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On October 28 2010 16:07 NikonTC wrote:
Blizzard did release the reason for this nerf. They were sent evidence by a high level korean player that showed a timing rush using voidrays that was impossible to defend.
As it is, I got utterly slaughtered by an early stalker/voidray push in a tournament last night. I watched the replay and was impressed by how strong a push it was. Basically if you weren't already going at least 2rax then you're in a huge amount of trouble.
I don't understand this statement since I haven't played just one PvT in weeks where the Terran didn't open with 3rax.
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Tested 5 Battlecruisers vs. 7 Void Rays (even costs, imagine that), Void Rays win with 2 VRs left.
Blind unit tests are stupid, and blind unit tests where you give the Terran arbitrary advantages in 3 different tests are even stupider.
It was not meant as a guide, just illustrative of how Protoss may have issues with BC's now.
Repeated your test with 5 3/3 BC's with Yamato vs 7 3/3 Void Rays. BC's win with no casualties.
The scenario where I really see a problem is Marauder + BC + PDD. Terrans aren't making BC's anymore since the nerf but that seems like an extremely difficult combo for Protoss to deal with now.
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Well, all this talking in the video about how much the uncharged damage has improved...
I can understand that VRs may have been to powerful as they were, being able to abuse their high charged damage by using lame base-back-stabbing techniques and wiping out all tech buildings before the defending army even arrives. But this nerf/buff has in my opinion not made the VR a well-rounded unit. They might just take it out of the game and replace it with the BW scout, which might even benefit Protoss, since toss anti (armored) air is so weak that the scout's antimateria rockets should prove useful against capital air units. But that is another story...
To the point:
First of all, the interesting part of the void ray was charging it up pre-fight, because you would have a useless unit otherwise. Now, it doesn't make so much of a difference, since 6 or 8 damage against light isn't THAT big of a deal, and even 10 or 16 damage vs armored isn't nearly as huge of a difference as before, making the unit a lot less interesting and nullifying the charging-up concept.
Void rays are STILL rather weak when uncharged, and only decent when charged.
Something that the people who say "but at least you can fight with uncharged void rays now" obviously forget is another phenomenon that I have observed, but no one seems to have mentioned yet - when you engage troops with a few uncharged void rays, the higher pre-charged damage output makes it almost impossible to charge them up in the fight. E.g., four void rays focusing a roach will kill it so quickly, they won't even get to the second stage. This effectively means the void rays will never be charged when using them uncharged in battle, especially when focusing with 5+ VRs. Before the nerf, the uncharged damage was so low that it was at least possible to charge up on a high hp unit in combat.
So, what I want to say is, that, with the void ray's mechanics, a pre-charged damage buff is in fact automatically a nerf to the charged damage since it will be almost impossible to charge up a group of VRs when there are no structures nearby. Thus, your group of VRs will most probably remain uncharged and effectively remain a rather weak unit.
This may sound weird, but the intention of making an uncharged VR more viable may in fact have decreased the overall viability of VRs...
Regards,
Final_Judicator
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On October 28 2010 16:43 Grond wrote:Show nested quote +
Tested 5 Battlecruisers vs. 7 Void Rays (even costs, imagine that), Void Rays win with 2 VRs left.
Blind unit tests are stupid, and blind unit tests where you give the Terran arbitrary advantages in 3 different tests are even stupider.
It was not meant as a guide, just illustrative of how Protoss may have issues with BC's now. Repeated your test with 5 3/3 BC's with Yamato vs 7 3/3 Void Rays. BC's win with no casualties.
People get Yamato?
And if you add the price for Yamato to one side, shouldn't you to the other?
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On October 28 2010 08:08 travis wrote:
given the role void rays were playing, the niche they had
it's a massive nerf
void rays can no longer decimate an opponent's base like they used to.
Yup. The goal of the nerf. Don't worry, bro, you'll adjust.
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Repeated your test with 5 3/3 BC's with Yamato vs 7 3/3 Void Rays. BC's win with no casualties.
What is this ? This is retarded "With YAMATO?". Dude with yamato even in 1.1.1 patch void rays would insta-loose against BC.
Stop sprouting shit like this. And i suppose no shield upgrades though u made armor and weapons ? Make it bold, no upgrades vs no upgrades. Jeez.
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I would definitely get Yamato vs Protoss, especially if he has HT's. Feel free to do your own tests, I had no intention of doing a guide to BC's vs Void Rays. I agree Yamato pretty much owned Void Rays before 1.1.2 but now it will obviously be worse. However it was still the best unit for the job Carrier and Phoenix are much worse and Stalkers can be countered with Marauders and PDD. Not many games last that long but it will be interesting to see if Terrans start going BC's vs Protoss in late game.
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HT And their feedback + Storm can do magic tricks on marauder/BC. It's win/win situation.
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Void rays are being used way more after the patch in tournaments now. GSL2 was full of them, and they're being used like mutalisks - hit and run. They're way more effective than before, they just have to be used differently. They used to be used more like siege tanks, establish a position at the edge of someoen's base or army and become invincible over time. Now they're meant to retreat over cliffs and walls and hit again, pinning down the enemy to protect their mineral line.
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the damage change doesnt bother me so much, but what was the rationale for reducing the speed upgrade from the fleet beacon? it's a super late game upgrade that costs a lot and is rarely seen, and it gave the VRs a fun new role that wasnt overpowered at all. totally not worth getting it now unless you're on 4+ bases and planning on building carriers.
