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The Void Ray received a major redesign in the latest patch. But exactly how much impact will this have? Here's how, with their new cooldown and charge ability, Void Rays now perform vs. various units and structures they commonly engage with:
Void Ray vs Stalker: This is a huge difference. If they use their charge power, Void Rays now kill Stalkers in 5.5 seconds, and only take 42 damage in response. In fact, Voids can easily take on and kill 2 Stalkers at once now. Previously, killing a Stalker took a Void Ray 10.2 seconds, and it would take 98 damage in return—and 2 Stalkers could kill a Void Ray in a direct fight. I repeat: this is huge. New Void Rays kill Stalkers almost twice as quickly. If the Void doesn’t use charge, it will take 8.5 seconds to kill the Stalker and will take 84 damage in return—not as dominant as with charge, but still a step up from the pre-patch Void.
Void Ray vs. Viking: With their new power, Void Rays kill Vikings in about 4 seconds, in which time they’ll take 40 return damage. Voids can actually take on 3 Vikings at once and win now. Compared to before, where they took 7.8 seconds to kill Vikings and would take 60-80 return damage. Void Rays now kill Vikings about twice as quickly. If they don’t use charge, Voids instead take 6.5 seconds to kill Vikings, so still a decent step up from pre-patch.
Void Ray vs Corruptor: Using their charge power, Void Rays can now kill Corruptors in 7.5 seconds, during which the Void Ray will take 42 damage in return fire. In fact, Void Rays can now take on a couple Corruptors at once and win pretty comfortably. Previously unless they were somehow precharged, Void Rays took 12 seconds to kill Corruptors and would take 84 damage over that time—yes, with their new ability and cooldown, Void Rays now kill Corruptors in nearly half the time. If they don’t use charge, it will take them 12.5 seconds to kill Corruptors, which is about the same as pre-patch
Void Ray vs Queen: Void Rays will now kill Queens in 17.5 seconds, during which the Queen will deal about 162 damage to the Void and leave them with just under 90 health. 2 Queens at once, or a Queen using transfuse, can still take on a Void Ray. Previously, Void Ray vs. Queen was something Void Rays would win just barely, so comfortably beating queens is a big bump in effectiveness.
Void Ray vs. Static Defense:
A Void Ray can now kill a Photon Cannon in 10 seconds if it triggers charge before engaging--in that time, the Photon Cannon will knock off about 160 hp from the Void Ray, leaving it with 90 health. Previously, a Void Ray facing a Cannon would take 15 seconds to kill it, and would deal 240 damage to the Void leaving it with just 10 health (and since Cannons outrange Voids and generally strike first, they often simply killed the Void outright)
A Void Ray can now kill a Missile Turret in 8 seconds, and will take 216 damage in return . Previously it would take 12.6 seconds to kill a Turret...except Turret dps is high enough that it would win the fight outright before that ever happened.
A Void Ray will now kill a Spore Crawler in 13.5 seconds, during which it will take 225 damage in return and end up with 35 health remaining. Previously it would have taken a Void 18.9 to kill a Spore...except Spores only needs 14.6 seconds to kill Voids.
In a nutshell, prior to the patch, any static defense was capable of taking a Void Ray in a straight up fight, unless the Void was somehow precharged. Post patch, if you trigger the charge then engage, Void Rays can beat any static defense in a direct fight.
Void Ray vs. Worker: kills probes in 3.5 seconds (down from 4.2 before) and scvs and drones in 4 seconds (down from 4.8 before). A marginal bump, but you’re still better off using the new Oracle if you want to kill workers.
Void Ray vs Marine: Void Rays now take 4 seconds to kill marines, previously they took about 5. In that time, one Marine will deal 24 damage to the Void. This means that a Void can take on 3 marines at once and win pretty comfortable, and can almost win against 4 marines at once—honestly this isn’t a gigantic shift (although when fighting 3 marines the new Void finishes with way more health than the old one).
Void Ray vs. Phoenix: Void Rays now take 15 seconds to kill Phoenixes, and will take about 130 damage in return. Previously, it took them 15.6 seconds. So a very slight bump, but basically negligible.
Against massive units, the Void has actually been slightly nerfed when charged—the new version deals 32 dps, the old one dealt 31 dps vs massive, but the old version had slightly higher damage/longer cooldown, which made it better at punching through armor. The faster cooldown on the new Void Ray means armor makes a bigger impact, and most massive units have decent armor. However, this is only when charged, which could be tricky to get in engagements—the new Void can do its peak dps much more reliably. The net effect is that Voids are probably more or less as effective as they’ve always been against massive…which is to say, ok, but not as good as Tempests.
Edit:
by request,
Void Rays vs. Bunker with 1, 2, 3 or 4 marines. A charged Void Ray takes 13.5 seconds to kill a bunker--marines will each deal 90 damage in that time, so Voids will take a bunker with 1 marine with 160 health left, a bunker with 2 marines with 70 health left, and 3 or 4 marines in a bunker will kill the Void. If an SCV can arrive to repair though, that will significantly swing things in the Terran's favor, reducing the Void Ray's dps by 10 and extending the life if the bunker to 20 seconds, during which each marine will deal 138 damage, meaning even 2 marines in a bunker being repaired will be sufficient to kill the Void. Interesting, in WoL Voids took 19.8 seconds to kill a Bunker that wasn't being prepared. Meaning that effectively, the new Voids are as good vs a bunker being repaired by an SCV as the old Voids were vs an unrepaired bunker. And vs unrepaired bunkers, the new Voids kill them 6.3 seconds faster, a significant jump if you're frantically trying to send more marines or SCVs to help defend an early push before your bunker goes down.
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I worry about the power of mass void rays vs Terran mech now. I am not completely sure what a meching Terran can do to stop it.
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On December 08 2012 07:24 Rnevermore wrote:
I worry about the power of mass void rays vs Terran mech now. I am not completely sure what a meching Terran can do to stop it.
the new Thor completely wrecks Void Rays.
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micro the vikings rnevermore
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The void ray needed a buff. Frankly, it sucked for its cost. It was generally useless after about the first 10 min in any match-up (with some rare exceptions). Now it might have multiple purposes. It might actually be too good even, but they can always reduce its damage.
At least it might see some play again in standard games.
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The only thing that worries me about this is PvP. Mass void ray is actually really strong already in WoL, and now it's much stronger.
Of course, microed phoenixes with the range upgrade will destroy void rays without taking any damage. I'm more worried about build order wins.
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On December 08 2012 07:22 awesomoecalypse wrote:
Void Ray vs Stalker: This is a huge difference. If they use their charge power, Void Rays now kill Stalkers in 5.5 seconds, and only take 42 damage in response. In fact, Voids can easily take on and kill 2 Stalkers at once now. Previously, killing a Stalker took a Void Ray 10.2 seconds, and it would take 98 damage in return—and 2 Stalkers could kill a Void Ray in a direct fight. I repeat: this is huge. New Void Rays kill Stalkers almost twice as quickly. If the Void doesn’t use charge, it will take 8.5 seconds to kill the Stalker and will take 84 damage in return—not as dominant as with charge, but still a step up from the pre-patch Void.
Yay, another air unit that the stalker has a really difficult time fighting. I mean, if you compare Stalker/Void per resources (ignoring that gas is more scarce early because the harvesting rates are about the same) 2 stalkers cost about the same (if you factor in pylon cost) as one Void. I'm betting that in large numbers, this means the only unit in PvP capable of handling large numbers of voids are phoenixes (and... maybe HT/Archon because of splash?).
Stalkers are so bad in straight up fights it's painful.... perhaps blink will have a role to play here?
On December 08 2012 07:22 awesomoecalypse wrote:
Void Ray vs. Viking: With their new power, Void Rays kill Vikings in about 4 seconds, in which time they’ll take 40 return damage. Voids can actually take on 3 Vikings at once and win now. Compared to before, where they took 7.8 seconds to kill Vikings and would take 60-80 return damage. Void Rays now kill Vikings about twice as quickly. If they don’t use charge, Voids instead take 6.5 seconds to kill Vikings, so still a decent step up from pre-patch.
This is slightly moot, because Vikings never have to actually fight Voids a-move-style.
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Thanks a lot for this data!
Loving the new changes.
@Treehead
Remember stalkers can out run void rays, meaning if you're in big trouble you cooould run your stalkers and then probes around until more stalkers come out.
Actually you could micro against them to help pass the 20 seconds right? Since void ray attacks in fast intervals and stalkers attacks in bigger intervals, you can attack, and run a little. If they keep chasing, then keep attacking (they won't be attacking all the time because you run faster). If they try to just kill a pylon or probe or such, you turn back around and get a quick shot off, and back off again.
@OP I was going to think that, since phoenixes already only barely beat void rays, that this vs phoenix buff might be too much, however small it is. But then I remembered now that phoenixes can kite void rays forever :D
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Thanks for the information! Some rather interesting changes, will love to try this out myself and feel the difference and adapt to it.
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Out of all the things you pointed out I am only concerned in PvP vs Stalkers. Everything else is either still cost efficient vs VRs or can be mitigated with micro.
In PvP however Stalkers will be the only mobile form of defense unless you went stargate yourself, and Photon Cannons are the least cost effective defensive structure of the 3 races. If Stalkers are not cost effective vs VRs by at least a sizable margin (2 stalkers is only 50 less gas than a VR) then stargate openers will be the de facto opening in that matchup. As I mentioned in another thread I believe with all the buffs air units (plus some new air units) are getting in HotS (Medivacs, VRs, Phoenix, Mutas, etc.) Stalkers need to have a stronger AtG attack.
On December 08 2012 07:46 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Thanks a lot for this data!
Loving the new changes.
@Treehead
Remember stalkers can out run void rays, meaning if you're in big trouble you cooould run your stalkers and then probes around until more stalkers come out.
Actually you could micro against them to help pass the 20 seconds right? Since void ray attacks in fast intervals and stalkers attacks in bigger intervals, you can attack, and run a little. If they keep chasing, then keep attacking (they won't be attacking all the time because you run faster). If they try to just kill a pylon or probe or such, you turn back around and get a quick shot off, and back off again.
@OP I was going to think that, since phoenixes already only barely beat void rays, that this vs phoenix buff might be too much, however small it is. But then I remembered now that phoenixes can kite void rays forever :D
While yes Stalkers can outrun VRs you have to remember the VR beam also "locks-on" the target for quite a bit outside VRs range of 6. If 1 VR kills a Stalker when charged in 5.5s then if they hit you with 3 charged VRs early running away won't be an option as it will just die before it can run out of range.
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On December 08 2012 07:37 Empirimancer wrote:
The only thing that worries me about this is PvP. Mass void ray is actually really strong already in WoL, and now it's much stronger.
Of course, microed phoenixes with the range upgrade will destroy void rays without taking any damage. I'm more worried about build order wins.
Whaaa? Mass VR loses to anyone in low Masters or above.
It's likely a non-stargate vs stargate PvP match will have stalkers using blink to retreat from fights where the VR has used the charge ability, and then blinking to catch up and shoot down running VRs.
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On December 08 2012 07:37 Empirimancer wrote:
The only thing that worries me about this is PvP. Mass void ray is actually really strong already in WoL, and now it's much stronger.
Of course, microed phoenixes with the range upgrade will destroy void rays without taking any damage. I'm more worried about build order wins.
I think mass void rays arent that strong in WoL. The only time you can afford mass void rays is end game and by that time infestors + corruptor should demolish the void rays
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mass void rays? i mean really thats like mass battlecruisers, good luck getting there.
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On December 08 2012 07:26 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 07:24 Rnevermore wrote:
I worry about the power of mass void rays vs Terran mech now. I am not completely sure what a meching Terran can do to stop it. the new Thor completely wrecks Void Rays.
Proof?
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On December 08 2012 08:00 Skyro wrote:Out of all the things you pointed out I am only concerned in PvP vs Stalkers. Everything else is either still cost efficient vs VRs or can be mitigated with micro. In PvP however Stalkers will be the only mobile form of defense unless you went stargate yourself, and Photon Cannons are the least cost effective defensive structure of the 3 races. If Stalkers are not cost effective vs VRs by at least a sizable margin (2 stalkers is only 50 less gas than a VR) then stargate openers will be the de facto opening in that matchup. As I mentioned in another thread I believe with all the buffs air units (plus some new air units) are getting in HotS (Medivacs, VRs, Phoenix, Mutas, etc.) Stalkers need to have a stronger AtG attack. Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 07:46 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Thanks a lot for this data!
Loving the new changes.
@Treehead
Remember stalkers can out run void rays, meaning if you're in big trouble you cooould run your stalkers and then probes around until more stalkers come out.
Actually you could micro against them to help pass the 20 seconds right? Since void ray attacks in fast intervals and stalkers attacks in bigger intervals, you can attack, and run a little. If they keep chasing, then keep attacking (they won't be attacking all the time because you run faster). If they try to just kill a pylon or probe or such, you turn back around and get a quick shot off, and back off again.
@OP I was going to think that, since phoenixes already only barely beat void rays, that this vs phoenix buff might be too much, however small it is. But then I remembered now that phoenixes can kite void rays forever :D While yes Stalkers can outrun VRs you have to remember the VR beam also "locks-on" the target for quite a bit outside VRs range of 6. If 1 VR kills a Stalker when charged in 5.5s then if they hit you with 3 charged VRs early running away won't be an option as it will just die before it can run out of range.
I'm ok with all of that because I think watching stargate units is more exciting than gateway units. There really is a lot more room for battles around the map with this, and the dynamic between the five stargate units should bring some needed flavor to this matchup. I always found Stalkers to be one of the more boring units of the game.
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On December 08 2012 08:09 unteqair wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 08:00 Skyro wrote:Out of all the things you pointed out I am only concerned in PvP vs Stalkers. Everything else is either still cost efficient vs VRs or can be mitigated with micro. In PvP however Stalkers will be the only mobile form of defense unless you went stargate yourself, and Photon Cannons are the least cost effective defensive structure of the 3 races. If Stalkers are not cost effective vs VRs by at least a sizable margin (2 stalkers is only 50 less gas than a VR) then stargate openers will be the de facto opening in that matchup. As I mentioned in another thread I believe with all the buffs air units (plus some new air units) are getting in HotS (Medivacs, VRs, Phoenix, Mutas, etc.) Stalkers need to have a stronger AtG attack. On December 08 2012 07:46 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Thanks a lot for this data!
Loving the new changes.
@Treehead
Remember stalkers can out run void rays, meaning if you're in big trouble you cooould run your stalkers and then probes around until more stalkers come out.
Actually you could micro against them to help pass the 20 seconds right? Since void ray attacks in fast intervals and stalkers attacks in bigger intervals, you can attack, and run a little. If they keep chasing, then keep attacking (they won't be attacking all the time because you run faster). If they try to just kill a pylon or probe or such, you turn back around and get a quick shot off, and back off again.
@OP I was going to think that, since phoenixes already only barely beat void rays, that this vs phoenix buff might be too much, however small it is. But then I remembered now that phoenixes can kite void rays forever :D While yes Stalkers can outrun VRs you have to remember the VR beam also "locks-on" the target for quite a bit outside VRs range of 6. If 1 VR kills a Stalker when charged in 5.5s then if they hit you with 3 charged VRs early running away won't be an option as it will just die before it can run out of range. I'm ok with all of that because I think watching stargate units is more exciting than gateway units. There really is a lot more room for battles around the map with this, and the dynamic between the five stargate units should bring some needed flavor to this matchup. I always found Stalkers to be one of the more boring units of the game.
