Fig wrote: This version of the Oracle is amazing, because it means you can now open with Stargate against Terran. The Oracle can harass like no tomorrow because you can't stop it very well with plain marines. You either need a turret or a bunker or widow mine to protect your mineral lines. Also, unlike the phoenix, the oracle really can help on defense against early bio pushes. I can just imagine how awesome it will be to watch them play out. Picture a small MMM group moving in, Toss has a few Oracles and Zealot/Stalker. The toss will attack with the zealots, and it is imperative for the stalkers to focus fire medivacs now that they heal like crazy. And the Oracles will come in and turn on their beam, requiring quick targeting of only marines, so as not to waste energy on marauders. At the same time, the terran will be aiming his marauders at the stalkers, and using his marines to target down the Oracles whenever they come into range as they dart in and out, toggling on and off their beam.
Just a little engagement like that has now become highly skill intensive, each side being well-rewarded for their micro. A pro will be capable of getting much more out of the Oracle than even someone in masters. I love units like this.
This is what excites me the most, and makes me think that Stargate openings will be viable in every matchup
On December 07 2012 06:45 Fig wrote: This version of the Oracle is amazing, because it means you can now open with Stargate against Terran. The Oracle can harass like no tomorrow because you can't stop it very well with plain marines. You either need a turret or a bunker or widow mine to protect your mineral lines. Also, unlike the phoenix, the oracle really can help on defense against early bio pushes. I can just imagine how awesome it will be to watch them play out. Picture a small MMM group moving in, Toss has a few Oracles and Zealot/Stalker. The toss will attack with the zealots, and it is imperative for the stalkers to focus fire medivacs now that they heal like crazy. And the Oracles will come in and turn on their beam, requiring quick targeting of only marines, so as not to waste energy on marauders. At the same time, the terran will be aiming his marauders at the stalkers, and using his marines to target down the Oracles whenever they come into range as they dart in and out, toggling on and off their beam.
Just a little engagement like that has now become highly skill intensive, each side being well-rewarded for their micro. A pro will be capable of getting much more out of the Oracle than even someone in masters. I love units like this.
This is what excites me the most, and makes me think that Stargate openings will be viable in every matchup
The real question is, will Robo still be viable in all matchups? Each race has gotten much better tools for handling Colossi--Tempests for Protoss have changed the face of PvP completely, Vipers have the potential to play absolute havoc with Colossi if handled well (and it'll be interesting to see what new Utralisk-based Zerg comps do against Protoss ground armies, as I'm not sure Protoss actually has anything on the ground built to handle them), and now Vikings share mech upgrades and Thors have a brand new attack that can hit at Colossi range and is tailor made to bring down stuff like the Colossus.
Immortals have also been given more counters: the new HSM will oneshot them, making Terran mech/air comps much more capable of dealing with Immortal-based compositions as the game stretches on, and upgraded Hydras at lair poses problems for Immortals in PvZ as well. The new Oracle attack actually does higher dps to Hardened Shields than anything but storm or emp--its a spell, so it cuts right through them and deals 15 damage at a really high rate to hardened shields, and Immortals can't return fire.
I have a feeling robo may go the way of stargate in WoL--some useful support (and in robo's case you'll always want observers, and probably some prisms too at some point), some potential for cheese and timing attacks, but basically not a tech tree that can form the backbone of a standard, go-to composition.
I, for one, am very happy about this. Robo combat units are both pretty a-move and boring, whereas the stargate units are much more apm-intensive and rewarding of precise control and lots of multitasking, plus they don't clump in a big deathball. Stargate+gateway (or even pure stargate) is way more engaging to watch than stargate+robo.
Don't really see why this is going to be 'OP for sure' - they have low HP and only 4 range.. like defending against any air attacks 1~2 spores with queens is going to shut this down hard.
The video only shows what happens if you get completely off guard, but a ton of things can do terrible damage if you are caught with your pants down. A good player is going to have spores.
On December 07 2012 06:45 Fig wrote: This version of the Oracle is amazing, because it means you can now open with Stargate against Terran. The Oracle can harass like no tomorrow because you can't stop it very well with plain marines. You either need a turret or a bunker or widow mine to protect your mineral lines. Also, unlike the phoenix, the oracle really can help on defense against early bio pushes. I can just imagine how awesome it will be to watch them play out. Picture a small MMM group moving in, Toss has a few Oracles and Zealot/Stalker. The toss will attack with the zealots, and it is imperative for the stalkers to focus fire medivacs now that they heal like crazy. And the Oracles will come in and turn on their beam, requiring quick targeting of only marines, so as not to waste energy on marauders. At the same time, the terran will be aiming his marauders at the stalkers, and using his marines to target down the Oracles whenever they come into range as they dart in and out, toggling on and off their beam.
Just a little engagement like that has now become highly skill intensive, each side being well-rewarded for their micro. A pro will be capable of getting much more out of the Oracle than even someone in masters. I love units like this.
This is what excites me the most, and makes me think that Stargate openings will be viable in every matchup
The real question is, will Robo still be viable in all matchups? Each race has gotten much better tools for handling Colossi--Tempests for Protoss have changed the face of PvP completely, Vipers have the potential to play absolute havoc with Colossi if handled well (and it'll be interesting to see what new Utralisk-based Zerg comps do against Protoss ground armies, as I'm not sure Protoss actually has anything on the ground built to handle them), and now Vikings share mech upgrades and Thors have a brand new attack that can hit at Colossi range and is tailor made to bring down stuff like the Colossus.
Immortals have also been given more counters: the new HSM will oneshot them, making Terran mech/air comps much more capable of dealing with Immortal-based compositions as the game stretches on, and upgraded Hydras at lair poses problems for Immortals in PvZ as well. The new Oracle attack actually does higher dps to Hardened Shields than anything but storm or emp--its a spell, so it cuts right through them and deals 15 damage at a really high rate to hardened shields, and Immortals can't return fire.
I have a feeling robo may go the way of stargate in WoL--some useful support (and in robo's case you'll always want observers, and probably some prisms too at some point), some potential for cheese and timing attacks, but basically not a tech tree that can form the backbone of a standard, go-to composition.
I, for one, am very happy about this. Robo combat units are both pretty a-move and boring, whereas the stargate units are much more apm-intensive and rewarding of precise control and lots of multitasking, plus they don't clump in a big deathball. Stargate+gateway (or even pure stargate) is way more engaging to watch than stargate+robo.
Pretty sure Robo/Templar will still be a better tech path against things like Bio and roach/hydra heavy Zerg armies. Against mech and some Zerg comps, Skytoss will clearly be the better choices. Who knows about PvP
I definitely agree though, Stargate is more fun to watch and play.
This might be a stupid fucking question, but would it be at all worthwhile to use an oracle at each base to time warp the workers and slow their mining? I imagine that could add up to a lot of lost resources, and would be possible without committing your oracles and getting them killed by AA.
EDIT: If they even have time warp still. Things keep changing so fast lol.
On December 07 2012 09:04 Zealot Lord wrote: Don't really see why this is going to be 'OP for sure' - they have low HP and only 4 range.. like defending against any air attacks 1~2 spores with queens is going to shut this down hard.
The video only shows what happens if you get completely off guard, but a ton of things can do terrible damage if you are caught with your pants down. A good player is going to have spores.
Yeah also they are really expensive and probably kill at a similar rate as phoenixes. However the Oracle will be more energy efficient.
On December 07 2012 09:14 ayaz2810 wrote: This might be a stupid fucking question, but would it be at all worthwhile to use an oracle at each base to time warp the workers and slow their mining? I imagine that could add up to a lot of lost resources, and would be possible without committing your oracles and getting them killed by AA.
EDIT: If they even have time warp still. Things keep changing so fast lol.
not a stupid question at all timewarp slows mining down so you lose about 100 minerals in mining.....NOT worth it at all. It doesnt actually slow the mining down just the movement from the patch to your command center
On December 07 2012 09:14 ayaz2810 wrote: This might be a stupid fucking question, but would it be at all worthwhile to use an oracle at each base to time warp the workers and slow their mining? I imagine that could add up to a lot of lost resources, and would be possible without committing your oracles and getting them killed by AA.
EDIT: If they even have time warp still. Things keep changing so fast lol.
not a stupid question at all timewarp slows mining down so you lose about 100 minerals in mining.....NOT worth it at all. It doesnt actually slow the mining down just the movement from the patch to your command center
Ewww that's definitely not what I was hoping for haha. Appreciate the prompt response!! Thanks!
i think the +10 to light should be a upgrade, a flying spell caster unit shouldn't be able to nuke workers like that and also cast amazing spells, i wish auto turrets killed workers that fast.
On December 07 2012 09:32 EleanorRIgby wrote: i think the +10 to light should be a upgrade, a flying spell caster unit shouldn't be able to nuke workers like that and also cast amazing spells, i wish auto turrets killed workers that fast.
i actually think this will happen for sure....Its just hard to justify putting it on the fleet beacon which it is most likely to go 300 200 for beacon and 100 100 for upgrade? ouch....thats a bit steep....or maybe the bonus to light unlocks when fleet beacon is on the field
On December 07 2012 09:32 EleanorRIgby wrote: i think the +10 to light should be a upgrade, a flying spell caster unit shouldn't be able to nuke workers like that and also cast amazing spells, i wish auto turrets killed workers that fast.
I agree with this, or at least just decrease the +10 to +5.
On December 07 2012 09:32 EleanorRIgby wrote: i think the +10 to light should be a upgrade, a flying spell caster unit shouldn't be able to nuke workers like that and also cast amazing spells, i wish auto turrets killed workers that fast.
I think this is a good thing. They can scale it back if they need to.
Protoss now has many options of openings, and, with the power of air units as well as faster DT's and blink stalkers with MsC, there will be a lesser reliance on ff's.
Imagine someone flew in with 3 Banshees, the exact same thing could happen. Not to mention if they had Cloak. That's really not that scary. They might increase it's build time a bit if it becomes really strong to rush them out, but it only does ~50% more the damage of a banshee for 50% more the gas cost, and it's damage is limited by it's energy pool. So yeah, I think you are just catching someone unprepared.
On December 07 2012 13:50 ZjiublingZ wrote: Imagine someone flew in with 3 Banshees, the exact same thing could happen. Not to mention if they had Cloak. That's really not that scary. They might increase it's build time a bit if it becomes really strong to rush them out, but it only does ~50% more the damage of a banshee for 50% more the gas cost, and it's damage is limited by it's energy pool. So yeah, I think you are just catching someone unprepared.
The thing is the Banshee can never be more than a pure damage dealer and thus is a rather expensive piece of endangered hardware from mid-game on (unless your opponent refuses to build AA units of course), but the Oracle still has its other spells which are really useful mid and late game. Thus the attack of the Oracle should be less powerful than that of the Banshee ... significantly/noticeably ... because of this extra utility and the ground attack is primarily useful for fast harrassment early, which gives the surviving Oracles the chance to get enough energy back to be of use from far away later on.
The oracle is still made of paper, played around with 2 oracle openers for a few games, they usually kill off a couple workers before being repelled and that's it. You can keep poking and getting more from time to time but don't expect the effectiveness of hellion drops.
You can't really use them in fights with anti-air because of how fragile they are, you have to time warp and get them out of there. They're also 3 supply each and 150/150, more expensive than a banshee. They run out of energy fast too.
After playing a bunch of games tonight, people were shutting down/reacting to Oracle harass fairly well. If you prepare like you would for banshees, you're mostly pretty well off. I was surprised how well 2 oracles fight off packs of marines, though.
It's still a good lead off to get some harass done and scout out what's going on, then go from there.
So I was curious about how well the oracle could be used in a straight up fight. I'm in the unit tester now and testing with 0 micro from both sides. So far I've found:
Oracle vs Hydra: Oracle seems to always win a 1:1 fight (supply wise) with hydras. The oracles were 1 armor 1 shield, hydras were 1 weapon 1 armor. Even against 3 weapon 3 armor hydras (and 3 armor+3 shield oracles) the oracles win with 30 supply left out of a 48 supply start.
Oracle vs Marine: With 33 supply of oracles 0/0 vs 33 supply of marines 0/0 (combat shield+stim) the oracles won with 6 supply left. With 3 armor 3 shield oracles vs 3/3 marines (shield+stim) and both at 102 supply, the oracles win with 22 supply left.
Oracles vs Marine+Medvac: With 81 supply each, 3 shield 3 armor oracles vs 3/3 marines (shield+stim) and 5 medvacs (no upgrade) the oracles won with 16 supply left. With the same values BUT the medvac upgrade, the marines barely win with 3 marines left.
So obviously the biggest thing is oracles cost a LOT more than any of these other units. Still for the most part they win by a massive landslide which means that air toss might be a possibility. It's cool to see that they are so strong against T1+T2 light units.
The biggest thing is it seems like the oracle doesn't benefit from weapon upgrades so they aren't going to be as strong in a fully upgraded fight. They seem perfectly good though (A lot better than I thought) in a straight up fight though early.
On December 07 2012 17:04 Nadril wrote: So I was curious about how well the oracle could be used in a straight up fight. I'm in the unit tester now and testing with 0 micro from both sides. So far I've found:
Oracle vs Hydra: Oracle seems to always win a 1:1 fight (supply wise) with hydras. The oracles were 1 armor 1 shield, hydras were 1 weapon 1 armor. Even against 3 weapon 3 armor hydras (and 3 armor+3 shield oracles) the oracles win with 30 supply left out of a 48 supply start.
Oracle vs Marine: With 33 supply of oracles 0/0 vs 33 supply of marines 0/0 (combat shield+stim) the oracles won with 6 supply left. With 3 armor 3 shield oracles vs 3/3 marines (shield+stim) and both at 102 supply, the oracles win with 22 supply left.
