EPTProtoss Deathball in HotS is back !!! - Page 3
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BlueKatz
68 Posts
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Sabu113
United States11071 Posts
On January 27 2013 09:30 SoFrOsTy wrote: The Protoss death ball isn't back. The Protoss players playing HOTS are terrible at Protoss (white-ra is the best Protoss in beta, which isn't saying much) or they don't know how to play toss yet. Like Artosis said in SOTG. We won't know balance until release when good players are actually playing. Cough Rain cough. A lot of the flaws and problems with WoL were forseen and muttered about plenty in advance of the problems manifesting themselves. Theory crafting has as much value as any of the cute stats that get thrown about. | ||
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Goldfish
2230 Posts
On January 27 2013 03:52 SheaR619 wrote: That just how protoss works. Even in BW it was similar but their was actually some sort of timing attack and aggression that protoss can do with +1 zealot and corsairs. The problem imo, is that the economy of the game is kinda bad atm. 3 base is the optimal max efficiency economy. Protoss also need an early access to a third base other wise they will die to stephano 200 roach push. Since the game is balance around FF, the third cant be TOO expose otherwise they die to 200 roach push as well. This lead to turtling since zerg have no reason to get a 4th base other than gas. This mean zerg will just tech up and turtle as well. One of the way to deal with turtling is the expand since you got map control but since the game doesnt encourage any way of grabbing more then 3 bases, it not really the optimal choice. Yeah, it's the bases. The fewer minerals per bases maps (which sadly has fallen off) really helped fix the deathball problem in SC2 (while it lasted). I'd like to add a few things which helps with the deathball, turtle until win issue in BW are: 1. Control groups (a bit basic) being limited to 12 or less. 2. The pathing - Units (even if you tried) rarely clumped up in a small space. 3. And a lot of people forget to add this - The spells. In BW, spells were way way stronger than in SC2 and it greatly discouraged deathballs (or attacking with everything in one place) and encouraged more attacks everywhere. Every race had good defense thanks to the spells. This meant you were actually encouraged to attack with small groups of units instead of just one big unit (of everything you have). If someone attacked you with a maxed out army in BW, you had powerful spells that could take it all out if they weren't careful (so this encouraged attacking with small groups instead of large groups). Storms did 120 damage and had a much bigger radius (it's 2.0 if you convert it from BW to SC2, and that's around 33% bigger radius). A few storms would take out any death ball (nearly every unit, besides a capital ship, could be taken out by 1-2 storms as opposed to in SC2). On the Terran side, they had EMP (which removed all shields and energy) and Irradiate. Vultures and siege tanks (yet more anti death balls). Zerg side, Lurkers, Plague (up to 300 damage to all units affected, units cannot die from plague though). Also all the AoE units in BW weren't a-move units (well, besides Archons). Lurkers, Siege Tanks, Vultures (with spider mines), and spell casters were all units that required micro to use. So, this along with more bases (more spread out bases instead of just turtling on 3 base), the two important things IMO, prevented the death ball syndrome in BW. And it made for a much better game because battles were happened more often (than in SC2) and were much less predictable too. We'll see how HotS does though. If HotS is basically WoL with a few less death ball units, I really think they should try changing SC2 more with LotV. | ||
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Freeborn
Germany421 Posts
Due to that the gateway units are much weaker than other tier 1 on open field. And the stupid unique MSC of course promotes deathballs as well. It's a bit sad but still the protoss MU's are becoming more interesting due to the air options at least... | ||
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neptunusfisk
2286 Posts
On January 27 2013 11:23 Whitewing wrote: There are players that use all 3 of those units, watch Gumiho play, for example. He regularly makes use of ghosts in TvZ to deal with infestors, vikings are obvious, and he uses marauders against both ling/bling and against ultralisks. Well, he does it because it's not standard meta so all the zergs are confused. | ||
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FeyFey
Germany10114 Posts
On January 27 2013 16:39 Sabu113 wrote: A lot of the flaws and problems with WoL were forseen and muttered about plenty in advance of the problems manifesting themselves. Theory crafting has as much value as any of the cute stats that get thrown about. And worse problems came also from not giving things enough time and putting them aside. And just saying they are flat out bad. While the multitude of the forseen flaws were no flaws at all, just bad play. It is hard to pick out the 1% truth of what people say at the beginning when it is just theory. It takes alot of testing and practical experimentation to filter the true flaws, from the ones people only imagine themself. For example the useless Wings Voidray, that currently rips through HotS after they nerfed it, but made it easier to use in exchange. So it is way easier to test it first when doing the fine tuning, before doing alot of hit and miss testing, which is of course good if something is really of balance. WoL also is a good example on the terrible results that can come from fast changes, so the people that want to do it slow have a good example. But Blizzard is doing a good job now with balance timing, even though I hate alot of what they are doing right now. Mainly responded because I found the players mentioned in the first quote a funny example. | ||
