EPTTvP is still balanced-ish, but it's back to marauder medivac viking ghost. Maybe banshee tank for the adventurous ones.
Patch 1.3.3 PTR - Page 182
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Massive units are not affected by concussive shells. If you think they are, you are wrong. It's SPORE crawlers that are being changed, not SPINE. Please read carefully. | ||
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Mobius_1
United Kingdom2763 Posts
TvP is still balanced-ish, but it's back to marauder medivac viking ghost. Maybe banshee tank for the adventurous ones. | ||
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RoachyRoach
81 Posts
On May 05 2011 04:23 ridonkulous wrote: i stopped to belive in that early in beta, back then people wanted in the game micro to be more significant aka bw-like (there were plenty of videos and special maps which allowed move shot etc) few days later blizzard intruduced wonderful phoenix with their "move shot", that day i realized this guys have no clue what we are talking about and i wouldnt put much faith in them. Moveshot made BW battles cool, in the sense that if you knew how to do it properly, you could instantly be at an advantage. But you have to realise taht it was never intended as a design choice by blizzard. It was an exploit. It is counter productive to put these types of exploits into a game to try to raise the skill cap. Its supposed to be a strategy game, where if you outthnik your opponent, you should win. Knowing certain exploits that arent a part of teh original UI design isnt strategy, its exploitation of pre gained knowledge. Nothing to do with original design, regardless if it raised the skill cap. I feel like I just woke up a whole new beast. *flameshield* | ||
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Imbu
United States903 Posts
On May 05 2011 03:46 Sv1 wrote: Anyone able to find anything from blizzard justifying the Thor change? The 250mm cannon may now be in the same class as yamato, though the only difference is that seeing yamato is rare becuase seeing BCs in general is so infrequent to begin with, let alone they survive long enough to build energy (or the game continues to go that long). I don't see why the damage couldn't be changed along with channeling time. 200 over 3 seconds? 100 insta shot with a 90 second cd? For awhile it was a good alternative to going heavy vikings in which you could go a bio/thor mix instead of bio/medivac/vikings. As it is, the cannon still requires considerable positioning and the thor is still pretty slow and clumsy compared to other massive units. I wouldn't go as far to say that this removes the Thor from the game, but it certainly is going to make 250mm cannon go the way of the reaper. I guess we'll just have to see if it sticks or is just a temporary change. I feel that it wasn't as much for the late game as opposed to well developed midgame timing attack. There are defiantly instances where if you are attacking a colossus based Protoss army you can easily destroy the Protoss ball (Thors would negate the FF, Terran Bio generally can then destroy the Protoss ground with the combined power of the Thors). For Protoss, there were some problems when the Thors were made. The first question is which unit to make fight the Thor. Zealots are much weaker against mech as opposed to bio due to the natural 1 armor of all mech units. Stalkers, being armored, take massive amounts of damage from the Thor. DTs and High Templars are rather expensive, and only the DT is somewhat viable against the Thor at the moment (Storm does a lot, but Thors have quite a bit of health). Protoss is therefore left with robo units and stargate units. I'll ignore carriers for now, since in the current state of Protoss play, they just don't fit into the standard builds. Out of the stargate, the relevant Protoss unit is the Void Ray. 1 Void Ray can beat 1 Thor, but that would be a purely isolated fight. When the Terran has this bionic army, I can't see how a Protoss with a mix of Void Rays and warpgate units would be able to fight that off. Thus, Protoss is only left with their Robo units. Inside the Robo, the relevant units are the Colossus and Immortal. Now the Colossus can out-range a Thor for a theoretical infinite time, but a Colossus going Protoss invests a HUGE amount of their resources into its production. Additionally, the typical Protoss will rely on sentries with FF to separate the army to deal maximum splash from the Colossus. However, with the Thors, FFs will be useless, and the generally larger Terran bio army (I think this is true?) can easily clean up the Protoss ground, and unprotected Colossus die faster than zerglings. After all of that, Protoss is essentially left with one unit to "counter" the Thor (I'm saying counter as a reaction to the Terran play. I don't believe that standard Protoss play in PvT involve a large amount of immortals past the early mid-game). The problem at the moment is that although an Immortal can defeat a Thor 1v1 if they are just shooting at each other, the Thor will end up winning if it gets off a 250mm cannon. It wasn't the outright damage that mattered in this case, but rather the stun that results from the attack. Thus, with the current state, if the Thor going Terran had an equal number of Thors to Immortals (which should be about right assuming that the Protoss is responding to the Thors presence as opposed to just building immortals), then the Terran instantly destroys the units you built to combat the Thor. I don't want this to sound all doomsday, Protoss can defiantly overcome a Thor based army. Storms (not necessarily viable) still decimate the bioball, letting the Protoss army just overwhelm the Terrans, and Colossus are still viable, but essentially, the goal is to quickly destroy the bioball and then move onto the Thors. So let's theory craft this for a second. - Terran and Protoss open up standard, no significant advantage is obtained in the early game. - Terran opts to build Thors, in which the Protoss scouts this. - Terran attacks at 3-4 Thors, with 1-2 more just freshly made. Protoss prepares to engage. - Let's assume no tier 3 spellcasters (ie. Ghosts/Templars) Now