I'm glad someone else made this thread, honestly I kind of hate the whole Protoss tech tree. I hate that you're basically forced to go Robo just so you don't auto-lose against a Terran who goes Banshees. Then Immortals are basically useless if they have EMP (or marines) so you have to wait until Colossus + Range to really get anything useful from your Robotics Facility.
Plus, it's really hard to support Robo tech and another tech path off one base while still maintaining a decent army... and then it's also tough to expand early because if the Terran is going mass infantry it's really difficult to defend your natural since you can't abuse FF as much in open spaces unless you have a ton of Sentries (plus all the gas for sentries also makes it hard to tech).
I know it would be completely imba but I almost wish they just cut out Twilight Council and merged it with Templar Archives, then just made Storm take longer to research or something to compensate. I'd be nice to have HTs out earlier just for feedback purposes anyway, since Terrans can get Ghosts so fast. And it would just make the Protoss tech tree feel less bloated.
Anyway, pontificating aside, I'd love to see the cost for Charge get dropped. 100/100 seems like too much but 150/150 doesn't seem like enough. Maybe lower the cost of Twilight Council and Charge both by 50/50 each. I think the research speed is probably fine since you can Chrono it if you really need.
On June 05 2010 00:34 Snowfield wrote: Nothing to be fixed imo. charge is a very powerful ability that automaticly activates without any down sides, while stim is an ability you have to activate yourself and has a 10 HP loss.
Zealot legs (charge, whatever) is REALLY FUCKING GOOD. I feel that a lot of Protoss players are getting it later than they should. It is really expensive, and it requires a small bit of tech, but i really think it's worth it.
I wouldn't cry a river if they made it 150/150, but at the same time I still think it's HIGHLY worth it at 200/200.
Before people keep comparing charge to stim, I want to point out that protoss can wait untill the TC for charge but terran cannot wait that long for stim. You need stim early or you die in a straight up battle after the first 5 minutes, while charge makes zealots a lot more useful in later game situations and would be rediculous to make it from the CC, but I don't see the harm it the price being 150/150 if it really needs to be.
Charge is a lot stronger than people are giving it credit for, it means that not only can you zoom up to the mmm ball in half a second, but your zealots base speed is also slightly increased meaning they can keep up with stalkers and pretty much everything else.
Since you're already getting a TC for charge, then I'd recommend teching some more and getting some HT, keeping them spread out so they dont get hit by as single emp, also with an observer (eventually) so you can stop cloaked ghosts getting in there. Psi storm hurts a stimmed mmm ball a lot and means that they have to focus and keep moving, else they die. Also, if you have a good trigger finger when it comes to feedback, then you can just blast the ghosts apart before they can do anything.
Charge is disproportionately pricey when zealots become more and more useless as the game passes to begin with. Versus zerg zealots become a waste of time and money after the earlygame and versus terran they exist only to tank damage, and as such while having charge early on can be powerful versus marine heavy compositions, 200/200 is a bit much to dish out so that your meatshields (which you will invevitably start phasing out as the armies start to approach maximum supply) just so they get 1 or 2 hits in before they die. Especially when they end up mostly dying to my own storms anyway.
I don't get it. If we forget the shield upgrade, stim and concussive shells cost 50/50 less than charge, granted. Nonetheless, charge is still better: marines and marauders lose their health and they have to be micro'ed. Charge zealots will pwn until T tech's up. If I'm wrong and charge zealots don't pwn stimmed mm's then prove it - bearing in mind the fact that they require micro and slowly sap their own health the more they use it prior to teching up to medivacs. If not, what's the deal?
^Dropping 350/350 on an ability you will essentially only get any use from in the midgame is a pretty raw deal compared to these abilities that scale in effectiveness throughout the game. You have to have a pretty goddamn strong bias to claim these abilities are even remotely comparable. I like how you conveniently ignored the difference in accessibility and the cost of the tech structures as well.
Zealots without charge eat shots just as well as ones without charge, the only difference is counted in the 1 or 2 hits the zealots will be able to deliver, apart from very early timing pushes where the terran army is in its infancy.
On June 06 2010 21:56 Bash wrote: ^Dropping 350/350 on an ability you will essentially only get any use from in the midgame is a pretty raw deal compared to these abilities that scale in effectiveness throughout the game. You have to have a pretty goddamn strong bias to claim these abilities are even remotely comparable. I like how you conveniently ignored the difference in accessibility and the cost of the tech structures as well.
Zealots without charge eat shots just as well as ones without charge, the only difference is counted in the 1 or 2 hits the zealots will be able to deliver, apart from very early timing pushes where the terran army is in its infancy.
350/350? Where did that come from? I was only talking about charge.
I would dispute that charge only has use midgame. It's very effective on early terran forces that don't have a medivac/other support, and again, it's devastating if T doesn't micro, which is less than you can say for charge.
Admittedly the twilight council is more costly than the tech lab, but it has the advantage of opening up tech to 2 other buildings, the tech lab doesn't have this. I would say that offsets it.
I think this discussion is still premature. I see where everyone is coming from, but I think until we play this game for another year and come to a statement like:
Well Terran has this timing push window that is very hurtful without charge, and charge needs to be a BIT cheaper and then Protoss can hold it off.