Nerfing a rarely used Fleet Beacon upgrade makes me sad. I honestly hope they buff the fleet beacon + carriers in some way, they both cost way too much and the carrier takes far too long to build. yes, you can chronoboost, but it almost seems like Blizzard made late game units so long to train because they're assuming you're chronoboosting it, effectively making chronoboost pointless..
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Void Rays before 1.1.2 were pretty much restricted to cheese and proxy plays. If the surprise didn't succeed then it would generally fail. Outside of that, void rays were practically not part of the game.
Now we're seeing Void Rays actually be used within an army. The change was most certainly a good one.
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8748 Posts
On November 11 2010 09:54 DoubleReed wrote:
Void Rays before 1.1.2 were pretty much restricted to cheese and proxy plays. If the surprise didn't succeed then it would generally fail. Outside of that, void rays were practically not part of the game.
Now we're seeing Void Rays actually be used within an army. The change was most certainly a good one.
It's the opposite for me. Void Rays used to be decent additions to a late game composition when you could charge them up before they fought. Now they are generally just bad additions to a late game composition whether you charge them up or not. However they're still a flying unit that can attack both ground and air so they've retained their use in early game rushes for taking advantage of a lack of anti-air and making opponents defend places that they wouldn't have to defend against an all ground opponent.
And as far as I know, before the patch Void Rays were making up 100% of armies (not in high level 1v1 games, but in other games) and that's why they got nerfed. Making all Void Rays and attack moving them was too powerful in these low level games.
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Diamond player here, I use proxy VR as my build against T and try to bait T to come out early, which often creates a base trading situation that I can win. I actually like the patch, because now it is even more less expected (the build relies on surprise!). The problem I have is that 1 viking beats, 1 VR (100% of the time because of the RANGE) provided the VR can't kill it after it immediately spawns. Pre-patch you could find the T's starport ASAP and kill it before the viking popped. But now with building dps so low plus mass repair, its a lot harder to do this. Essentially all T really needs to do is get 1 viking and my cheese is dead... this is very sad, however I still win a lot of games with it : ).
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VR is pretty much useless now. Blizzard has proven multiple times that they can't balance the charge mechanic. They need to remove charge completely and rebalance the unit.
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On November 11 2010 09:54 DoubleReed wrote:
Void Rays before 1.1.2 were pretty much restricted to cheese and proxy plays. If the surprise didn't succeed then it would generally fail. Outside of that, void rays were practically not part of the game.
Now we're seeing Void Rays actually be used within an army. The change was most certainly a good one.
Nah, they definitely could be used for harassment purposes, for scouting, and for various other builds.
They were a versatile unit that rewarded micro, planning and could be used to buy time to make other options viable, like templar or fast expand or mass phoenix.
Now they are a cheese unit that is only effective against protoss and only if he is going robo and you proxy 2-3 gates in midgame and it doesn't get scouted. You could do this before, but it wasn't cheese, because when he saw the VRs he could micro accordingly.
Wow.
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The void ray was useless unless you charged it up first So the general consensus is that the void ray WAS broken. Now it can actually be used at level 1 charge without instantly forfeiting the game.
I think the void ray design is still pretty flawed. It's made to destroy large targets, but offers no ability that excels at killing large targets! Most battles are too high paced for the void ray to ramp up, so it never sees its full potential. Multiple void rays actually reduce each other's damage, giving less time for a full charge. The health/DPS of the void ray can not really be balanced against heavy units or light units. If it does crazy damage, it kills everything. If it can't deal heavy damage, it fails at killing large targets. High health and low health don't change that simple fact.
Maybe the attack should be shifted to be more +armor at the cost of base damage, but that still makes it good against small armored units. Another option is to change its weapon to +massive and +structure bonus, so it fails against small targets altogether.
The acid spores from broodwar made big ships tremble before the swarm. If the void ray provided some sort of stacking debuff, beefy targets would naturally suffer more than small targets. Which is what the void ray SHOULD be doing on the field. The debuff could be armor reduction, it could be a snare, it could reduce the unit's fire rate. Anything of that nature would ruin a large unit, but be pointless to waste on a marine.
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Put VR damage/speed to the same it was before, make vikings not armored, Zergs have learned how to defend it fine since its the same idea as banshees only you don't need detection, Protoss just has to react quickly with Blink Stalkers.
the end.
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I'll remind the naysayers to this patch that the change was aimed at team games. Blizzard deemed VR play in team games too powerful, so they were nerfed. Threads discussing the viability are useful, and I see nothing wrong with comparing the numbers and theorycrafting, but do keep in mind the context in which this patch was implemented.
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this is y balancing for silver league and team games will kill this game....
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Never lost to Void Rays in a team game. Sent 1 probe out to scout, said "Hey look the protoss is making cannons. Terran bud, make vikings." Win 100%
Now in a 4v4, where they're all zergs and just muta rush and then make more mutas and more mutas and then they have 400 mutas in one control group?
But nope, blizzard doesn't care about that.
Even if they had to nerf the VR, they didn't need to nerf it that much. Making them as effective as immortals would not be imba in team games. And it would be a slight nerf, to see if it helped, instead of a drastic nerf that changes the unit role entirely, which they said they wouldn't be doing.
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EPT