Really? I always thought that Stalkers were one of the better-than-the-BW-counterpart units of the game. Even the bad upgrade scaling fits them well. I think it's the gateway units / mechanics designed around them which might made them boring but hopefully that will change with HotS. (I for one always like units with multiple attack directions more than specialised hard counters which can only shoot vs air, or vs ground, or whatever. Multifunctional units were what made BW so good for me.)
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On December 08 2012 08:09 unteqair wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 08:00 Skyro wrote:Out of all the things you pointed out I am only concerned in PvP vs Stalkers. Everything else is either still cost efficient vs VRs or can be mitigated with micro. In PvP however Stalkers will be the only mobile form of defense unless you went stargate yourself, and Photon Cannons are the least cost effective defensive structure of the 3 races. If Stalkers are not cost effective vs VRs by at least a sizable margin (2 stalkers is only 50 less gas than a VR) then stargate openers will be the de facto opening in that matchup. As I mentioned in another thread I believe with all the buffs air units (plus some new air units) are getting in HotS (Medivacs, VRs, Phoenix, Mutas, etc.) Stalkers need to have a stronger AtG attack. On December 08 2012 07:46 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Thanks a lot for this data!
Loving the new changes.
@Treehead
Remember stalkers can out run void rays, meaning if you're in big trouble you cooould run your stalkers and then probes around until more stalkers come out.
Actually you could micro against them to help pass the 20 seconds right? Since void ray attacks in fast intervals and stalkers attacks in bigger intervals, you can attack, and run a little. If they keep chasing, then keep attacking (they won't be attacking all the time because you run faster). If they try to just kill a pylon or probe or such, you turn back around and get a quick shot off, and back off again.
@OP I was going to think that, since phoenixes already only barely beat void rays, that this vs phoenix buff might be too much, however small it is. But then I remembered now that phoenixes can kite void rays forever :D While yes Stalkers can outrun VRs you have to remember the VR beam also "locks-on" the target for quite a bit outside VRs range of 6. If 1 VR kills a Stalker when charged in 5.5s then if they hit you with 3 charged VRs early running away won't be an option as it will just die before it can run out of range. I'm ok with all of that because I think watching stargate units is more exciting than gateway units. There really is a lot more room for battles around the map with this, and the dynamic between the five stargate units should bring some needed flavor to this matchup. I always found Stalkers to be one of the more boring units of the game.
First of all regardless how "exciting" you think it may be, having 1 dominant strategy that is going to be used the vast majority of the time will eventually make it boring. The much hated 4-gate, while much hated by the community at large, was actually quite an exciting micro battle involving tight timings and slim margins of victory.
Second of all I do not think you understand the dynamics of PvP air play. It basically boils down to who can make more Phoenixes faster and then just go and win one engagement and proceed to win the game. There is a huge "avalanche" effect with Phoenix vs Phoenix air battles. The only viable solution to this and the potential VR issue is, as I stated above, buffing Stalkers AtG attack so that they can actually function to counter VRs and Phoenixes cost effectively.
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I suppose you mean ground to air attack (GtA), and not AtG..
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On December 08 2012 08:39 Grendel wrote:
I suppose you mean ground to air attack (GtA), and not AtG..
Oops lol yeah obviously that's what I meant 
Actually flying Stalkers would be kinda cool LMAO
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On December 08 2012 08:29 Skyro wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 08:09 unteqair wrote:On December 08 2012 08:00 Skyro wrote:Out of all the things you pointed out I am only concerned in PvP vs Stalkers. Everything else is either still cost efficient vs VRs or can be mitigated with micro. In PvP however Stalkers will be the only mobile form of defense unless you went stargate yourself, and Photon Cannons are the least cost effective defensive structure of the 3 races. If Stalkers are not cost effective vs VRs by at least a sizable margin (2 stalkers is only 50 less gas than a VR) then stargate openers will be the de facto opening in that matchup. As I mentioned in another thread I believe with all the buffs air units (plus some new air units) are getting in HotS (Medivacs, VRs, Phoenix, Mutas, etc.) Stalkers need to have a stronger AtG attack. On December 08 2012 07:46 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Thanks a lot for this data!
Loving the new changes.
@Treehead
Remember stalkers can out run void rays, meaning if you're in big trouble you cooould run your stalkers and then probes around until more stalkers come out.
Actually you could micro against them to help pass the 20 seconds right? Since void ray attacks in fast intervals and stalkers attacks in bigger intervals, you can attack, and run a little. If they keep chasing, then keep attacking (they won't be attacking all the time because you run faster). If they try to just kill a pylon or probe or such, you turn back around and get a quick shot off, and back off again.
@OP I was going to think that, since phoenixes already only barely beat void rays, that this vs phoenix buff might be too much, however small it is. But then I remembered now that phoenixes can kite void rays forever :D While yes Stalkers can outrun VRs you have to remember the VR beam also "locks-on" the target for quite a bit outside VRs range of 6. If 1 VR kills a Stalker when charged in 5.5s then if they hit you with 3 charged VRs early running away won't be an option as it will just die before it can run out of range. I'm ok with all of that because I think watching stargate units is more exciting than gateway units. There really is a lot more room for battles around the map with this, and the dynamic between the five stargate units should bring some needed flavor to this matchup. I always found Stalkers to be one of the more boring units of the game. First of all regardless how "exciting" you think it may be, having 1 dominant strategy that is going to be used the vast majority of the time will eventually make it boring. The much hated 4-gate, while much hated by the community at large, was actually quite an exciting micro battle involving tight timings and slim margins of victory. Second of all I do not think you understand the dynamics of PvP air play. It basically boils down to who can make more Phoenixes faster and then just go and win one engagement and proceed to win the game. There is a huge "avalanche" effect with Phoenix vs Phoenix air battles. The only viable solution to this and the potential VR issue is, as I stated above, buffing Stalkers AtG attack so that they can actually function to counter VRs and Phoenixes cost effectively.
If this is what you think, then I don't think you understand the matchup, nor the utility that Stalkers still have. 4-gate is not "exciting."
And what is the point of putting "exciting" in quotations?
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On December 08 2012 07:22 awesomoecalypse wrote:
Void Ray vs Stalker: This is a huge difference. If they use their charge power, Void Rays now kill Stalkers in 5.5 seconds, and only take 42 damage in response. In fact, Voids can easily take on and kill 2 Stalkers at once now. Previously, killing a Stalker took a Void Ray 10.2 seconds, and it would take 98 damage in return—and 2 Stalkers could kill a Void Ray in a direct fight. I repeat: this is huge. New Void Rays kill Stalkers almost twice as quickly. If the Void doesn’t use charge, it will take 8.5 seconds to kill the Stalker and will take 84 damage in return—not as dominant as with charge, but still a step up from the pre-patch Void.
This is not as big of a game changer as people are making it out to be. The charge power has a cooldown on it, so it's not like void rays will rampage through armies of stalkers. If you're in the scenario of blink stalker vs. stargate and they get void rays, it will take them a really long time to get enough void rays to wreck an army of stalkers. And even if they go double stargate, they won't have enough army to beat your first push. I don't see void rays becoming a force to be reckoned with in PvP beyond what they are now (from what I've seen, for attacking collosus late game). I haven't seen anybody go mass void ray ever, except for in like 2v2s... and even then I just laugh and watch my archon splash destroy them.
I would like to see, or maybe even do testing of my own for seeing how quickly it takes down a roach, as thats really all I use the void ray for. They provide excellent defense for the early-mid game while setting up a third base. So having the charge buff may make them even better for this defensive purpose.
Thank you so much for posting this information, I'll try to contribute more to the research tonight.
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On December 08 2012 08:45 unteqair wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 08:29 Skyro wrote:On December 08 2012 08:09 unteqair wrote:On December 08 2012 08:00 Skyro wrote:Out of all the things you pointed out I am only concerned in PvP vs Stalkers. Everything else is either still cost efficient vs VRs or can be mitigated with micro. In PvP however Stalkers will be the only mobile form of defense unless you went stargate yourself, and Photon Cannons are the least cost effective defensive structure of the 3 races. If Stalkers are not cost effective vs VRs by at least a sizable margin (2 stalkers is only 50 less gas than a VR) then stargate openers will be the de facto opening in that matchup. As I mentioned in another thread I believe with all the buffs air units (plus some new air units) are getting in HotS (Medivacs, VRs, Phoenix, Mutas, etc.) Stalkers need to have a stronger AtG attack. On December 08 2012 07:46 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Thanks a lot for this data!
Loving the new changes.
@Treehead
Remember stalkers can out run void rays, meaning if you're in big trouble you cooould run your stalkers and then probes around until more stalkers come out.
Actually you could micro against them to help pass the 20 seconds right? Since void ray attacks in fast intervals and stalkers attacks in bigger intervals, you can attack, and run a little. If they keep chasing, then keep attacking (they won't be attacking all the time because you run faster). If they try to just kill a pylon or probe or such, you turn back around and get a quick shot off, and back off again.
@OP I was going to think that, since phoenixes already only barely beat void rays, that this vs phoenix buff might be too much, however small it is. But then I remembered now that phoenixes can kite void rays forever :D While yes Stalkers can outrun VRs you have to remember the VR beam also "locks-on" the target for quite a bit outside VRs range of 6. If 1 VR kills a Stalker when charged in 5.5s then if they hit you with 3 charged VRs early running away won't be an option as it will just die before it can run out of range. I'm ok with all of that because I think watching stargate units is more exciting than gateway units. There really is a lot more room for battles around the map with this, and the dynamic between the five stargate units should bring some needed flavor to this matchup. I always found Stalkers to be one of the more boring units of the game. First of all regardless how "exciting" you think it may be, having 1 dominant strategy that is going to be used the vast majority of the time will eventually make it boring. The much hated 4-gate, while much hated by the community at large, was actually quite an exciting micro battle involving tight timings and slim margins of victory. Second of all I do not think you understand the dynamics of PvP air play. It basically boils down to who can make more Phoenixes faster and then just go and win one engagement and proceed to win the game. There is a huge "avalanche" effect with Phoenix vs Phoenix air battles. The only viable solution to this and the potential VR issue is, as I stated above, buffing Stalkers AtG attack so that they can actually function to counter VRs and Phoenixes cost effectively. If this is what you think, then I don't think you understand the matchup, nor the utility that Stalkers still have. 4-gate is not "exciting." And what is the point of putting "exciting" in quotations?
Oh? Please enlighten me on how mirror Stargate openers play out at high levels currently in WoL (and which should remain relatively the same in HotS due to no new units/mechanics that should affect Phoenixes in PvP).
4-Gate is exciting to some people. I'm using it as an analogy of a devolution of strategy due to a dominant strategy that some people may find exciting.
And I put "exciting" in quotations because most people do not find mass Phoenix vs Phoenix battles exciting.
I have no idea what you are trying to say about the utility of the Stalkers. If you are trying to say Blink Stalker openers counter Stargate openers in WoL that has no bearing on the discussion because currently HotS VRs melt Stalkers.
Thus you are forced to make a Stargate to counter Stargate, which then leads to the mass Phoenix battles. You can't even scout a Stargate and react with your own because your opponent will already have the upperhand on Phoenix production!
My point is that a big reason VRs are hard to balance is due to this Stalker/VR dynamic. Stalkers being Protoss' only GtA unit but so weak as a unit DPS/cost is the problem, not the VR itself. The solution is to buff Stalkers GtA.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
@Skyro - Stalkers don't have to necessarily be cost-efficient against Void Rays for Stargate openers to not take over. And keep in mind Stalkers do actually beat them 1:1 resource cost wise *if the Void Ray isn't charged up*. So baiting charge will be a pretty important micro tactic. Combine that with the MSC's defense, Guardian Shield, the fact that Stalkers can be warped in so the Stalker player should always have more resources in the fight than the Void Ray player, and potentially Blink Micro, and I wouldn't worry too much. It's a complicated thing we can't simulate in our heads, and it definitely sounds like the Stalker player has the tools to defend an early Void Ray attack.
As for the mid-game, I think it get's even worse for the Void Ray-ing player. The Stalker player's force is far more mobile so it can secure more expansions, it's upgrades work with the rest of it's army, large numbers of Void Rays are notoriously weak against Splash (storm ofc!), I really am not too worried about these attacks. Maybe proxy Void Ray all ins will be scary, idk. Mothership Core good unit.
@the people debating Void Rays vs Thors - Thors do not wreck Void Rays. 1 Void Ray beats 1 Thor (for 3/4 the gas cost). That said, between the new shared air upgrades, Widow Mines, the ability to mass repair Thors and build Turrets on defense, and the fact that Thors old Splash attack still wrecks Void Rays in any large numbers, I don't think the Mech player has anything to worry about besides being surprised. Even then, mass repair is super good (especially with increased Thor size...)
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On December 08 2012 09:16 ZjiublingZ wrote:
@Skyro - Stalkers don't have to necessarily be cost-efficient against Void Rays for Stargate openers to not take over. And keep in mind Stalkers do actually beat them 1:1 resource cost wise *if the Void Ray isn't charged up*. So baiting charge will be a pretty important micro tactic. Combine that with the MSC's defense, Guardian Shield, the fact that Stalkers can be warped in so the Stalker player should always have more resources in the fight than the Void Ray player, and potentially Blink Micro, and I wouldn't worry too much. It's a complicated thing we can't simulate in our heads, and it definitely sounds like the Stalker player has the tools to defend an early Void Ray attack.
As for the mid-game, I think it get's even worse for the Void Ray-ing player. The Stalker player's force is far more mobile so it can secure more expansions, it's upgrades work with the rest of it's army, large numbers of Void Rays are notoriously weak against Splash (storm ofc!), I really am not too worried about these attacks. Maybe proxy Void Ray all ins will be scary, idk. Mothership Core good unit.
@the people debating Void Rays vs Thors - Thors do not wreck Void Rays. 1 Void Ray beats 1 Thor (for 3/4 the gas cost). That said, between the new shared air upgrades, Widow Mines, the ability to mass repair Thors and build Turrets on defense, and the fact that Thors old Splash attack still wrecks Void Rays in any large numbers, I don't think the Mech player has anything to worry about besides being surprised. Even then, mass repair is super good (especially with increased Thor size...)
As currently implemented I don't think it is as simple as baiting charges. There is a lock-on mechanic that with enough DPS (which seems to be ~3 VRs) micro'ing away after being targeted will be pointless. And just simply running away to let VRs rampage your base isn't an option either as it currently lasts 20s which is a looong time. Is that long enough to burn down a Nexus (too lazy to calculate)? That would be GG right there.
But what it boils down to is not that it will be some unbeatable strategy. 4-Gate, outside of very early on in the game's lifespan, was not an unbeatable strategy. It still however had serious ramifications on the PvP metagame, that much cannot be denied. I think the current iteration of VRs in HotS will have a similar effect, and while you can certainly make the case to tweak the VR further (as they likely will of course), I am making the arguement that the core issue is the Stalker as trying to balance the VR around the current Stalker is challenging to say the least.
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On December 08 2012 07:24 Rnevermore wrote:
I worry about the power of mass void rays vs Terran mech now. I am not completely sure what a meching Terran can do to stop it.
Voids are expensive as fuck. Play skytoss from start is almost imposible in high level PvT. And if the P have room to switch to voids, that mean that the P was already ahead.
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On December 08 2012 08:05 link0 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 07:26 awesomoecalypse wrote:On December 08 2012 07:24 Rnevermore wrote:
I worry about the power of mass void rays vs Terran mech now. I am not completely sure what a meching Terran can do to stop it. the new Thor completely wrecks Void Rays. Proof?
