As much as everyone talks about warp, forcefield, voids, etc. it is the Colossus that has come to define the Protoss race more than any other unit in SC2. We all know the complaints--with its cliffwalking, insane range, and massive aoe dps, it can be very, very easy for a Protoss player to mass Colossi, a-move, and walk across the map to victory melting everything effortlessly with a shitton of lazers.
In PvP, 4-gates gives way to 1-base Colossus wars.
In PvZ, the Colossus+Voidray deathball is so potent it has sparked millions of threads about imbalance.
PvT is probably the least Colossi-centric of the 3 matchups, and even there it seems like most matches that get to 2 bases or more involve some sort of bio+viking vs. gateway+colossus clash.
Simply put, if you play P you make Colossus in at least 75% of all matchups that go past 1 base, and in 100% of PvP that get past the 4 gate stage. If you play against P, you expect Colossi, period. This kinda sucks because, you know, its not that interesting a unit. Aside from occasional cliff abuse, you mostly just move it forward and back and watch it burn shit from miles away. But that might still be forgiveable, accept its also warping game balance--PvP literally comes down to "who has more Colossi" which is just dumb, and PvZ can turn into an unkillable deathball melting any army a Zerg can make before it does squat.
Why this absolute dominance by a single unit? Well, for a few reasons:
In PvP, the only unit that is particularly good against the Colossus is the Void Ray. Immortals are badly outranged, and even Blink Stalkers tend to melt too quickly before they can deal much damage, especiallyn if Guardian shields are up around the Colossi. But opening Stargate is suicide in PvP due to 4-gate wars. Which means that getting a large enough quantity of Voids up in time to quickly kill Colossi before they melt you is nearly impossible --especially because Stalkers, a core PvP unit, annihilate Voids. In other words: The problem with the Colossus in PvP is that it has only one "counter", which die too quickly to bring the Colossus down.
In PvZ, The Void/Colossus deathball is so hard to deal with in part because every Zerg unit but Hydras kinda sucks against Voids, and Colossi melt Hydras. Massing Corruptors can sometimes work...but it is very, very easy to either under- or over-commit, making too few Corruptors to do any damage to the deathball, or making too many so that even if you kill it, you have valuable supply tied up in now-useless Corruptors. Zerg end up walking a razor's edge in ZvP, and we all know the sight of a Zerg futiley remaxing and remaxing while the Toss just melts all of his armies before they do any damage, then takes the win. In other words: The problem with the Colossus in ZvP is that it can require an absurdly exact unit composition to even deal damage to the Toss deathball, let alone destroy it, and if you go too far in the other direction and committ to corruptors he'll just kill you with a gateway followup.
In PvT, Terrans actually have a fairly reasonable method of dealing with Colossi--the Viking. It is even range with the Colossus, and deals enough damage to bring it down fairly quickly. In PvT, I'd say its less about Protoss building Colossus to force the Terran to react to them, then it is that Terrans force Protoss to build Colossi, because without that aoe dps, Terran bio becomes ridiculously hard to deal with and starts wrecking pure gateway armies.
There isn't as much of a problem with the Colossus in PvT and indeed I think its a vital unit to keep Toss from being overrun by mass bio (especially now that the amulet nerf make HTs a poor substitute for aoe damage)...but that in of itself is a problem, because if the Colossus is too strong in 2 matchups, but essential in a third, then fixing it will be a problem.
So what should we do?
Well, lets start by actually evaluating the Colossus. What makes it unique? What defines it?
It has cliffwalking. This annoys people because it makes a-moving even easier, but it isn't actually the root of any major problems--its not cliffwalking that makes them unbeatable in PvP or that makes the deathball so nasty in ZvP. Take cliffwalking out, and you make the deathball slightly less mobile, but its still a deathball and will kill you just as easily.
Its massive. This makes sense, and without it PvP would be even stupider because Toss would have no ways to break forcefields, and Voids would deal less damage to it.
It has average speed. I don't think making it slower changes much, for the same reason taking away cliff walking won't change much.
