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megagoten
318 Posts
On February 19 2011 11:36 iPood wrote: yeah thors would get insane damage on mutas. usually they hit 4-6 but stacked they would hit 30 at once. And muta micro would make zvt totally one sided. what? | ||
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morimacil
France921 Posts
and the number of units doesn't (or doesn't seem to) affect the way the magic box is formed... i've stacked everything from 2 to 200 mutas / voids / vikings with ease... all you do is click inside the "box" Well you dont actually need to click inside the box. As long as the other unit is far enough away, that means that your group is constantly in a box bigger than the magic box. Thus, clicking anywhere at all will cause them to stack. It is only when your units actually fit within the magic box that clicking inside applies. If your group of units is small enough to fit within a magic box (6x6 for ground, 7x7 for air), then clicking outside will cause them to retain formation, clicking inside will cause them to stack. If your group is bigger than the magic box, any move command will cause stacking. The thing is though, they unstack rather fast. Anywhere you order them to move, they will unstack in a perpendicular motion, and only stack again once they reach the point where you ordered them to go, so once they decelerate. So you cant really keep them stacked up while keeping them moving at high speeds, you can only really stack them up wile moving at slow speeds, having them decelerate every now and then. This kinda makes it a bit useless. And the other part, even if stacked up to a maximum, they wont all fire at once. So in the end, what do you really gain by stacking them? You can kinda hide the damaged mutas a little, making them harder to focus fire down, but you lose some mobility doing that, thus overall, your mutas will get shot at more, or have less time to dps. You cant really one-shot stuff better, or more effectively, and when firing multiple times at something, you either lose dps to keep them moving to stack them up, or they spread out. It doesnt really seem to have all that much of an advantage. I mean, the main reason it was good in BW, was that they would all behave as a single muta, and fire at once, and you would be able to keep them constantly moving without ever decelerating, so they were extremely mobile. Now though, well they dont behave as a single muta, at all. They just behave like clumped up mutas, which isnt really all that amazing. And you need to keep decelerating them to keep them stacked up, so you lose out on mobility. And thors exist now. Before, you could see archons, and still avoid them with your clumped up mutas. but thors, since your mutas have 11 vision, and thors have 10 range, and mutas move so fast... Its nearly impossible to harass a terran base that has a thor, and avoid getting shot by the thor. So really, while it indeed is possible to keep them clumped up to a certain extent, I dont really see the advantage at all at least for mutas. | ||
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MrRicewife
Canada515 Posts
Edit: I can't find it in english, how sad  Although the frenchies are kinda funny sounding  Sorry I can't find the time where he does it, but watch the game and see for yourself, it's totally worth it. | ||
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jacosajh
2919 Posts
But the point I really want to get into is that while Thors do own Void Rays by themselves, a good Chargelot, Templar, Voidray army can tear through this pretty well. Feedbacking any Medivacs and storming any infantry leaves the Thors vulnerable vs the Void Rays and Zealots. | ||
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ALPINA
3791 Posts
On February 19 2011 17:17 morimacil wrote:So really, while it indeed is possible to keep them clumped up to a certain extent, I dont really see the advantage at all at least for mutas. OP explained the advantage, or? I think it's always good to keep them stacked where there are no thors around - you take much less damage overall. Also I think that thor's very huge range with splash is a bad thing for such game because it deters the unit micro. | ||
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Bleak
Turkey3059 Posts
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morimacil
France921 Posts
OP explained the advantage, or? I think it's always good to keep them stacked where there are no thors around - you take much less damage overall. Even if stacked units don't fire exactly at the same time, it's better 90% of the time than if they were not stacked -- take less damage, less exposure, increased damage, etc. They take less damage? Not really. The OP's point is that the damage will be more spread out amongst units, which is a valid point, and thats a nice bonus. But my point, if you actually read my post, is that in SC2 unlike in SC1, you cant keep mutas stacked together without slowing down. In SC1, stacked mutas could stay at full speed, never decelerating, and stay stacked. Thus, the stacking didnt really have any negative effects outside of splash. But in SC2, your mutas will unstack if you keep moving around at full speed, and only stay stacked if you keep decelerating every few seconds. Thus the stacking, and hiding of the damaged units comes at a price in SC2, reduced mobility. And since your mutas will be less mobile, they will end up taking more damage overall, even if the damage is more spread out amongst the mutas. Mobility is the only thing that allows mutas to avoid damage. Slower mutas constantly decelerating, means more damage taken, or having to pull back faster, thus less damage done. increased damage Stacked mutas dont do more