Vikings with kiting, and some thor support so that he has to worry about splitting
but yes i would like some proof
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On December 08 2012 09:13 Skyro wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 08:45 unteqair wrote:On December 08 2012 08:29 Skyro wrote:On December 08 2012 08:09 unteqair wrote:On December 08 2012 08:00 Skyro wrote:Out of all the things you pointed out I am only concerned in PvP vs Stalkers. Everything else is either still cost efficient vs VRs or can be mitigated with micro. In PvP however Stalkers will be the only mobile form of defense unless you went stargate yourself, and Photon Cannons are the least cost effective defensive structure of the 3 races. If Stalkers are not cost effective vs VRs by at least a sizable margin (2 stalkers is only 50 less gas than a VR) then stargate openers will be the de facto opening in that matchup. As I mentioned in another thread I believe with all the buffs air units (plus some new air units) are getting in HotS (Medivacs, VRs, Phoenix, Mutas, etc.) Stalkers need to have a stronger AtG attack. On December 08 2012 07:46 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Thanks a lot for this data!
Loving the new changes.
@Treehead
Remember stalkers can out run void rays, meaning if you're in big trouble you cooould run your stalkers and then probes around until more stalkers come out.
Actually you could micro against them to help pass the 20 seconds right? Since void ray attacks in fast intervals and stalkers attacks in bigger intervals, you can attack, and run a little. If they keep chasing, then keep attacking (they won't be attacking all the time because you run faster). If they try to just kill a pylon or probe or such, you turn back around and get a quick shot off, and back off again.
@OP I was going to think that, since phoenixes already only barely beat void rays, that this vs phoenix buff might be too much, however small it is. But then I remembered now that phoenixes can kite void rays forever :D While yes Stalkers can outrun VRs you have to remember the VR beam also "locks-on" the target for quite a bit outside VRs range of 6. If 1 VR kills a Stalker when charged in 5.5s then if they hit you with 3 charged VRs early running away won't be an option as it will just die before it can run out of range. I'm ok with all of that because I think watching stargate units is more exciting than gateway units. There really is a lot more room for battles around the map with this, and the dynamic between the five stargate units should bring some needed flavor to this matchup. I always found Stalkers to be one of the more boring units of the game. First of all regardless how "exciting" you think it may be, having 1 dominant strategy that is going to be used the vast majority of the time will eventually make it boring. The much hated 4-gate, while much hated by the community at large, was actually quite an exciting micro battle involving tight timings and slim margins of victory. Second of all I do not think you understand the dynamics of PvP air play. It basically boils down to who can make more Phoenixes faster and then just go and win one engagement and proceed to win the game. There is a huge "avalanche" effect with Phoenix vs Phoenix air battles. The only viable solution to this and the potential VR issue is, as I stated above, buffing Stalkers AtG attack so that they can actually function to counter VRs and Phoenixes cost effectively. If this is what you think, then I don't think you understand the matchup, nor the utility that Stalkers still have. 4-gate is not "exciting." And what is the point of putting "exciting" in quotations? Oh? Please enlighten me on how mirror Stargate openers play out at high levels currently in WoL (and which should remain relatively the same in HotS due to no new units/mechanics that should affect Phoenixes in PvP). 4-Gate is exciting to some people. I'm using it as an analogy of a devolution of strategy due to a dominant strategy that some people may find exciting. And I put "exciting" in quotations because most people do not find mass Phoenix vs Phoenix battles exciting. I have no idea what you are trying to say about the utility of the Stalkers. If you are trying to say Blink Stalker openers counter Stargate openers in WoL that has no bearing on the discussion because currently HotS VRs melt Stalkers. Thus you are forced to make a Stargate to counter Stargate, which then leads to the mass Phoenix battles. You can't even scout a Stargate and react with your own because your opponent will already have the upperhand on Phoenix production! My point is that a big reason VRs are hard to balance is due to this Stalker/VR dynamic. Stalkers being Protoss' only GtA unit but so weak as a unit DPS/cost is the problem, not the VR itself. The solution is to buff Stalkers GtA.
No. In the current build of HotS it is far more of a balancing act than you are willing to admit. This is just yet another plea to have stalkers buffed. This unit cannot be buffed to be cost efficient vs. anything because it can be spammed, resources can be dumped into it very quickly, has excellent range, can be warped in around the map, is extremely fast, can teleport, can hit both air and ground, becomes much more powerful when used with ff's, and is tier 1.
You say that if two Protoss players both open Stargate that the battle will devolve into a mass Phoenix war, as producing this unit is clearly the dominant strategy; yet, you don't consider that in this situation you've created there aren't any VR's to begin with, because producing Phx is the dominant strategy, and producing a VR means forgoing one. This would be the case if Stalkers didn't exist, but they do, and this is where they come in. It won't just be mass phoenix.
I just don't think the dance between the units is as simple as you are portraying it. Yes, having the threat that dangerous units will come the Stargate encourages Phoenix production, but that's not all there is.
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Now that Void Rays are roughly twice as good vs. several of their most common foes... I'm still not sure if the unit will be viable in standard play after 10 minutes.
Yeah, that's how bad the Void Ray used to be.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 08 2012 09:28 Skyro wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 09:16 ZjiublingZ wrote:
@Skyro - Stalkers don't have to necessarily be cost-efficient against Void Rays for Stargate openers to not take over. And keep in mind Stalkers do actually beat them 1:1 resource cost wise *if the Void Ray isn't charged up*. So baiting charge will be a pretty important micro tactic. Combine that with the MSC's defense, Guardian Shield, the fact that Stalkers can be warped in so the Stalker player should always have more resources in the fight than the Void Ray player, and potentially Blink Micro, and I wouldn't worry too much. It's a complicated thing we can't simulate in our heads, and it definitely sounds like the Stalker player has the tools to defend an early Void Ray attack.
As for the mid-game, I think it get's even worse for the Void Ray-ing player. The Stalker player's force is far more mobile so it can secure more expansions, it's upgrades work with the rest of it's army, large numbers of Void Rays are notoriously weak against Splash (storm ofc!), I really am not too worried about these attacks. Maybe proxy Void Ray all ins will be scary, idk. Mothership Core good unit.
@the people debating Void Rays vs Thors - Thors do not wreck Void Rays. 1 Void Ray beats 1 Thor (for 3/4 the gas cost). That said, between the new shared air upgrades, Widow Mines, the ability to mass repair Thors and build Turrets on defense, and the fact that Thors old Splash attack still wrecks Void Rays in any large numbers, I don't think the Mech player has anything to worry about besides being surprised. Even then, mass repair is super good (especially with increased Thor size...) As currently implemented I don't think it is as simple as baiting charges. There is a lock-on mechanic that with enough DPS (which seems to be ~3 VRs) micro'ing away after being targeted will be pointless. And just simply running away to let VRs rampage your base isn't an option either as it currently lasts 20s which is a looong time. Is that long enough to burn down a Nexus (too lazy to calculate)? That would be GG right there. But what it boils down to is not that it will be some unbeatable strategy. 4-Gate, outside of very early on in the game's lifespan, was not an unbeatable strategy. It still however had serious ramifications on the PvP metagame, that much cannot be denied. I think the current iteration of VRs in HotS will have a similar effect, and while you can certainly make the case to tweak the VR further (as they likely will of course), I am making the arguement that the core issue is the Stalker as trying to balance the VR around the current Stalker is challenging to say the least.
I hear you man, but I gave more examples of Stalkers having an advantage over Void Rays beyond baiting/running away from charges. If you want the case you are making to have some weight you should address ALL the points I made, because there are more advantages for Stalkers than just the one you cherry-picked from my post, a few specifically about defenders advantage that are worth considering in your example of Void Rays being your base! You gotta address all of them if you want to seriously make the argument you are trying to make.
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Storm deals with void rays just fine en mass if it actually comes to that. Doubt it will. In more worried about void ray all ins in pvt with this change. A better void ray with the mother ship core sound really scary to me. Nothing has changed for the Terran in the early game.
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On December 08 2012 11:28 unteqair wrote:
No. In the current build of HotS it is far more of a balancing act than you are willing to admit. This is just yet another plea to have stalkers buffed.
Yes, it is beta, balancing happens in beta. What is it exactly am I trying to not admit here? This is where you can make changes to core units because that is harder to do on release.
This unit cannot be buffed to be cost efficient vs. anything because it can be spammed, resources can be dumped into it very quickly, has excellent range, can be warped in around the map, is extremely fast, can teleport, can hit both air and ground, becomes much more powerful when used with ff's, and is tier 1.
Protoss' only GtA unit cannot be cost efficient vs air? That is one of the core design principles of every single RTS ever made. You break that and it causes other problems. Yes, Stalkers are versatile. I'm not suggesting a straight across the board buff, I'm asking specifically for their GtA capabilities. What does FF have anything to do with that?
You say that if two Protoss players both open Stargate that the battle will devolve into a mass Phoenix war, as producing this unit is clearly the dominant strategy; yet, you don't consider that in this situation you've created there aren't any VR's to begin with, because producing Phx is the dominant strategy, and producing a VR means forgoing one. This would be the case if Stalkers didn't exist, but they do, and this is where they come in. It won't just be mass phoenix.
I never said there would be VRs in mirror Stargate openers. I'm specifically saying that if VRs are buffed to be cost efficient vs Stalkers to the point where Stargate openers is the dominant strategy, that will lead to eye-gouging mass Phoenix battles in PvP. The existence (e.g. threat) of VRs are simply the catalyst that leads to mass Phoenix.
I just don't think the dance between the units is as simple as you are portraying it. Yes, having the threat that dangerous units will come the Stargate encourages Phoenix production, but that's not all there is.
It depends entirely if Stargate openers becomes the dominant strategy or not. If it is, then yes, it is that simple. Mass phoenix will beat Phoenix + Stalkers, generally speaking. There is a reason it is basically an "arms race" of who has more Phoenix in mirror Stargate openers.
Like I said, they very well could tweak (nerf) the VR, retaining Stalker cost efficiency vs VRs and Stargate then no longer becomes a dominant strategy. But now the VR is no longer cost efficient vs other races' armored AA units and you're back at square one, a unit nobody will use.
You could, alternatively, nerf VRs AtG attack specifically, but again you are balancing around the Stalker specifically. What does buffing Stalker's GtA attack would throw balance out of whack? Nearly every air unit in HotS has been buffed. How effective do you think Stalkers will be stopping Medivac drops now? How much stronger are Mutas going to be now vs non-stargate openers? Exactly.
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On December 08 2012 11:21 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 08:05 link0 wrote:On December 08 2012 07:26 awesomoecalypse wrote:On December 08 2012 07:24 Rnevermore wrote:
I worry about the power of mass void rays vs Terran mech now. I am not completely sure what a meching Terran can do to stop it. the new Thor completely wrecks Void Rays. Proof? Vikings with kiting, and some thor support so that he has to worry about splitting but yes i would like some proof
actually, you guts are 100% right and I was making totally unfounded assumptions. My bad, I dunno why but for some reason in the back of my head I thought Thors had 2 armor, which they don't.
I just ran the numbers, and a charged Void Ray vs. a Thor with HIP will kill the Thor in 13.5 seconds, and will have 82 hp left--obviously repair changes that calculation, and the ratio changes as you get more Void Rays and Thors because the Thor splash attack is actually decent against Voids (since they don't have any armor). If the Void isn't charged, the Thor will trade roughly even with Vikings.
So...yeah. I dunno if going pure mech really provides an effective answer to the new Void Ray. Normally with Vikings+bioball, you just use the Viking range to force the Voids to fly over the Marines and get shredded. But if there aren't many marines in play, Voids will defeat both Vikings and Thors pretty badly. SCV repair can swing things the other way of course, but that costs money and comes with its own vulnerabilities (e.g., losing all your scvs to storm and/or colossi).
They might need to buff High Impact Payload a bit more. Maybe give it a damage bonus vs. armored. Right now it does 12 dps, which really isn't that strong for a single target attack from a T3 unit that costs 300/200. If HIP dealt 25+10 vs armored, for example, Thors would be on pretty even footing with Void Rays, and significantly more helpful vs capital ships and colossi.
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On December 08 2012 12:00 ZjiublingZ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 09:28 Skyro wrote:On December 08 2012 09:16 ZjiublingZ wrote:
@Skyro - Stalkers don't have to necessarily be cost-efficient against Void Rays for Stargate openers to not take over. And keep in mind Stalkers do actually beat them 1:1 resource cost wise *if the Void Ray isn't charged up*. So baiting charge will be a pretty important micro tactic. Combine that with the MSC's defense, Guardian Shield, the fact that Stalkers can be warped in so the Stalker player should always have more resources in the fight than the Void Ray player, and potentially Blink Micro, and I wouldn't worry too much. It's a complicated thing we can't simulate in our heads, and it definitely sounds like the Stalker player has the tools to defend an early Void Ray attack.
As for the mid-game, I think it get's even worse for the Void Ray-ing player. The Stalker player's force is far more mobile so it can secure more expansions, it's upgrades work with the rest of it's army, large numbers of Void Rays are notoriously weak against Splash (storm ofc!), I really am not too worried about these attacks. Maybe proxy Void Ray all ins will be scary, idk. Mothership Core good unit.
@the people debating Void Rays vs Thors - Thors do not wreck Void Rays. 1 Void Ray beats 1 Thor (for 3/4 the gas cost). That said, between the new shared air upgrades, Widow Mines, the ability to mass repair Thors and build Turrets on defense, and the fact that Thors old Splash attack still wrecks Void Rays in any large numbers, I don't think the Mech player has anything to worry about besides being surprised. Even then, mass repair is super good (especially with increased Thor size...) As currently implemented I don't think it is as simple as baiting charges. There is a lock-on mechanic that with enough DPS (which seems to be ~3 VRs) micro'ing away after being targeted will be pointless. And just simply running away to let VRs rampage your base isn't an option either as it currently lasts 20s which is a looong time. Is that long enough to burn down a Nexus (too lazy to calculate)? That would be GG right there. But what it boils down to is not that it will be some unbeatable strategy. 4-Gate, outside of very early on in the game's lifespan, was not an unbeatable strategy. It still however had serious ramifications on the PvP metagame, that much cannot be denied. I think the current iteration of VRs in HotS will have a similar effect, and while you can certainly make the case to tweak the VR further (as they likely will of course), I am making the arguement that the core issue is the Stalker as trying to balance the VR around the current Stalker is challenging to say the least. I hear you man, but I gave more examples of Stalkers having an advantage over Void Rays beyond baiting/running away from charges. If you want the case you are making to have some weight you should address ALL the points I made, because there are more advantages for Stalkers than just the one you cherry-picked from my post, a few specifically about defenders advantage that are worth considering in your example of Void Rays being your base! You gotta address all of them if you want to seriously make the argument you are trying to make.
The VR was already nerfed due to the VR/Stalker mechanic in the past, and the only thing you pointed out that is new in HotS is the MsC. Definitely the MsC is a strong defensive unit, but it is a static unit. We'll see how it plays out, but honestly an air unit being anywhere near cost efficient vs the only core GtA unit is just bad design.
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We'll see how it plays out, but honestly an air unit being anywhere near cost efficient vs the only core GtA unit is just bad design.
The thing is, Blizzard has said they want pure air to be a viable composition for Protoss, with Void Rays as the "core" unit, supplemented by Phoenixes and Oracles depending on composition, and eventually Tempests/Carriers as the game goes on.
