-speedlings with flame throwers -flying ranged dts -flying defilers that aren't used enough -coli, once you have enough (4+) on the ground, it is amove and win and ensure you can win the air battle that ensues.
on a serious note though, end game toss is pretty lolzy. There are games were a toss has 15-20-30 warp gates and litterally fills back his supply in a matter of seconds instantly--no build time, meaning there was no "Strategy" that went into it.
Its kinda dumb how such a powerful unit (dt/ht) can be warped in so quickly as it takes no preparation to have one of the last tiered units.
Pseduo-offtopic, it is an extension of the original idea "boring units" As for the impending expansion (HOTS) I feel some of the units I mentioned above could be removed. I'm looking forward to seeing what units will be taken out/added. If I were to guess it would be: Its a toss up for T, but it most likely between raven, hellion, and thor. I would assume raven as it isn't seeing much use in games at the momment and I have a feeling blizzard wants all units to have a "use", currently ravens are only used in TvP as far as I can tell and not that often (just in the early game when 1 pdd makes 3-5stalkers useless).
As for zerg, I have a feeling the overseer will be taken out (after david kim's remarks) and possibly overlords given back detection. I doubt any other unit will be taken away, but there could be. They will prlly just add 1 more unit to zerg than other races as zerg will still have the least amount of units.
Lastly, we arrive at toss, once again after what David kim said, most likely the immortal will be removed seeing they wanted it to serve as X and instead it used as Y. Also, warp prisms could see a change due to their lack of use, however, I feel that is due to people being narrowminded on trying new things.
On June 02 2011 11:30 Daralii wrote: To everyone saying the colossus needs to be significantly changed/removed, what if Z had scourge? It provides a cheap, efficient way of dealing with colossi and would allow what is probably the most boring unit in the game(corruptors) to become a more general air-to-air unit, or a support unit.
The risk you run with changing the colossus is that you effectively need to rebalance the entire race, if not the entire game, and I can't see Blizz doing that even for an expansion.
You're missing the point. Completely rebalancing the race is what is needed to make Protoss interesting. Force Field and Colossi make Protoss suck ass - not necessarily in a balance way, but in terms of both playing and watching. Because these two things are so strong, other units (namely Gateway units) are just crappy and are horribly weak without being in a larger army with support - this means we see less (almost none at all) multi-pronged battles/harassment from Protoss.
On June 02 2011 12:51 Stratos_speAr wrote: You're missing the point. Completely rebalancing the race is what is needed to make Protoss interesting. Force Field and Colossi make Protoss suck ass - not necessarily in a balance way, but in terms of both playing and watching. Because these two things are so strong, other units (namely Gateway units) are just crappy and are horribly weak without being in a larger army with support - this means we see less (almost none at all) multi-pronged battles/harassment from Protoss.
To be honest, I don't dislike the Colossus although I think it boring and try not to use it (and often lose as a result). I also like FF and think they add some cool elements to the game especially in terms of battlefield control and unit positioning. I think both of these elements should remain albeit in a reworked form with slight nerfs. IMO the main reason Gateway units are relatively weak compared to their Terran/Zerg counterparts (especially when cost/supply is taken into account) is because of the warp-in mechanic (and not Colossus/FF). This ability needs to be pushed back in the Protoss tech tree and probably nerfed in some way or gotten rid of altogether. Then you could reasonably buff Protoss gateway units to the tough and hardy units they are meant to be.
On June 02 2011 12:51 Stratos_speAr wrote: You're missing the point. Completely rebalancing the race is what is needed to make Protoss interesting. Force Field and Colossi make Protoss suck ass - not necessarily in a balance way, but in terms of both playing and watching. Because these two things are so strong, other units (namely Gateway units) are just crappy and are horribly weak without being in a larger army with support - this means we see less (almost none at all) multi-pronged battles/harassment from Protoss.
To be honest, I don't dislike the Colossus although I think it boring and try not to use it (and often lose as a result). I also like FF and think they add some cool elements to the game especially in terms of battlefield control and unit positioning. I think both of these elements should remain albeit in a reworked form with slight nerfs. IMO the main reason Gateway units are relatively weak compared to their Terran/Zerg counterparts (especially when cost/supply is taken into account) is because of the warp-in mechanic (and not Colossus/FF). This ability needs to be pushed back in the Protoss tech tree and probably nerfed in some way or gotten rid of altogether. Then you could reasonably buff Protoss gateway units to the tough and hardy units they are meant to be.