at the this point, those 3-4 Thors should have the energy to fire off their attack, and thus locking down 3-4 of the Immortals. However, when the attack occurs, its significant the 1-2 new thors do not have the energy to fire their cannon, and thus, Protoss has 1-2 more significant Immortals. This might just be enough to give a responding Protoss the army necessary to win against a blind timing attack (read no Ghosts). All of this hinges on the lack of spell casters though. If Protoss gets High Templars, they can feedback the Thors away, thus negating the advantage of strike cannoning the Immortals. Terran can get Ghosts, EMP-ing the Protoss army, potentially negating both the Templar response and the hardened shield of the Immortal, thus making their Thors still relevant (without the hardened shield, Immortals get destroyed by Thors). If the Thors were changed to X damage instant shot, they would still be completely useless against the Immortals, and against the more relevant Colossus based Protoss army, the Thor army should already have the advantage. The other change you proposed is interesting. X damage over Y time might not change anything because of the way hardened shield works. I'm pretty sure this change was made specifically targeting this instance. TL;RD: As it stands, a Protoss army creates Colossus (assuming robo where the change is relevant), and its only in response to the Thors that the Protoss switches to Immortals. However, with the current upgrade of 250mm cannon, the last 1-2 Thors before the big engagement can also fire off a cannon. Thus when the battle occurs, the Protoss can lose (number of Thors) Immortals instantly, and the Terran still maintains a Thor in battle doing damage. With the change, Protoss can save at least a few more Immortals when the battle occurs. Thors will still be relevant, crushing FF's and for the most part being a strong response to Colossus based Protoss armies. It's important to maintain the current damage, as it would be a bad idea to not give the Thors, an expensive unit in both resources and opportunity cost, a way of dealing with the Immortals. On May 05 2011 04:30 Mobius_1 wrote: Well, I understand that the strike cannon rush was very difficult to defend as a Protoss, especially since Immortals are supposedly the counter but just get cannoned down. But this basically kills any use for the Thor in TvP since now you need 100 extra seconds to use strike cannon, which means no more smooth timing attack. Secondly, Thors were pretty useless against the deathball before but now more so with feedback. TvP is still balanced-ish, but it's back to marauder medivac viking ghost. Maybe banshee tank for the adventurous ones. Thors are still super relevant because Ghosts + Thor + Bio > Immortal + Warpgate. Against the deathball, I think that Thors are excellent against, as their 250mm cannon still locks down the colossus. | ||
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RoachyRoach
81 Posts
On May 05 2011 04:26 s3rp wrote: 250mm Cannons is not an Amazing Ability right now . Making Thor have to regenerate 100 Energy to use it will make it not beeing used. Thought you meant EMP. | ||
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Sv1
United States204 Posts
On May 05 2011 04:26 s3rp wrote: 250mm Cannons is not an Amazing Ability right now . Making Thor have to regenerate 100 Energy to use it will make it not beeing used. Eh, it is pretty good, at the very least it stuns a unit (like a colossus or an immortal). Let's be real, 250mm mostly affects the TvP matchup. Which in turn means that the colossus isn't killing your army. Against zerg it's also pretty good against ultras despite being immune to stun. The fact that it's now the highest energy cost ability in the game (on top of an upgrade) is really just odd. Even yamato is 125, seeker missle is also 125 and from an equally gas heavy, light hp unit which has no other offensive function other than the stationary turrets. Just think how often you see seeker missles. I'd be inclined to say I see neural parasite before I see seeker missle and yamato, and now thor. What it certainly does is prevents any sort of 250 timing push, which in turn means if you plan on going thors, you're better off sitting in your base and trying to take a 3rd as fast as you can to try and keep your production higher than protoss. What I find as an odd argument about the thor, is the "protoss has to overbuild immortals". I don't see what the issue is with this mainly because I can't figure out what you'd be building otherwise if you saw thors. As it is both zerg and terran have to overbuild vikings vs colossus. If overbuilding is what you need to do to win, why is it a problem? | ||
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s3rp
Germany3192 Posts
And btw im not saying that Strike Cannons are bad , i'm just saying that 150 Energy cost are not justified for an Ability that is not amazing. It's just not worth it. | ||
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shinosai
United States1577 Posts
Protoss now have four different units that counter thors (and mech in general) as opposed to two. Feels like heavy bio with vikings is once again the smartest choice to go. At this point it almost feels like the existence of the upgrade is more of a hindrance than a help. If the upgrade didn't exist at least we wouldn't have to worry about feedback. | ||
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Yaotzin
South Africa4280 Posts
If overbuilding is what you need to do to win, why is it a problem? It's economically inefficient. This means that the rest of his army will clean yours up. Thors are still super relevant because Ghosts + Thor + Bio > Immortal + Warpgate. Against the deathball, I think that Thors are excellent against, as their 250mm cannon was irrelevant for the most part anyways (Colossus are massive and thus no stun). 250mm does stun massive units. You're probably confused by ultras not being stunned, but that's because of frenzy, not being massive. I foresee 250mm being used on Archons. | ||
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ridonkulous
159 Posts
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Imbu