Stalkers already beat Phoenixes and Oracles for cost. If Stalkers beat Voids, then pure air will not be a viable composition, at least in PvP, because Stalkers can be massed much more quickly than Voids.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 08 2012 12:45 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +We'll see how it plays out, but honestly an air unit being anywhere near cost efficient vs the only core GtA unit is just bad design. The thing is, Blizzard has said they want pure air to be a viable composition for Protoss, with Void Rays as the "core" unit, supplemented by Phoenixes and Oracles depending on composition, and eventually Tempests/Carriers as the game goes on. Stalkers already beat Phoenixes and Oracles for cost. If Stalkers beat Voids, then pure air will not be a viable composition, at least in PvP, because Stalkers can be massed much more quickly than Voids.
I think this is a BIG assumption on your part. They said they wanted Stargate units to be a viable composition - that doesn't mean they wouldn't be supported by gateway units. In WoL Stargate play was, with very few exceptions, a tech you would open, but never really keep around for very long or continually produce. I interpreted their comment as them wanting to change Stargate so that it was like WoL Robo: where you would for a very long time continue to use Immortals and/or Colossus as part of your core army.
EDIT: Perhaps I missed a blue post though, so if you have one where you feel like it's very clear they are saying what you're saying they are, please show me to it! :D
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On December 08 2012 12:28 Skyro wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 12:00 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 08 2012 09:28 Skyro wrote:On December 08 2012 09:16 ZjiublingZ wrote:
@Skyro - Stalkers don't have to necessarily be cost-efficient against Void Rays for Stargate openers to not take over. And keep in mind Stalkers do actually beat them 1:1 resource cost wise *if the Void Ray isn't charged up*. So baiting charge will be a pretty important micro tactic. Combine that with the MSC's defense, Guardian Shield, the fact that Stalkers can be warped in so the Stalker player should always have more resources in the fight than the Void Ray player, and potentially Blink Micro, and I wouldn't worry too much. It's a complicated thing we can't simulate in our heads, and it definitely sounds like the Stalker player has the tools to defend an early Void Ray attack.
As for the mid-game, I think it get's even worse for the Void Ray-ing player. The Stalker player's force is far more mobile so it can secure more expansions, it's upgrades work with the rest of it's army, large numbers of Void Rays are notoriously weak against Splash (storm ofc!), I really am not too worried about these attacks. Maybe proxy Void Ray all ins will be scary, idk. Mothership Core good unit.
@the people debating Void Rays vs Thors - Thors do not wreck Void Rays. 1 Void Ray beats 1 Thor (for 3/4 the gas cost). That said, between the new shared air upgrades, Widow Mines, the ability to mass repair Thors and build Turrets on defense, and the fact that Thors old Splash attack still wrecks Void Rays in any large numbers, I don't think the Mech player has anything to worry about besides being surprised. Even then, mass repair is super good (especially with increased Thor size...) As currently implemented I don't think it is as simple as baiting charges. There is a lock-on mechanic that with enough DPS (which seems to be ~3 VRs) micro'ing away after being targeted will be pointless. And just simply running away to let VRs rampage your base isn't an option either as it currently lasts 20s which is a looong time. Is that long enough to burn down a Nexus (too lazy to calculate)? That would be GG right there. But what it boils down to is not that it will be some unbeatable strategy. 4-Gate, outside of very early on in the game's lifespan, was not an unbeatable strategy. It still however had serious ramifications on the PvP metagame, that much cannot be denied. I think the current iteration of VRs in HotS will have a similar effect, and while you can certainly make the case to tweak the VR further (as they likely will of course), I am making the arguement that the core issue is the Stalker as trying to balance the VR around the current Stalker is challenging to say the least. I hear you man, but I gave more examples of Stalkers having an advantage over Void Rays beyond baiting/running away from charges. If you want the case you are making to have some weight you should address ALL the points I made, because there are more advantages for Stalkers than just the one you cherry-picked from my post, a few specifically about defenders advantage that are worth considering in your example of Void Rays being your base! You gotta address all of them if you want to seriously make the argument you are trying to make. The VR was already nerfed due to the VR/Stalker mechanic in the past, and the only thing you pointed out that is new in HotS is the MsC. Definitely the MsC is a strong defensive unit, but it is a static unit. We'll see how it plays out, but honestly an air unit being anywhere near cost efficient vs the only core GtA unit is just bad design.
This is why Voids are intentionally so bad against Marines and Hydras. But in mirrors.... well, don't we already have an example of air which is kinda good against GtA (in banshees vs. marines in TvT) - and I could be wrong but I think the verdict was that Banshees are pretty good against stalkers en masse.
In fact, doing the numbers:
1.5 Stalkers = 240 health / 10.4 dps against banshees (187/75/3)
1 Banshee = 140 health / 17.2 dps against stalkers (150/100/3)
1 Banshee takes 13.95 seconds to kill 1.5 stalkers.
1.5 stalkers take 13.46 seconds to kill 1 banshee.
The banshee also has a slight edge because it's a bigger supply unit, and therefore it loses dps later in the fight (where smaller units lose dps earlier). And don't forget - banshees can cloak, too.
The main reasons we don't see Banshees dominating in TvP?? It takes more gas to get a ton of banshees, and therefore it's impossible to get a ton of banshees early. And to compound this notion, the unit structure required to make banshees comes out later and also requires gas to make. Do these comments remind you at all of the VR?
If there is a problem, I don't think it's the Void. I personally think it's crazy how close the stalker is to being inefficient against air units. Doesn't seem right. But then, they also get blink, so....
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On December 08 2012 11:45 Zato-1 wrote:
Now that Void Rays are roughly twice as good vs. several of their most common foes... I'm still not sure if the unit will be viable in standard play after 10 minutes.
Yeah, that's how bad the Void Ray used to be.
hahahahaha so true, so true. Aww now you made me sad that I have to watch WoL for 3 more months.
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To do a similar analysis for Stalkers v. Voids (with a 1.5 minerals per 1 gas equivalence ratio, similar to the numbers for the banshee analysis above):
2.28 Stalkers (342/114 after 25 minerals per supply)
365 health
22.1 dps
1 Void (287/150 after 25 minerals per supply)
250 health
30 dps vs. stalkers (while charged)
18 dps vs. stalkers (uncharged)
Void takes 12.17 seconds to kill 2.28 stalkers while charged.
2.28 stalkers take 11.31 seconds to kill a void.
(Sidenote: uncharged, a void takes 20.27 seconds to kill 2.28 stalkers.)
Void does have more advantage due to being low supply, and having losing dps later in the fight - but it is a bit nonsensical to consider stalkers a counter to banshees but not to voids, based on these numbers alone. (And again, banshees can cloak).
Edit: Altered Stalker numbers, bah - musta miscalced earlier.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 08 2012 13:14 Treehead wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 12:28 Skyro wrote:On December 08 2012 12:00 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 08 2012 09:28 Skyro wrote:On December 08 2012 09:16 ZjiublingZ wrote:
@Skyro - Stalkers don't have to necessarily be cost-efficient against Void Rays for Stargate openers to not take over. And keep in mind Stalkers do actually beat them 1:1 resource cost wise *if the Void Ray isn't charged up*. So baiting charge will be a pretty important micro tactic. Combine that with the MSC's defense, Guardian Shield, the fact that Stalkers can be warped in so the Stalker player should always have more resources in the fight than the Void Ray player, and potentially Blink Micro, and I wouldn't worry too much. It's a complicated thing we can't simulate in our heads, and it definitely sounds like the Stalker player has the tools to defend an early Void Ray attack.
As for the mid-game, I think it get's even worse for the Void Ray-ing player. The Stalker player's force is far more mobile so it can secure more expansions, it's upgrades work with the rest of it's army, large numbers of Void Rays are notoriously weak against Splash (storm ofc!), I really am not too worried about these attacks. Maybe proxy Void Ray all ins will be scary, idk. Mothership Core good unit.
@the people debating Void Rays vs Thors - Thors do not wreck Void Rays. 1 Void Ray beats 1 Thor (for 3/4 the gas cost). That said, between the new shared air upgrades, Widow Mines, the ability to mass repair Thors and build Turrets on defense, and the fact that Thors old Splash attack still wrecks Void Rays in any large numbers, I don't think the Mech player has anything to worry about besides being surprised. Even then, mass repair is super good (especially with increased Thor size...) As currently implemented I don't think it is as simple as baiting charges. There is a lock-on mechanic that with enough DPS (which seems to be ~3 VRs) micro'ing away after being targeted will be pointless. And just simply running away to let VRs rampage your base isn't an option either as it currently lasts 20s which is a looong time. Is that long enough to burn down a Nexus (too lazy to calculate)? That would be GG right there. But what it boils down to is not that it will be some unbeatable strategy. 4-Gate, outside of very early on in the game's lifespan, was not an unbeatable strategy. It still however had serious ramifications on the PvP metagame, that much cannot be denied. I think the current iteration of VRs in HotS will have a similar effect, and while you can certainly make the case to tweak the VR further (as they likely will of course), I am making the arguement that the core issue is the Stalker as trying to balance the VR around the current Stalker is challenging to say the least. I hear you man, but I gave more examples of Stalkers having an advantage over Void Rays beyond baiting/running away from charges. If you want the case you are making to have some weight you should address ALL the points I made, because there are more advantages for Stalkers than just the one you cherry-picked from my post, a few specifically about defenders advantage that are worth considering in your example of Void Rays being your base! You gotta address all of them if you want to seriously make the argument you are trying to make. The VR was already nerfed due to the VR/Stalker mechanic in the past, and the only thing you pointed out that is new in HotS is the MsC. Definitely the MsC is a strong defensive unit, but it is a static unit. We'll see how it plays out, but honestly an air unit being anywhere near cost efficient vs the only core GtA unit is just bad design. This is why Voids are intentionally so bad against Marines and Hydras. But in mirrors.... well, don't we already have an example of air which is kinda good against GtA (in banshees vs. marines in TvT) - and I could be wrong but I think the verdict was that Banshees are pretty good against stalkers en masse. In fact, doing the numbers: 1.5 Stalkers = 240 health / 10.4 dps against banshees (187/75/3) 1 Banshee = 140 health / 17.2 dps against stalkers (150/100/3) 1 Banshee takes 13.95 seconds to kill 1.5 stalkers. 1.5 stalkers take 13.46 seconds to kill 1 banshee. The banshee also has a slight edge because it's a bigger supply unit, and therefore it loses dps later in the fight (where smaller units lose dps earlier). And don't forget - banshees can cloak, too. The main reasons we don't see Banshees dominating in TvP?? It takes more gas to get a ton of banshees, and therefore it's impossible to get a ton of banshees early. And to compound this notion, the unit structure required to make banshees comes out later and also requires gas to make. Do these comments remind you at all of the VR? If there is a problem, I don't think it's the Void. I personally think it's crazy how close the stalker is to being inefficient against air units. Doesn't seem right. But then, they also get blink, so....
Protoss definitely does have the worst GtA units. But people too often forget that they also have the absolute best Air to Air army (if they didn't in WoL, they without a doubt do now). This is what makes the race unique - and what leads to dynamics like Mutas being strong against a Protoss who opens robo and weak against one who opens Stargate. It allows us to see different compositions against the same race. Stalkers do not need a buff just because they are the worse than the other races at GtA. That comparison has no bearing on whether or not Stalkers should be better at GtA.
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On December 08 2012 14:56 ZjiublingZ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 13:14 Treehead wrote:On December 08 2012 12:28 Skyro wrote:On December 08 2012 12:00 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 08 2012 09:28 Skyro wrote:On December 08 2012 09:16 ZjiublingZ wrote:
@Skyro - Stalkers don't have to necessarily be cost-efficient against Void Rays for Stargate openers to not take over. And keep in mind Stalkers do actually beat them 1:1 resource cost wise *if the Void Ray isn't charged up*. So baiting charge will be a pretty important micro tactic. Combine that with the MSC's defense, Guardian Shield, the fact that Stalkers can be warped in so the Stalker player should always have more resources in the fight than the Void Ray player, and potentially Blink Micro, and I wouldn't worry too much. It's a complicated thing we can't simulate in our heads, and it definitely sounds like the Stalker player has the tools to defend an early Void Ray attack.
As for the mid-game, I think it get's even worse for the Void Ray-ing player. The Stalker player's force is far more mobile so it can secure more expansions, it's upgrades work with the rest of it's army, large numbers of Void Rays are notoriously weak against Splash (storm ofc!), I really am not too worried about these attacks. Maybe proxy Void Ray all ins will be scary, idk. Mothership Core good unit.
@the people debating Void Rays vs Thors - Thors do not wreck Void Rays. 1 Void Ray beats 1 Thor (for 3/4 the gas cost). That said, between the new shared air upgrades, Widow Mines, the ability to mass repair Thors and build Turrets on defense, and the fact that Thors old Splash attack still wrecks Void Rays in any large numbers, I don't think the Mech player has anything to worry about besides being surprised. Even then, mass repair is super good (especially with increased Thor size...) As currently implemented I don't think it is as simple as baiting charges. There is a lock-on mechanic that with enough DPS (which seems to be ~3 VRs) micro'ing away after being targeted will be pointless. And just simply running away to let VRs rampage your base isn't an option either as it currently lasts 20s which is a looong time. Is that long enough to burn down a Nexus (too lazy to calculate)? That would be GG right there. But what it boils down to is not that it will be some unbeatable strategy. 4-Gate, outside of very early on in the game's lifespan, was not an unbeatable strategy. It still however had serious ramifications on the PvP metagame, that much cannot be denied. I think the current iteration of VRs in HotS will have a similar effect, and while you can certainly make the case to tweak the VR further (as they likely will of course), I am making the arguement that the core issue is the Stalker as trying to balance the VR around the current Stalker is challenging to say the least. I hear you man, but I gave more examples of Stalkers having an advantage over Void Rays beyond baiting/running away from charges. If you want the case you are making to have some weight you should address ALL the points I made, because there are more advantages for Stalkers than just the one you cherry-picked from my post, a few specifically about defenders advantage that are worth considering in your example of Void Rays being your base! You gotta address all of them if you want to seriously make the argument you are trying to make. The VR was already nerfed due to the VR/Stalker mechanic in the past, and the only thing you pointed out that is new in HotS is the MsC. Definitely the MsC is a strong defensive unit, but it is a static unit. We'll see how it plays out, but honestly an air unit being anywhere near cost efficient vs the only core GtA unit is just bad design. This is why Voids are intentionally so bad against Marines and Hydras. But in mirrors.... well, don't we already have an example of air which is kinda good against GtA (in banshees vs. marines in TvT) - and I could be wrong but I think the verdict was that Banshees are pretty good against stalkers en masse. In fact, doing the numbers: 1.5 Stalkers = 240 health / 10.4 dps against banshees (187/75/3) 1 Banshee = 140 health / 17.2 dps against stalkers (150/100/3) 1 Banshee takes 13.95 seconds to kill 1.5 stalkers. 1.5 stalkers take 13.46 seconds to kill 1 banshee. The banshee also has a slight edge because it's a bigger supply unit, and therefore it loses dps later in the fight (where smaller units lose dps earlier). And don't forget - banshees can cloak, too. The main reasons we don't see Banshees dominating in TvP?? It takes more gas to get a ton of banshees, and therefore it's impossible to get a ton of banshees early. And to compound this notion, the unit structure required to make banshees comes out later and also requires gas to make. Do these comments remind you at all of the VR? If there is a problem, I don't think it's the Void. I personally think it's crazy how close the stalker is to being inefficient against air units. Doesn't seem right. But then, they also get blink, so.... Protoss definitely does have the worst GtA units. But people too often forget that they also have the absolute best Air to Air army (if they didn't in WoL, they without a doubt do now). This is what makes the race unique - and what leads to dynamics like Mutas being strong against a Protoss who opens robo and weak against one who opens Stargate. It allows us to see different compositions against the same race. Stalkers do not need a buff just because they are the worse than the other races at GtA. That comparison has no bearing on whether or not Stalkers should be better at GtA.
