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Introduction
As we are all well aware, one of the greatest Protoss units to have ever flied over the outerspace has been completely removed from the game in favor of… the mothership. The Arbiter was indeed one of the central pieces of the Protoss army, giving it cloaking ability and at the same time incredible mobility with Recall.
While the Mothership has a great ability (Vortex), it’s lack of speed and incredibly high cost/build time has made it useless in high-level play. Especially considering the fact that we need both a Starport and a Fleet Beacon in order to use it.
Which is why I believe Arbiters should be put back into the game as a Starport unit for Protoss.
Stargates in SC2
As we all know, Stargates in Starcraft 2 are rarely used, in favor of Gateway and Robotics Facility Tech. I believe that’s because none of the Stargate units Protoss has gives the race powerful middle-game support.
Let’s look at the Terran – they have to build Starports, the reason is two-fold:
1) They must build Medivacs to support their Bio-ball in the mid-game.
2) They must have Vikings in order to counter Colossi.
So not getting it brings a huge deficit in the mid-game, especially against the most common unit compositions.
Now let’s look at Zerg, and why they need to get their Spire:
1) Early-mid game harass with Mutalisks help them gain Map-control and expand more easily.
2) Corruptors destroy Colossi and Medivacs, and turn into Broodlords, absolute beasts against both Terran and Protoss.
So what could be the reasons for Protoss to get a Starport in the mid-game?
1) Phoenixes are costly, and are a poor Air-Air choice. For instance, while they’re strong vs Mutalisks, Zerg can easily kill them with Corruptors and gain Air Superiority again. They are only useful versus Banshees.
2) Void Rays are good when not scouted, extremely poor otherwise.
3) Carriers are only late-game, so we don’t need to bring them into discussion.
So in fact, there is basically no reason to get Stargates unless the player is trying to do something fancy, or the opponent is Terran and is trying to get Two-Starport Banshees.
Why Arbiters?
In Brood War, they were used against Terran to conceal armies, making Terran spend Scans (in this case it would make it even more pronounced the choice between MULE and Scan in Starcraft 2) and absolutely demolish clumped-up tanks. Furthermore, they were also used as a mid-game harass unit, using hallucinated arbiters in order to Recall into the enemy’s supply line.
However, In Starcraft 2 Tanks are not used vs Protoss and bio is usually the route Terran goes. Which means a lot of Marauders, Marines, Medivacs and Vikings, with a touch of Ravens.
It follows, then, that the Arbiter cannot be used as effectively as it was before. In order to circumvent this, if implemented as follows, it would be extremely useful:
1) In place of the Stasis Field, it should be given the Vortex and absolutely no attack. It should be a support unit and nothing more.
2) Recall and Cloaking Ability
If these changes are implemented, with the Arbiter, getting Starports would be actually beneficial to the Protoss, and at the same time it would increase the overall cost of the Protoss army, giving it certain balance. Moreover, as we’ve seen in Brood war, Arbiters can be balanced within the game.
In fact, it would provide the Protoss with more mobility than Warp Prisms, due to the fact that Recall can be used both offensively and defensively.
Furthermore, as been discussed in the Mothership Thread, and as Plexa puts it:
... the Mothership is a confused unit. Either make it a super unit which Protoss late game revolves around (or something like that) or don't make it a super unit and make the Mothership more accessible and usable so it isn't just a useless gimmick unit.
Bottom line is that Blizz need to make up their mind about what they want to do with it or just get rid of it.
And as Arbiter[frolix] responded:
I totally agree with this. It seems to me that Blizzard just have no idea what to do with the Mothership. Right now it looks like it could turn out to be a waste of a great concept, a unit a player only builds once he has the game pretty much won already.
And to think this cumbersome white elephant appears to be some kind of replacement for the most creative, elegant and interesting unit in Brood War...
Conclusion
We need to get rid of Motherships, and let Protoss have an Air Unit that makes getting Stargates worthwile. Let the Arbiter be it.
