EPTEvaluating the Colossus - Page 4
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G3CKO
Canada1430 Posts
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dave333
United States915 Posts
On April 23 2011 03:09 G3CKO wrote: On the topic of PvZ some things coming from a C+ level Brood War protoss. In Brood War PvZ, once the ultimate Protoss battle ball is reached, there is essentially nothing a Zerg can do to take it down. Throw in ultras, cracklings, and even high level defiler play, if you play head on fight against the Protoss battle ball you can't beat it no matter what. I can show some progamer level games of this. The point is to not let the Protoss reach that battle ball. Not a lot of Zergs are realizing that you must try to keep the Protoss reach that battle ball in SC2. If more zergs have that kind of mentality, I could see a huge meta shift in ZvP and PvZ, The difference is that zerg's options for aggression are much more limited. Protoss can shut down any early pressure with strong sim city, cannons, and force fields. Chrono allows for really fast probe production=fast deathball. The best way to stop the deathball with aggression is ling/bling. But going into this build is weak to 5/6 warpgate rushes. If you watch some of the PvZs on maps like on Shakuras, the protoss plays incredibly greedy, but can get away with it thanks to cannons/FFs. In Brood War, with defilers/cracklings, you could easily snipe protoss expansions. There's nothing like this in SC2; the best you can do is blow blings up on workers, which is effective, but again weak to strong warpgates. FFs and sim city shut down too much early aggression. The other option is to give zerg better timing attack opportunities, like a hydra speed upgrade to allow for hydra timing pushes on bigger maps. But that doesn't solve the PvP collossus issue. Aggression has definitely increased my ZvP win rate, you're right, but that's because the toss are very unexperienced against this kind of play. They see my bling nest, my lings, my evo chambers, but continue trying to do the same turtle and get deathball. Obviously they'll lose. But if they instead push out earlier with 9 sentries and warpgate rush me, I'll die. | ||
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blubbdavid
Switzerland2412 Posts
On April 23 2011 03:09 G3CKO wrote: On the topic of PvZ some things coming from a C+ level Brood War protoss. In Brood War PvZ, once the ultimate Protoss battle ball is reached, there is essentially nothing a Zerg can do to take it down. Throw in ultras, cracklings, and even high level defiler play, if you play head on fight against the Protoss battle ball you can't beat it no matter what. I can show some progamer level games of this. The point is to not let the Protoss reach that battle ball. Not a lot of Zergs are realizing that you must try to keep the Protoss reach that battle ball in SC2. If more zergs have that kind of mentality, I could see a huge meta shift in ZvP and PvZ, Yes, but Forcefields and Blink-Stalkers and Phoenix and Slow-Ass Hydra's seriously fuck up Zerg's plan to kill the P before Colossus Deathball. Particularly Forcefields. | ||
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raf3776
United States1904 Posts
On April 23 2011 03:23 blubbdavid wrote: Yes, but Forcefields and Blink-Stalkers and Phoenix and Slow-Ass Hydra's seriously fuck up Zerg's plan to kill the P before Colossus Deathball. Particularly Forcefields. You make them waste enough forcefields and there you go. Protoss are the tech class and theyre supposed to be super powerful in a ball with high tech units. Collosi can be hit by ground and air and anti air, they dont need to be weakened. | ||
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Legend`
Canada381 Posts
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tehemperorer
United States2183 Posts
It is only a dominant unit because the metagame hasn't matured that much, not because it is unbeatable. Plenty of people lose going colossi, and plenty of people don't build them at all. | ||
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DarkRise
1644 Posts
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Scorch
Austria3371 Posts
On a related note, I'd rather they had not nerfed the high templar but the colossus instead. Templars are just a more interesting unit which offers more options and requires more skill to use. | ||
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Noocta
France12578 Posts
On April 23 2011 03:28 raf3776 wrote: You make them waste enough forcefields and there you go. Protoss are the tech class and theyre supposed to be super powerful in a ball with high tech units. Collosi can be hit by ground and air and anti air, they dont need to be weakened. Well.. would work if 3gate sentry expand didn't give them 30+ FF to play around. Make them waste some will never make a difference during the first engagement. | ||
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andrewlt
United States7702 Posts
I'm not even sure it's overpowered anymore and/or overpowered to a significant degree. It's just a complete buzzkill. | ||
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Zombo Joe
Canada850 Posts
 I think Kydarin amulet needs to get brought back but give 20, not 25 energy so you can't instant storm but you can storm after a few seconds. Colossus need to get nerfed to 8 range, which is still pretty long ranged or lose a bit health, I'm fine with either one. | ||
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Bonham
Canada655 Posts
