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United States2822 Posts
These were some things I thought about while taking a shower this morning, so I figured I'd post them to TeamLiquid. I admit I haven't put TOO much thought into the idea so it's not very fleshed out. I just wanted some opinions from the community as to what they think.
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The Protoss Dark Shrine is currently one of two buildings (the other being the Protoss Pylon) that does absolutely nothing. The Dark Shrine lacks upgrades and only serves to unlock the ability to create Dark Templar at the Gateway/Warp Gate. It costs 100 minerals and 250 gas to build, and takes 100 seconds to completely warp in.
The Dark Templar that it allows the creation of has been the focus of some balance issues towards the beginning of the beta. It costs 125 minerals, 125 gas and 2 food to warp in. It takes 55 seconds to fully create (or invokes a 45 second cooldown on the Warp Gate that warps it in). It's permanently cloaked and does 45 (+5/upgrade) damage without bonuses.
But I'm sure you all knew that already, right?
My current issues with the Dark Templar are not balance-related at all. I, however, think that creating this unit is a very do-or-die strategy. Because of the major resource and, more importantly, time investment that goes into getting Dark Templar tech, Dark Templars often need to do significant damage or end the game outright otherwise it puts the Protoss player at a heavy disadvantage.
In Protoss vs. Protoss, where Robotics openings are most popular (although the Stargate opening is popular, it often gets a Forge for detection), Dark Templar are not often seen because of the prevalence of Observers. In the cases where Protoss does not get early detection (possibly through DT rushing themselves), DTs end the game immediately.
In Protoss vs. Terran, the Orbital Command's scanning ability, the Missile Turret, and the easy wallins render most Dark Templar openings nullified. Although a Scan does "cost" the Terran 270 minerals, the amount of time and resources lost by the Protoss can be much more than this. Dark Templar in this matchup primarily serve to keep the Terran in their base while the Protoss expands. I like the strategical use of Dark Templar in this matchup the most.
In Protoss vs. Zerg, the Dark Templar seems to be the most useful. Because of the movement of Overseer detection to Lair tech, and the requirement to morph individual Overlords to detect, Dark Templar are more likely to do their damage. However, because of this ability of Overlords to quickly change into a detector and the more mobile nature of the Zerg on their home base, Zerg can also recover from Dark Templar faster than the other races.
I propose a few stylistic changes to the Dark Templar that allow it to fulfill the position of a harassing unit and a combat specialist, not an all-in unit like it is right now.
One - Reduce the build time of the Dark Shrine back to its original build time, or lower. 100 seconds is a very long time and often lends itself to the strategy being scouted easily, which further exacerbates the problems with going the strategy.
Two - Dark Templar uncloak themselves upon attacking for 2 seconds. This ability is similar to Rikimaru's from DotA. Because of the lower building time of the Dark Shrine, the Dark Templar needs to have some sort of drawback as a result. This allows the Dark Templar to come out earlier and do economic harassment, but also reduces its ability to end the game immediately.
Three - Give the Dark Shrine a number of upgrades for the Dark Templar. The Dark Templar is a unit that exists only to do major economic damage or to end the game outright. I've heard similar comments about the Terran Reaper, where the unit is created to do damage and then ignored for the rest of the game. However, the Reaper requires no additional tech and time to get to, as Terrans get Tech Labs for their buildings anyway. I propose the following upgrades available from the Dark Shrine:
Assassination - Removes the uncloak from the Dark Templar's attack. This returns the Dark Templar to the point it is right now. Researching this gives the Protoss the option of playing the way they do right now - that is, a more cheesy-style all-in end-the-game Dark Templar rush.
Void Shift - Passively allows the Dark Templar to pass through units and Force Fields. This gives the Dark Templar the ability to pick off key units in an opponent's army such as High Templar, Infestors and Ghosts and also can reinforce the Protoss idea of forced positional advantage.
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idk about the cloak-uncloak parts but the void shift ability would be nice
dark templars seem to be useless for toss atm except if you mix in a few for big battles where they go unnoticed with the lack of detection
dark templar rushes work sometimes but not enough to make them a big part of the game
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while you've come up with some creative ideas, I have no complaints with dts. they are similar to the reaper, in that it makes a good harass unit. As well, I love having a few dt's with my regular army. Alot of people dont notice the few dt's mixed in with my zealots, and the dt's do really great at adding that extra bit of dps to my force. When my opponent notices they are there, they most often think it's not worth the effort to get detection just to deal with the few dt's, since the biggest threat is my main army.
imo, make the dark shrine more useful by merging templar archives with it. Give us DT's and HT's from the same tech building, and they both become more viable. It might encourage people to go templar archives instead of robo/stargate
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United States43811 Posts
They serve a purpose right now. They're the rock in the rock paper scissors. But that doesn't add to the game. I'd certainly like them to be patched in some way.