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Yet another useless thread asking for SC1 units to be added to SC2 when it's clearly not going to happen.
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On April 05 2010 04:41 nodule wrote:
Yet another useless thread asking for SC1 units to be added to SC2 when it's clearly not going to happen.
Are you actually going to be removing or adding any units before you launch?
Dustin Browder: I don’t know if we’ll add or remove. We could very easily add or remove. I certainly hope not to. I don’t foresee removing. I could see changing or adding significantly if it came to that. Our numbers now are positive and things seem to be going well, but as we’ve seen many times in the past, the community will often surprise us with tactics and strategies that we simply didn’t see coming. If we get to a point in a few weeks or a month where we say, ‘Oh my God, the Immortal’s a really huge problem. We need to change him dramatically or drop him,’ that is a change we’d be willing to make at this point.
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Well i think change is coming to the MS, so arbiters would be a nice option. The mothership needs to get out of the game. By making it smaller it would simply be an arbiter. So this is the most likely option.
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Sure, they are open to adding and removing units, as a last resort. But adding in sc1 units that they've purposefully removed? Not going to happen, regardless of that quote.
The only possible exception I could imagine is the lurker, since it was planned to be included.
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On April 05 2010 04:56 nodule wrote:
Sure, they are open to adding and removing units, as a last resort. But adding in sc1 units that they've purposefully removed? Not going to happen, regardless of that quote.
The only possible exception I could imagine is the lurker, since it was planned to be included.
well, the way i see it. the arbiter was only purposefully removed because of the introduction of the mothership. protoss doesn't need 2 aoe cloakers with basically the same abilities, so blizzard had to remove one of them. they chose the arb.
and in all honesty, the mothership is an arbiter. just bigger.
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just bigger, hardier, slower, costing more, pre-fitted with all arbiter abilities, modified stasis, and less fun to use =p
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I agree with the sentiment for sure, and almost anything looks superior to the mothership...
However, they really should try to introduce a new unit with reworked abilities. Cloaking field should stay for sure (high tech toss should have a cloaking advantage), although im not sure recall is that needed.
I always liked the idea of just chopping the legs off the colossus and making it a starport unit and making immortal at the robo. I have a feeling that this idea wont be too popular though.
AoE AtG really would feel like a protoss unit.
As cool a concept as the voidray is, its not proving to be too useful, and it sure as heck takes a lot of them to take out even BCs. I think it could use some tweaks.
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The mothership is the most powerful weapon in the protoss arsenal by lore and although it has been nerfed significantly, its still a fairly powerful unit when timed correctly in the late game. And frankly I don't see why the protoss needs the arbiter. They already have enough warp ins with warpgates, warp prisms and things like that. They don't need the arbiter. Adding it in would make it too much like sc1 which is what we MUST avoid at all cause.
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So far, I've been able to build one mothership. That was in a game against the very easy bots.
Online - never.
Something like a cheaper, faster mothership with only AA weapons and a cloaking field would already be better.
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mothership is same the arbiter. new giant arbiter.
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Except that it's alot easier to spot and moves alot slower. Personally I'd be furious if blizz puts the arbiter in the game. No offense to the "SC1 is holier than thou" crowd, but specifically recall was anything but a skill move. It took huge amounts of skill and luck to stop it, and luck has no place in an RTS.
At least with nydus worms you can place buildings around your base as spotters and leave a small force behind to kill anything that pops. In SC1 not even 20 turrets and a science vessel could prevent recall half the time. No thank you.
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why not just make the mothership faster instead of cutting a cool new unit and replacing it with a bw unit? i mean it's set up to be a lot like the arbiter anyway. some simple stat tweaks are all that would be needed to make it more useful.
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On April 05 2010 05:56 tancor wrote:
mothership is same the arbiter. new giant arbiter.
it is not even close to the same.
slow, giant, only 1.
the opposites of these properties are the exact reason arbiters were useful in sc1.