It has extremely high AOE dps. Now, you could say this is the "root" of the problem, because obviously Colossi killing shit so fast seems problematic. But as I said above, as the game moves into the later stages, particularly in PvT, Toss needs reliable, substantial AOE dps to keep from being overrun by mass bio. Moreover, huge AOE dps it the entire point of the Colossus--and with Carriers, Motherships and HTs being niche units at best, if you remove Colossus dps or aoe, you take away any viable Protoss T3 units at all, and assure that the most viable strategy when facing Toss no matter who you are is to simply mass T1 units and overrun them. That doesn't sound balanced, or fun.
It has a 75 second build time, and costs 300/200 and 6 supply. Blizzard loves to nerf things by making them take longer to build, but I'm not sure it'd fix anything here. It would create a much longer window in PvT where Terran bio would be stupidly hard to deal with, and Terran could easily mass Vikings before Colossi came out in any real number--if Colossi were as expensive in terms of resources and time as, say, Carriers are, Protoss would be badly fucked in PvT. At the same time, in PvZ, this wouldn't fix the essential problem of the deathball, which already takes a long time to build up, but is unkillable once it exists. Now it would just take longer, but would be just as unkillable. The only thing a build time or resource cost nerf might fix is PvP, because it would create a longer window for the opponent to build a real Void Ray force before Colossi got out on the field.
It has range 9. Now, this is pretty tempting to touch. As it is, Colossi can easily stay behind the rest of the Toss army out of danger, out of reach of anything but Vikings, assuring that if Voids or Corruptors want to hit the Colossus they need to fly over the Protoss' Stalkers. Shorter range would force Protoss to keep Colossi up much closer to the action, maning Voids and Corruptors could do damage more easily before being brought down by Stalkers, and even non-counter units like Hydras and Marines could at least get a shot or two in before being destroyed. The main issue with this is that it creates wonky positioning issues vs. Terran, as Vikings + Bio could kite Gateway+Colossus extremely easily. Still, this is a strong option.
It has 200 health and 150 shields. Now this is, IMO, perhaps the best thing to take a look at. Not the Colossus damage or range or anything else, but its health. Right now, the primary issue in both PvP and PvZ is essentially one of insufficient dps--in both cases, neither Voids nor Corruptors kill the Colossi fast enough to bring them down before the Colossi have destroyed any ground armies on the field. Voids come in, deal a little bit of damage, then die to Stalkers while the Colossi still stand. The Zerg throws wave after wave of Corruptors, only to watch the deathball emerge unharmed.
The issue, in other words, is not that Colossi deal too much damage, its that they dont die fast enough, which in turn let's them kill an entire ground army before they can be brought down.
Right now, Blizzard is trying to approximate this effect via damage buffs. So Voids now deal extra damage vs. massive, and FG now does huge dps to armored. But I don't think that in either case its enough, because Colossi still have enough health to survive for a while.
Blizzard could try even more damage buffs...but then you run into other problems. So, stay Voids and Corruptors both get +40% vs. massive or something crazy like that. Doesn't that just mean the end of all capital ships forever? Who wants that? For similar reasons, buffing Stalkers damage or something seems deeply unfeasible.
The real thing Blizzard wants isn't for all these units to do more damage in general, its for them to do more damage vs. the Colossus. But this is functionally equivalent to the Colossus simply having less health...so why not cut out the middle man, and just chop off some Colossi hp? Not huge amounts, just enough that a wave of corruptors or a bunch of Voids can actually put some fear into a super Colossi-heavy force. And since rangge and dps are untouched, Colossi remain an effective deterrant against mass Terran bio--although Protoss will have to be careful about how and when they engage due to Vikings.
I'd be interested on seeing your thoughts on this. As you can see, I've spent a while thinking about this, but I'm open to new ideas. The main thing I'd like to see is productive discussion. Not just "fuck the colossus, bring back the reaver" type shitty posts, but real thought about what could potentially be done to address the "colossus problem" in a way that doesn't break Protoss outright or cause for huge redesigns.
The collosus in essence is fine. Nerfing collosus would make the deathball be beaten to easily. The only thing that really needs to happen is people need strats to lower the collosus count. Most of the games now a days are sit back, make units and workers, attack at maxed when they have 5+ collosi. If you dont let them have time to get that much collosus out, than your fine
I think that if you nerf its movement speed it would make ZvP a lot better because Zerg players can abuse the immobility just like in ZvT. Counter attacks would be a lot more efficient, which is in the spirit of Zerg.