Anyway, from my low-level perspective, colossi feel really stale. I play protoss, and the OP feels right-on: I have to make them, or I have no chance against the opponent's MMM, Hydra-roach, or colossi. This was kind of the case before the KA removal, where you needed colossi to secure your third and transition to templar. Since the amulet was removed, I feel like I need to stay on colossi for the whole game, barring some crazy archon-toilet action. I know this, and my opponent knows this so the whole game devolves into me trying to keep 4 or more colossi alive while he does his damndest to kill them. Even though colossi are not particularly exciting, as many posters have pointed out (would you rather watch colossi roast a big enemy army or a bunch of templar storm the crap out of them?), this would be okay if it were the situation for one matchup. But it isn't; it's the case for all 3. The only variation comes in PvP, where instead of air units the other player tries to kill my colossi with colossi of his own. From my perspective, something's gotta change. Every matchup feels more or less the same to me right now. So what should happen? Nerfing health is one option, but that wouldn't change the need to make colossi in every match. You'd just need to do a better job taking care of them. I'd like to see more far-reaching changes, though I realize this isn't likely to happen in a single patch. I think the solution could be something like: - A buff to gateway units (enough that with good control you could hold off an early MMM+shells+stim push without getting roflstomped) - A nerf to WG to mitigate 4gate power (needed for a long time anyway) - A mild buff to templar (bring back the KA with 1/2 the previous boost or something; right now they're just not viable as an alternative colossi) - A substantial nerf to colossi – maybe knock some health off and damage also. TL;DR: colossi are making me lose interesting in playing toss; nerf them and buff toss elsewhere to bring back variety to all 3 MUs. | ||
Kipsate
Netherlands45349 Posts
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Fungal Growth
United States434 Posts
Also, if we nerf colossi...toss needs an AOE alternative to deal with mass hydra/rauder...so how about bringing back khaydarin amulet ?? That was perhaps one of the dumbest nerfs in blizzard history... | ||
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nodestar
36 Posts
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. I actually think this is part of the problem. Not the Cliff walking itself but a side effect of being able to cliff walk. Which is to walk over other Protoss units. I'm not aware of any other unit in the game that can do this. It gives the colossus a HUGE advantage in a max army vs max army situation. Because they basically have free movement within their own death ball. This is one of the key reasons that units that comprise a death ball work so well together. If it wasn't like this then Stalkers/Sentrys/Immortals would all work against the Colossus similar to how Zerglings work against Ultralisk. Using the Ultralisk as an example. It's a very powerful unit. But constant complaints poor in about how it doesn't mesh well with other Zerg units. Bumping into each other and getting caught behind Zerglings attacking nothing and only impeding the movement of your other units. It requires allot of control to make the most of it. It's by no means an "A-move" unit. You never see Colossus fumbling around like retards in the back of a Toss Deathball. And it's not just because of their range. They melt the lings. Then take 2 steps up. Melt the Roaches. Then take 3 steps up and melt the Hydras. A Thor could never accomplish this. This is efficiency that no other unit in the game can match. It's a A-move and forget unit. Toss players them selves can attest to this just by comparing them[Colossus] to High Templar. Once again. It's not the range that allows them to do this. It's stepping over their own units. If Colossus behaved like normal units then they would never reach Hydras so easily in a Max vs Max situation. Colossus = range 9. Hydra = range 6. If Colossus start the battle in the back of the Deathball then once the lings are gone they are going to have a hard time getting past 40-50 supply worth of Stalkers and Sentrys to reach Hydras. Another strength is being able to kite units through your own army. Colossus that start at the front of a death ball can engage enemies and then kite back into their Stalker/Sentry balls. Rather than being stuck in the front. To be fair this is probably why Colossus have the ability to walk over their own units in the first place. To balance out the fact that they can be hit by air. If they didn't they could easily get caught within their own ball while vikings rain hell on them from range 9. You'd be forced to either retreat with your entire army. Or tell your colossus to move back and your Stalkers to engage. Making a giant clusterfuck where units are bumping into each other and being totally ineffective at doing anything. If your a zerg player than you experience this often.(You see this less and less the older the game gets) And it's endlessly frustrating. Although good control is the solution. I wonder if our Protoss brethren should have to face the same frustrations and have to learn the same control? I'm not to judge. If Colossus couldn't jive so well with the death ball then it might be more advantageous to use their cliff walking ability and operate them[Colossus] as flankers that work outside of the Deathball. You would think this was their original intention anyway given their speed. This of course opens them up and makes them vulnerable to air attacks. Good trade off or unfair? I'm not to judge. Toss units just work very well. Which is where the A-move complaint comes from. Allot of Toss units operate at a very high effectiveness on auto pilot. Something you couldn't do with most Zerg and Terran units. Not that it's bad. And not thats it's broken. But if I had to change one thing about the Colossus it would be to make them collide with their own units. | ||