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naastyOne
491 Posts
On January 27 2013 16:52 Goldfish wrote: Yeah, it's the bases. The fewer minerals per bases maps (which sadly has fallen off) really helped fix the deathball problem in SC2 (while it lasted). I'd like to add a few things which helps with the deathball, turtle until win issue in BW are: 1. Control groups (a bit basic) being limited to 12 or less. 2. The pathing - Units (even if you tried) rarely clumped up in a small space. 3. And a lot of people forget to add this - The spells. In BW, spells were way way stronger than in SC2 and it greatly discouraged deathballs (or attacking with everything in one place) and encouraged more attacks everywhere. Every race had good defense thanks to the spells. This meant you were actually encouraged to attack with small groups of units instead of just one big unit (of everything you have). If someone attacked you with a maxed out army in BW, you had powerful spells that could take it all out if they weren't careful (so this encouraged attacking with small groups instead of large groups). Storms did 120 damage and had a much bigger radius (it's 2.0 if you convert it from BW to SC2, and that's around 33% bigger radius). A few storms would take out any death ball (nearly every unit, besides a capital ship, could be taken out by 1-2 storms as opposed to in SC2). On the Terran side, they had EMP (which removed all shields and energy) and Irradiate. Vultures and siege tanks (yet more anti death balls). Zerg side, Lurkers, Plague (up to 300 damage to all units affected, units cannot die from plague though). Also all the AoE units in BW weren't a-move units (well, besides Archons). Lurkers, Siege Tanks, Vultures (with spider mines), and spell casters were all units that required micro to use. So, this along with more bases (more spread out bases instead of just turtling on 3 base), the two important things IMO, prevented the death ball syndrome in BW. And it made for a much better game because battles were happened more often (than in SC2) and were much less predictable too. We'll see how HotS does though. If HotS is basically WoL with a few less death ball units, I really think they should try changing SC2 more with LotV. Please, TvP was a tank deathball MU, always. Boring as shit, and predictable to the very core. | ||
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rEalGuapo
Germany832 Posts
On January 27 2013 22:08 naastyOne wrote: Please, TvP was a tank deathball MU, always. Boring as shit, and predictable to the very core. Exactly, and still people beg for mech to be buffed so they can mass out factory units every single game and attack at 180-200 supply. That is exactly the same principle, how come it would be soooo beneficial to the game if Terran could turtle up to a deathball but it kills eSport if Protoss does it? It feels like Protoss gets so much hate from people just because Protoss is possibly OP at lower levels, or maybe because it is "cool" to do so because of amazing role models like IdrA who, coincidentally still said Protoss is the strongest race when the rest of the world knew that ZvP was hugely imbalanced toward Zerg. . . . Even IF the Protoss turtle style would be the strongest, over time it would get better and more action packed. Once people realise weaknesses of the Turtle style (timing wise) and exploit those as well as get an eco advantage you will see Protoss changing it up and going for a later death ball with more harass and action in the early and mid game. Just take your chill pills... | ||
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naastyOne
491 Posts
On January 27 2013 22:13 rEalGuapo wrote: Exactly, and still people beg for mech to be buffed so they can mass out factory units every single game and attack at 180-200 supply. That is exactly the same principle, how come it would be soooo beneficial to the game if Terran could turtle up to a deathball but it kills eSport if Protoss does it? The only reasonable reason i cann come up with is that some people are so used to BW, they can not see it has flaws. | ||
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
Blizz should have just focussed more on making clumped up turtle styles being a bad way to play. Instead they've introduced changes that revert all attempts of moving away from deathball style play. Fungal got nerfed fairly badly, tempests counter the broodlords which forced you to be mobile and voidrays got buffed again.. It's basically back to lasertoss from before in PvZ, only the viper sort of promotes splitting and can tear apart the deathball but not even that efficiently. PvZ is the only real matchup with deathball behaviour though, PvT doesn't have it that much and PvP sort of got ridden of it without colossi being the ultimate composition. I agree though with what some others said, P has been the worst designed race by far of the game in both HotS and WoL. They simply never had interesting harass options and rely on critical masses and timings way too often. The colossus was one the largest design mistakes in RTS history by making a pseudo air unit that forces your opponent into AA which subsequently also counters are interesting forms of harass you can do, warp prism play is still a bit rare just because it doesn't fit with colossi. | ||
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MrBarryObama
Korea (South)141 Posts
On January 27 2013 15:42 BlueKatz wrote: I think Bliz really missed their chance with the Mass Recall, it could be a spell that encourage small attacks, harass but they turned it into a deathball gtfo button. lol, they did drop the ball on that one I agree with the above, the Colossus is a stupid, stupid unit. For the aforementioned reasons, plus it gets exponentially more powerful the more of them you mass up (yes, to an extent, ~5, or WoL PvP ~8). One colossus should be super efficient, with each additional colossus having diminishing returns (overkilling, for example). Plus, warp prism + colossus could make sense. Maybe. | ||