Without Warp-in Protoss would get destroyed. there's simply no way they would be able to keep up with the production of either of the other two races. If you got rid of it, you would need a SERIOUS buff to unit power to make up for the fact that it would be so hard to rebuild an army, moreso than if you tweaked/nerfed Colossi and/or FF. Reinforcement and drop harassment defense would also be a huge issue. Warp-In is pretty important for both of these.
On June 02 2011 13:09 Stratos_speAr wrote: Without Warp-in Protoss would get destroyed. there's simply no way they would be able to keep up with the production of either of the other two races. If you got rid of it, you would need a SERIOUS buff to unit power to make up for the fact that it would be so hard to rebuild an army, moreso than if you tweaked/nerfed Colossi and/or FF. Reinforcement and drop harassment defense would also be a huge issue. Warp-In is pretty important for both of these.
Good point, I hadn't seen it from that perspective. I see it more from the fact that the Warp-In mechanic combined with strong gateway Units make Protoss too strong early game. They would literally destroy everything within 10 minutes. So, to compensate, they were weakened. But this also meant that they were susceptible to pushes from Terran/Zerg, and so to deal with this you have the forcefield which enables Protoss to deal with its opponents in chunks. Basically Protoss gateway unit weakness is compensated for by being able to out number their opponents in engagements by FF use. Hence why I think looking at Colossus and FF is looking in the wrong place: they are consequences not the cause.
I'm not sure how the unit production issue could be handled though (as you say). You can't make gateway units too powerful. Gate production times could be decreased and/or production of Terran/Zerg units could be increased (or nerfed). To be honest, the more you think about it, the more it starts to look like a balance nightmare maybe necessitating a whole race, or even game redesign.
It's a shame though, I'm not a good player by any means but I played original SC and BW (campaigns and lanning hard with friends; not online) and I loved Protoss for their story and their units. It was a shock to me when I first played SC2 and found my Zealots and Stalkers (Dragoons) significantly weaker than their SC/BW counterparts.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Colossus I think the colossus is a poorly designed unit. It's viable as a core-army unit in every matchup. It's almost required in 2/3 matchups. Strictly speaking, it either needs to lose mobility or lose damage. Or they need to can it and bring back reavers. Choosing between reaver/HT tech would actually be a tough choice.
Carriers Most useless unit in the game. Poor damage output and very weak to focus fire from vikings or corrupters. Not to mention it has a ridiculous production time and cost, and only really works well in large numbers.
Marauders Lame unit. Terran would really do fine without them if it weren't for colossus in TvP. Too similar to marines in use. Too big of an investment. Overall a poor unit.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Spells that restrict unit movement. Forcefields, Fungal, Vortex, Concussive Shells (to a lesser degree). These are bad spells in the world of Starcraft. Almost all the spells in SC:BW promoted unit movement to be used or countered effectively. The only exceptions were ensnare and maelstrom (and Stasis but since it makes the targets invulnerable, it sort of doesn't count). Spells like Dark Swarm, Irradiate, and Storm required exceptional micro to be used effectively. Maelstrom and Stasis were huge investments and very hard to use, which is what made it okay in BW.
Instead of movement-restricting spells being powerful late-game entities, terran and protoss get them at tier 1 and in the case of forcefields, is a required spell to balance the small, weak deathball early on. Fungal is closer to being balanced, as it only lasts a few seconds and comes relatively late. Ideally I'd like to see all of these spells at tier 3 or removed entirely.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? I think ghosts should be easier to spot inside a bio army. Maybe make them glow bright blue or something. This would add more incentive to get cloak for them, too.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Reavers (to replace the colossus) and Lurkers. I would also like to see tanks do their full damage to all units again
On June 02 2011 13:09 Stratos_speAr wrote: Without Warp-in Protoss would get destroyed. there's simply no way they would be able to keep up with the production of either of the other two races. If you got rid of it, you would need a SERIOUS buff to unit power to make up for the fact that it would be so hard to rebuild an army, moreso than if you tweaked/nerfed Colossi and/or FF. Reinforcement and drop harassment defense would also be a huge issue. Warp-In is pretty important for both of these.