I think its simply poor unit design >.< It looks cool with its War of the Worlds-esque appearance and swathing lazors but it isn't a dynamic unit at all. I don't know if you can just tweak stats to fix that :/ (pretty much same thing goes for the Marauder)
I really don't understand why everyone has to make a thread about this... I appreciate your analysis, but I don't really see colossus as a problem in any match up right now. Zerg and Terran have easily accessible ways to deal with a colossus such as vikings and corruptors(and to address your problem of useless corruptors...broodlords) the problem that exists is that if you allow the protoss to achieve that critical mass of colossi then the damage is simply too much. Colossi are meant to give you the power the strongest raw power you can get, but the downfall is they are slow, vulnerable and have no spells. Utilizing hit and run with your vikings or corruptors or just simply teching up is pretty easy to deal with it. Too often I see zerg get stuck into the roach/hydra mix without ever giving a thought to infestors and broodlords the units they truly need to combat a protoss deathball. Another problem is also upgrades, if you allow the protoss to get an economic advantage and obtain his upgrades freely without you ever obtaining yours, you will get melted no matter what you do.
TLDR: Players need to focus on how they can improve their play or advance their strategy in a way that can combat colossus and need not rely on changes to the actual game/units.
i don't think health is the issue. im pretty sure corroptors have a bonus to massive, and 4 marauders targeting a colossus kill it extremely fast. the range like you said makes it inaccessible. but as stated hundreds of times before the root is the weak gateway units due to warp gates. stalkers die so insanely fast to marauders that the only reason to get them is high viking numbers and sniping drops. zealots do very well, but can't target air. sentries are only good for forcefields. their dps is too low to actually want to build to fight something other than a pdd. colossus is where the meat of the damage comes from. stalkers/zealots/sentries forcefield and tank the mmm combo as much as possible to let the colossus do their thing. pvz is very similar. forcefields block to save the colossus. this is why the new mass baneling drops are becoming effective. toss has to retreat his colossus making ling surrounds in open areas very good.
On April 23 2011 01:30 awesomoecalypse wrote: We all know the complaints--with its cliffwalking, insane range, and massive aoe dps, it can be very, very easy for a Protoss player to mass Colossi, a-move, and walk across the map to victory melting everything effortlessly with a shitton of lazers.
The reason collosus are such a pain in the ass in ZvP is because corruptors completely suck dick and we dont have anything else that is even close to being decent against air.
As a zerg i admit that without collosus, mass hydra/roach will completely overrun toss, but theres nothing on the zerg side than can effectivly touch them once their numbers go up.
Just make corrupters actually good. Toss will still have blink stalkers, 6gate timings, expansion cancels, high temps, and forcefields to fuck over zergs, so allowing corrupters to effectively counter colossi won't really ruin pvz; instead what we'll see is a nice variety of protoss strategies.
Pvz these days is so boring: sit, vigilantly (and easily) defend any foolhardy aggression, mass deathball, a-move, win. Removing the colossi as a viable strategy in pvz opens up whole worlds of interesting strategies and positioning and metagaming and stuff.
The sad fact is protoss doesn't even have to think, because even if the zerg knows it's coming and the protoss allows him all the time in the world to prepare for it, he still has a very high chance of winning the game unless he fucks up big time somehow.
MC proved you don't need colossi to make zergs look bad. Protoss is incredibly strong and versatile - possibly borderline overpowered even without colossi (blink stalkers and forcefields make me rage so much). It's just the colossi is so easy and solid they don't actually have to explore their other options. I think taking colossi away from them completely in pvz via the corrupter would be a great idea.
Doing anything to the collosus movement speed isn't going to help because any smart protoss will just send some of their stalkers to take care of the drop and if that isn't enough they'll just warp in a couple units with those stalkers to finish it off. Nerfing the movement speed won't do anything but make the "deathball" a little slower, it'll still be a giant deathball.
It is important for races to have overpowered units. Otherwise pro players wont be as encouraged to find new styles of play.
Blizzard is planning for balance changes next patch (namely gateway changes) so we have to wait and see how the metagame shifts.
For example, some unexpected result from the fungal growth change:
Infestors need burrow for harass and infestor bombing tanks. Suddenly baneling mines and ling burrow harass is viable.
Mass infestor uses a lot of gas, so now zerg's now have enough money for lings or queens.
Infestation pit allows for a quicker hive, so broodlords and ultralisks are more viable.