Oracles vs Marine+Medvac: With 81 supply each, 3 shield 3 armor oracles vs 3/3 marines (shield+stim) and 5 medvacs (no upgrade) the oracles won with 16 supply left. With the same values BUT the medvac upgrade, the marines barely win with 3 marines left.
So obviously the biggest thing is oracles cost a LOT more than any of these other units. Still for the most part they win by a massive landslide which means that air toss might be a possibility. It's cool to see that they are so strong against T1+T2 light units.
The biggest thing is it seems like the oracle doesn't benefit from weapon upgrades so they aren't going to be as strong in a fully upgraded fight. They seem perfectly good though (A lot better than I thought) in a straight up fight though early.
That's great, I think. Late game you could switch them to a time warp role.
On December 07 2012 17:04 Nadril wrote: So I was curious about how well the oracle could be used in a straight up fight. I'm in the unit tester now and testing with 0 micro from both sides. So far I've found:
Oracle vs Hydra: Oracle seems to always win a 1:1 fight (supply wise) with hydras. The oracles were 1 armor 1 shield, hydras were 1 weapon 1 armor. Even against 3 weapon 3 armor hydras (and 3 armor+3 shield oracles) the oracles win with 30 supply left out of a 48 supply start.
Oracle vs Marine: With 33 supply of oracles 0/0 vs 33 supply of marines 0/0 (combat shield+stim) the oracles won with 6 supply left. With 3 armor 3 shield oracles vs 3/3 marines (shield+stim) and both at 102 supply, the oracles win with 22 supply left.
Oracles vs Marine+Medvac: With 81 supply each, 3 shield 3 armor oracles vs 3/3 marines (shield+stim) and 5 medvacs (no upgrade) the oracles won with 16 supply left. With the same values BUT the medvac upgrade, the marines barely win with 3 marines left.
So obviously the biggest thing is oracles cost a LOT more than any of these other units. Still for the most part they win by a massive landslide which means that air toss might be a possibility. It's cool to see that they are so strong against T1+T2 light units.
The biggest thing is it seems like the oracle doesn't benefit from weapon upgrades so they aren't going to be as strong in a fully upgraded fight. They seem perfectly good though (A lot better than I thought) in a straight up fight though early.
That's great, I think. Late game you could switch them to a time warp role.
Yeah. It seems like you can use them early and mid game for harass and for just fighting head-on with these early T1/T2 light units, and then as you phase them out for carriers, tempests and void rays (I tested and void rays demolish corruptors atm) you can use them as a time warp unit (and still harassment too) which would let you micro more efficiently with the carrier.
On December 07 2012 17:04 Nadril wrote: So I was curious about how well the oracle could be used in a straight up fight. I'm in the unit tester now and testing with 0 micro from both sides. So far I've found:
Oracle vs Hydra: Oracle seems to always win a 1:1 fight (supply wise) with hydras. The oracles were 1 armor 1 shield, hydras were 1 weapon 1 armor. Even against 3 weapon 3 armor hydras (and 3 armor+3 shield oracles) the oracles win with 30 supply left out of a 48 supply start.
Oracle vs Marine: With 33 supply of oracles 0/0 vs 33 supply of marines 0/0 (combat shield+stim) the oracles won with 6 supply left. With 3 armor 3 shield oracles vs 3/3 marines (shield+stim) and both at 102 supply, the oracles win with 22 supply left.
Oracles vs Marine+Medvac: With 81 supply each, 3 shield 3 armor oracles vs 3/3 marines (shield+stim) and 5 medvacs (no upgrade) the oracles won with 16 supply left. With the same values BUT the medvac upgrade, the marines barely win with 3 marines left.
So obviously the biggest thing is oracles cost a LOT more than any of these other units. Still for the most part they win by a massive landslide which means that air toss might be a possibility. It's cool to see that they are so strong against T1+T2 light units.
The biggest thing is it seems like the oracle doesn't benefit from weapon upgrades so they aren't going to be as strong in a fully upgraded fight. They seem perfectly good though (A lot better than I thought) in a straight up fight though early.
Supply-efficiency definitely plays a part in the lategame. In the earlygame/midgame, however, cost-efficiency is much more important. I would personally like to know how Oracles fare against Hydras, cost for cost.
Chances are, Hydras are more cost-effective (Oracles - 150 gas, Hydras - 50 gas), more versatile (as in Hydras deal good dps vs. armored), and they are a Zerg unit (which means Zergs can pump out 20 at a time and their build time isn't that high).
Same with Marines, I would gladly trade 100 Marines for 30 Oracles because Marines are Minerals... if I build 100 Marines, what about my gas? I could be amassing an army of Tanks/Ghosts/Vikings/Thors/Banshees/BCs/Ravens as my main army and Marines are my mineral dump... on the other hand, Protoss cannot afford to lose the gas cost of Oracles. Oracles are not expendable.
Of course you shouldnt use them to go head on vs a ball of marines. However they got their own advantages, mainly being fast and being a flying unit. Combine that they do quite reasonable against for example marines, and the result is a that if you bring just a handful of marines to defend against them they will get killed. And they can for example kill reinforcements.
If you considered the same cost with just oracles alone vs hydras (or any other unit really), yeah, the cheap unit would win. I think that is kind of true to a lot of units though in all honesty.
The big deal with it is that it is a harassment unit that isn't going to make you incredibly weak to some T1/T2 timing. It means you can buy a lot of time harassing, without worrying about having to try and force some kind of base trade.
It's a really fast unit, and it's still got a very useful ability in time warp.
I also think that ideally you would be building zealots alongside of this unit. with time warp slowing down the enemy units I think that zealot+oracle could be a very cost effective composition against early units from T/Z.
This is all just theory though. I really need to play some games and see how it works out. Obviously air toss is going to be a more expensive army, like Terran mech. The key will be to see if we can have the same defensive capabilities with it (or at least, be able to delay your opponent enough through harass) so that you can build up a bunch of void rays or carriers or tempests or w/e.
There's no way you can mass oracles and win - at least against Zerg. They're too frail and too expensive to be able to stall a Zerg economy, which means that the Zerg can just get way ahead and out macro you. They do kill workers really fast and are great at doing that, but if Zerg prepare accordingly then you are relying on Time Warp to make the investment worth it. This is ignoring the fact that they have terrible acceleration and are really really difficult to control as a result.
The viability of airtoss is interesting - the +1 range on Phoenixes feel reeeally nice. Harassing is many times easier which is great. Muta vs phoenix is fairly balanced as well, until phoenix get +2 range. Void ray with their charge could have some potential to bring back Stalker/VR PvT busts. Also they dominate corruptors really hard. Fungal, still, is the biggest enemy of both Phoenix and VRs though.
Protoss can finally Harass in PvZ without Warp Prism Huzzah! Not sure how good it will be vs Terran but This is so fucking amazing. It will be nerfed a bit.
On December 07 2012 17:04 Nadril wrote: So I was curious about how well the oracle could be used in a straight up fight. I'm in the unit tester now and testing with 0 micro from both sides. So far I've found:
Oracle vs Hydra: Oracle seems to always win a 1:1 fight (supply wise) with hydras. The oracles were 1 armor 1 shield, hydras were 1 weapon 1 armor. Even against 3 weapon 3 armor hydras (and 3 armor+3 shield oracles) the oracles win with 30 supply left out of a 48 supply start.
Oracle vs Marine: With 33 supply of oracles 0/0 vs 33 supply of marines 0/0 (combat shield+stim) the oracles won with 6 supply left. With 3 armor 3 shield oracles vs 3/3 marines (shield+stim) and both at 102 supply, the oracles win with 22 supply left.
Oracles vs Marine+Medvac: With 81 supply each, 3 shield 3 armor oracles vs 3/3 marines (shield+stim) and 5 medvacs (no upgrade) the oracles won with 16 supply left. With the same values BUT the medvac upgrade, the marines barely win with 3 marines left.
So obviously the biggest thing is oracles cost a LOT more than any of these other units. Still for the most part they win by a massive landslide which means that air toss might be a possibility. It's cool to see that they are so strong against T1+T2 light units.
The biggest thing is it seems like the oracle doesn't benefit from weapon upgrades so they aren't going to be as strong in a fully upgraded fight. They seem perfectly good though (A lot better than I thought) in a straight up fight though early.
Wow, that is pretty amazing. Something that is not dealing AoE damage, and is trading greatly with Marines with the same supply! Of course, cost is much higher, but it is still pretty cool.
I was thinking about something. I am not Protoss player, so I don't know the timings, but, could you go for Oracle + Zealot timing attack together with Mothership core at the start? Just Imagine, even without speed, Zealots would be hard to kite because of Time Warp, and Oracles can deal a ton of damage together with Zealots to the Marines. If Marines are focusing Zealots, Oracles melt them, and if they focus Oracles, Zealots shred them, even though, Oracles are tougher than Mutas, have a bit higher range, so won't die that fast, and are themselves pretty fast, you could be dancing with them over Zealots, and constantly pick up Marines. I imagine, the only problem that early could be the Widow Mines, and you could get 1-2 Stalkers, with Mothership core to clean them.
Well, this discussion has definitely trailed away from the original post. Perhaps I'll make a different one discussing potential uses of the unit later today. Could use a couple of replays from people that actually remember how to play (really can't let myself take 2 weeks of playing anymore, sheesh) to have some beginning talking points.
Tried a few games with oracle opening and think they pretty useless. They take around 2 seconds before they activate the beam which gives smart opponent all the time in the world to run away with the workers, you can't control the beam at all so only thing the opponent need to do is build 2 missile turrets/spores and the beam will attack the turrets. Not only that they cost 3 food 150/150.
Only good thing is they kill workers pretty fast.
Blizzard gonna need to rework stargate play because I still think it will be pretty rare openers as we see now in wings of liberty.
Edit: Actually after testing it further you can instant attack by activating the beam than attack move also you target down target you want, so you can actually control the beam. Things I said was actually wrong XD.
One thing that people havn't taken into account is how fast these things use up energy. If you manage to catch your opponents offgaurd, you are left open to a huge counter attack since your oracles are know paperweights until they get a decent amount of energy back. Harras / fighting potential is severely limited as a result.
Yeah I did some tests and I'm also shocked at how fast energy depletes. Considering that in a real game the last 1-2 of them are going to be next to useless after a couple seconds.. It's nice that they're doing well against ground light units ( especially marines and zerglings ) but if you have no energy left they're useless, and it takes a considerable amount of time to get back to a good amount of energy..
On December 07 2012 23:28 Nyast wrote: Yeah I did some tests and I'm also shocked at how fast energy depletes. Considering that in a real game the last 1-2 of them are going to be next to useless after a couple seconds.. It's nice that they're doing well against ground light units ( especially marines and zerglings ) but if you have no energy left they're useless, and it takes a considerable amount of time to get back to a good amount of energy..
I indeed think they do spent energy a little bit too fast. Perhaps they could try out 3 energy instead of 4. Which I see them probably doing.
On December 07 2012 17:04 Nadril wrote: So I was curious about how well the oracle could be used in a straight up fight. I'm in the unit tester now and testing with 0 micro from both sides. So far I've found:
Oracle vs Hydra: Oracle seems to always win a 1:1 fight (supply wise) with hydras. The oracles were 1 armor 1 shield, hydras were 1 weapon 1 armor. Even against 3 weapon 3 armor hydras (and 3 armor+3 shield oracles) the oracles win with 30 supply left out of a 48 supply start.
Oracle vs Marine: With 33 supply of oracles 0/0 vs 33 supply of marines 0/0 (combat shield+stim) the oracles won with 6 supply left. With 3 armor 3 shield oracles vs 3/3 marines (shield+stim) and both at 102 supply, the oracles win with 22 supply left.
Oracles vs Marine+Medvac: With 81 supply each, 3 shield 3 armor oracles vs 3/3 marines (shield+stim) and 5 medvacs (no upgrade) the oracles won with 16 supply left. With the same values BUT the medvac upgrade, the marines barely win with 3 marines left.
So obviously the biggest thing is oracles cost a LOT more than any of these other units. Still for the most part they win by a massive landslide which means that air toss might be a possibility. It's cool to see that they are so strong against T1+T2 light units.
The biggest thing is it seems like the oracle doesn't benefit from weapon upgrades so they aren't going to be as strong in a fully upgraded fight. They seem perfectly good though (A lot better than I thought) in a straight up fight though early.
All you're really saying is that a 150/150/3 unit is really supply-efficient. You can also A-move 50 mutalisks into 50 hydras and win, but that doesn't mean that Mutas beat Hydras.
That said, against light units the Oracle appears to perform at least as well as Banshees, and it has a considerably faster movement speed. It is much much worse than Banshees vs. turrets and spores.
i think the oracle is really really well designed right now
it has a powerful ability for early game that gives you incentive to open with them but doesnt scale with upgrades and thus get less and less powerful later on
for later game though it has a good synergy-ability with timewarp if you have the APM to use it
all in all toss skill ceiling is shaping up to be ridiculously high compared to WoL. different control groups for MsC, army, templars, oracles, tempests, phoenix, and so many abilities to use in a big fight. this might even make deathballs crashing into each other very entertaining to watch (and extremely apm-intense to play) because there are so many abilities in play
How does the speed of the Oracle compare to the Banshee?
The video made me think of 3 Banshees in a mineral line which would do a ton of damage too. As long as the unit isn't too fast, and isn't too beefy (Oracle is pretty fragile) then I think it's fine.
Time warp and forcefield is a crazy combination that basically forces the enemy to commit to an attack or get wiped out, especially devastating in PvT. I think the Oracle could stand to have it DPS reduced a little, at the moment that beam looks silly, it kills stuff so fast you don't even see the animation, the workers just explode...
On December 08 2012 00:27 ShamW0W wrote: How does the speed of the Oracle compare to the Banshee?
