Their's slot of skill/micro with Forcefields/fungul/Con shell Ov not just spam forcefielding someones ramp but your couldn't do anything in PvT without them. I think they all have a place in the game even if fungul was a really underused ability that was quite frankly amazing. ff are strong but get nullified in mid/late game with massive units, Fungul used to get nullified by medivacs (new patch) and con shell is still useful all the way through the game for the same price as a sentry nearly I like these abilitys their the "lets not just A move into someone abilitys"
But then again its a pretty huge investment too. Sentries can pretty much be massed early game and have like 150 energy each pooled up so I think thats where part of the problem is
In my opinion, the things that counter FF come too late for zerg.
Overlord pickup is useless without Ovie speed. To get both of these upgrades takes a long time, by then well controlled FFs have already won the game. Again with burrow, then even further tunnelling claws.. Its all too late for zerg.
Another difference with the abilities OP pointed out.
You can spread to avoid fungal. To control Mauraders to conc shell A LOT of units is impossible. Inevitably they will focus fire the same targets. Also Conc shell is an upgrade, which requires a tech lab.
Have a look at the new fungal growth on Infestors. It is a VERY powerful spell, but the infestors are about 4x the size as sentries, and much softer, both of which aide in focus firing against the spell caster.
I would like to see range of FF lowered by 1, or to have the sentries a bunch softer. Allow them to get the first wave of FFs off, and if they don't micro back, they really need to die. There shouldn't be WAVE after WAVE after WAVE of FFs, not allowing a player to micro for a full 2 minutes game time. Thats just game destroying.
I liken it to WoW when I used to play as a shadow priest.... Where Rogues could stun me for an entire fight, leaving NOTHING for me to do, while I sit their and have my face raped. Regardless of control from each player (simply because I had none, whether I was gosu or not.)
On March 25 2011 10:23 BrahCJ wrote: In my opinion, the things that counter FF come too late for zerg.
Overlord pickup is useless without Ovie speed. To get both of these upgrades takes a long time, by then well controlled FFs have already won the game. Again with burrow, then even further tunnelling claws.. Its all too late for zerg.
Another difference with the abilities OP pointed out.
You can spread to avoid fungal. To control Mauraders to conc shell A LOT of units is impossible. Inevitably they will focus fire the same targets. Also Conc shell is an upgrade, which requires a tech lab.
Have a look at the new fungal growth on Infestors. It is a VERY powerful spell, but the infestors are about 4x the size as sentries, and much softer, both of which aide in focus firing against the spell caster.
I would like to see range of FF lowered by 1, or to have the sentries a bunch softer. Allow them to get the first wave of FFs off, and if they don't micro back, they really need to die. There shouldn't be WAVE after WAVE after WAVE of FFs, not allowing a player to micro for a full 2 minutes game time. Thats just game destroying.
I liken it to WoW when I used to play as a shadow priest.... Where Rogues could stun me for an entire fight, leaving NOTHING for me to do, while I sit their and have my face raped. Regardless of control from each player (simply because I had none, whether I was gosu or not.)
Reduce max energy of sentries would do a large amount to help the complaints about ridiculous amounts of force fields for sustained periods of time.
Currently 200 energy max and 50 energy cost of force fields, 4 force fields per sentry. Reduce the max energy to 150 allows a max of 3 force fields per sentry.
This would also gimp the hallucination use of sentries though, so it might be nice to reduce the usage energy of hallucinate to 75 so the sentries could still get 2 hallucinates out from max energy. This might make hallucinate scouting a bit too powerful though so it might be better off leaving it at 100 energy.
I'm was talking in a broad sence of every conceivable match up, your saying sentrys need to be a lot "softer" how much softer could they be? 40 shields 40 life They only seem to be hard to kill because they usually have back up or have to ff themselfs not to get destroyed is not exatly a Ultra. Your talking like Sentrys are walking around the map one shotting everything which is far from the case you have bad micro your sentrys die your screwed 50 minerals 100 gas is a massive investment early game yes they are usually are a solid investment
If we're talking ZvP for the forcefields how the hell would a toss hold off the droves and droves of zerg. you've oviously died to ff in the past have so i the difference seems to be i can see the need for the sentry/ff and what i did wrong you seems to be pissed and you oviously did nothing wrong. If the Toss is at your nat ff'ing your ramp how did the game get to that? He didn't just appear. Their was a series of events that led to your ramp getting ff'd that the Zerg didn't adequately prepare for not scouting/over droneing and dont say Mc vs July we all kno july played like crap. The only thing Zerg needs that they don't currently have is a good scouting unit without major upgrades
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
Your are forgetting he was up to MC, not just any protoss that could do the same. I bet if it was another player the things will have played out differently. If you take MC as the base player for analyzing a race, its obvious that the race would seem OP. You cant say that Marines are OP just because there is a player, MKP, that is a genius using them. Same thing. Ask what could july have done against MC, not against forcefields.