Good point, I hadn't seen it from that perspective. I see it more from the fact that the Warp-In mechanic combined with strong gateway Units make Protoss too strong early game. They would literally destroy everything within 10 minutes. So, to compensate, they were weakened. But this also meant that they were susceptible to pushes from Terran/Zerg, and so to deal with this you have the forcefield which enables Protoss to deal with its opponents in chunks. Basically Protoss gateway unit weakness is compensated for by being able to out number their opponents in engagements by FF use. Hence why I think looking at Colossus and FF is looking in the wrong place: they are consequences not the cause.
I'm not sure how the unit production issue could be handled though (as you say). You can't make gateway units too powerful. Gate production times could be decreased and/or production of Terran/Zerg units could be increased (or nerfed). To be honest, the more you think about it, the more it starts to look like a balance nightmare maybe necessitating a whole race, or even game redesign.
It's a shame though, I'm not a good player by any means but I played original SC and BW (campaigns and lanning hard with friends; not online) and I loved Protoss for their story and their units. It was a shock to me when I first played SC2 and found my Zealots and Stalkers (Dragoons) significantly weaker than their SC/BW counterparts.
I definitely agree and I think that this is a big problem with SC2. Blizzard has put an entire race into a clusterfuck of intertwined problems that result in a boring race to both play and watch, and fixing it would be a complete nightmare.
On June 02 2011 02:56 Mjolnir wrote: But, my biggest gripe with the marine, and why I mention it is the following:
Its not a problem the Marine causes. This problem is caused by perfect unit movement and tight unit movement. This increases the dps per attacking square to "insane" ... but it is basically the reason for Colossi being too good when massed and Banelings, ....
On June 02 2011 13:09 Stratos_speAr wrote: Without Warp-in Protoss would get destroyed. there's simply no way they would be able to keep up with the production of either of the other two races. If you got rid of it, you would need a SERIOUS buff to unit power to make up for the fact that it would be so hard to rebuild an army, moreso than if you tweaked/nerfed Colossi and/or FF. Reinforcement and drop harassment defense would also be a huge issue. Warp-In is pretty important for both of these.
Good point, I hadn't seen it from that perspective. I see it more from the fact that the Warp-In mechanic combined with strong gateway Units make Protoss too strong early game. They would literally destroy everything within 10 minutes. So, to compensate, they were weakened. But this also meant that they were susceptible to pushes from Terran/Zerg, and so to deal with this you have the forcefield which enables Protoss to deal with its opponents in chunks. Basically Protoss gateway unit weakness is compensated for by being able to out number their opponents in engagements by FF use. Hence why I think looking at Colossus and FF is looking in the wrong place: they are consequences not the cause.
I'm not sure how the unit production issue could be handled though (as you say). You can't make gateway units too powerful. Gate production times could be decreased and/or production of Terran/Zerg units could be increased (or nerfed). To be honest, the more you think about it, the more it starts to look like a balance nightmare maybe necessitating a whole race, or even game redesign.
It's a shame though, I'm not a good player by any means but I played original SC and BW (campaigns and lanning hard with friends; not online) and I loved Protoss for their story and their units. It was a shock to me when I first played SC2 and found my Zealots and Stalkers (Dragoons) significantly weaker than their SC/BW counterparts.
I definitely agree and I think that this is a big problem with SC2. Blizzard has put an entire race into a clusterfuck of intertwined problems that result in a boring race to both play and watch, and fixing it would be a complete nightmare.
Maybe Blizz realizes this and it'll be an overarching goal between now and LotV? I can hope... >_>
I'm going to throw this out there and likely get absolutely shit on for saying so but...
I think the biggest problem in this game is the Marine.
With multiple rax/reactors, marines can be produced en masse at an incredible rate of speed and at very low cost. I don't believe any other unit has as high a dps and utility for such a low price as the marine does. Even when faced with "hard counters" marines can still be controlled in such a way as to limit and or virtually nullify those counters (i.e. stim + run + spread, or pre-emptive spreading to avoid AoE, or unit sniping with small leading groups).