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Make an upgrade that lets them get warped in (beyond the warpgate).
DTs would be created only at gateways until an upgrade at dark shrine allows warp in via an upgrade.
Maybe this would help some controversy surrounding warped in DTs
Either that, or letting them get warped in, but visible and vulnerable to attack, with the upgrade allowing cloaked warp in.
DTs are underwhelming ATM
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...How long was your shower???? 
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DTs really take 0 seconds to build though, because you will have warp gates by then, so the 55 seconds is insignificant.
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2 ideas for DT upgrades that will make it once again the most hated unit in the game:
1 ability that COMPLETELY cloaks the DT without detection, IE you cant see it moving around AT ALL without detection (no shadows or whatever). also it doenst make any sound when it attacks lol.
another ability that makes it so that the game will never tell the player when their units are under attack by DTs EVER.
I think that should fix DTs
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i odnt like the shrine either. its 250 gas. should've just kept templar tech to just one building and left it at that.
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Dts are fine the way they are, and are still useful at any point in the game.
Just for one example: PvT you say that dts are weak because terrans always have scans. So what? Keep your dts separated from each other. Leave your opponent wasting all their scans just to try and find one of your dts. Any time a scan goes off, try and run that one away, and hit him somewhere else.
or. In the late game, when your moving a large army toward their front door, run a couple of dts around the side to flank.
These are just a couple of suggestions off the top of my head, to illustrate how dts are plenty powerful the way they are, you just need to be more creative when using them.
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Let's make DTs more used by lowering the build cost, then forcing an ability upon them which ruins the entire point of the perma-cloak?
Eh. I don't really agree with the changes. I think it'd be nice if the Dark Shrine held upgrades for Stalker and Void Ray (since they ARE inventions of the Dark Templar, after all), something like a range upgrade for Stalkers or a charge upgrade for Void Rays.
The only upgrades that DTs really need are Weapons upgrades.
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I think part of the answer could be to put dt back into the templar archives, just as a research or something along those lines. Part of the joy of dt in broodwar was the air of chance around the building: the protoss could be going for fast storms, or dt, or both at a later date. Having a separate building takes all of the guesswork out of scouting.
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DTs are the coolest protoss unit by a mile except for maybe immortal! I think the high cost is due to them being insanely powerly though. I don't think they need a change, they simply are only used by certain players, like goody, but you see they do AMAZING damage when they are used. I think they are like reapers and blink stalkers they are not used much until people start to experiment more.
Right now they are really powerful and can win games instantly, and for a low risk.
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I do like the idea of re-combining the dark shrine and the archive.
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United States12240 Posts
The whole point of separating the DT and HT prerequisites was to make sure DTs came out later than HTs. It was a valid balance concern in the early days of BW and they sidestepped that problem by diverging the techs in SC2.
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Frankly, we could fix this by bringing back Dark and TWilight Archons and putting DA abilities at the Shrine.
No, seriously.
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Void shift would allow some crazy stacked DT micro to one shot small buildings and such.
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I agree with you on the build time being too long but I think that is because Zerg has to wait till lair to get any detection (other than the anti-air building).
I agree with the combine the Dark Shrine and the Templar Archive idea from Zeke.
I must say that your argument is a little unclear to me you say:
100 seconds is a very long time and often lends itself to the strategy being scouted easily, which further exacerbates the problems with going the strategy.
But then you say
Dark Templar uncloak themselves upon attacking for 2 seconds.
I mean you reduce the build time because it can be scouted easily but then you actually reveal the units when they attack? Doesn't make sense to me. In other words they won't even need detection to kill them (120 hp/shields isn't that much to take down).
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imo they should just remove the shrine and let DT's come from templar archives...
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I don't think BLizzard should mess with the unit itself (Except giving it back the fucking warp blade, this scythe thing looks ridiculous). The only thing that might be good is reducing the build time of the shrine. It takes the longest to build in the entire game and being actually useless other than unlocking a unit that actually depends on the element of surprise, this is not appropriate.
Other than that, the DT is fine. Just as in SC1 it sometimes can save your ass if you are behind and with scans being so valuable and so rare, you can do a lot of damage if you separate them and force terran to waste scans on every single one or giving you mapcontrol.
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EPT