We can only imagine what a change to something as fundamental as warpgates would do. If they change something else, we can expect even more metagame shifts.
Players right now are so focused on the current builds and there are probably many builds that counter colossi that we don't know about. The 4 gate nerf will potentially allow for more breathing room for players to macro before colossi are out. A solution to the colossus is very near, and evaluating it wont accelerate that progress.
On April 23 2011 01:51 SidianTheBard wrote: Doing anything to the collosus movement speed isn't going to help because any smart protoss will just send some of their stalkers to take care of the drop and if that isn't enough they'll just warp in a couple units with those stalkers to finish it off. Nerfing the movement speed won't do anything but make the "deathball" a little slower, it'll still be a giant deathball.
You overestimate how well stalkers deal with one or two medivacs full of stimmed M&M.
Buff corruptor range to 7 or make colossus have less HP if you really want a change. But i don't think we really need one. The unit is not unbalanced, ppl will figure out how to deal with it better and better with time.
Can't disagree about Colossi being the most boring unit of the game tho..
The game is young, and speaking from both P and Z point of view there is alot more depth to be seen than the corruptor/roach/hydra mix vs a P deathball.
1: Protoss is gasdependant, a small change like making contaminate on gaysers stop workers to mine gas (or reduce the ammount of gas harvested) could generate some cool stuff out of any zvx matchup.
2: The thought of earlygame -> toss deathball in one move is also not explained enough. Ever tried to bane drop a mineral line? Zerg have to get the timeings out of the toss as it does with Terran or Zerg and figure out when the toss is weak.
Cutting HP is not something I like. It does not feel right that the collosi who already is a glasscannon should become a weaker one.
What I suggest is instead to make it slower, not much but just a sligt decrease so that a the toss wont have an option of doing dmg without taking any themselves. Say in a huge battle with alot of FF, send your corruptors forward and the collosi just "hides" behind their stalkers. Making them slower would make the corruptors do more dmg and punish the toss the same way a zerg is (from a positional error).
Moreover I would like to see the change away from "I need help from blizzard to fix this" to a more "lets put our minds together, what and when shall we take the game".
On April 23 2011 01:34 raf3776 wrote: The only thing that really needs to happen is people need strats to lower the collosus count.
I don't agree with this.
I think lowering Colossus HP or lowering the range would definitely help to alleviate alot of what's wrong with ZvP. I definitely feel like Colossus are too powerful in at least PvZ.
On April 23 2011 01:51 SidianTheBard wrote: Doing anything to the collosus movement speed isn't going to help because any smart protoss will just send some of their stalkers to take care of the drop and if that isn't enough they'll just warp in a couple units with those stalkers to finish it off. Nerfing the movement speed won't do anything but make the "deathball" a little slower, it'll still be a giant deathball.
I don't agree with that. I mean look at ZvT, Terran almost always is prepared for mutas and yet they still suffer a lot of damage from Zerg harassment. And every unit left behind in the base to defend makes the main army weaker. And this also give Zerg more map control and awareness which is really important. Zerg is a race that's all about map control.
Cutting HP is not something I like. It does not feel right that the collosi who already is a glasscannon should become a weaker one.
Glasscanon ? Man, they have 350 hp. Only Ultra and capital ship have more.
However, i agree reduce their mouvement speed might be better for the game, but Colossi ain't that fragile. Zerg don't have stimmed marauders if you know what i mean.
What I thought would have been cool, way back when I first saw the collosus unveiled, was this:
If you just A-move with collosi they will only attack one target(with slight splash like an archon or thor's air splash).
But you also have a "attack ground" option. This would allow you to click and pull in a line with your mouse, having the colossi attack in whatever line you controlled.
I think this would add a good bit of skill needed to use the colossi well, as well as make it a more interesting and unique unit(though I still think cols are cool as are).
I think the metagame needs to evolve a little bit more before we nerf Toss' main DPS unit. Spanishiwa's new gasless build has been a pain for Protoss to deal with, and with just a little bit more time, I think either that build or an undiscovered one will become mature enough to completely roflstomp the death ball. The deathball is akin to the bioball when SC2 first came out. Protoss and Zerg players everywhere screamed out about imbalance while Terrans just A and T moved their way to victory, but now, while still potent, players are starting to figure out how to deal with it. I honestly think it just needs more time.
EPT