The video made me think of 3 Banshees in a mineral line which would do a ton of damage too. As long as the unit isn't too fast, and isn't too beefy (Oracle is pretty fragile) then I think it's fine.
I play Zerg fwiw.
The attack speed + DPS are way too high at the moment, the speed is also a lot faster than banshee (3.375 to 2.75).
A banshee 2 shots probes, but takes double the time to do it, Oracles 2 shot probes and instantly target and shoot another probe.
I think the ideal DPS would be 10 (+5 vs light) with the current attack rate or lower the attack rate by quite a bit, in the ability's current state it basically makes time warp irrelevant until large battles occur, when Blizzard designed it to be a worker harassment spell.
have to say, the orical is the hardest peice of shit to use... its so hard to make it worth while... and after the opening they can be shut down with ease and then are totally useless... wasted supply...
phonex are FAR better at being able to deal damage and use to harass...
On December 08 2012 00:27 ShamW0W wrote: How does the speed of the Oracle compare to the Banshee?
The video made me think of 3 Banshees in a mineral line which would do a ton of damage too. As long as the unit isn't too fast, and isn't too beefy (Oracle is pretty fragile) then I think it's fine.
I play Zerg fwiw.
Oracle has more HP than Banshee, and is faster than Banshee btw. Banshee HP: 140, Oracle HP/Shield: 100/60.
On December 08 2012 00:50 baldgye wrote: have to say, the orical is the hardest peice of shit to use... its so hard to make it worth while... and after the opening they can be shut down with ease and then are totally useless... wasted supply...
phonex are FAR better at being able to deal damage and use to harass...
What about time warp? Why can't you utilize that in late-game?
EDIT: The overall opinion in this thread I'm seeing is that oracle does too much damage and is too fragile/hard to work into the deathball.
Apart from the high damage, I think this is a good thing, it'll increase the skill ceiling of Protoss by a lot.
On December 08 2012 00:20 summerloud wrote: i think the oracle is really really well designed right now
it has a powerful ability for early game that gives you incentive to open with them but doesnt scale with upgrades and thus get less and less powerful later on
for later game though it has a good synergy-ability with timewarp if you have the APM to use it
all in all toss skill ceiling is shaping up to be ridiculously high compared to WoL. different control groups for MsC, army, templars, oracles, tempests, phoenix, and so many abilities to use in a big fight. this might even make deathballs crashing into each other very entertaining to watch (and extremely apm-intense to play) because there are so many abilities in play
Overall, I agree...
but one thing, even though Oracles don't scale with upgrades, they also ignore all armor (including hardened shields and guardian shield). So while they don't scale with upgrade, they kinda don't have to. They deal the same damage to a unit with 3 armor that they deal to one with no armor.
As an old BW player, (haven't played HoTS) I think the obvious comparison of this new Oracle is simple: It's a Reaver.
Reavers had high DPS, were great at worker harass, and pretty much destroyed any stray low HP units that were being kept around for defense. Zergs and Terrans were forced to build 2 spores/turrets and keep a few delaying in units in reserve to slow down that rush, and even then might lose 3-4 workers. The drawback was that if you didn't do enough damage with it, then you were behind in bases or economy. Reavers, however, provided a decent defensive option if the drop failed, and meant having a shuttle around for future harass. I'm not sure if Oracle's utility after a failed rush is there or not in the midgame.
Even the "uses energy" mechanic for the attack is sort of similar to the required micro and maintenance of making scarabs for your Reaver. As an old BW player, I highly approve of the changes to the Oracle.
On December 08 2012 00:50 baldgye wrote: have to say, the orical is the hardest peice of shit to use... its so hard to make it worth while... and after the opening they can be shut down with ease and then are totally useless... wasted supply...
phonex are FAR better at being able to deal damage and use to harass...
What about time warp? Why can't you utilize that in late-game?
EDIT: The overall opinion in this thread I'm seeing is that oracle does too much damage and is too fragile/hard to work into the deathball.
Apart from the high damage, I think this is a good thing, it'll increase the skill ceiling of Protoss by a lot.
you can but its a waste of time... spend the gas on phonex can you can snipe overlords and tank dmg from vikings... oricals are weak as shit, hard to even get them to attack and shutdown with either one turret or a spore and a queen... hell have one mine, one mine in your mineral line and you can one shot them...
They are as useful as banshee's without cloak and that you have to spend about 50apm on them just so they wil start attacking, as attack move more often than not just moves them to a location, and there new ability isn't selectiable like before so they just fly to a mineral line and then sit there while you try and get them to attack, and ofc everytime they move they can't attack...
I'm on the fence. Early game oracle harass (in zvp) can be incredibly potent since they deal with low amounts of queens well.
But my games after that entered a really cool dynamic where I was constantly forced to pressure with my roach/hydra army or else the oracles would come in and zap my mineral fields all day. Even though I was getting some horrendous trades (12 hydralisks killed by 6 oracles without suffering any losses), I was trading oracle energy for army, so I was eventually able to overrun him.
The high energy cost to pulsar beam seems to balance out how monstrous oracles are to ground units. I think the only questionable point is how potent they are with early harass since zerg can't get serious AA until hydras.
I don't have an issue with the balance, because there have been so many changes recently, who knows?
It kills workers about 50% faster than the Banshee, for reference.
It's not that this is necessarily broken, but I really thought we were supposed to be straying from the whole "harass=coin flippy harvester genocide" concept and moving towards "soft harass" where the opponent does not just outright die.
Idea: maybe time warp should actually increase the amount of time it takes for a worker to mine a mineral patch, instead of only affecting the move speed.
On December 08 2012 01:10 LavaLava wrote: I don't have an issue with the balance, because there have been so many changes recently, who knows?
It kills workers about 50% faster than the Banshee, for reference.
It's not that this is necessarily broken, but I really thought we were supposed to be straying from the whole "harass=coin flippy harvester genocide" concept and moving towards "soft harass" where the opponent does not just outright die.
Idea: maybe time warp should actually increase the amount of time it takes for a worker to mine a mineral patch, instead of only affecting the move speed.
Perhaps they need a slight charge up time... again, the DPS is just too high at the moment, but once it reaches a level where it looks sensible and still is very powerful, that's when it'll be in an ideal state.
For reference, a banshee does 24 damage per attack, and a cooldown of 1.25, so does 19.2 DPS, whereas an oracle in it's current state deals 25 damage per attack with an attack cooldown of 1 (according to the tooltip). Which kills 1 probe per second, so 4 oracles can clear a fully saturated worker line in 6 seconds.
The sheer reaction speed needed to defend against that is completely insane, and if you have nothing close they will kill absolutely every worker and still be able to join the main deathball to use time warp.
Also can someone confirm whether or not there is a delay when switching targets? The attack deals 25 damage to light per second, but there is no cooldown, unlike the banshee, so that could be the reason it destroys worker lines so fast at the moment.
On December 08 2012 01:10 LavaLava wrote:Idea: maybe time warp should actually increase the amount of time it takes for a worker to mine a mineral patch, instead of only affecting the move speed.
The problems with that (and with the mineral barriers) are:
(1) It's all or nothing or alternatively, there's no room for micro to shine. (2) The damage done is not obvious to the player or the spectator.
Killing stuff requires more micro (targeting individual units, balancing energy usage) and it's clear that the damage is done.
On December 08 2012 01:24 InoyouS2 wrote: Also can someone confirm whether or not there is a delay when switching targets? The attack deals 25 damage to light per second, but there is no cooldown, unlike the banshee, so that could be the reason it destroys worker lines so fast at the moment.
Nope, it's like a VR charge beam, and that's a good observation to make. Once you hit the critical mass of oracles to instantly disintegrate workers, then you can shift-click through them all very quickly.
On December 08 2012 01:24 InoyouS2 wrote: Also can someone confirm whether or not there is a delay when switching targets? The attack deals 25 damage to light per second, but there is no cooldown, unlike the banshee, so that could be the reason it destroys worker lines so fast at the moment.
Nope, it's like a VR charge beam, and that's a good observation to make. Once you hit the critical mass of oracles to instantly disintegrate workers, then you can shift-click through them all very quickly.
Ah, good to know, so that is probably why they seem to do such extreme damage.
losing 15 workers to 4 hellions...I dont know, call me crazy but I think its fine that protoss gets a great early game harassment unit finally, Especially since it is 150 gas per unit. I know people like to compare them to banshee but imo I think we should realize that 2 oracles = 3 banshee gas cost wise. I say thats a better assessment
the problem with comparing them to banshee's though, is that late game they have so little application... and the slow down mechanic dsnt really do much at all...
the biggest problem with it is that there is still no good harassment unit for protoss other than the phonex... which still isn't that great either...
On December 08 2012 01:36 SuperYo1000 wrote: losing 15 workers to 4 hellions...I dont know, call me crazy but I think its fine that protoss gets a great early game harassment unit finally, Especially since it is 150 gas per unit. I know people like to compare them to banshee but imo I think we should realize that 2 oracles = 3 banshee gas cost wise. I say thats a better assessment
Honestly if they just gave Protoss a big yellow Banshee I still wouldn't like it, because I feel that we need lower DPS in this game.
For reference, a banshee does 24 damage per attack, and a cooldown of 1.25, so does 19.2 DPS, whereas an oracle in it's current state deals 25 damage per attack with an attack cooldown of 1 (according to the tooltip). Which kills 1 probe per second, so 4 oracles can clear a fully saturated worker line in 6 seconds
Banshees cost 50 less gas, and have 50% more range, and can be upgraded with cloak.
I dunno, the tradeoffs seem pretty reasonable:
Banshee - cheaper, higher range, cloaked Oracle - most expensive, lower range and can't cloak, but gets higher dps, higher speed, gets support spells
For reference, a banshee does 24 damage per attack, and a cooldown of 1.25, so does 19.2 DPS, whereas an oracle in it's current state deals 25 damage per attack with an attack cooldown of 1 (according to the tooltip). Which kills 1 probe per second, so 4 oracles can clear a fully saturated worker line in 6 seconds
Banshees cost 50 less gas, and have 50% more range, and can be upgraded with cloak.
I dunno, the tradeoffs seem pretty reasonable:
Banshee - cheaper, higher range, cloaked Oracle - most expensive, lower range and can't cloak, but gets higher dps, higher speed, gets support spells
we should also note that oracle cant attack indefinitely. It basically has an attack duration
On December 08 2012 01:48 baldgye wrote: i'd rather have a spell like entomb, that works like a projectile for slowing down workers or something...
lol god no. Entomb sucked. Pacifist harass doesn't work. Even if it can be balanced, there's no interesting micro by either the attacker or defender, and since the damage it does is all invisible rather than directly killing shit, there's no wow moment for spectators or satisfaction for the attacker. Its just boring.
For reference, a banshee does 24 damage per attack, and a cooldown of 1.25, so does 19.2 DPS, whereas an oracle in it's current state deals 25 damage per attack with an attack cooldown of 1 (according to the tooltip). Which kills 1 probe per second, so 4 oracles can clear a fully saturated worker line in 6 seconds
Banshees cost 50 less gas, and have 50% more range, and can be upgraded with cloak.
I dunno, the tradeoffs seem pretty reasonable:
Banshee - cheaper, higher range, cloaked Oracle - most expensive, lower range and can't cloak, but gets higher dps, higher speed, gets support spells
Don't forget cloak costs 200/200, so relative cost of the banshee in a realistic situation is higher. The oracle doesn't need to upgrade anything.
I would say reduce the damage to light by 5-10 so that it no longer kills workers in 2 ticks, that should also make it look a lot nicer than what the OP linked.
On December 08 2012 01:48 baldgye wrote: i'd rather have a spell like entomb, that works like a projectile for slowing down workers or something...
lol god no. Entomb sucked. Pacifist harass doesn't work. Even if it can be balanced, there's no interesting micro by either the attacker or defender, and since the damage it does is all invisible rather than directly killing shit, there's no wow moment for spectators or satisfaction for the attacker. Its just boring.
really? so everything has to die otherwise its boring?? entomb was bad becasue it was a shift que move that required no skill... i'd rather have the ability to use oricals to harass and do passsive dmg to force the guy to micro rather than ohh sorry u didnt have a turret u have no workers looool....
On December 08 2012 01:52 InoyouS2 wrote: Also can someone explain why those oracles killed the queen so damn quick? Last I checked queens aren't light.
how many oracles we talking about? 2? 3? 4?.....banshees can kill queens without even taking damage aswell. that being said I can easily see its damage being changed to 10 +15 to light instead of 15 +10 to light
Edit: oops your refering to video of 3 oracles, ok, well thats basicially 3 cloaked banshees or 4 uncloaked banshees (gas wise) queens die quickly
On December 08 2012 01:52 InoyouS2 wrote: Also can someone explain why those oracles killed the queen so damn quick? Last I checked queens aren't light.
15 dmg x 3 oracke, only needs 4 ticks to kill .
Def will be nerfed soon, dps is too high. Also, does this energy attack bypass armor?
really? so everything has to die otherwise its boring?? entomb was bad becasue it was a shift que move that required no skill... i'd rather have the ability to use oricals to harass and do passsive dmg to force the guy to micro rather than ohh sorry u didnt have a turret u have no workers looool....
Shit not dying is boring, yes. When units deal economic "damage" by delaying mining without actually hurting anything, all the damage is invisible. Units that hypothetically would have been built in some other game will not be built in this one. There's no actual event to get excited for, and its fairly unintuitive to figure out how much real damage has actually been dealt--when 5 workers are killed, the impact is immediately clear. When 5 workers are delayed from mining for a while and then resume, the impact is much murkier for spectators, and much less satisfying for the harassing player.
So, yes, harassment should involve dealing damage.
