Situation Report: Patch 1.3 - Page 9

On April 05 2011 04:45 Yaotzin wrote:

No they didn't. They started out by making warpgates, then they made gateways (again) to stop cheeses. Gateways produce slower than warpgates for the same reason: rushes would be too strong otherwise.

The game is designed around warpgates, for good or ill. It will never change.

On April 05 2011 04:46 andrewlt wrote:



No, it's not. There is not a single other unit, in both BW and SC2, that can deal splash damage at that range while being a-moved. They move faster than high templar, too. As fast as non-upgraded zealots, in fact.

Siege tanks have to be in siege mode before they can deal splash damage. They have a minimum range and they have friendly fire. They don't have splash damage while moving.

Lurkers (BW-only) can't attack without being burrowed. They can't move while burrowed.

Spider mines (BW-only) have to be planted in the ground one by one.

Reavers (BW-only) are so slow they need to be babysat with a shuttle transporting them around.

Psionic storm, irradiate, plague, fungal growth are all spells which have to be casted and aimed manually.

The precedent from BW is, you gotta earn your splash damage. You can't just a-move it around.

On April 05 2011 04:52 Spawkuring wrote:



What makes you think warp gates will never change? They've already changed a few times regarding research time, so it's not unreasonable to expect it to change again.

On April 05 2011 04:55 Yaotzin wrote:

They've only ever touched the research time to balance rushes - sensible since that's the only reason you research them. They've shown zero inclination to nerf the actual concept in any way.

On April 05 2011 04:50 Yaotzin wrote:


The game changed though. The power of bioballs in particular necessitates a somewhat simple splash damage mechanism. Zerg got banelings, Protoss got colossus. Both races pretty much require these units to stop nasty stim bioballs.

Splash was less important in BW due to the crap pathfinding and bigger unit boxes. For that reason splash has to be easier to get/use in SC2.

On April 05 2011 04:57 eot wrote:
I think the odds of them doing a major redesign of the Colossus or Warp Gates are quite slim. They have said though that they're not too sure about adding new units in the expansions which hopefully opens up for more overhauling of what's in the game right now.

On April 05 2011 05:01 Daralii wrote:

Didn't Browder say they would be adding units, but not if they didn't fill a role currently lacking? So that you wouldn't have useless units just for the sake of having new units?

On April 05 2011 04:50 Yaotzin wrote:The game changed though. The power of bioballs in particular necessitates a somewhat simple splash damage mechanism. Zerg got banelings, Protoss got colossus. Both races pretty much require these units to stop nasty stim bioballs.

Splash was less important in BW due to the crap pathfinding and bigger unit boxes. For that reason splash has to be easier to get/use in SC2.

On April 05 2011 05:01 andrewlt wrote:



I don't see how that necessitates such splash damage to be so easy to use. It sounds like dumbing down the game. That's what all the complaints about the colossus boil down to.

And don't get me started about how they buffed bio compared to mech. Stim is already much weaker compared to its BW counterpart and they still can't get it quite right.

What about TvT? The splash mechanic doesn't have to be simple

On April 05 2011 05:05 Yaotzin wrote:
A big stim bioball is really easy to get and use pretty effectively. The splash damage necessary to stop it, is therefore also easy to get and use pretty effectively. If you made splash much harder to use then Terran would demolish everyone except at the highest level and therefore kill the game.

On April 05 2011 05:11 Spawkuring wrote:


In that case, the best solution would be to just nerf the bioball so easy-mode splash damage is no longer necessary. We've already seen stim get nerfed slightly to address this, although more changes will be needed.

On April 05 2011 05:05 Yaotzin wrote:

A big stim bioball is really easy to get and use pretty effectively. The splash damage necessary to stop it, is therefore also easy to get and use pretty effectively. If you made splash much harder to use then Terran would demolish everyone except at the highest level and therefore kill the game.

It's a mirror, there are no balance concerns. For game variety purposes tanks do a great job of slaughtering a big fat bioball anyway.

On April 05 2011 02:29 entropius wrote:
This approach of "Lategame protoss AoE is too good, so let's nerf templars and see what happens" seems dangerously naive, since it ignores the dynamics of the different matchups as well as the different roles of the two units.