I agree about FF and Vortex but I'd also add HT and DT in the same group. This is because I'm not focusing on the really micro-micro, but on the more macro micro, which means basically the fact that the enemy's army is smart-cast in half and picked off by long-range units or rushes are totally negated in a very cheap way etc. In this light also HT and DT belong here, as well as some other cheese in Protoss' repertoire, which surpasses that of other races and is easier to to do or to get away with, and more intutitive. I tend to think the whole race relies on this kind of thing as of SC2.
As for kiting, I have an overall negative sentiment toward the thing in general and I particularly dislike playing against players who never leave you alone the whole game, never accept battle, never allow you to go at peace, run from smaller armies than theirs, chase bigger armies than theirs etc. This was very popular in WC3, thankfully less so in SC2 but still present.
Fungal is pretty ridiculous right now (wrong way to buff zerg, but that's a separate discussion); but in terms of pure game design there is nothing really wrong with it.
The reason is that it's performed by a specialized caster unit that is pretty high up in the tech tree and gas intensive.
Force fields and concussive shells are an entirely different beast. They are extremely early and it's easily possible to mass marauders. Sentries can't be massed to the same extent. Still, they are such an early tech that you can get up quite a few before any battle takes place.
Concussive shells is without a doubt the worst game design issue in StarCraft 2. It's the type of thing that makes you go "what were they thinking!?". It's so ani-starcraft. It disables micro in the early game PvT => early game PvT is so boring and dumb.
So yes, abilities that nullify micro can be dangerous, but nobody complained about Dark Archon maelstorm. Again, it was a pretty late tech and casted by a specialized casting unit. Nobody complained about Arbiters. For the same reason. Concussive shells however should just be removed ASAP if you want to make a good, fun game. If that causes balance issues, then address them, I don't care.
Parasit, I've lost enough PvT when going marauders. They are already relatively bad vs zealots, a zealot and stalker mix will generally do well and immortals slaughter marauders to the point it's not even funny. The counter to immortals is marines, but it's silly building marines at that time in the game, when the Prot can easily be building colossi at the same time. The Terran can surely go for tanks to be safer from colossi, but it takes time and immortals laugh at tanks, as do zealots when tanks aren't many enough. Perhaps you just need to put more immortals in your game. Obviously, if you think immortals are bad, I'll happily listen to whatever Terran can do to make them so.
On March 26 2011 01:27 NewbieOne wrote: Parasit, I've lost enough PvT when going marauders. They are already relatively bad vs zealots, a zealot and stalker mix will generally do well and immortals slaughter marauders to the point it's not even funny. The counter to immortals is marines, but it's silly building marines at that time in the game, when the Prot can easily be building colossi at the same time. The Terran can surely go for tanks to be safer from colossi, but it takes time and immortals laugh at tanks, as do zealots when tanks aren't many enough. Perhaps you just need to put more immortals in your game. Obviously, if you think immortals are bad, I'll happily listen to whatever Terran can do to make them so.
In a kind of funny twist, stimmed marauders (even 3 of them, which is about cost efficient) can beat an immortal. Likewise, 3 marauders will beat 2 stalkers (same price as immortals) and can beat 4 zealots with some kiting. They also can beat Colossi that have no backup cost efficiently.
I'm not arguing they're op, I've also beaten mostly marauder compositions as Protoss with good forcefields.
On the point you made about making marines - you always want marines as Terran, even if there are some Colossi on the field. Protoss also have to choose between Immortals and Colossi, as they both build out of the same building.
With forcefields, I'd argue that they require baiting to deal with, as otherwise they build up. Having 1 forcefield block your ramp for 30 seconds is a much smaller deal than 1 for 2 minutes as your expo dies.
Imo, the problem with force field is not that it limits micro, rather how MUCH it limits micro in that a handful of sentries could cut a large army in fractions of itself multiple of times. So let me run this past the community: make force field a channeled ability. Limits how large an army can be portioned off from their current seemingly overpowered way but still keeps them a viable option for protoss. This also raises their skill cap since each placement wouldn't be a spam anymore but instead be what it should have been.. careful placement with some forethought.
Best fix I think is possible to tell you the truth.