Vikings... they still don't have any air units which can hold their own against Vikings (Terran's Air to Air unit) - unless phoenix are better at it with the extra range somehow.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 08 2012 15:00 Treehead wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 14:56 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 08 2012 13:14 Treehead wrote:On December 08 2012 12:28 Skyro wrote:On December 08 2012 12:00 ZjiublingZ wrote:On December 08 2012 09:28 Skyro wrote:On December 08 2012 09:16 ZjiublingZ wrote:
@Skyro - Stalkers don't have to necessarily be cost-efficient against Void Rays for Stargate openers to not take over. And keep in mind Stalkers do actually beat them 1:1 resource cost wise *if the Void Ray isn't charged up*. So baiting charge will be a pretty important micro tactic. Combine that with the MSC's defense, Guardian Shield, the fact that Stalkers can be warped in so the Stalker player should always have more resources in the fight than the Void Ray player, and potentially Blink Micro, and I wouldn't worry too much. It's a complicated thing we can't simulate in our heads, and it definitely sounds like the Stalker player has the tools to defend an early Void Ray attack.
As for the mid-game, I think it get's even worse for the Void Ray-ing player. The Stalker player's force is far more mobile so it can secure more expansions, it's upgrades work with the rest of it's army, large numbers of Void Rays are notoriously weak against Splash (storm ofc!), I really am not too worried about these attacks. Maybe proxy Void Ray all ins will be scary, idk. Mothership Core good unit.
@the people debating Void Rays vs Thors - Thors do not wreck Void Rays. 1 Void Ray beats 1 Thor (for 3/4 the gas cost). That said, between the new shared air upgrades, Widow Mines, the ability to mass repair Thors and build Turrets on defense, and the fact that Thors old Splash attack still wrecks Void Rays in any large numbers, I don't think the Mech player has anything to worry about besides being surprised. Even then, mass repair is super good (especially with increased Thor size...) As currently implemented I don't think it is as simple as baiting charges. There is a lock-on mechanic that with enough DPS (which seems to be ~3 VRs) micro'ing away after being targeted will be pointless. And just simply running away to let VRs rampage your base isn't an option either as it currently lasts 20s which is a looong time. Is that long enough to burn down a Nexus (too lazy to calculate)? That would be GG right there. But what it boils down to is not that it will be some unbeatable strategy. 4-Gate, outside of very early on in the game's lifespan, was not an unbeatable strategy. It still however had serious ramifications on the PvP metagame, that much cannot be denied. I think the current iteration of VRs in HotS will have a similar effect, and while you can certainly make the case to tweak the VR further (as they likely will of course), I am making the arguement that the core issue is the Stalker as trying to balance the VR around the current Stalker is challenging to say the least. I hear you man, but I gave more examples of Stalkers having an advantage over Void Rays beyond baiting/running away from charges. If you want the case you are making to have some weight you should address ALL the points I made, because there are more advantages for Stalkers than just the one you cherry-picked from my post, a few specifically about defenders advantage that are worth considering in your example of Void Rays being your base! You gotta address all of them if you want to seriously make the argument you are trying to make. The VR was already nerfed due to the VR/Stalker mechanic in the past, and the only thing you pointed out that is new in HotS is the MsC. Definitely the MsC is a strong defensive unit, but it is a static unit. We'll see how it plays out, but honestly an air unit being anywhere near cost efficient vs the only core GtA unit is just bad design. This is why Voids are intentionally so bad against Marines and Hydras. But in mirrors.... well, don't we already have an example of air which is kinda good against GtA (in banshees vs. marines in TvT) - and I could be wrong but I think the verdict was that Banshees are pretty good against stalkers en masse. In fact, doing the numbers: 1.5 Stalkers = 240 health / 10.4 dps against banshees (187/75/3) 1 Banshee = 140 health / 17.2 dps against stalkers (150/100/3) 1 Banshee takes 13.95 seconds to kill 1.5 stalkers. 1.5 stalkers take 13.46 seconds to kill 1 banshee. The banshee also has a slight edge because it's a bigger supply unit, and therefore it loses dps later in the fight (where smaller units lose dps earlier). And don't forget - banshees can cloak, too. The main reasons we don't see Banshees dominating in TvP?? It takes more gas to get a ton of banshees, and therefore it's impossible to get a ton of banshees early. And to compound this notion, the unit structure required to make banshees comes out later and also requires gas to make. Do these comments remind you at all of the VR? If there is a problem, I don't think it's the Void. I personally think it's crazy how close the stalker is to being inefficient against air units. Doesn't seem right. But then, they also get blink, so.... Protoss definitely does have the worst GtA units. But people too often forget that they also have the absolute best Air to Air army (if they didn't in WoL, they without a doubt do now). This is what makes the race unique - and what leads to dynamics like Mutas being strong against a Protoss who opens robo and weak against one who opens Stargate. It allows us to see different compositions against the same race. Stalkers do not need a buff just because they are the worse than the other races at GtA. That comparison has no bearing on whether or not Stalkers should be better at GtA. Vikings... they still don't have any air units which can hold their own against Vikings (Terran's Air to Air unit) - unless phoenix are better at it with the extra range somehow.
Umm... Phoenix already beat Vikings cost efficiently, not to mention their huge speed advantage makes them a more advantageous unit for the Protoss to have in general compared to Vikings. The increased range is just icing on the cake.Void Rays just CRUSH them now if the Vikings don't kite as well. But yeah, Phoenix.
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First off, thanks op for grinding out all those numbers, and making the difference between old and new voids evident.
My main beef with the prismatic alignment is how one dimensional it is. You engage, or the enemy engages you... You charge some or all of the voids. I guess it's like stimpack, but with stim you have more control, and can repeatedly stim to cover lots of ground or kill stuff faster at the expense of medivac energy... With prismatic alignment, there's only one situation where it's useful, namely fighting armored units (unlike stim, which increases movement speed and dmg output vs everything). I don't know, it just seems too bland, like there's almost no difference between this ability and giving void rays a slight bonus vs armored units.
I think blizzard could make this ability a bit more strategic and more viewer intuitive (do better damage vs everything, not just armored). Example, they could make prismatic alignment take 2 seconds to charge during which the void can't move or attack, but afterward damage output would be increased vs all types... This would make voids into great attacking, heavy assault units without making them too a move-ish, due to the vulnerability while charging. Maybe just minor nitpicks, but I honestly think there's room for improvement here. Protoss air is already incredibly mobile, so they need one slow, clunky but powerful ship.
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On December 08 2012 15:19 ZjiublingZ wrote:
Umm... Phoenix already beat Vikings cost efficiently, not to mention their huge speed advantage makes them a more advantageous unit for the Protoss to have in general compared to Vikings. The increased range is just icing on the cake.Void Rays just CRUSH them now if the Vikings don't kite as well. But yeah, Phoenix.
Tested it, phoenixes beat vikings in equal numbers but not with equal cost. It's a close fight, but with equal cost the vikings come on the top.
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On December 08 2012 08:05 link0 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2012 07:26 awesomoecalypse wrote:On December 08 2012 07:24 Rnevermore wrote:
I worry about the power of mass void rays vs Terran mech now. I am not completely sure what a meching Terran can do to stop it. the new Thor completely wrecks Void Rays. Proof?
Yeah, it's the opposite. However, with air upgrades being the same as mech, i assume the point is for Vikings to have better UPs then Protoss air. Thor+Vikings with UPs+Turrents+Mines, i think Terran mech anti air is decent.
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I wonder if Void Rays still get nothing from upgrades, or it's actually benefiting them now.
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On December 08 2012 20:57 ejozl wrote:
I wonder if Void Rays still get nothing from upgrades, or it's actually benefiting them now.
Given that VRs didn't gain because of the reduced charge, and that they charge now by command - yeah, they gain from upgrades like normal now.
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I think terran can be fine in the early game. The addition of the widow mine is actually pretty huge, if he stargate allins you you can run a widow mine to his base or just abuse his limited detection.
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Vikings... they still don't have any air units which can hold their own against Vikings (Terran's Air to Air unit) - unless phoenix are better at it with the extra range somehow.
Void Rays will absolutely destroy Vikings now. Vikings can kite them...but Protoss can add a couple Tempests and suddenly all kiting does is let the Protoss get free shots on your Vikings. If Vikings don't kite and Voids get in range, Voids will absolutely melt them. As I pointed out in my OP, the new Voids kill Vikings in 4 seconds.
A single Void Ray can take on 3 Vikings at once and kill them if they aren't kiting--Voids Rays are 250/150 and 3 supply and take 40 seconds to build with Chrono, 3 Vikings are 450/225 and 6 supply and take at least 42 seconds to build (if you have 2 starports and one is reactored, if not it will be more like 84 seconds), so thats a hugely cost-efficient trade for Protoss. And once Tempests are in play, Terran can't kite with Vikings without giving the Tempests free shots.
Yes, Vikings have been given a major buff via the merging of mech/air upgrades...but thats only true for Terrans with mech-heavy compositions. if Terran goes for bioball+viking+medivac (like they did in WoL), then their ability to upgrade Vikings is no better than before. This is important, because one of the advantages Vikings used to have vs. Voids was that Voids typically had to fly over a big Terran bioball to hit Vikings, at which point marines would shred the Voids. But if Terran is going air/mech for the upgrade synergy, they won't have a giant marine bioball, so the point is moot. its a tradeoff for Terran--go air/mech and have good upgrades on vikings but minimal marine support, or go for bio/air and have strong atg from marines, but fall behind on viking upgrades.
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Void Rays will absolutely destroy Vikings now. Vikings can kite them...but Protoss can add a couple Tempests and suddenly all kiting does is let the Protoss get free shots on your Vikings. If Vikings don't kite and Voids get in range, Voids will absolutely melt them. As I pointed out in my OP, the new Voids kill Vikings in 4 seconds.
Considering the dps difference between vikings and tempests, I don't know if this kind of situation is a bad thing. Sure, you will take damage but you will also do damage. As long as you manage to keep the void ray count down, tempests are easy to kill on their own.
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On December 09 2012 02:24 Fenris420 wrote:Show nested quote +Void Rays will absolutely destroy Vikings now. Vikings can kite them...but Protoss can add a couple Tempests and suddenly all kiting does is let the Protoss get free shots on your Vikings. If Vikings don't kite and Voids get in range, Voids will absolutely melt them. As I pointed out in my OP, the new Voids kill Vikings in 4 seconds. Considering the dps difference between vikings and tempests, I don't know if this kind of situation is a bad thing. Sure, you will take damage but you will also do damage. As long as you manage to keep the void ray count down, tempests are easy to kill on their own.
This is true, but its a tricky positioning game--Terran wants to keep within 7-9 range, where Voids can't hit them but they can hit Voids. Protoss wants to keep Terran either within 6 range where Voids wreck them, or else over 9 range where Tempests can shoot them without Vikings being able to attack. So if a Viking starts kiting Voids, they need to be very careful not to get out of 9 range, which will be tricky to do if Protoss is pulling back their voids, trying to bait Terran into moving too far back. Staying perfectly within that 7-9 range while the enemy is moving around trying to trick you into getting either too close or too far is not the easiest thing to do against a skilled opponent. In a way, its a bit like the early game Zealot/Stalker vs Marine dynamic, where Zealots own marines if they can get in range, but Marines can kite them all day, but since Stalkers outrange Marines they can get lots of free shots while the marines try to kite the Zealots.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 09 2012 02:40 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2012 02:24 Fenris420 wrote:Void Rays will absolutely destroy Vikings now. Vikings can kite them...but Protoss can add a couple Tempests and suddenly all kiting does is let the Protoss get free shots on your Vikings. If Vikings don't kite and Voids get in range, Voids will absolutely melt them. As I pointed out in my OP, the new Voids kill Vikings in 4 seconds. Considering the dps difference between vikings and tempests, I don't know if this kind of situation is a bad thing. Sure, you will take damage but you will also do damage. As long as you manage to keep the void ray count down, tempests are easy to kill on their own. This is true, but its a tricky positioning game--Terran wants to keep within 7-9 range, where Voids can't hit them but they can hit Voids. Protoss wants to keep Terran either within 6 range where Voids wreck them, or else over 9 range where Tempests can shoot them without Vikings being able to attack. So if a Viking starts kiting Voids, they need to be very careful not to get out of 9 range, which will be tricky to do if Protoss is pulling back their voids, trying to bait Terran into moving too far back. Staying perfectly within that 7-9 range while the enemy is moving around trying to trick you into getting either too close or too far is not the easiest thing to do against a skilled opponent. In a way, its a bit like the Zealot/Stalker vs Marine dynamic, where Zealots own marines if they can get in range, but Marines can kite them all day, but since Stalkers outrange Marines they can get lots of free shots while the marines try to kite the Zealots.
Keep in mind Void Rays can move while attacking, so it's not even 7-9 range they can be in to attack. If they are in 7 range and stop to attack, the Voids will connect for 1-2 seconds. Someone would have to test if Voids will connect if the Vikings stop in 8 range. It's a very narrow line to walk with Vikings vs Void Rays.
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On December 09 2012 02:40 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2012 02:24 Fenris420 wrote:Void Rays will absolutely destroy Vikings now. Vikings can kite them...but Protoss can add a couple Tempests and suddenly all kiting does is let the Protoss get free shots on your Vikings. If Vikings don't kite and Voids get in range, Voids will absolutely melt them. As I pointed out in my OP, the new Voids kill Vikings in 4 seconds. Considering the dps difference between vikings and tempests, I don't know if this kind of situation is a bad thing. Sure, you will take damage but you will also do damage. As long as you manage to keep the void ray count down, tempests are easy to kill on their own. This is true, but its a tricky positioning game--Terran wants to keep within 7-9 range, where Voids can't hit them but they can hit Voids. Protoss wants to keep Terran either within 6 range where Voids wreck them, or else over 9 range where Tempests can shoot them without Vikings being able to attack. So if a Viking starts kiting Voids, they need to be very careful not to get out of 9 range, which will be tricky to do if Protoss is pulling back their voids, trying to bait Terran into moving too far back. Staying perfectly within that 7-9 range while the enemy is moving around trying to trick you into getting either too close or too far is not the easiest thing to do against a skilled opponent. In a way, its a bit like the early game Zealot/Stalker vs Marine dynamic, where Zealots own marines if they can get in range, but Marines can kite them all day, but since Stalkers outrange Marines they can get lots of free shots while the marines try to kite the Zealots.
Obviously Blizz needs to make sure this is all balanced, but this dynamic sounds totally amazing, really fun to do, and really exciting to watch. I don't understand why people start theorypanicking every time blizzard tries something dynamic.