On December 08 2012 01:52 InoyouS2 wrote: Also can someone explain why those oracles killed the queen so damn quick? Last I checked queens aren't light.
how many oracles we talking about? 2? 3? 4?.....banshees can kill queens without even taking damage aswell. that being said I can easily see its damage being changed to 10 +15 to light instead of 15 +10 to light
Edit: oops your refering to video of 3 oracles, ok, well thats basicially 3 cloaked banshees or 4 uncloaked banshees (gas wise) queens die quickly
3 cloaked banshees cost 500 gas, and they don't have any other abilities, whereas oracles do. That comparison is pushing it IMO, the damage is way too high compared to banshees at the moment.
I would agree that the dps vs workers is pretty insane, but it is kind of a given that with such huge changes there are going to be some op units,I forsee the dps getting pulled back slightly, but scouting getting spores and turrets up in time should be able do decently well against this
On December 08 2012 01:52 InoyouS2 wrote: Also can someone explain why those oracles killed the queen so damn quick? Last I checked queens aren't light.
15 dmg x 3 oracke, only needs 4 ticks to kill .
Def will be nerfed soon, dps is too high. Also, does this energy attack bypass armor?
Yes. It seems to bypass armor. Testing it on marines, with 0 armor vs. 3 armor, their health chunks down in ticks of 25 regardless. The only thing that affects their survivability vs. oracles is combat shield which lets them live for 3 ticks instead of 2.
On December 08 2012 01:52 InoyouS2 wrote: Also can someone explain why those oracles killed the queen so damn quick? Last I checked queens aren't light.
how many oracles we talking about? 2? 3? 4?.....banshees can kill queens without even taking damage aswell. that being said I can easily see its damage being changed to 10 +15 to light instead of 15 +10 to light
Edit: oops your refering to video of 3 oracles, ok, well thats basicially 3 cloaked banshees or 4 uncloaked banshees (gas wise) queens die quickly
3 cloaked banshees cost 500 gas, and they don't have any other abilities, whereas oracles do. That comparison is pushing it IMO, the damage is way too high compared to banshees at the moment.
But the Oracle's other abilities compete for energy with its attack. A single Oracle has a lot less utility than you're letting on. It's attack is powerful, but limited by energy. A Banshee is only slightly less powerful and a little slower, but can attack indefinitely and cloak.
It's not a matter of what's imbalanced or balanced, but that there are tradeoffs involved in each unit, which is exactly how it should be. The two units are not directly comparable. The question is not if Oracle's are too strong relative to Banshees, but if they're too strong period.
On December 08 2012 02:13 Morton wrote: I would agree that the dps vs workers is pretty insane, but it is kind of a given that with such huge changes there are going to be some op units,I forsee the dps getting pulled back slightly, but scouting getting spores and turrets up in time should be able do decently well against this
The unit is also capped at the amount of damage it can do. Once it is out of enegry, its a flying paperweight until it gets enough to do damage again. Also, it will be no help if a zerg goes hydras in response to a stargate, since the protoss's ground army at that time will be garbage.
I think zergs will respond to them much the same way protoss respond to mutas: Saying "Oh thats the game we are playing, huh? I've dealt with this before."
On December 08 2012 02:13 Morton wrote: I would agree that the dps vs workers is pretty insane, but it is kind of a given that with such huge changes there are going to be some op units,I forsee the dps getting pulled back slightly, but scouting getting spores and turrets up in time should be able do decently well against this
Well, since Spores have 1 armor, Oracles and Banshees actually have almost the same exact DPS versus the Spores. So if you get 4 Oracles they can really quickly snipe spores. Like in 5 seconds.
On December 08 2012 02:13 Morton wrote: I would agree that the dps vs workers is pretty insane, but it is kind of a given that with such huge changes there are going to be some op units,I forsee the dps getting pulled back slightly, but scouting getting spores and turrets up in time should be able do decently well against this
Well, since Spores have 1 armor, Oracles and Banshees actually have almost the same exact DPS versus the Spores. So if you get 4 Oracles they can really quickly snipe spores. Like in 5 seconds.
4 Oracles costs 600/600 and 200 seconds of build time (not counting CB). An investment like that should be scary.
that was 450/450/9 resources invested into that harass. zerg and terran can do the same damage, if not more, with the same amount of resources. like always, people are overreacting.
On December 08 2012 01:52 InoyouS2 wrote: Also can someone explain why those oracles killed the queen so damn quick? Last I checked queens aren't light.
how many oracles we talking about? 2? 3? 4?.....banshees can kill queens without even taking damage aswell. that being said I can easily see its damage being changed to 10 +15 to light instead of 15 +10 to light
Edit: oops your refering to video of 3 oracles, ok, well thats basicially 3 cloaked banshees or 4 uncloaked banshees (gas wise) queens die quickly
3 cloaked banshees cost 500 gas, and they don't have any other abilities, whereas oracles do. That comparison is pushing it IMO, the damage is way too high compared to banshees at the moment.
Now you're just complaining for the sake of complaining. Do you know the difference between the range of those two units? The range difference is huge! The range effectively dictates the squishiness of an air unit as Oracle cannot hit units without getting hit, despite its high speed. You talk about the utility of the Oracles other than harassing. I agree that it has other utilities, if it manages to survive. On top of that, if an Oracle is harassing, it cannot use its utility spell as both harassing and utility uses energy. This means that in order to use the other spells, the oracles have to stop harassing, which makes your point a moot.
On December 08 2012 02:13 Morton wrote: I would agree that the dps vs workers is pretty insane, but it is kind of a given that with such huge changes there are going to be some op units,I forsee the dps getting pulled back slightly, but scouting getting spores and turrets up in time should be able do decently well against this
Well, since Spores have 1 armor, Oracles and Banshees actually have almost the same exact DPS versus the Spores. So if you get 4 Oracles they can really quickly snipe spores. Like in 5 seconds.
4 Oracles costs 600/600 and 200 seconds of build time (not counting CB). An investment like that should be scary.
you mean as scary as 6-8 mutas? and they are useful in lategame stages with timewarp and revelation. so the investment is not too high.
so yes their DPS is too high now but that is just a balance thing and can be adjust easily. i think their new attack is awesome designwise. it forces micro to do it. it forces micro to defend it if you defend with units or good scouting and positioning if you defend it with queens + spores, turrets/mines, cannons + stalker.
but i think the oracle has a design flaw which is timewarp. deathball already kills everything on the ground that isnt airheavy. so why give protoss yet another antiground AoE spell which also has the downside of negating micro?
i really hope they change that and give the oracle another non-micropreventing, non-deathballspell/mechanic.
So basically what we're seeing here is: protoss stargate can't be countered by a spore+queen in each base now? Meaning you have to actually build things that shoot up to defend against air units if you scout your opponent going dedicated stargate? It's not like you don't have infestors/spores/queens/hydra's/muta's/corrupters....
What's the earliest an oracle can come up in an expand build? 7.5 minutes for one maybe? I like the fact that you have to respond a little to these unlike with phoenix, where you basically smirk and go back to droning after making an extra queen or two along with a spore per base. Although that exact same reaction would probably shut down pure oracle harass...it's only when you start throwing in voids that it takes more of a response from the zerg.
Ah well, maybe it'll get toned back a tiny notch...but I certainly love the idea of actually having an airborne harass unit that is actually scary and requires a real reaction from my opponent.
So, I think Oracles should be able to 2 shot workers like banshees can, however I do agree that the damage output is a bit too fast.
How about moving the damage to 5(+15 light) so they still 2 shot workers, and also increase the time between damage "pulses"? Though maybe it has to be 10(+15 light) because I'm not sure if drone regen would make 5(+15 light) require 3 shots. Either way, increasing the time between damage pulses, should keep them pretty effective vs workers, but much less effective vs other things.
However, this might reintroduce the problem of "If you open Stargate to harass, a Tier 1 counter rush can just straight up kill you" which is one of the main reasons Stargate openings can be so risky, especially vs Terran
For reference, a banshee does 24 damage per attack, and a cooldown of 1.25, so does 19.2 DPS, whereas an oracle in it's current state deals 25 damage per attack with an attack cooldown of 1 (according to the tooltip). Which kills 1 probe per second, so 4 oracles can clear a fully saturated worker line in 6 seconds
Banshees cost 50 less gas, and have 50% more range, and can be upgraded with cloak.
I dunno, the tradeoffs seem pretty reasonable:
Banshee - cheaper, higher range, cloaked Oracle - most expensive, lower range and can't cloak, but gets higher dps, higher speed, gets support spells
Range doesnt matter for a unit which is used for harrassment and all the supposed advantages of the Banshee which you so dilligently list are more than made up by the added utility of the other spells of that unit. Since the Banshee doesnt have much usefulness in any army composition I would always prefer the added utility of the Oracle over that ... if I didnt think the Oracle totally broken ... [broken in this case means "destroying the game through reducing skill and not being fun for the opponent"].
For reference, a banshee does 24 damage per attack, and a cooldown of 1.25, so does 19.2 DPS, whereas an oracle in it's current state deals 25 damage per attack with an attack cooldown of 1 (according to the tooltip). Which kills 1 probe per second, so 4 oracles can clear a fully saturated worker line in 6 seconds
Banshees cost 50 less gas, and have 50% more range, and can be upgraded with cloak.
I dunno, the tradeoffs seem pretty reasonable:
Banshee - cheaper, higher range, cloaked Oracle - most expensive, lower range and can't cloak, but gets higher dps, higher speed, gets support spells
Range doesnt matter for a unit which is used for harrassment and all the supposed advantages of the Banshee which you so dilligently list are more than made up by the added utility of the other spells of that unit. Since the Banshee doesnt have much usefulness in any army composition I would always prefer the added utility of the Oracle over that ... if I didnt think the Oracle totally broken ... [broken in this case means "destroying the game through reducing skill and not being fun for the opponent"].
Banshees have a ton of use in mech army compositions, and the range does matter: you can kite marines pretty easily with a banshee, and snipe at workers easier past turrets. It's not even a fair comparison really anyway, the two units aren't the same unit.
Saying range doesnt matter is just not true. More range gives you more options for harrasment when there are static defenses present, and you can stick around longer against mobile defenses.
Not to mention is the oracles spell even targetable? Only used it once myself, but it seemed kinda attracted to static defenses.
For reference, a banshee does 24 damage per attack, and a cooldown of 1.25, so does 19.2 DPS, whereas an oracle in it's current state deals 25 damage per attack with an attack cooldown of 1 (according to the tooltip). Which kills 1 probe per second, so 4 oracles can clear a fully saturated worker line in 6 seconds
Banshees cost 50 less gas, and have 50% more range, and can be upgraded with cloak.
I dunno, the tradeoffs seem pretty reasonable:
Banshee - cheaper, higher range, cloaked Oracle - most expensive, lower range and can't cloak, but gets higher dps, higher speed, gets support spells
Range doesnt matter for a unit which is used for harrassment and all the supposed advantages of the Banshee which you so dilligently list are more than made up by the added utility of the other spells of that unit. Since the Banshee doesnt have much usefulness in any army composition I would always prefer the added utility of the Oracle over that ... if I didnt think the Oracle totally broken ... [broken in this case means "destroying the game through reducing skill and not being fun for the opponent"].
what?range doesnt matter.. ermmm ok. the ability to kite or not to kite allows a harassment unit to harass much longer. With awesome kiting a banshee can kite marines for a very long time....oracle doesnt have that luxury
For reference, a banshee does 24 damage per attack, and a cooldown of 1.25, so does 19.2 DPS, whereas an oracle in it's current state deals 25 damage per attack with an attack cooldown of 1 (according to the tooltip). Which kills 1 probe per second, so 4 oracles can clear a fully saturated worker line in 6 seconds
Banshees cost 50 less gas, and have 50% more range, and can be upgraded with cloak.
I dunno, the tradeoffs seem pretty reasonable:
Banshee - cheaper, higher range, cloaked Oracle - most expensive, lower range and can't cloak, but gets higher dps, higher speed, gets support spells
Range doesnt matter for a unit which is used for harrassment and all the supposed advantages of the Banshee which you so dilligently list are more than made up by the added utility of the other spells of that unit. Since the Banshee doesnt have much usefulness in any army composition I would always prefer the added utility of the Oracle over that ... if I didnt think the Oracle totally broken ... [broken in this case means "destroying the game through reducing skill and not being fun for the opponent"].
what?range doesnt matter.. ermmm ok. the ability to kite or not to kite allows a harassment unit to harass much longer. With awesome kiting a banshee can kite marines for a very long time....oracle doesnt have that luxury
Oracle doesn't have that luxury because his attack is different. Banshee can hit and move, Oracle can't, it is basically channeling its attack.
About "reducing" skill, and "not being fun for the opponent", I don't know what the heck he even means by that...
People just aren't used to protoss air units being... well... good! You have to remember, since the void ray nerf, that and the carrier have been complete jokes. The fact that toss air can now do similar things as the other races would naturally be unnerving. But that's the point! The whole protoss part of the expansion is meant to make Stargate viable, and Blizzard succeeded in that. Don't go running scared at the new prospects, embrace them, and watch HotS become great.
I'm not going to say "I'm calling it" or whatnot, but I predict that the harass part of oracles (ie not the usage of time warp), will generally not be very effective at pro levels. They work just the same as late game DT's used to imo - have to catch your opponent underprepared to make it justify the cost.
Here are some performance numbers on the new Oracle attack:
An Oracle will kill a worker in 1.72 seconds for 8 energy. 1 Oracle with 50 energy will kill 6 workers in about 10 seconds. 2 Oracles will wipe out nearly an entire worker line in the same time. They perform exactly the same vs. Lings, though at least zergings are fast enough they can just run away (banelings, not so much).
