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[D] And Then There's the Mothership... - Page 9

Forum Index > SC2 General
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nein
Profile Joined May 2010
Romania2 Posts
May 27 2010 03:59 GMT
#161
Most of you seem to be talking about something you never encounter or use.

Recall - useless??
How useless is something that can save your army if it's caught in a bad position when positioning is almost everything late game? Damn I didn't see those hidden hydras coming from behind and owning my collosi - guess all I have to do is recall and get another chance to win the game.

How useless is something that can help u get rid of enemy expos with minimum casualties(this requires air army most of the time as ground army is too slow)? Just get some carriers and void rays(or just void rays with upgraded speed) and go straight for the mineral gathering bases. If u get surrounded or start losing too much - recall. You can combine this with some warped in zealots on some lower defended expansions. Ofc you can use blink stalkers too for this. Won't be simple but if it was it would've been overpowered, right?

You can also use recall just to defend ur base or to bring your army into enemy base. The second one is pretty hard to do because of slow speed, scouting, ghost emp and neural parasite - but if u can do it your enemies base is doomed - forcefield on ramp and that's it. If he chooses to defend - split his army on the ramp and it might be gg right there. If not and he goes for base trade you're still in a better position as you started the attack.

About vortex - well this is motherships in-fight spell. Splitting an enemy army can do wonders. Let's say u made canons at your natural and just got your mothership. You also have some much smaller then your enemies army. Just vortex a big part of the army and kill the rest. He can retreat while vortex is active but usually this will give you the edge you needed to survive(some free kills + the time to get the energy on your high templars for example). You can also try to focus down his detectors while the army is in vortex. While most say it's really easy to destroy the mothership that is easy in open ground. When cloaking an protoss base with cannons and units it is really hard to go into defences without taking big losses - just to descover he had energy for vortex.

I think even more importantly then splitting is you have 20 seconds to position your army. If you actually manage to get whole his army in vortex, just bring ur zealots/archons inside the vortex. When it ends u'll have your melee and low range units attacking their ranged(this is especially usefull against terran who don't have a melee unit but might work against hydras/stalkers too).

About the suggestions - many sound cool but I think making a big psi field around the mothership is natural. It would allow for some easier zealot sneaky attacks and it would help mothership be more offensive(you can use recall for this but i think it costs too much). Maybe make it an 150-150 upgrade - using a warp prism + mothership brings about the same with a plus for motherships bigger range).

Mothership should be made after you saturate the natural. One thing that went unnoticed is that you cannot make probes while mothership is built - so just make it after natural fully saturated. It should help with expanding to third base and defending.

Carriers are powerfull after you reach the critical number of 6-7. With mothership's recall just use them for sniping expansions - upgrade damage to full and you'll probably win if u get to those numbers. The real problem I see with them are the interceptors that go down too fast if numbers are small.

Current metagame is focused on timing attacks. As time will pass people will know more counters to these timing attacks, and second and third expansions will become more common. With this necessity for defending / disrupting these expansions will become more important and mothership will prove to be key in toss defence and mobility.

I'm currently diamond ranked 27 and built motherships/carriers many times. About mothership/carrier rush - it won't work against diamond but it will work on gold just because of the shock(and making MS/carriers will surely make ur opponent happy even if u own him). Just start with some cannon contain or something to make him think you are trying a sneaky early game push or just delay his tech while you tech to fleet beacon.
Budzlight
Profile Blog Joined December 2009
United States578 Posts
May 27 2010 04:11 GMT
#162
i think the mothership is a great unit depending on the build and counter you are going to go.
I was the 5% that voted for thorzain in the TSL for round 1
GX.Sigma
Profile Joined April 2010
United States49 Posts
May 27 2010 06:20 GMT
#163
If you Vortex an enemy army and put a few Archons into it, they will instantly kill the entire enemy army the moment the vortex ends.

Or so I hear.
Ideas
Profile Blog Joined April 2008
United States8174 Posts
June 09 2010 02:41 GMT
#164
looks like blizzard isn't planning on changing the mothership at all:

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=25170443827&sid=5000&pageNo=1

from Bashiok:

There are some units that just aren't going to see certain levels of competitive play (unless it's an LOL LOOK HOW MUCH MUNEY I HAV! dig at the other player), and that's fine, and we're aware and ok with that being the case, just as long as it's something we've planned for and are balancing for.