By design, Colossi dominate ground armies and die to air-to-air. Fine; there are some interesting design possibilities there, but it only works that way in PvT. In PvZ and PvP, the trouble is that there is no good air-to-air for them to die to.

In PvT, T needs to get enough vikings to kill the colossi, but not so many that they will fall behind on ground units. This isn't a complete "oh, you overproduced vikings, they're useless and you lose" situation though, because they can land. Then there are interesting positional battles in which the viking user tries to get a good angle on the colossi to snipe them without taking too much stalker fire in return. The protoss can get phoenix and more colossi and contest the air, but then the terran can get thors, and an interesting maneuver game develops wherein the T tries to exploit his longer antiair range to either kill the phoenix or break up the P ball.

HT are used vs. Terran because 1) warpin storms help counter terran dropship play, and 2) colossi are vulnerable to vikings, while shutting down HT with ghosts is not as guaranteed. If a P produces too many colossi the T simply makes vikings and kills them.

The trouble in PvZ is that no such interesting dynamic; the root problem is that corruptors suck ass. They're built vs. colossi, but they're not nearly as good as vikings in that role because they do less DPS (even with corruption!) at less range and cost more, and can't land to help out after the colossi are dead. The corruptor's attributes that make it good at capital ship killing -- high hp and high armor -- are mostly irrelevant. Z must spend much more on corruptors than P spends on colossi to kill them before they decimate Z's ground army, yet even once the colossi are dead, the corruptors are useless and the Z ground army already took a great deal of damage from the colossi.

The range really is huge: vikings can engage colossi without taking much stalker fire in return, and the stalkers must blink far out of position to try to engage them (at which point they run). Corruptors can't do this, *and* kill them more slowly.

Void rays complicate this even more, since they are an air-to-everything unit that actually wins against the corruptor, a dedicated air-to-air unit. This is different than the Phoenix + Colo dynamic in PvT. Phoenix have utility against ground, but not as much as voids; Vikings again can exploit their longer range to play positional games; and Terran have Thors, which are both competent in the ground engagement and absolutely murder Phoenix from a very long way away. Zerg have no such options; the only unit they have that's reasonably competent against the void ray is the hydralisk, and it's not an option because you're not going to get at the voids without melting to colossus fire.

tl;dr the biggest problem with colossus in PvZ is not necessarily that colossi are too good but that zerg air-to-air (corruptors) suck too much. In PvT colossi are kept in check because vikings are tremendously good. But Zerg have to rely on the pretty asstastic corruptor.

PvP is a lollercaust at the moment also. Aside from herp derp 4gate, the only competent air-to-air in the matchup is voids, so of course colossi are going to run rampant.

Not exactly sure how to address the issues; my best suggestion would be:

--Templar amulet reinstated, provides +15 energy
--Colo range buff is +2 instead of +3 *or* colo splash length reduced slightly

(This would leave both units quite viable in pvt)

--Corruptor range increased from 6 to 7 and corruptors lose the attribute "armored"

(These changes are really only relevant to the pvz matchup, and would make the "engage with corruptors first and just tank the stalker fire while shooting colos" tactic more viable, while also letting them soak void fire better)

Another interesting change to the PvZ dynamic would be to buff ultras. It's not as though they see all that much use, except for ZvT when T falls behind on infantry upgrades; a giant beastly expensive tier 3 unit that has melee range, doesn't shoot up, and takes a year to build has to do the only thing it does pretty dominatingly to see much play.

Giving Zerg a *ground* unit that could take on a colossus ball head on would be an interesting dynamic, especially since it would encourage back-teching to immortals to hold the ultras.

On April 05 2011 05:20 Yaotzin wrote:
Do you have some idea for what else amulet could do? BW amulet was pretty terrible...

On April 05 2011 05:20 Yaotzin wrote:
Do you have some idea for what else amulet could do? BW amulet was pretty terrible...

On April 05 2011 04:55 Yaotzin wrote:

They've only ever touched the research time to balance rushes - sensible since that's the only reason you research them. They've shown zero inclination to nerf the actual concept in any way.