An Oracle will kill a marine in 1.72 seconds for 8 energy, and will take 12 damage in response. An Oracle can take on 4 marines at once, and will win with 40 health left. With stim and stutter step, they can semi-kite Oracles though and become more efficient.
An Oracle will kill a hydralisk in 3.44 seconds for 16 energy, and will take 48 damage in response. An Oracle can take on 2 Hydras at once, and will win with 16 health left. On creep or with the speed upgrade, however, Hydras have the same speed as Oracles and better range and acceleration, so they can quasi-kite Oracles and trade more cost effectively, especially if they also have range.
An Oracle will kill a Queen in 10.32 seconds for 40 energy, and will take 90 damage in response. One transfuse will tip the fight in the Queen's favor.
An Oracle will kill a stalker in 9.46 second for 36 energy, and will take 60 damage in response. With Blink things even up a bit more.
Against anything else on the ground that can shoot back like Thors or Static Defense, Oracles get stomped really hard.
However, they do potentially have some additional utility in focusing down Immortal Hardened Shields (Oracle attack is spell damage, so it ignores Hardened Shields)--Oracles can destroy Hardened Shields in just 6 seconds. They can also, in theory chip in against other things on the ground that can't shoot back, but against more armored units it will not be an efficient use of energy.
edit: The takeaway from all this is that while Oracles deal enough dps to be occasionally helpful chipping in, the reality is they are not very cost efficient in direct conflict. 5 Marines cost 250 minerals and no gas, and can kill a 150/150 Oracle. 3 Hydras cost 300/150 and will utterly own an Oracle--one Oracle vs 200/100 worth of Hydras is almost exactly even. 2 Stalkers cost 250/100 and will wreck an Oracle pretty hard. 2 Queens cost 300/0 and will destroy a 150/150 Oracle. Hydras, Stalkers and Marines can all be upgraded to becomes significantly stronger, and all 4 of these units can be microed to either semi-kite Oracles, or else use transfuse in the Queen's case, and become much more cost effective against them.
Basically, the "omg Oracles OP" griping seems overblown to me. With routine scouting, any of the anti-air units available to the 3 races can be produced in sufficient number to beat Oracles quite cost effectively. Thats not to say Oracles aren't useful, because they can harass well and are good in support. But if you're scouting well, and not playing absurdly greedy or really skimping on anti-air, Oracles are far from some unbeatable threat.
Here they comes, learn to scout.. finally protoss player have options, they can harass or being aggressive, the time of marine marine marine or drone drone drone are gone (hopefully).
Early oracles are pretty good against 1 rax expand or 3 hatches play, I've tested 2 stargate after an FFE against zerg, starting with 2 oracles and then 4 void. Get a third at 10:30 with only zealots and some sentries and continue your harass (YEAH FINALLY AN HARASS THAT DO DAMAGE). If the zerg is lazy and send like 2 queens without getting spores or hydra you can kill the entire mineral line plus the hatchery, just focus with oracles and void + charge.
Against terran I usually do a 1 gate stargate expand, it is pretty good and safe, oracles + zealots and mothership core are very good against marines/hellion pressure, and if he just expand you can be aggressive or harass hard, just remember.. mines are the best counter to oracles, just 1 mine per mineral line is enough, oracle has 4 range, widow 5.. so is pretty easy to understand that against a stargate opening you should get mines.
I really don't see the problem with oracles sweeping mineral lines within a couple of seconds. They are an expensive unit, require a seperate techtree (spoiler alert: you won't be able to compete against T and Z with only stargate tech) and are actually really hard to control. It's great that protoss now has a unit that is actually deadly enough to force preperations from the enemy. The other races already have their deadly harass unit that can end games right away if the protoss does not prepare for it in general (hellion, bio drops, banshee) or specifically (muta). Hell, try to defend against a mid-sized muta ball with only a single cannon and a stalker. And it's not like the oracle does not have any tradoffs. Despite the results people got from the unit tester oracles are actually pretty terrible in a straight up mid- to lategame engagement. The slowfield does not really have an impact and their range is too short to use it against bio or anything that has hydras, mutas, thor or vikings in it. It actually has less range than a marines has and thus melts within seconds unless in great numbers (in which case they still don't trade cost-efficient). Their main problem in those fights have to be the horrible acceleration/deceleration and low range. You can not hit-and-run like you could with a banshee or viking. They won't cast their beam until they have come to a full halt.
Opening oracle will delay the much needed splash in a PvT match. Since the addition of hellbats and the buff to medivacs chargelots on their own are not enough to deal with a 10-12 minute bio/hellbat/medivac push. The oracles need to deal significant damage in order to pay off in the long run. With that I mean sweeping an entire line of worker.
When comparing oracles to other types of harass I would say it's closest to a blueflame hellion drop in PvT. If it goes unchecked it will clean the entire mineral line. If defenses are in place they will deal almost no damage or absolutely no damage. Both don't really perform well in a direct engagement (not counting hellbats) and come with a tech tradoff that is worth mentioning.
I use it more like a mid-game harass addition to my main techroute in order to force map-awareness and defenses from my opponent while also not delaying my more important tech too much. The oracles does an OKish job in that niche.
I'd like people to actually play and experiment with the oracle against competent enemies before calling it OP. Requesting to put the +light as an upgrade to the fleet beacon is like putting banshee cloak to the fusion core.
Watched the video. Nothing wrong there. I mean... Replace the oracles with 3 banshees and you will see the same result. There were no spores and the queens engaged one by one... So yeah. Oracles are fine. Finally protoss has an unit that can be really dangerous for the opponent's mineral line and that is great.
I was watching Idra's stream and he played a bunch of games with whitera and had no trouble with oracles at all. He was saying they are so fragile that if you get up defense for them they can't really do much before having to fly away to regenerate shield. If caught without proper defense however I'm sure they can be deadly to a mineral line.
Watched the video. Oracle does not seems OP. Just as the above post says, replace it with 3 blue flame hellions (cheaper than 3 oracles) or 3 banshees or 3 infestors, then you would see oracles actually not OP at all.
In fact I think give it attack range of 5 and drain 3 energy per second, might as well give it able to attack while moving similar to void rays giving that it required to drain energy to attack, with is a big trade off compare to other deadly harassment unit like banshees, hellions and mutas
On December 09 2012 23:44 RandomMan wrote: Watched the video. Oracle does not seems OP. Just as the above post says, replace it with 3 blue flame hellions (cheaper than 3 oracles) or 3 banshees or 3 infestors, then you would see oracles actually not OP at all.
In fact I think give it attack range of 5 and drain 3 energy per second, might as well give it able to attack while moving similar to void rays giving that it required to drain energy to attack, with is a big trade off compare to other deadly harassment unit like banshees, hellions and mutas
dont forget that the oracle also has 2 other spells and especially timewarp is incredibly strong vs any ground based army. so you cant compare oracle with banshee because banshee doesnt have those other support spells.
I havent had them do crippling damage to me, but still being a nuisance. Granted it is only the first time an issue, after that you got missile turrets up. However if you boost it by giving it more range, I think you should decrease its damage a bit, I dont think it requires a flat out boost.
And they are already succesfull due to the chance they come, you need to take that option always into account.
Did anyone had success using time warp in positional play ? I sometimes cast it to slow down armies and catch up but forcefield also fill this role. There must be something original to do with this.
On December 09 2012 20:35 AngryPenguin wrote: Here they comes, learn to scout.. finally protoss player have options, they can harass or being aggressive, the time of marine marine marine or drone drone drone are gone (hopefully).
Early oracles are pretty good against 1 rax expand or 3 hatches play, I've tested 2 stargate after an FFE against zerg, starting with 2 oracles and then 4 void. Get a third at 10:30 with only zealots and some sentries and continue your harass (YEAH FINALLY AN HARASS THAT DO DAMAGE). If the zerg is lazy and send like 2 queens without getting spores or hydra you can kill the entire mineral line plus the hatchery, just focus with oracles and void + charge.
Against terran I usually do a 1 gate stargate expand, it is pretty good and safe, oracles + zealots and mothership core are very good against marines/hellion pressure, and if he just expand you can be aggressive or harass hard, just remember.. mines are the best counter to oracles, just 1 mine per mineral line is enough, oracle has 4 range, widow 5.. so is pretty easy to understand that against a stargate opening you should get mines.
When do you take your second gas and how many gates do you expand behind after getting oracles?
dont forget that the oracle also has 2 other spells and especially timewarp is incredibly strong vs any ground based army. so you cant compare oracle with banshee because banshee doesnt have those other support spells.
banshee do have a support spell, the cloak. having 2 other spells does not justify to nerf the pulsar beam, or prevent any buff to it, because pulsar beam like any other spell, need energy to cast, so does the time warp and revelation, and last time i check oracle does not have unlimited energy, energized also been nerf as well. the 2 other spell takes a lot of energy too, its not like u cast 2 time warp and still able laser down workers all day long. while banshees run out of energy, they can still harrass and kill something, so you are right you cannot compare both because banshees are way more consistent and less situational.
On December 09 2012 10:03 kcdc wrote: Chargelot + Oracle: the new Chargelot + Arcon vs Bio?
Given the crazy DPS and movement speed, it seems like it'd have potential.
EMP says hi.
Chargelot archon gets beaten by ghosts too. It's still a useful composition.
I fear TvP will turn into mech turtling (super boring), but if it stays bio, I'll definitely give chargelot oracle some play.
Chargelot archon is still useful only because of storm, as well as zealots HT archons share the same ground upgrades and all comes from gateway. Oracles are neither sharing upgrades nor build from gateways, it is not gonna work well.
yeah it looks strong, but comparing it to banshees seems legit. yes, it has more dps vs light, (25 vs 19.5), and a tad more hp (160 to 140) and speed (3.375 to 2.75), but way less range (which makes them easier to counter) and higher cost and less dps against queens and spores. it scales worse with upgrades and comes from a less useful techpath, but is effective in battle later in the game.
and lets be honest, the zerg didnt scout it and reacted horribly. it's nice that toss now has a way for punishing people who dont scout and react horribly apart from going completely all-in.
On December 11 2012 01:31 Blackfeather wrote: yeah it looks strong, but comparing it to banshees seems legit. yes, it has more dps vs light, (25 vs 19.5), and a tad more hp (160 to 140) and speed (3.375 to 2.75), but way less range (which makes them easier to counter), higher cost and less dps against queens and spores. it scales worse with upgrades and comes from a less useful techpath, but is effective in battle later in the game.
and lets be honest, the zerg didnt scout it and reacted horribly. it's nice that toss now has a way for punishing people who dont scout and react horribly apart from going completely all-in.
On December 09 2012 10:03 kcdc wrote: Chargelot + Oracle: the new Chargelot + Arcon vs Bio?
Given the crazy DPS and movement speed, it seems like it'd have potential.
EMP says hi.
Chargelot archon gets beaten by ghosts too. It's still a useful composition.
I fear TvP will turn into mech turtling (super boring), but if it stays bio, I'll definitely give chargelot oracle some play.
Chargelot archon is still useful only because of storm, as well as zealots HT archons share the same ground upgrades and all comes from gateway. Oracles are neither sharing upgrades nor build from gateways, it is not gonna work well.
And chargelot oracle can score SCV kills, force turrets, deny drops, etc.
And, if you make it much weaker, it risks turning into the WoL reaper that is never used. Losing 3-5 Workers is not a huge deal if your opponent commited to a harassing tech path / unit.
150/150 makes on oracle cost you the equivalent of 6 workers. (if you even value gas and minerals equally).
As zerg : 1 Sporecrawler in each mineral line (per base) is still worth it, even if your opponent goes for only 1 oracle As protoss: 1 Cannon in both bases, same case. As terran : Missile turrets are even more effective, as they only cost 100.
Per cost, how do Oracles with their abilities fair against Hydras?
oracle perform horribly, because hydra out ranged them, and if you time warp then you have not much energy left for you to activate pulsar beam
For the record this is just untrue. In straight up engagements, oracles tear up hydras at a 2:1 ratio. And because oracles move so quickly, flanking oracles can focus fire and mow through a hydra line without taking any losses.
On December 09 2012 10:03 kcdc wrote: Chargelot + Oracle: the new Chargelot + Arcon vs Bio?
Given the crazy DPS and movement speed, it seems like it'd have potential.
EMP says hi.
Chargelot archon gets beaten by ghosts too. It's still a useful composition.
I fear TvP will turn into mech turtling (super boring), but if it stays bio, I'll definitely give chargelot oracle some play.
Chargelot archon is still useful only because of storm, as well as zealots HT archons share the same ground upgrades and all comes from gateway. Oracles are neither sharing upgrades nor build from gateways, it is not gonna work well.
And chargelot oracle can score SCV kills, force turrets, deny drops, etc.
You wont force turrets, you only force widow mines surrounding mineral line, which turn out to be powerful drop harassment option with the new upgrade. Deny drops with oracles? What if terran drop with claw widow mine instead of stim marine? Or deny with phoenix? Thats even more waste of resources in the mid to late game consider how useful phoenix do against terran pass early game, its even worse than the claw widow mine in terms of late game usage.
On December 11 2012 01:46 weikor wrote: And, if you make it much weaker, it risks turning into the WoL reaper that is never used. Losing 3-5 Workers is not a huge deal if your opponent commited to a harassing tech path / unit.
150/150 makes on oracle cost you the equivalent of 6 workers. (if you even value gas and minerals equally).
As zerg : 1 Sporecrawler in each mineral line (per base) is still worth it, even if your opponent goes for only 1 oracle As protoss: 1 Cannon in both bases, same case. As terran : Missile turrets are even more effective, as they only cost 100.
and dont forget widow mine, which 1 shot oracle, and can be used as drop harassment option once upgrade was done.