I agree completely that mass sentries is WAY too powerful, but setting balance aside, they make for some extremely boring games from a spectator perspective. The finals sucked IMO, July could not fight, could not run away, could not do anything but die. MC might be the best FF user, but other toss players will catch up to him and surpass him (I'm sure he will surpass himself as well) and that is the really sickening part to me - FF still has a ton of potential, as powerful as it is right now, and mass sentry with some sick FF can destroy nearly all zerg ground.
You can argue July made some bad decisions and was already "behind" and that is exactly why I think FF are so stupid, because in almost all cases if you are behind you can actually TRY to get ahead, but not after your whole army is trapped by FF. He was not that behind.
It's also hilarious how OP some people think colossus is and protoss might not even need it in PvZ with mass sentry, MC certainly didn't.
I like how the OP was about abilities that can negate micro (i.e ff, concussive shell, fungal.) Yet somehow it's turned into a "omg zerg can't handle FF, nerf them please." Is it just me or did the thread derail, and kind of needs to get back on the topic of ALL micro reducing abilities.
That aside, good points have been made about FF potentially needing tweaking. But, there aren't many clear cut ways to do it as protoss absolutely need forcefields early, mid, and late... period. Maybe there is a way to nerf/tweak FF while still allowing protoss to be able to defend their ramp early, or not have collossus sniped by stim marauder run arounds. But, if it was THAT overpowered, then MC would not have been the ONLY protoss to make it to the GSL finals thus far. It's still very beatable. P aren't the only ones winning showmatches and tournaments
Sometimes, i think people should just post videos and show the player's keyboards with the actual game as a small panel int he corner. Most people here are idiots and, since they see something done, they instantly assume that it is easily done. "Forcefield placement is easy" or "Splitting marines is easy" are terrible statements. GOOD forcefield placement and GOOD marine splitting take tons of micro and skill.
On March 19 2011 18:58 Teivospy wrote: in the game julyzerg won, i was thinking it would have been great if he microed the trapped hydras and dropped them behind the FF's
which leads me to think that you guys should just use drop or burrow micro to save your units instead of hoping for blizzard to fix things.
on one hand people say they can't wait for SC2 to evolve, but it seems like that only means they want patches to buff their race :|
In game one how is July, or any other Zerg in the same situation, supposed to use drop or burrow micro? He literally couldn't get down the ramp due to forcefields, in a situation where forcefields definetely do not require micro.
Your are forgetting he was up to MC, not just any protoss that could do the same. I bet if it was another player the things will have played out differently. If you take MC as the base player for analyzing a race, its obvious that the race would seem OP. You cant say that Marines are OP just because there is a player, MKP, that is a genius using them. Same thing. Ask what could july have done against MC, not against forcefields.
I give credit to the man, not to the weapon.
That makes no sense. You are acting like no other person in the world could block a ramp with forcefields. And comparing it the marines from marineking is wrong as well, wanna 1 the one small difference? Even when its used correctly you can still do something against it it if you practice enough. A forcefield on your ramp will always will be a forcefields on your ramp wich shuts down all reinforcements no matter how many million games you play. The best thing you can possibly do is try to prevent.
On March 26 2011 05:14 Treemonkeys wrote: I agree completely that mass sentries is WAY too powerful, but setting balance aside, they make for some extremely boring games from a spectator perspective. The finals sucked IMO, July could not fight, could not run away, could not do anything but die. MC might be the best FF user, but other toss players will catch up to him and surpass him (I'm sure he will surpass himself as well) and that is the really sickening part to me - FF still has a ton of potential, as powerful as it is right now, and mass sentry with some sick FF can destroy nearly all zerg ground.
You can argue July made some bad decisions and was already "behind" and that is exactly why I think FF are so stupid, because in almost all cases if you are behind you can actually TRY to get ahead, but not after your whole army is trapped by FF. He was not that behind.
It's also hilarious how OP some people think colossus is and protoss might not even need it in PvZ with mass sentry, MC certainly didn't.
Yeah MC doesn't think Protoss needs to tech up to kill Zerg either
-_-
EDIT: Concussive shells doesn't take micro to perform, you just a-move. Force Fields and Fungal need proper placment to be most effective. Doesn't that force micro? Mass sentries is actually super terrible, you have no map control, no DPS, and you lose gas so it slows down your tech. The only time it's decent is when you get 8-9 to defend your expansion from early Zerg aggression. You cannot kill someone with only sentries. MC abused the hell out of Force Fields when he beat July, but that's what happens when you tech to mutas/go fast hydras/drone up too hard.
Force Fields don't do damage, but Fungal does. Hmm...