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DuckS
United States845 Posts
Changing the range, I feel, is quite silly. If you've played a game as Protoss and didn't go ETL vs, say, a bio heavy army, you'll find it in no time that your collosus will be picked off in a manner of ease, leaving your tech-less "ball" to be steamrolled in under a few seconds. You also mention their health, and how they don't die fast enough. I feel this is a matter of perception - "the grass is always greener". Because, I feel, and i'm sure others could agree, that when my colo are being focused, they melt in seconds. Not saying they're weak or not enough HP, but take into account that there's a different feel on both ends. Protoss is a fragile race when it comes to balance. To address all of things that bother people with Protoss, (read: the only things that work) you're looking to have to just reformat the whole race. Or, perhaps, buff particular units in different races. | ||
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Strike_
Netherlands704 Posts
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Sheekthief
United States267 Posts
Reducing the range allows for ground centric armies to work against collosus centric armies. Such as more gateway heavy comps with Templar. Would make PVP more diverse (if they fix the 4gate shit). Change viking range to make it similar to what it is now, except the vikings and collosus aren't completely out of the fight. In my opinion the only reason terrans don't have huge problems with collosus is due to the range of the viking. Corruptor change would make them better against armored air units such as voids and vikings. Making them relatively useful. Its essentially a +4 damage buff vs armored units. But a -2 damage nerf to massive units. But overall, they are a better unit. I think this would help deal with the "collosus imbalance" as people like to say. Main problem with collosus is that they are out of the fight due to their range. Remove their range and now protoss players actually have to pay attention to them. Of course all the numbers I said can be changed to make it more balanced. Just my two cents. TL;DR - Make collosus and vikings more in the fight. Buff corruptors to be more on par with other air units and more useful than just killing collosus or making broodlords. | ||
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SlipperySnake
248 Posts
When it comes to PvP there are far bigger problems than colossus so trying to fix it for that match up seems kind of silly. All I would say is pay attention to the current zerg trends, many of the pros seem to know how to beat that style. I am not saying it is easy but I feel like that style of void and colossi simultaneously is going to fall by the wayside. | ||
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Hollis
United States505 Posts
On April 23 2011 03:47 Zombo Joe wrote: I like how Zerg players complain about Hydras and speedless Roaches being super slow yet most Terran units move at that speed or slower. Zerg units are supposed to be significantly faster than other races' units. That's a core element of zerg design philosophy, or else it's supposed to be. The other two races have very powerful defensive capabilities so they're designed to sit in their base and mass up. Zerg is designed to have weaker but faster units so they can threaten counterattacks and keep map control so they can make up for the weakness of their units with better economy and production. Zerg units are mathematically weaker than Toss and Terran units, cost-for-cost. If they're not also faster, why play Zerg? A problem I see is the base/expo defenses available to the Toss (cannons and that super cool new mechanic Blizz is so proud of, the warpgate) and Terran (Planetary Fortress, Turret spam, Siege Tanks, auto-repair) are so strong that they don't really need to fear Zerg counterattacks all that much; a Zerg has to commit pretty strongly if he ever wants to take out a Terran or Toss expo, and he may end up suffering heavy casualties. The sad thing is, a Terran can take out a Zerg expo with a single medivac full of marines, if the Zerg isn't hyper-vigilant about watching the minimap, or if the medivac manages to slip by the overlord net. And with some clever play, a Toss can do the same with hidden pylons warping in a round of lots, or DTs, or some other viable option. This problem I see routinely reflected in pro games where by the late game when the Toss or Terran has his defensive infrastructure set up and ready to defend any outlying Zerg aggression without too much trouble, and between these kinds of harassment or just straight up A-moving the army into the Zerg base, map control is actually snatched away from the Zerg who ends up frantically scrabbling for some kind of effective defense as his expos are being sniped one by one and he's slowly losing the game. I just really think Zerg needs some buffs. Some real, noticeable, unambiguous buffs. | ||
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