Then, this discussion can be progressive. As it stands, we are not at that level where we can detail specific problems with the game. A change like this might not only help Protoss stop Terran midgame, but also create their own timing push that could be unstoppable. As a Protoss player, I just don't feel like I can easily make a distinctive change like that. It might just reverse the advantage to the other player, or maybe won't affect TvP but ZvP. Regardless, I think you should give it a bit more time.
Ghosts on the other hand are the most annoying units ever. I absolutely hate them. However I have to realize that every time I encountered them, my thoughts would be like "WoW I would have easily rolled him if he didn't EMP". Which I mean, obviously I shouldn't. Its just annoying because no amount of micro could potentially save me from EMP aside from sniping his ghosts (which are impossible to see, honestly that is such a huge issue for me... I'm not sure if anyone else has that problem). Delayed EMP via upgrade might not be bad, but it will also ruin ghost's role in TvP. I'd say just a smaller radius of EMP might be a good change if it will be a problem.
On June 06 2010 22:38 mprs wrote: I think this discussion is still premature. I see where everyone is coming from, but I think until we play this game for another year and come to a statement like:
Well Terran has this timing push window that is very hurtful without charge, and charge needs to be a BIT cheaper and then Protoss can hold it off.
It would be the same to change its cost now, wait one year and if it's slightly to strong it can still be changed to 200/200.
i am completely fine with charge's price and time it takes to research it, what i am not fine with is the fact that it makes the zealot's AI absolutely retarded. earlier i was in a PvT, he did a FE on desert oasis, and i attacked his CC with chargelots, stalkers, a void ray, and some high templar. he sent all of his marines and marauders to my units right as i was about to destroy his SCVs and attack his CC, and the guy did something that really infuriated me, as my zealots were in his mineral line he told all of his SCV's to stop mining, so this enabled collision detection, and my 12 or so zealots were scrambling inside his SCV's trying to run into the marauders, but were essentially completely blocked off. all of my other units died, i got no kills with any of the zealots, and i lost the advantage that i could have had razing his expansion and ended up with no units vs a huge army. the fact that it auto-targets specific units can really be abused, and i am considering ignoring the ability altogether because of it. i dont understand why they can't temporarily make the zealots act as speedlings do, instead of completely mucking up their AI as well.
edit: well according to someone else, the planetary fortress was what was screwing up the micro, not the charge, but i do want to restate that i am fine with its price and time, at the same time i dont think reducing it a small bit would be a bad idea though, and i don't think it would affect very much if you reduced it only by 50 gas.
On June 06 2010 21:56 Bash wrote: ^Dropping 350/350 on an ability you will essentially only get any use from in the midgame is a pretty raw deal compared to these abilities that scale in effectiveness throughout the game. You have to have a pretty goddamn strong bias to claim these abilities are even remotely comparable. I like how you conveniently ignored the difference in accessibility and the cost of the tech structures as well.
Zealots without charge eat shots just as well as ones without charge, the only difference is counted in the 1 or 2 hits the zealots will be able to deliver, apart from very early timing pushes where the terran army is in its infancy.
350/350? Where did that come from? I was only talking about charge.
I would dispute that charge only has use midgame. It's very effective on early terran forces that don't have a medivac/other support, and again, it's devastating if T doesn't micro, which is less than you can say for charge.
Admittedly the twilight council is more costly than the tech lab, but it has the advantage of opening up tech to 2 other buildings, the tech lab doesn't have this. I would say that offsets it.
In a way it does cost 350/100 ... twilight council is so useful...
ah i see. well thanks for correcting me. that just makes it hard as hell to avoid this scenario then, in the event that i do want to attack his expansion...
well anyway this really just makes me not want the ability at all. not having it would be less detrimental to my attack, unless i am misunderstanding what went on in this video.
This has nothing to do with charge at all, PF takes priority over all other targets so zealots weren't attacking until they got attacked by other things
On June 06 2010 21:56 Bash wrote: ^Dropping 350/350 on an ability you will essentially only get any use from in the midgame is a pretty raw deal compared to these abilities that scale in effectiveness throughout the game. You have to have a pretty goddamn strong bias to claim these abilities are even remotely comparable. I like how you conveniently ignored the difference in accessibility and the cost of the tech structures as well.
Zealots without charge eat shots just as well as ones without charge, the only difference is counted in the 1 or 2 hits the zealots will be able to deliver, apart from very early timing pushes where the terran army is in its infancy.
350/350? Where did that come from? I was only talking about charge.
Buildings aren't free. And unlike the 1 tech lab you'll need all game if you really don't want to build more, the council severely cuts into any and all timings you might have, especially if you aren't planning on building templar. I'm sure you know all this, why are you forcing me to type it out?
I would dispute that charge only has use midgame. It's very effective on early terran forces that don't have a medivac/other support, and again, it's devastating if T doesn't micro, which is less than you can say for charge.
You're basically repeating yourself here and agreeing with what I already said in an earlier post without addressing the issue that charge becomes not worth the money in late game so moving on.
Admittedly the twilight council is more costly than the tech lab, but it has the advantage of opening up tech to 2 other buildings, the tech lab doesn't have this. I would say that offsets it.
Not much of an advantage if you're not going templars. Or do you build all tech structures in each game? And you do it at a time that you're mostly at 1 base?
EPT