dps than unstacked mutas. They never did. The advantage, in SC1, was that since they would behave as a single muta, and all shoot at the same time, having them stacked allowed you to get more kills, instead of spread out damage. But in SC2, well they dont behave as a single muta, and dont shoot as one. Thus it doesnt really matter if they are stacked or not. They dont do greater damage when stacked, never did, and now they also dont kill specific units better when stacked, since they dont behave as a single muta, but still behave as a group of mutas. In BW, stacking mutas: Allowed you to hide damaged mutas, thus spreading out damage better Allowed them to behave as a single muta Was more vulnerable to splash In SC2: Allows you to hide damaged mutas, thus spreading out damage better Requires the mutas to constantly decelerate Is more vulnerable to splash. Its not the same now as it was before, so while before, stacking against non splash was strictly better, I dont believe thats the case anymore. Unless someone can find a way to make SC2 mutas behave as one, and/or stay stacked without decelerating. In which case, it will indeed always be better to stack them than to have them spread as long as no splash is involved. | ||
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morimacil
France921 Posts
I guess they start spreading when you stop attacking or something. Can anyone clarify this? For mutas grouped with a far away unit, outside the range of the magic box: Whenever they decelerate, they clump up. Whenever they are not decelerating, they spread out. So if they stop, because they are attacking a target, once they stop, they will start to spread out. If you tell them to go somewhere, they will start spreading out, and then clump back up when they near the destination and start decelerating, and then spread out again once they stopped. If you keep them at full speed, they keep on spreading out. For mutas in a group small enough to fit inside the magic box: They will clump up if ordered to move somewhere inside the box. And spread out again once deceleration stopped If ordered to attack a specific target, or to attack move, they will stay in formation, then once the target is near, they will decelerate, and clump up during the deceleration. And then start to spread out once again as soon as the deceleration stopped. Its worth noting that the only time ever that clumping up occurs outside of deceleration, is when a group of mutas small enough to fit inside the magic box, is told to move to a location inside the box created by those mutas. Otherwise, all clumping up requires deceleration, and thus clumping up mutas means losing a lot of mobility. | ||
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SoleSteeler
Canada5420 Posts
On February 19 2011 17:25 MrRicewife wrote: I recall one of the ladder games between Slayersboxer and jinro, the really recent one; boxer stacks his vikings with his banshee so it's impossible for marines to target the banshees. I thought it was pure genius! Edit: I can't find it in english, how sad Although the frenchies are kinda funny sounding Sorry I can't find the time where he does it, but watch the game and see for yourself, it's totally worth it.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0e5XyvvfyQ That's cool, but wouldn't the marines automatically target the banshees anyway, since they would prioritize them over the vikings? I didn't watch the game yet. Anyway, still could probably find some cool uses of the "flower trick" using that idea of "hiding" units, though. | ||
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ALPINA
3791 Posts
On February 19 2011 18:27 morimacil wrote: They take less damage? Not really. The OP's point is that the damage will be more spread out amongst units, which is a valid point, and thats a nice bonus. But my point, if you actually read my post, is that in SC2 unlike in SC1, you cant keep mutas stacked together without slowing down. In SC1, stacked mutas could stay at full speed, never decelerating, and stay stacked. Thus, the stacking didnt really have any negative effects outside of splash. But in SC2, your mutas will unstack if you keep moving around at full speed, and only stay stacked if you keep decelerating every few seconds. Thus the stacking, and hiding of the damaged units comes at a price in SC2, reduced mobility. And since your mutas will be less mobile, they will end up taking more damage overall, even if the damage is more spread out amongst the mutas. Mobility is the only thing that allows mutas to avoid damage. Slower mutas constantly decelerating, means more damage taken, or having to pull back faster, thus less damage done. Stacked mutas dont do more dps than unstacked mutas. They never did. The advantage, in SC1, was that since they would behave as a single muta, and all shoot at the same time, having them stacked allowed you to get more kills, instead of spread out damage. But in SC2, well they dont behave as a single muta, and dont shoot as one. Thus it doesnt really matter if they are stacked or not. They dont do greater damage when stacked, never did, and now they also dont kill specific units better when stacked, since they dont behave as a single muta, but still behave as a group of mutas. In BW, stacking mutas: Allowed you to hide damaged mutas, thus spreading out damage better Allowed them to behave as a single muta Was more vulnerable to splash In SC2: Allows you to hide damaged mutas, thus spreading out damage better Requires the mutas to constantly decelerate Is more vulnerable to splash. Its not the same now as it was before, so while before, stacking against non splash was strictly better, I dont believe thats the case anymore. Unless someone can find a way to make