Per cost, how do Oracles with their abilities fair against Hydras?
oracle perform horribly, because hydra out ranged them, and if you time warp then you have not much energy left for you to activate pulsar beam
For the record this is just untrue. In straight up engagements, oracles tear up hydras at a 2:1 ratio. And because oracles move so quickly, flanking oracles can focus fire and mow through a hydra line without taking any losses.
You mean twice as many Oracles as Hydras, or the other way around? If the former case; that does not sound entirely unreasonable considering that's 300/300/6 vs 100/50/2.
As for the latter case, I just tested 4 Oracles vs 8 Hydras, both bunched up then A-Moved and the Hydras won, with 2 remaining (one of them deep red). No weapon/armor upgrades for both, no ranged/speed upgrade for Hydra. Oracles had full energy. In other words; ideal situation for Oracle other than the lack of micro.
Today we saw a progame where a banshee killed 40 enemy workers (scvs). I know this does not happen too often but they most often than not pay for themselves, in the past they just won games.
I mean the thing has much more hp and can cloak... Can't see oracle being better than it. It's just the new thing and people are gonna cry as usual.
Per cost, how do Oracles with their abilities fair against Hydras?
oracle perform horribly, because hydra out ranged them, and if you time warp then you have not much energy left for you to activate pulsar beam
For the record this is just untrue. In straight up engagements, oracles tear up hydras at a 2:1 ratio. And because oracles move so quickly, flanking oracles can focus fire and mow through a hydra line without taking any losses.
You mean twice as many Oracles as Hydras, or the other way around? If the former case; that does not sound entirely unreasonable considering that's 300/300/6 vs 100/50/2.
As for the latter case, I just tested 4 Oracles vs 8 Hydras, both bunched up then A-Moved and the Hydras won, with 2 remaining (one of them deep red). No weapon/armor upgrades for both, no ranged/speed upgrade for Hydra. Oracles had full energy. In other words; ideal situation for Oracle other than the lack of micro.
Sorry, yes, I mean 1 oracle can take 2 hydras. When you have lots of oracles and hydras, it boils down to positioning and micro as both units are glass cannons. That is, they deal lots of damage but are fragile, so any advantage you can get that chips away at their effective DPS helps greatly. In particular, focus fire for either unit (of which the oracle is better equipped to do with its mobility) is important as it quickly removes the dps advantage the other side has.
On December 11 2012 04:58 phrenzy wrote: Didn't blizzard say they didn't want the oracle to kill workers, that turned out well.
that was before they gave in to the community response. i mean those mineral shields were just terrible on all accounts.
it involved no skill to use nor is there room to apply skill while using it. it is boring to use and watch for player and observer - and "defending" it also offers no opportunity for the application of skill.
On December 11 2012 03:56 DemigodcelpH wrote: It'll probably be nerfed in the next patch. It's one of those things that are obviously too strong.
"I'm bad and cant defend against them, please nerf". They are fine. They force defensive reactions. They're an actual harassment unit. That's the point.
After a lot of games(30) against the oracle, I think it's not too bad.
Oracles are out by the 8 minute mark. One spore hugging your hatchery each base shuts down oracles pretty hard. If you scout that they have 4 or more oracles, it's best to throw up another spore hugging your base, just in case.
I always open spire these days because oracles and phoenixes become insanely powerful if left unchecked by a few corruptors. Transition to speed hydra/viper to win the game. That is all. <3
On December 11 2012 06:26 neoghaleon55 wrote: After a lot of games(30) against the oracle, I think it's not too bad.
Oracles are out by the 8 minute mark. One spore hugging your hatchery each base shuts down oracles pretty hard. If you scout that they have 4 or more oracles, it's best to throw up another spore hugging your base, just in case.
I always open spire these days because oracles and phoenixes become insanely powerful if left unchecked by a few corruptors. Transition to speed hydra/viper to win the game. That is all. <3
We need more people with actual experience to talk about this (like this guy) instead of just a bunch of people theorycrafting based on one case, e.g. White-Ra in his showmatch yesterday against Ret where it's like 4 Oracles vs ... 1 Queen 0 Spores. Oracles deal damage in that situation? Omfg game is broken.
On December 11 2012 06:26 neoghaleon55 wrote: After a lot of games(30) against the oracle, I think it's not too bad.
Oracles are out by the 8 minute mark. One spore hugging your hatchery each base shuts down oracles pretty hard. If you scout that they have 4 or more oracles, it's best to throw up another spore hugging your base, just in case.
I always open spire these days because oracles and phoenixes become insanely powerful if left unchecked by a few corruptors. Transition to speed hydra/viper to win the game. That is all. <3
Yeah I've been opening up with a faster tech build vs Protoss, it's a style Zenio was using in WoL (Day9 did a daily on it if you guys want to check it out), he still gets his third base at ~5 minutes but speed first and a faster lair. He throws down a Hydra Den AND a Spire at the same time. This allows you to punish people really well who open these things like fast 4 oracles or mass air. And it also allows you to go into Roach Hydra Viper very easily or Muta/Ling/Bling > Ultra.
On December 11 2012 10:12 GreyKnight wrote: I feel like oracle need to be a bit harder to use...
It's a fast unit, yes. But it's made of tissue paper for it's cost, you have to stop dead before the beam will turn on, and you have to manually target or you will end up focusing something that isn't efficient. It costs 4 energy for each second the beam is on, so using it without wasting is something only those with the best micro will be able to do. I fail to see how it's easy to use. In fact, the better you are, the more scenarios you will be able to use the Oracle in.
If you have good micro, oracles are really, really good. I had 3 oracles beat 6 hydras and a spore I left at home for defense by abusing the hydras laughable move speed and using "pull back the oracle getting shot" micro. In numbers of 3+ they kill hydras as an amusing rate, which is really stupid considering they should be their direct counter. I hope for the love of god they give Z a decent AA unit at lair now that infestor is trash league. Fighting phoenix/oracle with queen/hydra is a lost cause, despite the fact that they are both supposed to be our dedicated lair AA. Feels really, really stupid when you scout double stargate, making nothing but queen/hydra and then half your units get picked up and the other half instantly erased by the oracles very high vs light DPS and ability to ignore armor on the queen.
Zealot + oracle looks like a competent mid game army, analogous to a hellion/banshee army. Except that P's version is way more deadly, as it should be. Time warp slows down marines while focus firing micro is negated, due to threat of being either cut down by zealots or pulsar beams, both equally deadly.
Look at how fast you drain energy with the attack! You'll have no room for other ability usage if you're focusing on attacking.
AND
energy is drained while the attack is active, not while the oracle is firing. So if you can force oracles to "micro" away from you, they are losing even more energy for not firing.
AND Their range is 4. Their cost is 150/150/3. Their build time is 50 seconds (no chrono). They're quite the hefty investment en masse. Spore crawlers/missile turrets/basic anti-air are great deterrents vs oracles.
I don't think they should nerf Oracles, at least not until there's been some more chance for all players to become more familiar with them (that it, both using them, and scouting/defending against them). Protoss having a genuinely scary harass threat that promotes multitask and micro is a complete game changer in terms of making the race more fun to watch and play. The Oracle in their current form are a cool, powerful unit that effectively fills a few niches (harras/support/scout), while still having clear weaknesses and limitations and not being something you want to build en masse. I'm so, so much happier with were Blizzard has gone with this unit these days.
I don't see a problem, it's a 150 gas unit that costs energy to harass, making it much harder to use timewarp if you are harassing all the time. If the unit wasn't OP, would it even be used? I mean seriously, think about it.
On December 11 2012 11:27 emc wrote: I don't see a problem, it's a 150 gas unit that costs energy to harass, making it much harder to use timewarp if you are harassing all the time. If the unit wasn't OP, would it even be used? I mean seriously, think about it.
There are plenty of unused units because they are terrible, look at the Hydra from WOL, the raven from WOL, the Ultra from WOL, the infestor in HOTS... blizzard never buffed the hydra in WOL, obviously they don't really care if a unit is not used because it's trash.
On December 11 2012 11:27 emc wrote: I don't see a problem, it's a 150 gas unit that costs energy to harass, making it much harder to use timewarp if you are harassing all the time. If the unit wasn't OP, would it even be used? I mean seriously, think about it.
There are plenty of unused units because they are terrible, look at the Hydra from WOL, the raven from WOL, the Ultra from WOL, the infestor in HOTS... blizzard never buffed the hydra in WOL, obviously they don't really care if a unit is not used because it's trash.
ultra is used pretty much any tvz, if terran is able to deal with bl army, and hydras are used in almost every zvz mu, if the game goes at least slightly in late game. Ravens arent that useless,they are 1 of the way to deal with bl infestor army, and still be somewhat not totally screwed over by ultra switch. Ravens are used almost every tvt and tvz late game. I havent used infestor in hots, but from numbers points, it actually seems fine. For example Reaper is far more useles unit than any you mentioned.
Oracle looks ridiculously op especially with the "T3 for the price of a sentry" - dt´s. But this could be just a meta game thing like the blind turetts in the early days in tvz.
The people just get cought offguard and don´t know how to deal with it (yet).
On December 11 2012 17:18 USvBleakill wrote: Oracle looks ridiculously op especially with the "T3 for the price of a sentry" - dt´s. But this could be just a meta game thing like the blind turetts in the early days in tvz.
The people just get cought offguard and don´t know how to deal with it (yet).
Yes, 3 cloaked banshees are just as OP and functional (immortal killing duty, sniping pylons, etc), the metagame will obviously evolve to spot early stargate timings and defend vs. oracle harass as well as counters. Their low health and high speed will make them likely a pro-only unit. My bet is by the end of the third quarter, most P would have gone back to WP drops.
Just as T have basically abandoned early banshee harass due to their fragility and high opportunity cost.
3 Oracles is 450m/450g that could have gone into units or an expand. Like a T going 3 early banshees, a Protoss going for 3 early oracles MUST DO DAMAGE (pin opponent on two base, destroy probes, kill off a few zealots/lings/etc) or be seriously behind.
On December 11 2012 11:27 emc wrote: I don't see a problem, it's a 150 gas unit that costs energy to harass, making it much harder to use timewarp if you are harassing all the time. If the unit wasn't OP, would it even be used? I mean seriously, think about it.
Indeed, it does seem strong, but definitely not overpowered. And I like that their beam attack is actually a spell, so it doesn't benefit from air attack upgrades, but it also ignores armor, which may be huge in the late game.
Overall, I like the unit, and I don't think that it should be nerfed, at least not at the start, but they should wait a little and see what the pro players can do with it.
I agree with the posts above, oracle harass looks OP... but only to the unprepared opponent. They have very low health and a single turret or spore crawler can significantly reduce damage from the harass.
But more importantly, a good number of oracles (6-7) seems to be now viable as a part of a late game composition in PvT when facing MMM, and this is great. They have an insane DPS against marines, and can cast timewarp to slow the bioball movement.
This is so cool to have a unit that can be used for harass early game and then used late game in straight up battles. Most openings based on harass units (like the cloaked banshee or the DT) are a coinflip because whether you win or lose the game depends if the opponent is prepared or not. But this is not the case with the oracle. If your harass fails, you don't straight up lose the game. You save them and keep them in your main army as part of a viable composition. Just great.
Now, any nerf would jeopardize that fact, and i would hate to see the oracle ditched, much like what happened to the tempest in this patch...
right now oracle seems OP to me, maybe it would help to make the beam even less range, or make it an aoe effect around the oracle instead of a beam attack (kinda like an irradiated scv), a slight speed nerf might also do wonders
this would still make them kill workers pretty fast but make them significantly weaker against units
It's a hard brake. Compare the timing to Hellion arrivals - and Hellions don't run out of energy. Then compare them to Marine drops. The gas commitment in either case isn't what you require in order to field a single Oracle. Oracles are good, but only so good - and their beam doesn't benefit from upgrades, does it?
Hellions can be responded w/ additional Queens (Z here) though. I tried a 4 queen build vs. a stargate open but still they just focus the queens. when I added spores, they focussed them and continued killing workers. i think a nerf is necessary.
EDIT: The problem imo is not, that it is strong vs. workers, it is, that they are too strong vs Units. They should rather, like mutas, be good at killing workers but wear at killing, units so that a hydra or a 4 queen opening.
I think they might be a little too strong. Nothing game breaking or anything, but they're very very effective and very mobile. It's very difficult to lose an Oracle.
I think Time Warp is simply a better way to accomplish delaying income. The attack beams are just too strong against workers period and 4 Oracles would completely wipe out the economy too easily even if they were sacrificed to do so. I also like that the Oracles can straightup kill Light units rather than just doing support harass.
PLease don't overnerf the oracle the could use a slight change but overall i feel like the oracle fits the bill perfectly. It can harass, support and in some situations fight.
couple widow mines behind the mineral lines shuts this down quick, always sucks losing a 150 gas unit to a 25 gas unit. I do Thor expands in HOTS because of how popular blink stalker MSC openings are and they make oracle harrass even more flimsy.
Damn, this thread is still going? I thought the general consensus by this point is that they are about the same effectiveness as cloaked banshees. Really good if you catch your opponent unprepared, but not all that great if they are with some minimal support capabilities.
On December 11 2012 23:50 KrazyTrumpet wrote: Damn, this thread is still going? I thought the general consensus by this point is that they are about the same effectiveness as cloaked banshees. Really good if you catch your opponent unprepared, but not all that great if they are with some minimal support capabilities.
People are only reading the OP. You might edit the OP.
On December 11 2012 21:50 ETisME wrote: I feel that they are slightly OP. They are extremely mobile, difficult to snipe and can deal with marines relatively well, maybe too well.
Mineral only openings (no WM) NEED bunker in mineral line. Aside from that, standard WOL one base 1-1-1 Opening, Viking first has no problem shutting this down HARD.