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On December 09 2012 02:51 ZjiublingZ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2012 02:40 awesomoecalypse wrote:On December 09 2012 02:24 Fenris420 wrote:Void Rays will absolutely destroy Vikings now. Vikings can kite them...but Protoss can add a couple Tempests and suddenly all kiting does is let the Protoss get free shots on your Vikings. If Vikings don't kite and Voids get in range, Voids will absolutely melt them. As I pointed out in my OP, the new Voids kill Vikings in 4 seconds. Considering the dps difference between vikings and tempests, I don't know if this kind of situation is a bad thing. Sure, you will take damage but you will also do damage. As long as you manage to keep the void ray count down, tempests are easy to kill on their own. This is true, but its a tricky positioning game--Terran wants to keep within 7-9 range, where Voids can't hit them but they can hit Voids. Protoss wants to keep Terran either within 6 range where Voids wreck them, or else over 9 range where Tempests can shoot them without Vikings being able to attack. So if a Viking starts kiting Voids, they need to be very careful not to get out of 9 range, which will be tricky to do if Protoss is pulling back their voids, trying to bait Terran into moving too far back. Staying perfectly within that 7-9 range while the enemy is moving around trying to trick you into getting either too close or too far is not the easiest thing to do against a skilled opponent. In a way, its a bit like the Zealot/Stalker vs Marine dynamic, where Zealots own marines if they can get in range, but Marines can kite them all day, but since Stalkers outrange Marines they can get lots of free shots while the marines try to kite the Zealots. Keep in mind Void Rays can move while attacking, so it's not even 7-9 range they can be in to attack. If they are in 7 range and stop to attack, the Voids will connect for 1-2 seconds. Someone would have to test if Voids will connect if the Vikings stop in 8 range. It's a very narrow line to walk with Vikings vs Void Rays.
Also, keep in mind that once Voids start attacking, you need to move outside of 8 range to stop the attack. But the main point is that they can do this. If Stalkers can be expected to stop marine pushes because (despite their horrible dps), they have 6 range vs the 5 of marines - Vikings can be expected to stop Voids (6 vs. 9, which is a pretty large difference).
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Voidray is so easy to use now. I already miss charging micro. But if it makes people happy to use them now I don't mind. Not sure how they will solve the issue against Vikings though, probably remove the extended range. But that might make Viking kiting to easy. The one range (or three) is not enough though, because of the bad acceleration a Viking has unless the player using Voidrays gives an a-move command to chase instead of a move command.
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Hello~
I've been playing mech TvP constantly before patch, the composition was hellbat tanks raven vikings and few ghosts. I didn't make any thors because of Tempest and HTs. Back then. Mech still decent to play against Protoss. But after 2.02, I see the problem Anti Air with Mech in TvP has been getting huger than ever before. Especially when Toss decided to play Stargates style: Mass New Voidrays could destroy 3/3 vikings so fast, either do Thors.
- Mech still lack of AA until got decent vikings or thors, since then Toss has decent voidrays which could destroy any Mech AA composition.
- Vikings are doomed due to new voidrays then Terran don't have any good units against Carriers in lategame.
- Thors can't be feedback-ed, but their AA isn't increased much ( 30 damage for 3/3 upgrade without AoE ).
- Either does Raven seeker missile, more damage but no longer AoE effective against Toss deathball. I think the old model of seeker missile is better like in WoL Ravens against broodlord Corrupt
- PDDs don't work on voidrays so vikings have no cover like they had against corrupt or phoenix
- Carriers are strong now, with the ninja buff.
Mech got problem with AA and the new toss in term of Air Deathball now even more stronger. Is there any way to help mech out of this ?
ps: I'm not whining and crying that i lost due to OP Toss deathball, but honestly toss have a strong Air deathball and the weak point of Mech is still AA. IMO this isn't not right direction to help Mech more viable in TvP. And please notice i'm talking about mech, not bio play or bio-mech against TvP. I want to know how to solve this as a Terran, and what need to change as balance.
Regards
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Voids seem like they're going to break PvP. Proxy SG void is going to be ridiculous.
On December 08 2012 07:46 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Remember stalkers can out run void rays, meaning if you're in big trouble you cooould run your stalkers and then probes around until more stalkers come out.
You're gonna lose a ton if you try to bait the charge and run away. Voids shot while moving and have (I believe) 8 range while chasing. If you go for a pure blink stalker composition, then sure, you can bait the charge and blink away without losing too much. But if you need to have anything other than blink stalkers in your army to bait the charge, that stuff is gonna die.
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@pOriishan, your post make a lot of sense. do you think the new 1s burrow time of widow mines help against air units? How effective it is to just run the mines under the voidrays and burrow?
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In WoL, Terrans had to do viking vs corruptor kiting with infestors on the ground threatening instant doom from 9 range. There was almost no margin for error in that scenario. Now we're worrying about it being too difficult to micro range 9 vikings against slow range 6 void rays? Maybe I'm not being bronze-friendly, but if you can't do that micro, you just need to practice it for 5 minutes.
If Bronzies can't be expected to micro vikings against voids, they also shouldn't have to micro phoenixes to beat mutas. Let's give phoenixes corsair-style splash damage.
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:o interesting, I thought the chances weren't that big, but I didn't know they also buffed the atk speed :D
So which unit to make from the stargate now...
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On December 09 2012 03:28 pOriishan wrote:
- Thors can't be feedback-ed, but their AA isn't increased much ( 30 damage for 3/3 upgrade without AoE ).
It also attacks every 2 seconds instead of 3 seconds, its a fairly big buff verses units with Armour or when you can't splash. Of course it still won't let the Thors by themselves trade well with VRs. Tempests are somewhat countered by PDD from a Raven, thou as you kite the VRs you move out of range of it blocking Tempest shots 
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On December 08 2012 13:37 Treehead wrote:
To do a similar analysis for Stalkers v. Voids (with a 1.5 minerals per 1 gas equivalence ratio, similar to the numbers for the banshee analysis above):
2.28 Stalkers (342/114 after 25 minerals per supply)
365 health
22.1 dps
1 Void (287/150 after 25 minerals per supply)
250 health
30 dps vs. stalkers (while charged)
18 dps vs. stalkers (uncharged)
Void takes 12.17 seconds to kill 2.28 stalkers while charged.
2.28 stalkers take 11.31 seconds to kill a void.
(Sidenote: uncharged, a void takes 20.27 seconds to kill 2.28 stalkers.)
Void does have more advantage due to being low supply, and having losing dps later in the fight - but it is a bit nonsensical to consider stalkers a counter to banshees but not to voids, based on these numbers alone. (And again, banshees can cloak).
Edit: Altered Stalker numbers, bah - musta miscalced earlier.
nice analysis, unfortunately there's one assumption that ruins it >.>
Void does have more advantage due to being low supply, and having losing dps later in the fight - but it is a bit nonsensical to consider stalkers a counter to banshees but not to voids, based on these numbers alone. (And again, banshees can cloak).
While Banshees do lose some dps later in the fight due to overkill,it is still much less than any ground unit due to being a flyer and stacking togheter,
Void rays have no overkill, while Stalkers are one of the units more affected by it... remember this bug?
Voidray instakill bug
While this has been fixed, Void rays still don't overkill (exactly like marines and siege tanks) as they don't have a projectile (the beam is entirely a graphic effect)
So while this analysis holds perfectly while the voids are less than an handful, things get quickly out of control once you start massing them,because they get better exponentially until you reach 10,67 voids; once you add the 11th void, they can kill a guaranteed Stalker every 0,5 seconds with focusfire, and every additional void still doesn't waste his firepower (so there isn't really diminishing gains from massing them)
The corresponding 24,3276 Stalkers must either a-move and lose the engagement due to spreading their fire too much,or focus fire and waste theoretically 6,4705 Stalkers firepower (probably a little less) as it takes 17,8571 Stalkers to oneshot a Voidray.
That waste is 1/4th of the Stalkers firepower, so they will theoretically lose the battle, as the tests i ran seem to show:
+ Show Spoiler +please note that these tests aren't optimal as these kind of testing requires 2 people
tests are done in the hots online unit tester, arena terrain
25 stalkers vs 11 voids
results:
1)Both a-moving with no blink ends with 6 voids surviving
2)Stalkers blinking offensively, against voids a-moving ends with 4 rays surviving (no focus fire on either side however)
3)Stalkers blinking offensively and focusfiring, against stacked Voidrays focusfiring ends with 4-5 rays surviving, hard to test this without another player to help but the voids win clearly enough (i can't unfortunately record videos T_T, if a kind soul wants to do that...)
You cannot kite charged voids as you can not walk up to them chargerays without suffering a ton of losses, you have to use an offensive blink. Once you've done that, you have fully committed to the fight, as the stalkers wipe in 12,17 seconds, so if you wanna blink out you'll be left with 4,34 stalkers, and walking out is worse than that in terms of cost-efficiency.
This is pretty much the worst case scenario for the void user, as we aren't factoring in cliffs, empty air space beneath bases, sim cities etc etc, and having a zealot support obviously helps the stargating player more than the blinking player (they will also both eventually have minerals to spare as you cannot build pure stalkers out of a base that is both mining minerals and gas efficiently, but the stargate player will have more)
As the number of units increases so does the void cost effectiveness, so, while initially you can try and bait a charge by attacking the stack and blinking out, as the number of units increases that tactic becomes unviable aswell, probably around 17,77777 void (amount of uncharged void to oneshot a stalker every 0,5 seconds).
The stargate player has also access to both oracles and phoenixes to harass, getting a much better shot at gaining map control, and he's being much more supply efficient, not to mention he has an easy path to Tempests
TLDR; The blinking player practically has to rush storm after the + or - 30th Stalker, while probably getting harassed by something akin to a slower,stronger muta-ling much less vulnerable to the hts... and that's without factoring in tempests that can snipe ht etc etc
So yes, i am worried about the voidray dominating the PvP metagame, i guess we shall see...
Sidenotes:
+ Show Spoiler +sidenote on the banshee + Show Spoiler +it is a bit nonsensical to consider stalkers a counter to banshees but not to voids Yes,in fact the stalkers are in terrible trouble against large numbers of banshees, as you'll remember seeing back in the day when 2 port terran all ins were popular... there is of course the raven tipping the odds, but you wont see many protosses winning with just stalkers against reasonable micro once the banshees have reached a good mass; the downfall of that all in is that banshees are very weak to both feedback and storm, while voids are clearly immune to feedback and require 4 full storms to go down as opposed to 2 a storm has 20 dps, so slightly less than 2,28 stalkers against voidrays, against perfectly spreaded voidrayssidenote on upgrades + Show Spoiler +
This is 0/0 calculations, the voids do however gain a tiiiiny advantage the more upgrades there are,by having more HP than shield, thus benefitting more from armor upgrades, and both void and stalkers attack upgrades are nullified by matching opposing armor upgrades.
sidenote on gas/minerals + Show Spoiler +
I disagree on gas/mineral 1:1,5 conversion rate, i would lean more towards something like 1:2 or even more.... but while a different conversion rate does help the blinking player, the stargate player gets more spare minerals and supply to add some zealots, so the numbers should + or - hold anyways
Btw, thanks Treehead for your initial analysis, as you can see i based my numbers on yours
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Northern Ireland174 Posts
It's interesting how the voidray now matches up vs all those units. Thanks for gathering and posting detailed information on what you found, nice read.
I guess Flux Vanes is never gonna make a comeback, crackrays were funny 
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My only questions, since it seems to be a standard unit in a lot of HotS zerg armies, is how does the void ray stack up against hydras?
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On December 10 2012 11:38 FlyingBeer wrote:
My only questions, since it seems to be a standard unit in a lot of HotS zerg armies, is how does the void ray stack up against hydras?
Hydras will still destroy Voids for cost. The activated ability only affects armored units.
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Of course the new void is OP. There are ninja buffs to it.
The official patchnote says:
"Prismatic Beam:
No longer charges up.
Weapon period decreased from 0.6 to 0.5.
No longer does passive +massive damage."
But actually, Voidray also gets a huge buff to +armored bonus. The old bonus is 4 and 8 (when charging up). The new is 10 and 16 (when charging up).
They beat everything anti-air on the same cost or same supply.
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I'm excited to see what PvZ builds come from this. Not so excited to see the resurgence of PvT 3gate VR Cheese.
I seem to remember that Protoss got some kind of potential detection for Stargate tech route. I hope this is the case, because currently I can see some problems with Stargate openers beating everything but DT, which is an autoloss. I don't like build order rock-paper-scissors.
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On December 10 2012 12:22 Acritter wrote:
I'm excited to see what PvZ builds come from this. Not so excited to see the resurgence of PvT 3gate VR Cheese.
I seem to remember that Protoss got some kind of potential detection for Stargate tech route. I hope this is the case, because currently I can see some problems with Stargate openers beating everything but DT, which is an autoloss. I don't like build order rock-paper-scissors.
Mothership core has a detection skill
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Oh, OP, could you do some tests against Bunkers? With 1, 2, 3, and 4 Marines? This is something very important to the 3gate VR Cheese build. If 1 or 2 Void Rays, possibly with Stalker support, can kill a Bunker before SCVs can show up to repair, that could spell serious trouble for the TvP matchup.
Edit: Thank you to above poster. I remember now. Phew, that clears up the problem nicely.
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Void Rays vs. Bunker with 1, 2, 3 or 4 marines. A charged Void Ray takes 13.5 seconds to kill a bunker--marines will each deal 90 damage in that time, so Voids will take a bunker with 1 marine with 160 health left, a bunker with 2 marines with 70 health left, and 3 or 4 marines in a bunker will kill the Void. If an SCV can arrive to repair though, that will significantly swing things in the Terran's favor, reducing the Void Ray's dps by 10 and extending the life if the bunker to 20 seconds, during which each marine will deal 138 damage, meaning even 2 marines in a bunker being repaired will be sufficient to kill the Void. Interesting, in WoL Voids took 19.8 seconds to kill a Bunker that wasn't being prepared. Meaning that effectively, the new Voids are as good vs a bunker being repaired by an SCV as the old Voids were vs an unrepaired bunker. And vs unrepaired bunkers, the new Voids kill them 6.3 seconds faster, a significant jump if you're frantically trying to send more marines or SCVs to help defend an early push before your bunker goes down.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
Yeah I think Void Rays should get a nerf towards non-armored units, right now Zerg has very little good answers to them. Void Rays actually beat Mutas cost for cost - even when you get into the 20's of Mutas (where their splash is of course better). Hydras beat Void Rays cost for cost, but they lost to them BADLY supply for supply. So in the late game I have no idea how a Zerg is supposed to beat them. Yes, Void Rays are vulnerable to splash, but not as vulnerable as Hydras are...
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On December 10 2012 12:56 ZjiublingZ wrote:
Yeah I think Void Rays should get a nerf towards non-armored units, right now Zerg has very little good answers to them. Void Rays actually beat Mutas cost for cost - even when you get into the 20's of Mutas (where their splash is of course better). Hydras beat Void Rays cost for cost, but they lost to them BADLY supply for supply. So in the late game I have no idea how a Zerg is supposed to beat them. Yes, Void Rays are vulnerable to splash, but not as vulnerable as Hydras are...
Phoenixes might be fast enough to dodge the new fungal, but Voids definitely aren't, and fungal+Hydra is quite cost efficient vs Void heavy air compositions.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 10 2012 12:58 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2012 12:56 ZjiublingZ wrote:
Yeah I think Void Rays should get a nerf towards non-armored units, right now Zerg has very little good answers to them. Void Rays actually beat Mutas cost for cost - even when you get into the 20's of Mutas (where their splash is of course better). Hydras beat Void Rays cost for cost, but they lost to them BADLY supply for supply. So in the late game I have no idea how a Zerg is supposed to beat them. Yes, Void Rays are vulnerable to splash, but not as vulnerable as Hydras are... Phoenixes might be fast enough to dodge the new fungal, but Voids definitely aren't, and fungal+Hydra is quite cost efficient vs Void heavy air compositions.