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Hattori_Hanzo
Singapore1229 Posts
On January 28 2013 01:02 MrBarryObama wrote: lol, they did drop the ball on that one I agree with the above, the Colossus is a stupid, stupid unit. For the aforementioned reasons, plus it gets exponentially more powerful the more of them you mass up (yes, to an extent, ~5, or WoL PvP ~8). One colossus should be super efficient, with each additional colossus having diminishing returns (overkilling, for example). Plus, warp prism + colossus could make sense. Maybe. It's already countered by Tempests range 15, Viper's abduct and Terran's Vikings. You also, included the diminishing return amount (>5 for PvZ and PvT, and >8 for PvP) You countered your own argument. | ||
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awesomoecalypse
United States2235 Posts
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CruelZeratul
Germany4588 Posts
On January 27 2013 22:08 naastyOne wrote: Please, TvP was a tank deathball MU, always. Boring as shit, and predictable to the very core. Even though I generally agree, it still had stuff like Vulture herass all game long, Reaver drops, Zealot bombs and whatnot. In addition the a-move part after the turteling was done was different to SC2 deathballs. It was even more about positioning and getting the tanks sieged up in time. Some SC2 PvZ games don't have any action sometimes until giant armies are massed because nobody wants to. Protoss could lose his third, or army, or because of that the game when moving out to early, Zerg generelly wants to prolong the game to get the strong lategame army out. On top of that the herassment options aren't all that great (because they are not great in general or a huge commitment). | ||
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YogyBear
Canada10 Posts
It's too expensive and risky to poke as protoss past early game. Ling speed and stim/concussive will catch you off gaurd too easily. You have to rely on forcefield to fight these units, but the sentry is too slow so you cant keep it out on the map unless you are effectively all inning. Perhaps in HOTS, with recall we will see more activity on the map from protoss when we can guarantee a retreat. | ||
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Patate
Canada441 Posts
On January 27 2013 04:03 XXXSmOke wrote: You shouldnt be so surpirsed. Protoss has ruined most of Sc2, and at this point in HoTs its even worse than WoL. TvZ? Pretty good MU espcially with nerfs to infestor broood TvT always a good mirror ZvP? A train wreck of gimmicky turtling play TvP A terrible MU that is only balanced by the clock on the game. Not only that, the ideal unit combos are so damn stale its very boring. Protoss has so many design problems its terribad, FF, Warp ins, collsi, and now Skytoss are all big problems that Blizz decided to ignore, even tho they had a closed beta which would of been a great safety net to do some redesigns on the race. But nope they decided to fuck around with a gimmicky MSC and oracle for the duration of the beta. So HoTs is going to pan out just like WoL, people are going to love TvZ and TvT, and then cry every ZvP and TvP at how damn boring it still is. I cannot agree more. PvT is bearable but PvP and PvZ are a real mess. The real problem with Protoss is that they are dependant on two game ruining mechanics: Warpgate and Forcefields. Warpgate makes the timings too good. The concept of this game is that someone who spends 80% of his ressources to do a rush, while you spend 60% will still lose because he has to walk the map's distance in order to get to you. Warpgate destroys this, so therefore gateway units have to be weak in order to balance the timings. But in the late game, since the gateway units are weak, their support units have to be highly cost efficient and supply efficient. Therefore, Robo units are very strong. As for Forcefields, they are way too abusable. Warp in sentries early, wait for them to be full on energy and you have pretty much infinite Forcefields. I wouldn't see the spell is overpowered, because it ties up an awful lot of gas so it is a tech tree of its own, but it is a spell that frustrates both the user, and the opponent. You miss one forcefield and you lose.. or you can't do shit because of the enemy's forcefields. A truly disgusting spell, from a design standpoint. So when you take those two things into considerations, you quickly notice that Protoss, in order to be able to fight a T or Z army, have to stay in a ball (need the support units, need all the sentries together). Therefore, Protoss will screw up every matchup they are in. | ||
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neptunusfisk
2286 Posts
If you think PvP is only colossus wars/proxy gates you're missing something. + Show Spoiler + (And if you think proxy gates and colossus wars are both skillless and super boring, I guess you haven't been watching them.) | ||
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Patate
Canada441 Posts
On January 28 2013 06:08 neptunusfisk wrote: PvP is awesome btw. It's one of the most fun matchups to play as well. If you think PvP is only colossus wars/proxy gates you're missing something. + Show Spoiler + (And if you think proxy gates and colossus wars are both skillless and super boring, I guess you haven't been watching them.) If you like build order wins and one base play then yes.. pvp is fun to play. I switched to T because of it. | ||
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Emzeeshady
Canada4203 Posts
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Emzeeshady
Canada4203 Posts
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