On December 11 2012 21:50 ETisME wrote: I feel that they are slightly OP. They are extremely mobile, difficult to snipe and can deal with marines relatively well, maybe too well.
Mineral only openings (no WM) NEED bunker in mineral line. Aside from that, standard WOL one base 1-1-1 Opening, Viking first has no problem shutting this down HARD.
I second this comment. I've been trying(and losing with) the oracle in all three match ups. One rax FE needs some sort of static defense if the mineral line if you cannot confirm that the protoss is going 1 gate FE. If not, you risk 2 of these showing up and obliterating your mineral line.
As for the unit itself, I think it still needs work on the control end. The fire animation has a cook up that really limits the units ability to be microed, but also gives is really bad feedback on when it is attacking. It cannot do the studder step micro that most units with a standard attack can. The unit is no mutalisk or banshee, which is fine bacause it is a caster. I need to use the unit more or see how pros use it, but it is really hard to avoid static defenses or keep the unit from drifting into their range while firing.
Also, for those who don't know, it burns enegry even when it is not firing. I am 50/50 on if this is a good thing or not. I do think it needs a visual cue if it in "attack mode" because it is impossible to tell if one is in attack mode if you have 4 selected at once. Its all about the little things that make a unit great.
150 gas is not cheap, 3 oracles is 9 food and 450 gas. A lot of videos/replays posted are finding your opponent off guard, where the oracle has full energy, and really do the same amount of damage as a lot of other drops. Think about when a terran gets 8 marines down in a mineral line during a battle, all the workers are dead. It may be slightly better then zealots, but they're not cheap and it's not overly powerful.
Also for a laugh, compare oracle harass to medivac/widow mine harass. Sure it's strong, but they're fragile, and in general while a great harass addition that protoss didn't have, by no means do they seem imbalanced.
On December 12 2012 03:51 Zergrusher wrote: The new oracle is a great unit, They could get rid of the mother ship and give the oracle a upgrade that gave it a passive cloaking field.
and I have a feeling Bisu will enjoy the oracle, mark my words
I don't think the Oracle needs a cloaking field. For one thing, I think its plenty strong as is--the ability to transition between strong anti-worker harass, and strong ground support via timewarp gives it a clear purpose without making them outright gamebreaking. Adding cloaking field on top of that seems uncessary.
But more importantly, from a design perspective, adding a cloaking field encourages you to keep your Oracles right over a big clump of units. One of the main points of the Oracle was to encourage Toss to split up supply more and have units at different places around the map--this is why the Oracle attack is so strong in harass, but is difficult to use in large engagements without instantly losing the unit. Even the support spell, Timewarp, is one shot and then lasts a while, encouraging Protoss to fly by and get a TW off with their Oracle, then pull it back to safety to regenerate energy and/or harass at other points on the map. In contrast, Cloaking Field encourages deathballing.
As to you second point...I agree, I can't wait to see what Bisu does with the new Protoss air force. Skytoss right now seems tailor made for players who can multitask effectively, and few do that better than Bisu.
On December 12 2012 03:51 Zergrusher wrote: The new oracle is a great unit, They could get rid of the mother ship and give the oracle a upgrade that gave it a passive cloaking field.
and I have a feeling Bisu will enjoy the oracle, mark my words
They have said they do not like Cloaking Field and won't be bringing it back to the Oracle.
As far as it being too strong, I think it might receive a small nerf before release (the attack spell specifically) because of how strong it is vs Terran early on, for example they could give it 15+7 to light so it has to 3-shot SCV's/Marines, but still 2-shotting drones and probes.
but I don't think it is as strong as some people might get the impression. Right now we see things like 4 Oracle's flying into a naked mineral line at 10 minutes and just using all their energy on that. But I do feel like that is the Protoss drastically over-investing in a primarily harass unit, leaving them really vulnerable to counter-attacks. Not to mention I think it will have to be standard to have at least one spore in every mineral line vs Protoss after ~7 minutes, with Oracles and the new cheap DT.
On December 11 2012 23:50 KrazyTrumpet wrote: Damn, this thread is still going? I thought the general consensus by this point is that they are about the same effectiveness as cloaked banshees. Really good if you catch your opponent unprepared, but not all that great if they are with some minimal support capabilities.
People are only reading the OP. You might edit the OP.
I saw 6-7 games by FXOChoya today and he really run right over his opponents with Protoss Air.
The Oracle looks very similar to a Banshee. Running 2-3 banshees into someones unprotected base will kill a lot of workers. That people aren't scouting it or protecting against it is their problem - they know how to do it vs Banshees. Either you attack before the Banshees hit or you protect/expand against it. Doing nothing will lose you the game.
I think the Oracle brings some very good harass opportunities to Protoss that they have been lacking. For the cost - about equal with Banshee - I do think it feels balanced.
I saw 6-7 games by FXOChoya today and he really run right over his opponents with Protoss Air.
I think it will take a little while before people get used to Protoss air being a viable threat that they need to account for.
Not to mention it's almost impossible to judge balance when you have a player like Choya going up against non-professional gamers (in 99% of games at least).
The big issues on the Oracle: Ok i understand it need mana to harrass, but this make it useless in front battle vs lings or marine, the mana leave so fast ....
On December 12 2012 19:37 BerthaG wrote: The big issues on the Oracle: Ok i understand it need mana to harrass, but this make it useless in front battle vs lings or marine, the mana leave so fast ....
The lings and marines also get killed so fast
My concern for late game PvT though is ghosts. Their EMP gets even more powerful if Oracles are part of the protoss army.
On December 12 2012 19:37 BerthaG wrote: The big issues on the Oracle: Ok i understand it need mana to harrass, but this make it useless in front battle vs lings or marine, the mana leave so fast ....
The lings and marines also get killed so fast
My concern for late game PvT though is ghosts. Their EMP gets even more powerful if Oracles are part of the protoss army.
Oracles are not supposed to be used in your main army in the first place just like Banshee. Yes, they may be strong in some engagement but in big fight they just die before doing anything.
On December 12 2012 19:37 BerthaG wrote: The big issues on the Oracle: Ok i understand it need mana to harrass, but this make it useless in front battle vs lings or marine, the mana leave so fast ....
The lings and marines also get killed so fast
My concern for late game PvT though is ghosts. Their EMP gets even more powerful if Oracles are part of the protoss army.
Oracles are not supposed to be used in your main army in the first place just like Banshee. Yes, they may be strong in some engagement but in big fight they just die before doing anything.
I know but i think it is worth looking into. Oracles kill marines insanely fast. Theoretically, in a fight between a chargelot/oracle/HT army and terran MMM, chargelots should be targeted first by the marines. I believe their targetting priority is ground (much like the stalker, which will shoot zerglings before mutalisks). So, having oracles as part of your main army should be possible and effective, since they wont be the first to die... until ghosts come into play of course.
On December 12 2012 19:37 BerthaG wrote: The big issues on the Oracle: Ok i understand it need mana to harrass, but this make it useless in front battle vs lings or marine, the mana leave so fast ....
The lings and marines also get killed so fast
My concern for late game PvT though is ghosts. Their EMP gets even more powerful if Oracles are part of the protoss army.
Oracles are not supposed to be used in your main army in the first place just like Banshee. Yes, they may be strong in some engagement but in big fight they just die before doing anything.
I know but i think it is worth looking into. Oracles kill marines insanely fast. Theoretically, in a fight between a chargelot/oracle/HT army and terran MMM, chargelots should be targeted first by the marines. I believe their targetting priority is ground (much like the stalker, which will shoot zerglings before mutalisks). So, having oracles as part of your main army should be possible and effective, since they wont be the first to die... until ghosts come into play of course.
The thing is,Chargelots already shred Marines pretty badly with Timewarp support, and it costs too much energy to really do a lot of damage to a marine ball with Pulsar Beam and have enough left over to keep them consistently timewarped. I'm sure there's some niche use for using leftover energy for Pulsar Beam, but the vast majority of the time you're better off Timewarping IMO.
On December 12 2012 19:37 BerthaG wrote: The big issues on the Oracle: Ok i understand it need mana to harrass, but this make it useless in front battle vs lings or marine, the mana leave so fast ....
The lings and marines also get killed so fast
My concern for late game PvT though is ghosts. Their EMP gets even more powerful if Oracles are part of the protoss army.
Oracles are not supposed to be used in your main army in the first place just like Banshee. Yes, they may be strong in some engagement but in big fight they just die before doing anything.
I know but i think it is worth looking into. Oracles kill marines insanely fast. Theoretically, in a fight between a chargelot/oracle/HT army and terran MMM, chargelots should be targeted first by the marines. I believe their targetting priority is ground (much like the stalker, which will shoot zerglings before mutalisks). So, having oracles as part of your main army should be possible and effective, since they wont be the first to die... until ghosts come into play of course.
The thing is,Chargelots already shred Marines pretty badly with Timewarp support, and it costs too much energy to really do a lot of damage to a marine ball with Pulsar Beam and have enough left over to keep them consistently timewarped. I'm sure there's some niche use for using leftover energy for Pulsar Beam, but the vast majority of the time you're better off Timewarping IMO.
I agree, including oracles vs. any T comp with marines included is a huge risk.
On December 06 2012 16:52 Fragile51 wrote: Oh shit, it's like a banshee without cloak!
...That relies on energy to attack..
I'm sorry, what is the big issue here again?
Yeah and like banshee but kills 40 workers in 2 seconds
6 workers in 10 seconds, at which point it will generally run out of energy. In contrast, Banshees kill 6 workers in 15 seconds, but at longer range and never run out of energy.
in what way is the Oracle broken? Becuase Protoss isn't supposed to have harass units that don't suck?
It is funny that people prefer the Oracle over the Phoenix. But I guess it is mostly due to the easy control it has and the ability to hit buildings.
And well the Banshee has multiple ways to be stopped, but you really must try hard to fail at doing damage with Oracles or to lose the Oracle in the early game. I hope they make it stoppable and not reduce its damage, so that it will become useless for anyone capable of using the Phoenix.
On December 13 2012 02:25 FeyFey wrote: It is funny that people prefer the Oracle over the Phoenix. But I guess it is mostly due to the easy control it has and the ability to hit buildings.
And well the Banshee has multiple ways to be stopped, but you really must try hard to fail at doing damage with Oracles or to lose the Oracle in the early game. I hope they make it stoppable and not reduce its damage, so that it will become useless for anyone capable of using the Phoenix.
its not a matter of control, the simple fact is the Oracle is a really good worker killer, and the Phoenix isn't.
A Phoenix needs at least 1, preferably 2 or 3 other Phoenixes to harass. At that point, they become capable of killing 1 worker per 50 energy. It does 18 dps vs workers, but the one lifting can't attack, reducing their effective dps for cost when harassing.
Oracles can deal damage to workers without support. They deal 29 dps to workers--3 Oracles will deal 87 dps to workers. 3 Phoenixes will deal 36 dps to workers since one will need to lift. And they are vastly more energy efficient--it takes an Oracle 8 energy to kill 1 worker (they kill a worker every 1.72 seconds, meaning they need to channel their ability for 2 seconds per worker and it costs 4 energy a second), compared to 50 for a phoenix. With 50 energy, an Oracle can kill 6 workers compared to the Phoenix's 1 kill.
edit: and the Oracle is actually more "stoppable" than the Phoenix. it costs more and takes longer to build (so therefore is easier to scout, and is also a bigger setback if you lose it), it is slower (and has much slower acceleration), and it has less health. In terms of keeping your units alive, there's no question its easier to keep Phoenix alive than Oracle. The difference is that Oracle harass is actually powerful, whereas Phoenix harass is more of an annoyance. Any Zerg with a few queens can drone harder than Phoenixes are capable of punishing, whereas Oracles force a real response.
Protoss already got a free 4gate or 7gate allin with mothership core recall, now they have upgraded banshee. Terran got widow mine, and free speedreaper.
Although I thought patch was going in right direction, reaper and oracle are too strong for me.
Hots will be a pain if it's stay like that for non-grandmaster. (I play random)
On December 13 2012 02:57 Chloroplaste wrote: Protoss already got a free 4gate or 7gate allin with mothership core recall, now they have upgraded banshee. Terran got widow mine, and free speedreaper.
Although I thought patch was going in right direction, reaper and oracle are too strong for me.
Hots will be a pain if it's stay like that for non-grandmaster. (I play random)
I am a non-grandmaster player and I have been able to deal with the reaper and oracle without much of a problem. Also, the oracle is not an upgaded banshee. The thing has serious flaws that the banshee does not, like a messed up combat animation and the fact that it burns enegry when it isn't firing(and super fast too).
Four and seven gate all-ins have been terrible forever and are telagraphed so early that I don't even consider them any more, even with the recall. With the increased overlord speed, they are so easy to scout. Also, a single viper and one good yank will ruin that plan.
The patch to the Oracle is interesting. 25 energy to activate, then 2 energy after that. That means that if you can get at least 12 shots, it will come out to the same energy efficiency as before (for example, previously it was 48 energy to kill 6 workers, each one costing 8. now killing 6 workers is about the same, but its 25 upfront to activate, then 24 energy to kill 6 workers for a total energy cost of 49). If you can kill more than 6 workers, the new version is actually more efficient...but if the opponent reacts quickly and drives you off before killing 6 workers, it is significantly less. For example, if they drive you off after killing 1 worker, you've wasted 29 energy on one kill.
The net effect seems to be that Protoss need to pick their spots more carefully with Oracles. if you catch your opponent out of position or undefended, you can do crazy high damage very quickly. But if defenses are ready, such that you're only going to be able to get in a few shots before you'll need to pull back, then it generally won't be worth the energy cost. No more darting in to snipe a worker for 8 energy,take minimal damage, then fly away to regen shields and come back and repeat.