Yes I addressed this in my post - Voids are vulnerable to splash, but not as vulnerable as Hydralisks. So if you go Voids and force your opponent to get Hydras, and you both go splash to counter each other, the Zerg player isn't going to trade even close to as well. I did it in the unit tester, trust me lol. It's ugly.
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On December 09 2012 06:43 Skirmjan wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On December 08 2012 13:37 Treehead wrote:
To do a similar analysis for Stalkers v. Voids (with a 1.5 minerals per 1 gas equivalence ratio, similar to the numbers for the banshee analysis above):
2.28 Stalkers (342/114 after 25 minerals per supply)
365 health
22.1 dps
1 Void (287/150 after 25 minerals per supply)
250 health
30 dps vs. stalkers (while charged)
18 dps vs. stalkers (uncharged)
Void takes 12.17 seconds to kill 2.28 stalkers while charged.
2.28 stalkers take 11.31 seconds to kill a void.
(Sidenote: uncharged, a void takes 20.27 seconds to kill 2.28 stalkers.)
Void does have more advantage due to being low supply, and having losing dps later in the fight - but it is a bit nonsensical to consider stalkers a counter to banshees but not to voids, based on these numbers alone. (And again, banshees can cloak).
Edit: Altered Stalker numbers, bah - musta miscalced earlier. nice analysis, unfortunately there's one assumption that ruins it >.>
Void does have more advantage due to being low supply, and having losing dps later in the fight - but it is a bit nonsensical to consider stalkers a counter to banshees but not to voids, based on these numbers alone. (And again, banshees can cloak).
While Banshees do lose some dps later in the fight due to overkill,it is still much less than any ground unit due to being a flyer and stacking togheter, Void rays have no overkill, while Stalkers are one of the units more affected by it... remember this bug? Voidray instakill bugWhile this has been fixed, Void rays still don't overkill (exactly like marines and siege tanks) as they don't have a projectile (the beam is entirely a graphic effect) So while this analysis holds perfectly while the voids are less than an handful, things get quickly out of control once you start massing them,because they get better exponentially until you reach 10,67 voids; once you add the 11th void, they can kill a guaranteed Stalker every 0,5 seconds with focusfire, and every additional void still doesn't waste his firepower (so there isn't really diminishing gains from massing them) The corresponding 24,3276 Stalkers must either a-move and lose the engagement due to spreading their fire too much,or focus fire and waste theoretically 6,4705 Stalkers firepower (probably a little less) as it takes 17,8571 Stalkers to oneshot a Voidray. That waste is 1/4th of the Stalkers firepower, so they will theoretically lose the battle, as the tests i ran seem to show: + Show Spoiler +please note that these tests aren't optimal as these kind of testing requires 2 people
tests are done in the hots online unit tester, arena terrain
25 stalkers vs 11 voids
results:
1)Both a-moving with no blink ends with 6 voids surviving
2)Stalkers blinking offensively, against voids a-moving ends with 4 rays surviving (no focus fire on either side however)
3)Stalkers blinking offensively and focusfiring, against stacked Voidrays focusfiring ends with 4-5 rays surviving, hard to test this without another player to help but the voids win clearly enough (i can't unfortunately record videos T_T, if a kind soul wants to do that...)
You cannot kite charged voids as you can not walk up to them chargerays without suffering a ton of losses, you have to use an offensive blink. Once you've done that, you have fully committed to the fight, as the stalkers wipe in 12,17 seconds, so if you wanna blink out you'll be left with 4,34 stalkers, and walking out is worse than that in terms of cost-efficiency. This is pretty much the worst case scenario for the void user, as we aren't factoring in cliffs, empty air space beneath bases, sim cities etc etc, and having a zealot support obviously helps the stargating player more than the blinking player (they will also both eventually have minerals to spare as you cannot build pure stalkers out of a base that is both mining minerals and gas efficiently, but the stargate player will have more)As the number of units increases so does the void cost effectiveness, so, while initially you can try and bait a charge by attacking the stack and blinking out, as the number of units increases that tactic becomes unviable aswell, probably around 17,77777 void (amount of uncharged void to oneshot a stalker every 0,5 seconds). The stargate player has also access to both oracles and phoenixes to harass, getting a much better shot at gaining map control, and he's being much more supply efficient, not to mention he has an easy path to Tempests TLDR; The blinking player practically has to rush storm after the + or - 30th Stalker, while probably getting harassed by something akin to a slower,stronger muta-ling much less vulnerable to the hts... and that's without factoring in tempests that can snipe ht etc etc So yes, i am worried about the voidray dominating the PvP metagame, i guess we shall see... Sidenotes: + Show Spoiler +sidenote on the banshee + Show Spoiler +it is a bit nonsensical to consider stalkers a counter to banshees but not to voids Yes,in fact the stalkers are in terrible trouble against large numbers of banshees, as you'll remember seeing back in the day when 2 port terran all ins were popular... there is of course the raven tipping the odds, but you wont see many protosses winning with just stalkers against reasonable micro once the banshees have reached a good mass; the downfall of that all in is that banshees are very weak to both feedback and storm, while voids are clearly immune to feedback and require 4 full storms to go down as opposed to 2 a storm has 20 dps, so slightly less than 2,28 stalkers against voidrays, against perfectly spreaded voidrayssidenote on upgrades + Show Spoiler +
This is 0/0 calculations, the voids do however gain a tiiiiny advantage the more upgrades there are,by having more HP than shield, thus benefitting more from armor upgrades, and both void and stalkers attack upgrades are nullified by matching opposing armor upgrades.
sidenote on gas/minerals + Show Spoiler +
I disagree on gas/mineral 1:1,5 conversion rate, i would lean more towards something like 1:2 or even more.... but while a different conversion rate does help the blinking player, the stargate player gets more spare minerals and supply to add some zealots, so the numbers should + or - hold anyways
Good analysis.
I think the build order considerations are worth noting, too, though. Early game considerations (I imagine) will still be of large importance (given the strength of the 4-gate, blink stalker allins, and other early warpgate play). I don't see a way of safely adding Voids to your army without first getting a bunch of sentries. Once you've added a bunch of sentries, you can't really scout with voids without insuring their death against blink players. Or, if you go stargate, see blink with phoenixes, will Voids be available soon enough that you won't have had to already start immortal production? (I think not, but maybe I'm wrong here.)
The point is that Voids are hard to get many of early - and 11 Voids take 11 minutes of SG production (not to mention 1650 gas). Once the game goes late, there become other questions - is mass void capable of dealing with zealot/archon? Do you need Colossi? What happens if your opponent gets phoenixes? Are blink stalkers going to be able to find timings to force VRs to charge, disengage, and then re-engage 20 seconds later?
I think HotS Voids in PvP are going to be good lategame - don't get me wrong. But getting them in numbers may be harder than most people in this thread are taking into account. This is why it is analogous to the banshee - and the banshee is actually reasonable play early.
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On December 10 2012 12:53 awesomoecalypse wrote:
Void Rays vs. Bunker with 1, 2, 3 or 4 marines. A charged Void Ray takes 13.5 seconds to kill a bunker--marines will each deal 90 damage in that time, so Voids will take a bunker with 1 marine with 160 health left, a bunker with 2 marines with 70 health left, and 3 or 4 marines in a bunker will kill the Void. If an SCV can arrive to repair though, that will significantly swing things in the Terran's favor, reducing the Void Ray's dps by 10 and extending the life if the bunker to 20 seconds, during which each marine will deal 138 damage, meaning even 2 marines in a bunker being repaired will be sufficient to kill the Void. Interesting, in WoL Voids took 19.8 seconds to kill a Bunker that wasn't being prepared. Meaning that effectively, the new Voids are as good vs a bunker being repaired by an SCV as the old Voids were vs an unrepaired bunker. And vs unrepaired bunkers, the new Voids kill them 6.3 seconds faster, a significant jump if you're frantically trying to send more marines or SCVs to help defend an early push before your bunker goes down.
So two Voids and 3-4 Stalkers can kill a Bunker in something like 5 seconds, way too little time for pulled SCVs to get there. At least one SCV will always have to be there and ready to repair or the Bunker will fall. Dunno how much mindgames the Protoss can play with running in until shields are depleted.
Yeah, this could be a problem.
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I think your overcalculating numbers here.
2 Widow mines kill 1 voidray in 0 Seconds.
1 Widow mine kills a marine in 0 seconds
Does the high DPS of the widow mine mean they are broken?
The reason the widow mine is balanced is because the widow mine, like the voidray, has certain units or strategies that will decimate it completely.
If voidrays get too strong in the early game, im sure blizzard will find an upgrade to add.
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Why not do the math behind Void Ray vs Thor? Seems really relevant.
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On December 10 2012 13:43 Treehead wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2012 06:43 Skirmjan wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On December 08 2012 13:37 Treehead wrote:
To do a similar analysis for Stalkers v. Voids (with a 1.5 minerals per 1 gas equivalence ratio, similar to the numbers for the banshee analysis above):
2.28 Stalkers (342/114 after 25 minerals per supply)
365 health
22.1 dps
1 Void (287/150 after 25 minerals per supply)
250 health
30 dps vs. stalkers (while charged)
18 dps vs. stalkers (uncharged)
Void takes 12.17 seconds to kill 2.28 stalkers while charged.
2.28 stalkers take 11.31 seconds to kill a void.
(Sidenote: uncharged, a void takes 20.27 seconds to kill 2.28 stalkers.)
Void does have more advantage due to being low supply, and having losing dps later in the fight - but it is a bit nonsensical to consider stalkers a counter to banshees but not to voids, based on these numbers alone. (And again, banshees can cloak).
Edit: Altered Stalker numbers, bah - musta miscalced earlier. nice analysis, unfortunately there's one assumption that ruins it >.>
Void does have more advantage due to being low supply, and having losing dps later in the fight - but it is a bit nonsensical to consider stalkers a counter to banshees but not to voids, based on these numbers alone. (And again, banshees can cloak).
While Banshees do lose some dps later in the fight due to overkill,it is still much less than any ground unit due to being a flyer and stacking togheter, Void rays have no overkill, while Stalkers are one of the units more affected by it... remember this bug? Voidray instakill bugWhile this has been fixed, Void rays still don't overkill (exactly like marines and siege tanks) as they don't have a projectile (the beam is entirely a graphic effect) So while this analysis holds perfectly while the voids are less than an handful, things get quickly out of control once you start massing them,because they get better exponentially until you reach 10,67 voids; once you add the 11th void, they can kill a guaranteed Stalker every 0,5 seconds with focusfire, and every additional void still doesn't waste his firepower (so there isn't really diminishing gains from massing them) The corresponding 24,3276 Stalkers must either a-move and lose the engagement due to spreading their fire too much,or focus fire and waste theoretically 6,4705 Stalkers firepower (probably a little less) as it takes 17,8571 Stalkers to oneshot a Voidray. That waste is 1/4th of the Stalkers firepower, so they will theoretically lose the battle, as the tests i ran seem to show: + Show Spoiler +please note that these tests aren't optimal as these kind of testing requires 2 people
tests are done in the hots online unit tester, arena terrain
25 stalkers vs 11 voids
results:
1)Both a-moving with no blink ends with 6 voids surviving
2)Stalkers blinking offensively, against voids a-moving ends with 4 rays surviving (no focus fire on either side however)
3)Stalkers blinking offensively and focusfiring, against stacked Voidrays focusfiring ends with 4-5 rays surviving, hard to test this without another player to help but the voids win clearly enough (i can't unfortunately record videos T_T, if a kind soul wants to do that...)
You cannot kite charged voids as you can not walk up to them chargerays without suffering a ton of losses, you have to use an offensive blink. Once you've done that, you have fully committed to the fight, as the stalkers wipe in 12,17 seconds, so if you wanna blink out you'll be left with 4,34 stalkers, and walking out is worse than that in terms of cost-efficiency. This is pretty much the worst case scenario for the void user, as we aren't factoring in cliffs, empty air space beneath bases, sim cities etc etc, and having a zealot support obviously helps the stargating player more than the blinking player (they will also both eventually have minerals to spare as you cannot build pure stalkers out of a base that is both mining minerals and gas efficiently, but the stargate player will have more)As the number of units increases so does the void cost effectiveness, so, while initially you can try and bait a charge by attacking the stack and blinking out, as the number of units increases that tactic becomes unviable aswell, probably around 17,77777 void (amount of uncharged void to oneshot a stalker every 0,5 seconds). The stargate player has also access to both oracles and phoenixes to harass, getting a much better shot at gaining map control, and he's being much more supply efficient, not to mention he has an easy path to Tempests TLDR; The blinking player practically has to rush storm after the + or - 30th Stalker, while probably getting harassed by something akin to a slower,stronger muta-ling much less vulnerable to the hts... and that's without factoring in tempests that can snipe ht etc etc So yes, i am worried about the voidray dominating the PvP metagame, i guess we shall see... Sidenotes: + Show Spoiler +sidenote on the banshee + Show Spoiler +it is a bit nonsensical to consider stalkers a counter to banshees but not to voids Yes,in fact the stalkers are in terrible trouble against large numbers of banshees, as you'll remember seeing back in the day when 2 port terran all ins were popular... there is of course the raven tipping the odds, but you wont see many protosses winning with just stalkers against reasonable micro once the banshees have reached a good mass; the downfall of that all in is that banshees are very weak to both feedback and storm, while voids are clearly immune to feedback and require 4 full storms to go down as opposed to 2 a storm has 20 dps, so slightly less than 2,28 stalkers against voidrays, against perfectly spreaded voidrayssidenote on upgrades + Show Spoiler +
This is 0/0 calculations, the voids do however gain a tiiiiny advantage the more upgrades there are,by having more HP than shield, thus benefitting more from armor upgrades, and both void and stalkers attack upgrades are nullified by matching opposing armor upgrades.
sidenote on gas/minerals + Show Spoiler +
I disagree on gas/mineral 1:1,5 conversion rate, i would lean more towards something like 1:2 or even more.... but while a different conversion rate does help the blinking player, the stargate player gets more spare minerals and supply to add some zealots, so the numbers should + or - hold anyways
Good analysis. I think the build order considerations are worth noting, too, though. Early game considerations (I imagine) will still be of large importance (given the strength of the 4-gate, blink stalker allins, and other early warpgate play). I don't see a way of safely adding Voids to your army without first getting a bunch of sentries. Once you've added a bunch of sentries, you can't really scout with voids without insuring their death against blink players. Or, if you go stargate, see blink with phoenixes, will Voids be available soon enough that you won't have had to already start immortal production? (I think not, but maybe I'm wrong here.) The point is that Voids are hard to get many of early - and 11 Voids take 11 minutes of SG production (not to mention 1650 gas). Once the game goes late, there become other questions - is mass void capable of dealing with zealot/archon? Do you need Colossi? What happens if your opponent gets phoenixes? Are blink stalkers going to be able to find timings to force VRs to charge, disengage, and then re-engage 20 seconds later? I think HotS Voids in PvP are going to be good lategame - don't get me wrong. But getting them in numbers may be harder than most people in this thread are taking into account. This is why it is analogous to the banshee - and the banshee is actually reasonable play early.
Good points,however the early game considerations to be made aren't WoL's early game anymore, but HotS's.
In HotS, pylons can no longer warp in on upper ground, and the Mothership Core with its cannon is surely gonna steer the metagame towards a more macro-friendly MU, although i cannot say how much.