It took huge amounts of skill and luck to stop it, and luck has no place in an RTS.
luck obviously has a role in an RTS. its called attacking uphill ^_^
and it doesnt take any more skill to stop a recall than it does to execute it and not get rolled by a counter push. stopping a recall in sc1 is as easy as pressing "i" and "b, t"
now with turrets being incredibly powerful, stopping arbiters would be even less of a hassle.
EDIT: YEH what nony said >_<
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8748 Posts
On April 05 2010 06:04 Feefee wrote:
...specifically recall was anything but a skill move. It took huge amounts of skill and luck to stop it, and luck has no place in an RTS.
Strongly disagree here. If a Protoss had Recall ready to go at a time when the Terran could only stop it by luck, then the Protoss must have done something earlier in the game to gain an advantage. In an even game, when Protoss is going Recall, the Terran has enough Turrets, Goliaths, EMP and Scan to prevent Recalls. Alternatively, in an even game, the Terran can "let" Recalls happen and be in a position to minimize losses when they do happen.
Many Protoss have lost games because they were trying to get Arbiters/Recall too quickly. Many Protoss have lost games because they expected to be able to make a strong offensive move as soon as Recall was ready to go but then found that there was no great place to do a Recall. Then the Protoss is in a situation where his Recall investment is useless and he would have been better of investing in econ, some other tech, upgrades, etc. The Terran comes out with an advantage in that situation and has better prospects of winning down the road.
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I wouldn't expect the arbiter to make an appearance in Wings of Liberty. Currently, protoss has plenty of units to use; it's the zerg that lack units.
Anyway, Starcraft 2 offers different mechanics to protoss, like warp prism warp ins. That's a sort of arbiter recall. Tanks aren't as prominent anymore, so Arbiter's statis isn't needed. Not to mention, if the arbiter was returned to the game, then you might have a bitter surprised when you realized all of its abilities were as reduced as the High templar's psy-storm.
The expansion will bring new units and option.
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I don't want the arbiter or the mothership I would much rather have a new unit entirely that doesn't suck ted nugent's balls. Tbh I think they could get away with a phoenix buff either making it cheaper or buffing the AA some how.
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I think they will buff up the MS a little bit more but also find a way to give it stronger weaknesses. Then and only then, will the arbiter come back! However this is only because it seems they are deadset on keeping the MS in the game.
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On April 05 2010 05:23 Knee_of_Justice wrote:
I agree with the sentiment for sure, and almost anything looks superior to the mothership...
However, they really should try to introduce a new unit with reworked abilities. Cloaking field should stay for sure (high tech toss should have a cloaking advantage), although im not sure recall is that needed.
I always liked the idea of just chopping the legs off the colossus and making it a starport unit and making immortal at the robo. I have a feeling that this idea wont be too popular though.
AoE AtG really would feel like a protoss unit.
As cool a concept as the voidray is, its not proving to be too useful, and it sure as heck takes a lot of them to take out even BCs. I think it could use some tweaks.
I agree. I've found the Warp Ray to be a pretty underwhelming unit unless its not expected. How about moving the Colossus to the Starport, and giving it a Wary Ray beam (requiringnresearch) in addition to its Thermal Lance? It could then fly around, but need to deploy into the Colossus form to attack (at which point it could use the default Colossus attack or the Warp Ray attack (if researched and selected). Retracting its legs to enable it to fly could take 3 seconds or so, mitigating much of the advantage attached to flight.
This would free up a unit slot for Protoss, increase strategic choices attached to tech path, and obviate some of the disadvantages of the Mothership with regards to fixed tech cost (because the Starport has already been built) .
I don't see the removal of the Warp Ray as much of a disadvantage if the interesting aspects of its design are transferred to the Colossus. I also don't think this encroaches on Viking territory because the Colossus is already used to some effect in combination with a Warp Prism.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/1298/arbiterrender.jpg)