United States903 Posts
On May 05 2011 04:36 Sv1 wrote: Eh, it is pretty good, at the very least it stuns a unit (like a colossus or an immortal). Let's be real, 250mm mostly affects the TvP matchup. Which in turn means that the colossus isn't killing your army. Against zerg it's also pretty good against ultras despite being immune to stun. The fact that it's now the highest energy cost ability in the game (on top of an upgrade) is really just odd. Even yamato is 125, seeker missle is also 125 and from an equally gas heavy, light hp unit which has no other offensive function other than the stationary turrets. Just think how often you see seeker missles. I'd be inclined to say I see neural parasite before I see seeker missle and yamato, and now thor. What it certainly does is prevents any sort of 250 timing push, which in turn means if you plan on going thors, you're better off sitting in your base and trying to take a 3rd as fast as you can to try and keep your production higher than protoss. What I find as an odd argument about the thor, is the "protoss has to overbuild immortals". I don't see what the issue is with this mainly because I can't figure out what you'd be building otherwise if you saw thors. As it is both zerg and terran have to overbuild vikings vs colossus. If overbuilding is what you need to do to win, why is it a problem? The main problem with the overbuilding is that as a response, it just might be too slow. That is not to say that Protoss can never win in such a situation, that there is no proper response, but as it is, it just razor thin. There are potentially builds or instances where Thors just appear (ie. Observer gets sniped and Toss is in the dark for a moment) and you choose a different tech path, you might just get screwed. This is not to say that other races don't have to deal with "overbuilding" as a response, but let's take a look at how that "overbuilding" occurs. For zerg, this purely resource dependent, as they have their production facility by default. What they need are larva, mineral, and gas. For terran, they have the starport and the reactor core, and with the opportunity to swap addons, the long build time of the reactor core isn't always a problem. For protoss however, they need to build a Robo, and each robo can only build 1 Immortal at a time. True, Protoss can chronoboost out immortals, but that still takes time and chronoboosts are no infinite. Overall, if caught by surprise, Protoss has the hardest time making a rapid shift in their production and their unit composition, making a timing attack that much more deadly when involving Thors. | ||
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vojnik
Macedonia923 Posts
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s3rp
Germany3192 Posts
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Imbu
United States903 Posts
On May 05 2011 04:46 Yaotzin wrote: It's economically inefficient. This means that the rest of his army will clean yours up. 250mm does stun massive units. You're probably confused by ultras not being stunned, but that's because of frenzy, not being massive. I foresee 250mm being used on Archons. Ah thank you. I thought it was just because it was massive and some anecdotal rememberings, I'll change my post so I don't confuse other people! On May 05 2011 04:48 s3rp wrote: I really woulnd't recommend Thors against the Templar Path. Thats kind of well suicidel for Thors ? ^^ In a vacuum maybe, but when considering the growing usage of Ghosts in the matchup, Templars might get EMPed, and thus Thors would help wreak the gateway based armies (though once Ghosts are introduced, I agree what Thors probably aren't the best use of resources for the Terran.) | ||
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RoachyRoach
81 Posts
I still have never EVER been hit by a HSM. Just once I want a terran to fly into my base and HSM the shit out of my eco and autoturret my base to death. Please terrans, make this happen. Im waiting. Fly all ur buildings off teh map and mass raven and viking. G-fkin-G | ||
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L6-636536
United States94 Posts
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Sv1
United States204 Posts
I would say that is pretty game changing.... | ||
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Kotschmonaut
Germany117 Posts
On May 05 2011 00:54 Maynarde wrote: Also buff vikings to have an ability to attach cables between them so that they can take down them colussus AT-AT Walker style from the snow battle on Star Wars. post of the year | ||
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Blasterion
China10272 Posts
On May 05 2011 04:51 RoachyRoach wrote: They should let ravens absorb energy from thors. 2 birds in 1 stone ^^ thors have a way using energy without upgrade, and we might actually see some HSM. I still have never EVER been hit by a HSM. Just once I want a terran to fly into my base and HSM the shit out of my eco and autoturret my base to death. Please terrans, make this happen. Im waiting. Fly all ur buildings off teh map and mass raven and viking. G-fkin-G As much as 2 Radius Splash of 100 Spell damage goes, its effect is really shitty, might as well drop some auto turrets | ||
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s3rp
Germany3192 Posts
On May 05 2011 04:49 orz.fail wrote: Ah thank you. I thought it was just because it was massive and some anecdotal rememberings, I'll change my post so I don't confuse other people! In a vacuum maybe, but when considering the growing usage of Ghosts in the matchup, Templars might get EMPed, and thus Thors would help wreak the gateway based armies (though once Ghosts are introduced, I agree what Thors probably aren't the best use of resources for the Terran.) And once again we are at the Point where i say 100 Energy needs to be regenerated be use Strike Cannons against Archons. Why not just take the simpler approach and Build something else then Thors that is most likely even stronger. And not that complicated and expensive. | ||
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crown77
United States157 Posts
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