However, there are already stargate builds in WoL that are perfectly safe against 4 gate while not having uberrays and having to forcefully transition into robo in order to avoid a DT autoloss (for an example, see HerO's build).
For all intents and purposes, i think 4 gate is totally dead in PvP this time, maybe until much greedier builds surface.
So this pretty much leaves blink all ins, which are or are not going to be stronger than the WoL's version against Stargates openings, once more due to the interference of the MSC. Will the MSC be used to blink onto the high ground more safely? will the photon overcharge help defense more than the MSC helps offense? besides, Stargate builds have the means to try and snipe the enemy MSC, so i cannot say conclusively.
About the midgame, is the void capable of dealing with zealot/archon? well, an archon does 14,3 DPS against non-biological, while costing 5-6 stalkers worth in gas, so to really be worth it's money in damage, he needs to be able to hit a good number of voids with its splash... (he is, however, really tanky,read down for better testing)
if you're asking me if a player is able to survive a chargelot/archon all in on 1/2 bases, i dunno, however as i said the stargate player will have zealots of his own and probably also oracles, which are gonna be effective both with time warp and, kinda unexpectedly, pulsar beam doing 25dps anti-light (killing a zealot in 6 seconds, costing 24 energy)
As robo builds are in roughly the same situation or worse, i can't see chargelot archon being the end of pure stargate builds with proper simcities, imho.
About your lategame points, this is where the voidray shines the most, as it is the most supply effective unit in protoss's arsenal, costing 83 min 50 gas per supply.... in an hypotethical 200/200 battle, would you rather have 3 zealots or 2 voidrays? I don't see colossi being needed, as enemy zealots cannot just run past yours; if your opponent also has the stargates to make phoenixes, why shouldn't he build voids instead, as they build slightly faster than the 2 phoenixes needed to beat one (rread the section in the OP) and are more supply effective...
This leaves blink micro,which in HotS also requires you to snipe the mothership core, otherwise the pack of voids whose charge has been successfully baited can just recall back at home and recharge it.
It also must be pointed out that due to the MSC, stargates build can pretty much ignore all other techpaths (with the exception of zealot charge) and still have reasonable chances against dts. A Stargate making voidrays gas consumption is 2,5/s with no chrono, 3,75/s with perfect chrono(requires 2 nexus) and 3/s with half chrono (single nexus), while a warpgate making stalkers is spending 1,5625/s gas, so paradoxically 1 stargate void+2 gates with good chrono is matching a 4 gate production O.o, and i have to wonder if greedy builds could somehow stuff in either a 1 base 2 stargate build or a 1 gate fe into 3 stargate build.
Proper Archon Vs Void testing:
+ Show Spoiler +
1 Archon vs 1 Void (100/300/4 vs 250/150/3) Archon wins with 150 shields remaining
1 Archon vs 2 Voids (100/300/4 vs 500/300/6) Voidrays win, both alive with the one suffering the most damage being at either 25 or 50 hps while other one surviving with 50 shields left
5 Archons vs 5 Voids (500/1500/20 vs 1250/750/15) Archon wins with 3 left
5 Archons vs 7 Voids (500/1500/20 vs 1750/1050/21) here the things start getting pretty random based on how clumped the voids are and which units get focused down first, i've both had Archons win with 3 left and VRs win with 3 left....
basically we can say that it gets down to micro, however it must be noted that the archon has 3 range while the VR has 6
Little offtopic about the oracle:
+ Show Spoiler +
funnily enough, an oracle spending 24 energy to kill a zealots blows the phoenixes zea-killing abilities out of the water, as they have to spend 50 + shut down a phoenix to achieve that, o.O.
ps. armor upgrades on the zealots can probably force an additional attack from the oracle, thus costing 28 energy for a kill, but still......
I think i'm sounding overly critic both here and in the last post, however while i'm not worried that PvP will become some horribad mass voidrays wars, i am worried about the comeback of rock-paper-scissors as Voidrays>robo>blinkallin>Void etc, with chargelot archon fitting somewhere in between.....
or worse, the comeback of the horribad BW ZvZ T_T
Edit, @weikor
On December 11 2012 01:54 weikor wrote:
I think your overcalculating numbers here.
2 Widow mines kill 1 voidray in 0 Seconds.
1 Widow mine kills a marine in 0 seconds
Does the high DPS of the widow mine mean they are broken?
The reason the widow mine is balanced is because the widow mine, like the voidray, has certain units or strategies that will decimate it completely.
If voidrays get too strong in the early game, im sure blizzard will find an upgrade to add.
DPS only show a part of the story, that's true, however it is much easier to calculate than DPM...
besides, the void ray charge lasts 20 seconds, and properly used that's gonna last for a good 70% of the battle the void is gonna be in... besides, it's not like the VR shuts down after those 20 seconds, it still deals more than half the DPS it did before.
For istance, in a full minute a single VR is gonna do 600 damage in the first 20 seconds, then 720 in the rest of the minute to an enemy hypothetical nexus.... how much would the widow mine do, if it could attack that nexus?
You're right, but before adding a bandaid to the VR we must determine IF it breaks something, and basic math will hopefully help accomplish that
Besides, i'd rather like to see an upgrade fix for the lackluster Stalker AA rather than the VR, who has spent a lot of time being somewhat underpowered.
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I think mass void rays arent that strong in WoL. The only time you can afford mass void rays is end game and by that time infestors + corruptor should demolish the void rays
I agree with you, void rays are not that hard to counter but they are annoying. During beta was the last time that I saw mass void rays being used. Nowadays its not that popular.
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On December 11 2012 01:54 weikor wrote:
I think your overcalculating numbers here.
2 Widow mines kill 1 voidray in 0 Seconds.
1 Widow mine kills a marine in 0 seconds
Does the high DPS of the widow mine mean they are broken?
The reason the widow mine is balanced is because the widow mine, like the voidray, has certain units or strategies that will decimate it completely.
If voidrays get too strong in the early game, im sure blizzard will find an upgrade to add.
You aren't remotely familiar with 3gate Void Ray Cheese, are you? It's a very strong all-in that's given a lot of Terran players many problems. It's only fallen out of favor because Terrans started expecting it and got better at scouting and preparing for it. It was strong enough even when scouted, and with the Void Ray strengthened, it may be a serious concern.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On December 11 2012 11:00 Acritter wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 01:54 weikor wrote:
I think your overcalculating numbers here.
2 Widow mines kill 1 voidray in 0 Seconds.
1 Widow mine kills a marine in 0 seconds
Does the high DPS of the widow mine mean they are broken?
The reason the widow mine is balanced is because the widow mine, like the voidray, has certain units or strategies that will decimate it completely.
If voidrays get too strong in the early game, im sure blizzard will find an upgrade to add.
You aren't remotely familiar with 3gate Void Ray Cheese, are you? It's a very strong all-in that's given a lot of Terran players many problems. It's only fallen out of favor because Terrans started expecting it and got better at scouting and preparing for it. It was strong enough even when scouted, and with the Void Ray strengthened, it may be a serious concern.
Warp in on higher ground is removed though. That's a pretty big nerf to that build.
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On December 11 2012 11:13 ZjiublingZ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 11:00 Acritter wrote:On December 11 2012 01:54 weikor wrote:
I think your overcalculating numbers here.
2 Widow mines kill 1 voidray in 0 Seconds.
1 Widow mine kills a marine in 0 seconds
Does the high DPS of the widow mine mean they are broken?
The reason the widow mine is balanced is because the widow mine, like the voidray, has certain units or strategies that will decimate it completely.
If voidrays get too strong in the early game, im sure blizzard will find an upgrade to add.
You aren't remotely familiar with 3gate Void Ray Cheese, are you? It's a very strong all-in that's given a lot of Terran players many problems. It's only fallen out of favor because Terrans started expecting it and got better at scouting and preparing for it. It was strong enough even when scouted, and with the Void Ray strengthened, it may be a serious concern. Warp in on higher ground is removed though. That's a pretty big nerf to that build.
Indeed. While it can still be used against lower level opponents, more skilled players can be easily prepared for this without a high ground warp in option. It's critical to the success of the build.
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On December 10 2012 12:58 awesomoecalypse wrote:
Phoenixes might be fast enough to dodge the new fungal, but Voids definitely aren't, and fungal+Hydra is quite cost efficient vs Void heavy air compositions.
This might work if your opponent is extremely terrible. You do realize that the fungal projectile is so slow a thor can dodge it right? With the latest patch using fungal as a reasonable answer to counter anything basically says "Hey I'm bronze and I cant move a unit slightly to the left or right at the correct time". Against good players infestors are completely useless against any unit faster than a thor. Go play against a friend using infestors and micro 2-3 voids when they come into range. With 2+ minutes of practice you'll never get snagged again.
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This really sounds like too much damage and too quick deaths. "Critical number" is going to become a problem again.
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United Kingdom20323 Posts
You do realize that the fungal projectile is so slow a thor can dodge it right?
You cant look at if X unit can dodge the shot like that. If you fire from 8 range (instead of trying to tag the edge of the thor from fungal radius, 8+2 range), there's a 0.6 second travel time on the shot, and thor can only move ~56% of the way out of it in any direction, for example.
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On December 11 2012 12:40 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote + You do realize that the fungal projectile is so slow a thor can dodge it right? You cant look at if X unit can dodge the shot like that. If you fire from 8 range (instead of trying to tag the edge of the thor from fungal radius, 8+2 range), there's a 0.6 second travel time on the shot, and thor can only move ~56% of the way out of it in any direction, for example.
And that assumes zero reaction time (normally going to be 200ms or more).
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stalkers cost 125 - 50 - 2
void rays cost 250 - 150 - 3
it should be a 3-1 advantage to the voids
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On December 11 2012 14:37 Razorspine wrote:
stalkers cost 125 - 50 - 2
void rays cost 250 - 150 - 3
it should be a 3-1 advantage to the voids
Supply is the most valuable resource and there it is only 3-2 ... which is a reasonable ratio.
The problem is that Stalkers in particular can outmicro the Void Ray once you have blink and ensure that none of them dies while killing the Void Ray. The only way to "neutralize" this is to bring a critical number of Void Rays so they can basically one-shot the Stalkers. That is a boring thing to watch AND quite imbalanced for the gameplay though ...
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I've been in a number of games that involves transition from ground/robo to mass void rays. If i was playing protoss, i would most likely crush mass mech (unless it was very well fortified with ALOT of widow mines). If i was at the receiving end, 90% of my games are about losing all my factory/starport units with record time. I guess i should have turtled behind a massive field of missile turrets. But mech with a decent amount of vikings and cannon mode thors DO NOT handle a heavy vr comp well at all.
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On December 11 2012 14:41 Novacute wrote:
I've been in a number of games that involves transition from ground/robo to mass void rays. If i was playing protoss, i would most likely crush mass mech (unless it was very well fortified with ALOT of widow mines). If i was at the receiving end, 90% of my games are losing all my factory/starport units with record time. I guess i should have turtled behind a massive field of missile turrets. But mech with a decent amount of vikings and cannon mode thors DO NOT handle vr well at all.
For a 6 supply unit the new AA of the Thor doesnt deal nearly enough damage ... but if they increased it the damage would most likely be too high.
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On December 08 2012 07:24 Rnevermore wrote:
I worry about the power of mass void rays vs Terran mech now. I am not completely sure what a meching Terran can do to stop it.
I'm also concerned about this. Void rays basically kill everything now really really fast.
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interesting stuff thanks for the info. Good on the request for the bunker and marines that will be useful.
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On December 11 2012 14:43 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 14:41 Novacute wrote:
I've been in a number of games that involves transition from ground/robo to mass void rays. If i was playing protoss, i would most likely crush mass mech (unless it was very well fortified with ALOT of widow mines). If i was at the receiving end, 90% of my games are losing all my factory/starport units with record time. I guess i should have turtled behind a massive field of missile turrets. But mech with a decent amount of vikings and cannon mode thors DO NOT handle vr well at all. For a 6 supply unit the new AA of the Thor doesnt deal nearly enough damage ... but if they increased it the damage would most likely be too high.
I don't think a buff to HIP would be out of order. As it is currently its really pretty useless. Raising the damage to something like 25+10 vs. armored would give it bigger role without being OP when you consider the overall cost of the Thor.
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On December 11 2012 14:59 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2012 14:43 Rabiator wrote:On December 11 2012 14:41 Novacute wrote:
I've been in a number of games that involves transition from ground/robo to mass void rays. If i was playing protoss, i would most likely crush mass mech (unless it was very well fortified with ALOT of widow mines). If i was at the receiving end, 90% of my games are losing all my factory/starport units with record time. I guess i should have turtled behind a massive field of missile turrets. But mech with a decent amount of vikings and cannon mode thors DO NOT handle vr well at all. For a 6 supply unit the new AA of the Thor doesnt deal nearly enough damage ... but if they increased it the damage would most likely be too high. I don't think a buff to HIP would be out of order. As it is currently its really pretty useless. Raising the damage to something like 25+10 vs. armored would give it bigger role without being OP when you consider the overall cost of the Thor.
Please not another "bonus" damage attack for Terrans. They already are limited the most in the flexibility of their units by this compared to other races.
I would much rather have both AA attacks be replaced by something like this:
On December 11 2012 02:51 Rabiator wrote:
The old splash attack is removed and replaced by 4 shots of X damage (no bonus damage restrictions) which hit separate targets - if avalable - OR a single target if only one is around OR the Thor is told to attack that unit. This would add a lot of decisions to the Thor, remove the abusive magic boxing (which made the Thor useless against the unit it was designed against) and allows for a relatively high amount of single target damage.
This system would give "swarm defense" without the abuse of magic boxing but also the flexibility of focused firepower.
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Wow thanks for the information! A lot of interesting changes to it. Seems waaaaayyy better then WoL Void ray.
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On December 09 2012 03:27 FeyFey wrote:
Voidray is so easy to use now. I already miss charging micro. But if it makes people happy to use them now I don't mind.
The charge micro is gone (and this was exciting of course, with charging the void ray at rocks or a plyon of one's own) but now we have other things to micro. For example when the opponent tries to engage the void rays. Do we use prismatic alignment on all voids or are we able to just select a few, to scare the opponent away? The cooldown is quite long, one needs to make sure to have the spell ready when needed.
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Can you do it for void rays vs hydras?
On December 11 2012 02:51 Rabiator wrote:
The old splash attack is removed and replaced by 4 shots of X damage (no bonus damage restrictions) which hit separate targets - if avalable - OR a single target if only one is around OR the Thor is told to attack that unit. This would add a lot of decisions to the Thor, remove the abusive magic boxing (which made the Thor useless against the unit it was designed against) and allows for a relatively high amount of single target damage.
This system would give "swarm defense" without the abuse of magic boxing but also the flexibility of focused firepower.
TL;DR : Please make it so the only unit I have to build is the Thor. "abusive magic boxing" lol.
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really interesting numbers, ty for posting them.
I learned that one voidray to attack turrets works wonders when 2 or 3 oracles go beserk in the mineral line at the same time! If u r careful u kill the turret, a lot of workers and save ur oracles and even a damged void ray.
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while i really love the new design of the protoss stargate fleet, i think that both the oracle and the VR will have to be slightly nerfed
or if blizzard continues the new philosophy from the last patch they will just create some OP counters to both of them, either is fine for me
like i already said in case of the oracle id say nerf speed slightly and make their attack zero range (kinda like irradiated SV), this way hydras will punish early oracle harass even harder and thus make it more risky
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EPT