SC2 mutas behave as one, and/or stay stacked without decelerating. In which case, it will indeed always be better to stack them than to have them spread as long as no splash is involved. Noone said it's the same as in BW. They take less damage? Not really. Of course they will take less damage. Imagine situation where you have mutas and want to snipe expansion's extractor on LT. You can stack mutas and snipe that flying near the cliff with much less casualities than you would be killing that extractor with just a-click. Or another example, you are somewhere in the middle to terran base and around you there are turrets. You stack mutas and snipe something so maybe only 1 turret is shooting at you at the same time, if you don't stack it will be like 3 turrets shooting at your mutas. Same with tanks/marines - if you want to snipe sieged tanks near the marines you will have much more casualities if you don't stack. | ||
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andrewwiggin
Australia435 Posts
On February 17 2011 10:31 beetlelisk wrote: This is where your brainstorming comes in. Units stacked too much terribly overkill. When engaging with larger numbers of units it's actually better to do it without the additional unit that triggers the magic box. Void rays don't overkill, if I'm correct on the prismatic beam mechanic. Which makes stacked voids the sexiest air force out there! XD | ||
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Euronyme
Sweden3804 Posts
On February 19 2011 17:25 MrRicewife wrote: I recall one of the ladder games between Slayersboxer and jinro, the really recent one; boxer stacks his vikings with his banshee so it's impossible for marines to target the banshees. I thought it was pure genius! Edit: I can't find it in english, how sad Although the frenchies are kinda funny sounding Sorry I can't find the time where he does it, but watch the game and see for yourself, it's totally worth it.+ Show Spoiler + Banshees have a higher thread priority, so marines auto target them. That's the reason that for instance overlord drops work. The ground army engaging will take all the priority for the terran, so the ovies can fly in unharmed unless the marines in the back arn't fighting. Edit: spolier tag. | ||
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FeyFey
Germany10114 Posts
About stacked voidrays, if their damage output is to high they don't charge, so i think stacking them would make the focus on single targets to much. | ||
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Euronyme
Sweden3804 Posts
On February 19 2011 19:35 FeyFey wrote: about mass voidrays vs mass thors. Voidrays attack while moving you don't loose alot damage output with magic box. (but yeah you need to do somthing against those marines). (but the best thing to go for against the 2 bass mass thor push is an early voidray attack with guardian shield to negate the marines) About stacked voidrays, if their damage output is to high they don't charge, so i think stacking them would make the focus on single targets to much. Indeed. I'd say having the voids spread out is alot better, as targets tend to die too fast for the charge up to occur. You can start target fireing (read stacking) once they're charged up though. | ||
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Xanatoss
Germany539 Posts
So sry if my response does not match it: During a shower ( :> ) I had the idea to benefit from Phoenix' Abliity to shoot while moving by simply sticking them to a leader-phoenix and only micro that one in order to create a compact stack. Unfortunatly due to the slow acceleration of phoenixes in comparison to their maximum speed, they tend to catch up to the leader eventually and then falling far behind, resulting in in a semi-Limboline with a single or couple phoenixes at the end. Therefore I tried the same with all kind of other air units. Best results came by the use of speed observer as Leader. Actually the Speed Prism showed better results but i tends to get sniped rendering the whole concept useless, while an obs is obviously invisible ^^ and still nearly as fast. Advantages are that the last phoenixes of that moving stack constantly rotate with the ones in front (due to their greater speed compared to the leader), maintaining an more even distribution of incoming damage while they are still enough spread out to fire on different targets and therefore preventing overkill. Note that this kind of micro (against mutas) is less (cost-)effective than microing your Phoenixes "manually" just outside of muta range, but by far less intensive so you free up APM to do something else while microing your phoenixes to greater effect than just a move or just flying away. | ||
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beetlelisk
Poland2276 Posts
On February 19 2011 21:56 Xanatoss wrote: Well I have to admit, that this is this first OP since some time I cant figure out. Clearly there is a conclusion and a question inside but I just cant see it ._. So sry if my response does not match it: During a shower ( :> ) I had the idea to benefit from Phoenix' Abliity to shoot while moving by simply sticking them to a leader-phoenix and only micro that one in order to create a compact stack. Unfortunatly due to the slow acceleration of phoenixes in comparison to their maximum speed, they tend to catch up to the leader eventually and then falling far behind, resulting in in a semi-Limboline with a single or couple phoenixes at the end. Therefore I tried the same with all kind of other air units. Best results came by the use of speed observer as Leader. Actually the Speed Prism showed better results but i tends to get sniped rendering the whole concept useless, while an obs is obviously invisible ^^ and