The difference is that Oracle harass is actually powerful, whereas Phoenix harass is more of an annoyance. Any Zerg with a few queens can drone harder than Phoenixes are capable of punishing, whereas Oracles force a real response.
In addition oracles can kill off lings attack better than voids and phoenixes.
The difference is that Oracle harass is actually powerful, whereas Phoenix harass is more of an annoyance. Any Zerg with a few queens can drone harder than Phoenixes are capable of punishing, whereas Oracles force a real response.
In addition oracles can kill off lings attack better than voids and phoenixes.
Well, that is what I expect from a freaking 200 gas unit.
The difference is that Oracle harass is actually powerful, whereas Phoenix harass is more of an annoyance. Any Zerg with a few queens can drone harder than Phoenixes are capable of punishing, whereas Oracles force a real response.
In addition oracles can kill off lings attack better than voids and phoenixes.
Well, that is what I expect from a freaking 200 gas unit.
I have only met them once, but then I lost to mass oracle on two base with mass upgraded hydra on two bases, and I scouted them well in advance and spored up each base. If you only build 2 oracles you are doing it wrong.
Next time ill try lings to tank the shots so the hydras doesn't melt, or infestors so I can keep them away from the squishy hydras...
Zerg should be able to handle oracle much much easely now with queens and/or hydra. Just keep pulling your units back when he engages, and attack when he disables his beam or pulls away. The up front energy cost wrecks their offensive styles so much as long as you exploit the fact.
On December 13 2012 19:05 KrosusZorg wrote: I have only met them once, but then I lost to mass oracle on two base with mass upgraded hydra on two bases, and I scouted them well in advance and spored up each base. If you only build 2 oracles you are doing it wrong.
Next time ill try lings to tank the shots so the hydras doesn't melt, or infestors so I can keep them away from the squishy hydras...
It takes forevvvvvver to mass Oracles, during which time you can go steamroll Protoss. They are super gas heavy, thus making you light on Sentries and tech units. They are very bad in a straight up fight as they are fragile and have low range.
Zerg should be able to handle oracle much much easely now with queens and/or hydra. Just keep pulling your units back when he engages, and attack when he disables his beam or pulls away. The up front energy cost wrecks their offensive styles so much as long as you exploit the fact.
I thought hydras are slower than oracles. Maybe burrow as a response to activation (but I dont like the idea of forcing robo when I go mass hydra =) ). That would be really cool.
It takes forevvvvvver to mass Oracles, during which time you can go steamroll Protoss. They are super gas heavy, thus making you light on Sentries and tech units. They are very bad in a straight up fight as they are fragile and have low range.
FE into 3 stargate was what i faced, with zelaot pressure. Yes it takes a long time to mass oracle but they are a threat to the economy in low number as well. And massing hydras and getting upgrades takes time too. Is a two base roach ling push viable vs toss air? Maybe SH (as they wreck static defence and oracles cant detect burrowed). Ill try that next time. Its also the same path as infestors which I think is necessary when you eventually have to deal with the oracles (as opposed to just pushing them out of your base with static).
This is how the engagements looked like in my game (without the storms) "oracle counters hydras"
Just to be clear, I don't claim balance issues. I dont even care about balance (as long as it is reasonably just), I will win 50% of all games anyway due to matchmaking system. I just find it funny how ineffective hydras were.
On December 13 2012 21:07 KrosusZorg wrote: This is how the engagements looked like in my game (without the storms) "oracle counters hydras"
Just to be clear, I don't claim balance issues. I dont even care about balance (as long as it is reasonably just), I will win 50% of all games anyway due to matchmaking system. I just find it funny how ineffective hydras were.
That's a biased test IMO. What's up with testing a 1800 gas army vs a 900 gas one ? Of course oracles do shred hydras to pieces when you do that. All that proves is that food-for-food hydras are less efficient, which shouldn't be a surprise given that oracles cost twice as much. That doesn't mean oracles are cost effective. In addition, all your oracles were at max energy. In a real game that wouldn't happen, you'd be harassing with your oracles, so you wouldn't have that much energy left during a direct fight.
Personally so far I find oracles pretty okay, but not that great either.
have to say, the orical is nice and everything, but I much prefer phonex atm, becasue tempest are a legit unit in most match-ups you can go for phonex early do a decent amount of dmg, maybe have an orical or two with them and you cannot die to early pressure...
phonex imo are probally still the best unit to harass as oricals are so easily shut down, especially vs Z queen and two spores and wtf you gona do? tickle an evo chamber?
That's a biased test IMO. What's up with testing a 1800 gas army vs a 900 gas one ?
Not my test, and I agree, It doesnt give a very clear picture. I guess the best argument for his point of view from his vid is the fact that 12 oracles (full energy) win vs 26 3/3 hydras. I know gas is "more valuable" than minerals but 1gas:1mineral the hydra army in that example is more expensive. (hydras cost 2600 minerals, 1300 gas (not including upgrades), vs oracles for 1800 min 1800 gas). On the other hand, its quite a commitment to be able to engage a harass unit. Concerning max energy or not: if you are at not at max energy, I guess you have killed something else.
Oracles are dangerous if you don't take the necessary precautions for them and you're caught off-guard. This doesn't mean you even have to scout it. Just place a few marines and a widow mine or two in each mineral line until you're ready to move out or if you know the toss isn't making oracles. Then when you have a better eco just put down a turret.
Zerg can defend against oracles just fine with a spore and queen.
It's still a new unit, just adapt to it instead of playing the same way you did in WoL, expecting the old method to be strong against all the new units. Adapt.
On December 14 2012 20:26 rpgalon wrote: can't you build a single multalisk to deny all oracles? I mean, oracle can't hit air and are slower than multalisk. so, you can't even retreat.
It kills the Oracle slowly and costs 300/300 (Spires ain't cheap). Spore is a better answer.
On December 14 2012 20:26 rpgalon wrote: can't you build a single multalisk to deny all oracles? I mean, oracle can't hit air and are slower than multalisk. so, you can't even retreat.
It kills the Oracle slowly and costs 300/300 (Spires ain't cheap). Spore is a better answer.
I was joking, of course if the protoss player builds 5 oracles one muta alone won't cut it, I just wanted to point out that if you have some mutas, a spotted oracle is a 100% dead oracle.
also you shouldn't include the price of the spire, because the way HotS is going, any zerg that wants to play the late game has to put a spire somewhere into their builds.
Day[9] at 16m45s cleared 12 hydralisks with 15 oracles, just mowed them down under 3s... It's official, VR/phoneix/oracle will clean up any mid-game comp of equal numbers.
Day[9] at 16m45s cleared 12 hydralisks with 15 oracles, just mowed them down under 3s... It's official, VR/phoneix/oracle will clean up any mid-game comp of equal numbers.
12 Hydralisks - 1200 minerals, 600 gas, 24 supply, 33 second build time and can be built en masse 15 Oracles - 2250 minerals, 2250 gas, 45 supply, take 50 seconds to build each one
In what way is 15 Oracles owning 12 Hydralisks a problem?
And there's a reason that Stargate units do well vs "equal numbers"--they're expensive as fuck and take ages to build. For example, 6 Corruptors vs 6 Voids is 900/600 and 12 supply vs. 1500/900 and 18 supply. Those 6 corruptors can be built all at once and you can have them in 40 seconds. Those 6 Void Rays will take at minimum, meaning you went double stargate and chrono them constantly, 120 seconds...and chances are it will be a lot closer to 4 or 5 minutes if you only have one stargate.
If stargate units weren't better than equal numbers of other races' air units, they would be unbelievably shitty, because they cost so much more and take forever to get.
On December 15 2012 01:47 awesomoecalypse wrote: 12 Hydralisks - 1200 minerals, 600 gas, 24 supply, 33 second build time and can be built en masse 15 Oracles - 2250 minerals, 2250 gas, 45 supply, take 50 seconds to build each one
In what way is 15 Oracles owning 12 Hydralisks a problem?
And there's a reason that Stargate units do well vs "equal numbers"--they're expensive as fuck and take ages to build. For example, 6 Corruptors vs 6 Voids is 900/600 and 12 supply vs. 1500/900 and 18 supply. Those 6 corruptors can be built all at once and you can have them in 40 seconds. Those 6 Void Rays will take at minimum, meaning you went double stargate and chrono them constantly, 120 seconds...and chances are it will be a lot closer to 4 or 5 minutes if you only have one stargate.
If stargate units weren't better than equal numbers of other races' air units, they would be unbelievably shitty, because they cost so much more and take forever to get.
What gave you that idea that I didn't like it?
Protoss is SUPPOSED to dominate in equal numbers because that's their culture, and what we players know and love them for it!
30 3/3marines vs. 30 3/3/0 chargelots will not end well for the marines.
It seems like to me that hydras shouldn't have to be in equal numbers with oracles in.order to beat them. Oracles aren't just attack units, they have alot of other things that hydras don't. Like the ability to harass and much better mobility plus a few spells.
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.
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?
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."
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."
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.
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? =)
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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)
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.
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.
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...
Yep. I played an unranked game and went mass oracle against a terran, and he just left, because his turrets got decimated, and he couldnt leave his base all game because 4+ oracles kills a turret in seconds. And then it takes half a second to shred all the workers. And it is actually an insanely powerful fighting unit, so if you mass oracle against Z, he can no longer attack you and win, because your pulser beam decimates hydras. Oracle is just impossible to beat.
On December 20 2012 07:11 NonameAI wrote: Yep. I played an unranked game and went mass oracle against a terran, and he just left, because his turrets got decimated, and he couldnt leave his base all game because 4+ oracles kills a turret in seconds. And then it takes half a second to shred all the workers. And it is actually an insanely powerful fighting unit, so if you mass oracle against Z, he can no longer attack you and win, because your pulser beam decimates hydras. Oracle is just impossible to beat.
Replay or it's hard to get any value from your statement. You can say the same thing about mass Banshees, but we all know that doesn't work.
On December 20 2012 07:11 NonameAI wrote: Yep. I played an unranked game and went mass oracle against a terran, and he just left, because his turrets got decimated, and he couldnt leave his base all game because 4+ oracles kills a turret in seconds. And then it takes half a second to shred all the workers. And it is actually an insanely powerful fighting unit, so if you mass oracle against Z, he can no longer attack you and win, because your pulser beam decimates hydras. Oracle is just impossible to beat.
He probably leaves against other Terran players as well then, since Banshees take down turrets even faster, takes down workers nearly as fast and can cloak.
Oracle DPS is 0.8 higher than Banshee DPS! (against light)
More expensive, faster, no cloak. Both cannot attack air.
I see no problem. I mean, 3 Banshees against 10 Drones and no spores would look pretty much the same.
On December 15 2012 06:03 Treehead wrote: 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?
This works in low numbers. In higher numbers the range, units size, acceleration etc play a huge role. In other words: One Oracle wins against 3 Marines, 5 Oracles don't do a lot against 15 Marines.
On December 20 2012 07:11 NonameAI wrote: Yep. I played an unranked game and went mass oracle against a terran, and he just left, because his turrets got decimated, and he couldnt leave his base all game because 4+ oracles kills a turret in seconds. And then it takes half a second to shred all the workers. And it is actually an insanely powerful fighting unit, so if you mass oracle against Z, he can no longer attack you and win, because your pulser beam decimates hydras. Oracle is just impossible to beat.
Replay or it's hard to get any value from your statement. You can say the same thing about mass Banshees, but we all know that doesn't work.
W/e ignore my arguement then, cuz i cant find it. This was right when they implemented the new pulsar beam.
On December 20 2012 07:11 NonameAI wrote: Yep. I played an unranked game and went mass oracle against a terran, and he just left, because his turrets got decimated, and he couldnt leave his base all game because 4+ oracles kills a turret in seconds. And then it takes half a second to shred all the workers. And it is actually an insanely powerful fighting unit, so if you mass oracle against Z, he can no longer attack you and win, because your pulser beam decimates hydras. Oracle is just impossible to beat.
Replay or it's hard to get any value from your statement. You can say the same thing about mass Banshees, but we all know that doesn't work.
W/e ignore my arguement then, cuz i cant find it. This was right when they implemented the new pulsar beam.
but do we want early air units to be reasonable against marines and hydras.
Um yes, thats kinda why protoss air is never used in WOL.
But reasonable is no reason to make it overpowered
But who says it's overpowered? All you have is some game as "proof" it's OP, but nobody has seen the game but you. Like I said before, you could make the same statement you did about Banshees, but because of practical in game reasons we know it's not actually a legitimate concern.
On December 20 2012 07:11 NonameAI wrote: Yep. I played an unranked game and went mass oracle against a terran, and he just left, because his turrets got decimated, and he couldnt leave his base all game because 4+ oracles kills a turret in seconds. And then it takes half a second to shred all the workers. And it is actually an insanely powerful fighting unit, so if you mass oracle against Z, he can no longer attack you and win, because your pulser beam decimates hydras. Oracle is just impossible to beat.
Replay or it's hard to get any value from your statement. You can say the same thing about mass Banshees, but we all know that doesn't work.
W/e ignore my arguement then, cuz i cant find it. This was right when they implemented the new pulsar beam.
On December 20 2012 08:35 Cyro wrote:
but do we want early air units to be reasonable against marines and hydras.
Um yes, thats kinda why protoss air is never used in WOL.
But reasonable is no reason to make it overpowered
But who says it's overpowered? All you have is some game as "proof" it's OP, but nobody has seen the game but you. Like I said before, you could make the same statement you did about Banshees, but because of practical in game reasons we know it's not actually a legitimate concern.
Correct, in the early days, 4 banshee + 1 raven could give a win before the idea of kiting workers was adopted. Good times.
EPT
Only in range it's much inferior to the banshee.
and they are useful in lategame stages with timewarp and revelation. so the investment is not too high. 