I know he's not necessarily saying "we know the mothership sucks but we're OK with that" but why else would he post what he did on a thread complaining about the uselessness of the mothership? Between this and Blizzard's design of the archon it almost feels like bizzard is purposefully keeping Protoss from being more diverse so that they aren't any more-so than the other races or something lol.

I guess we'll have to wait for the expansion and see if Blizzard decides to change the Mothership at all. Hell I'd still be OK with it being useless as long as it wasnt so godawful boring and uninteresting.
Free Palestine
JiYan
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
United States3668 Posts
June 09 2010 04:29 GMT
#165
when i first read that response from blizzard on the forums, my heart sank T_T
Backpack
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States1776 Posts
June 09 2010 04:37 GMT
#166
BW did fine with Queens being pretty much useless


As for Motherships, I don't think they need to be changed, but they just aren't needed unless the game goes on for a REALLY long time and you have the money/time to tech fleet beacon after your main tech. (Since nobody goes carriers)
"You people need to just generally care a lot less about everything." -Zatic
hellokitty[hk]
Profile Joined June 2009
United States1309 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-06-09 04:50:59
June 09 2010 04:49 GMT
#167
CHANGE ATTACK ANIMATION BACK PLEASE!
It was absolutely sexy before.
And change attack damage from 6x6 to like 12x3.
People are imbeciles, lucky thing god made cats.
McPwnage
Profile Joined June 2010
Canada48 Posts
June 09 2010 05:58 GMT
#168
Honestly I think they should just bring the Arbiter back to replace the mothership, make it buildable at the stargate with the fleet beacon and make it much more cost effective than the mothership.

There really isn't a point to having the mothership anymore now that blizzard decided to nerf it to a rediclous amount
Sentenal
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
United States12398 Posts
June 09 2010 06:13 GMT
#169
I like the Mothership being bad. With the Mothership being bad, that makes my Mothership rush extremely more hilarious when I manage to beat newbies in Placement matches with it.
"Apparently, Sentenal is a paragon of friendship and tolerance. " - Ech0ne
groms
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada1017 Posts
June 09 2010 08:00 GMT
#170
On June 09 2010 15:13 Sentenal wrote:
I like the Mothership being bad. With the Mothership being bad, that makes my Mothership rush extremely more hilarious when I manage to beat newbies in Placement matches with it.

this.
I have a recurring dream that I'm running away from a terran player but the marauders keep slowing me down. - Artosis
makoplux
Profile Joined April 2010
88 Posts
June 09 2010 08:06 GMT
#171
It's getting used a decent amount in custom games between good players PvT. It's an effective tool for dealing with terran who go mech and play very slowly/turtle. Recall gives a toss army great mobility and can allow you to bypass a mech wall altogether.

It's not as bad as people make it out to be. The abilities are really useful if you use them properly.
who is john galt?
0mgVitaminE
Profile Joined February 2009
United States1278 Posts
June 09 2010 08:21 GMT
#172
I actually enjoy units such as the mothership in its current state. The speed is annoying ya, but units that don't currently have a definite purpose always have that possibility of being awesome at one point or another.
Hi there. I'm in a cave, how bout you?
endGame
Profile Joined June 2009
United States394 Posts
June 09 2010 08:48 GMT
#173
I enjoyed reading your article, very well written. I disagree with some of your assertions though your major point can be very well agreed upon: the Mothership seems useless. I believe that even though the Mothership is useless now, the "meta game" hasn't developed enough to really determine that it will forever be useless. Regardless, having a useless unit doesn't make a race less able to be interesting or unique. Take the scout in Starcraft Brood War for instance: although an entirely useless unit the race was able to function without it and put on an interesting enough display. Still, the primary issue with the Mothership is balancing it; there needs to be a way where adding this unit to your composition will remain effective, yet still not throw off the entire balance of the race versus other matchups. Another issue that I believe you touched upon was that the Mothership is a highly vulnerable unit, which I believe stems from its lack of speed. For a 400/400 unit, it should definitely be more mobile, at least in its current state. Nonetheless, the unit still may need time though things don't look good for it now. And again, great write-up ^^ b
"...As the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must." -Thucydides
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