still nearly as fast. Advantages are that the last phoenixes of that moving stack constantly rotate with the ones in front (due to their greater speed compared to the leader), maintaining an more even distribution of incoming damage while they are still enough spread out to fire on different targets and therefore preventing overkill. Note that this kind of micro (against mutas) is less (cost-)effective than microing your Phoenixes "manually" just outside of muta range, but by far less intensive so you free up APM to do something else while microing your phoenixes to greater effect than just a move or just flying away. If I learn how to make videos I'll make a tutorial on Monday. Yeah, choosing a leader unit is the best way in terms of clicks needed but indeed, when stacked too much they overkill way too much. That's why I called this way of stacking "initial" - a way that allows to keep air units constantly stacked on the move but terrible in terms of combat because of the threat of losing the leader unit, terrible overkill and hard control over the following units. This + Show Spoiler + It's not that different from the rules of BW http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Magic_box. Air units, to quote BW Liquipedia: "must be grouped with a unit a sufficient distance away, which triggers the magic box to activate". What is different is:
eliminates the threat of losing the leader unit and allows for a much better control but it still suffers from the problem of overkill. That's why in OP I mention how can the problem of overkill can be solved: When engaging with larger numbers of units it's actually better to do it without the additional unit that triggers the magic box. My initial idea is to have the units in two control groups - one with the additional unit that causes the magic box to trigger and one without it. And to switch between them right before engaging, to allow them to de-stack more. Doing this requires a lot of trial and error play in unit testers to know when to switch between the groups (or Shift deselect that additional unit). | ||
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beetlelisk
Poland2276 Posts
On February 19 2011 19:01 andrewwiggin wrote: Void rays don't overkill, if I'm correct on the prismatic beam mechanic. Which makes stacked voids the sexiest air force out there! XD Yeah but like FeyFey said they have big problem when trying to charge and I need to check this again in an online unit tester but when I tried doing hit and runs with stacked Void Rays... it was really hard to keep them stacked. They are pretty fast but also pretty large so once they start to de-stack some of them (1 to 3 of them) become too exposed and focused by anti air units (like Marines) and some of them fly out of their range. Fazing targets is impossible because of deceleration needed to attack. For now I would say Void Rays (because of reasons above) and Banshees (because of the worst imaginable overkill) are the two units that is better not to stack. At least bigger numbers of them and when dealing with units with small HP like Marines. On February 19 2011 18:27 morimacil wrote: They take less damage? Not really. The OP's point is that the damage will be more spread out amongst units, which is a valid point, and thats a nice bonus. But my point, if you actually read my post, is that in SC2 unlike in SC1, you cant keep mutas stacked together without slowing down. Read The mechanic and The problem sections in my OP. They don't need to slow down, once the correct unit is chosen to trigger the magic box, they behave exactly like air units in BW. Except they need to slow down before they can shoot but it takes about half of a second and can be ordered before they get in range to shoot. Stacked mutas dont do more dps than unstacked mutas. They never did. The advantage, in SC1, was that since they would behave as a single muta, and all shoot at the same time, having them stacked allowed you to get more kills, instead of spread out damage. But in SC2, well they dont behave as a single muta, and dont shoot as one. Thus it doesnt really matter if they are stacked or not. They dont do greater damage when stacked, never did, and now they also dont kill specific units better when stacked, since they dont behave as a single muta, but still behave as a group of mutas. The point is to have as many of them to fire at the same (or very similar) time. Spread Mutas don't all attack at the same time, moreover those that start to fire can get killed before the rest arrives and starts to shoot. In BW, stacking mutas: Allowed you to hide damaged mutas, thus spreading out damage better Allowed them to behave as a single muta Was more vulnerable to splash In SC2: Allows you to hide damaged mutas, thus spreading out damage better Requires the mutas to constantly decelerate Is more vulnerable to splash. Its not the same now as it was before, so while before, stacking against non splash was strictly better, I dont believe thats the case anymore. Unless someone can find a way to make SC2 mutas behave as one, and/or stay stacked without decelerating. In which case, it will indeed always be better to stack them than to have them spread as long as no splash is involved. I included 2 ways to do that in my OP. I made this thread exactly because I've found out how to do it. It seems you just didn't read it. I apologize for lack of screenshots and other means to show this, I will work on this in the near future. However I feel my description of how to do it is good enough. Negating Thor's splash is as simple as making 1 Corruptor or researching Overlord speed and flying with either of those first before trying to engage with Mutas. | ||
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