Given solid upgrades and a strong economy, I'm of the opinion that marines do way more than they should given their mineral and supply cost. They can die quickly, they can also be replaced at a rate that makes Terran seem like the new Zerg.
But, my biggest gripe with the marine, and why I mention it is the following:
It is, in my opinion, responsible for a lot of unnecessary changes to the game.
I think siege tanks were nerfed because of their damage in conjunction with infantry support when the infantry was as lethal as the tanks; and also to facilitate more variety (i.e. marine use) in TvT (though this wasn't deemed necessary in BW)
I think the FG change was to help with marines and medivacs primarily, and bonus to armored an added fringe benefit.
I think the heavy-hitting AoE units people currently loathe (Colossus) haven't been changed too much because of the fact that they're needed to counter units like the marine (and lings of hydras I guess you could say, but zealots do that just fine). For their cost, you can almost throw waves of marines into their counters until you either a) take it down, or b) drain it of mana making it useless.
I think the only thing stopping more people from really using this unit to it's full potential is a lack of skill in micro, shoot-n-scoot, or spreading. Outside of that, this unit is the SC2 powerhouse.
Watching GSL, NASL, etc. and I am almost disappointed at how almost any game involving Terran revolves almost solely around marines. Everything seems to support marines - even the notion that "tanks are the backbone of the Terran army" doesn't sit well with me because I'm convinced that tanks support marines.
TvT - mass marines and tanks TvZ - mass marines and tanks TvP - bio + viking
Now, I will say I may very well be totally wrong - and no, the marine isn't game breaking; but I say this as a player who started off random, switched to Terran, hit masters, and switched back to random because Terran felt ridiculously silly to play. Perhaps it was how I was playing that was ridiculous; but it worked well, and I swear up and down, no race can get as far with one unit as Terran can with marines.
You got it backwards bro. Most other units should be as flexible and microable as a marine, not the other way around. You should be able to do the equivalent of marine splitting micro with hydralisks to make them effective against colossus. You should be able to out micro your opponents Marauders with your zealots if you just plain out have better micro.
I dunno, don't get me wrong I think that some units should be good against other units, I just don't really like the whole hard-counter this. You getting a Colossus shouldn't mean any Zerglings/Hydras I have autolose, nor should broodlords cause Zerg to laugh in the face of any Terran without 20 vikings.
The Hydra in particular suffers from this hard counter thing, it either owns hard (gateway units, air) or gets absolutely obliterated. There is absolutely no where in between and micro aside from basic positioning/running individual ones away, hell you can't even poke in with an army of hydra's and then retreat. I bet your average Diamond zerg gets about the same use out of the hydra as a pro does.
As for Marines... well, do you remember this:
We need more units that let us showcase skill. And this is coming from someone who never played an RTS seriously before SC2.
On June 01 2011 12:19 Highways wrote: Problems with existing units:
Warp Gates Reason: Negating distance is sooo stupid. It gives no defenders advantage at all! Genreally in Protoss games there is never any back and forward action like you see in TvZ. This is because of stupid warp gates, if you can't kill the protoss ball in the first push you are dead because of instant reinforcement anywhere on the map. Solution: If a pylon is not near a nexus, then warp in is 3-4 times slower. This means warp gate is still useful for defence but not OP when attacking. Give warp prisms normal warp in time and this unit will actually become useful.
Collosus Reason: Too strong and easy to use. Basically means when a Protoss pushes, it is kill the whole ball or lose. It also forces you too make a hard counter AA unit. Very boring unit. Solution: Not sure.
Marauder Reason: This is such an anti micro unit, once concussive shells hit you escape is impossible. It doesn't make sense that a unit that requires no micro can unleash such a powerful spell. Solution: Make concussive shells an active ability.
Roach Reason: When I think of ZvP all I can see in mass roach and attack move. Where is the skill in that? Very boring and easy to use unit. Solution: Not sure.
Baneling Reason: It is an awesome and fun unit but too easy to use. Only problem is that it doesn't require much skill to use, most people just move it past the tanks then attack move. Solution: Get rid of auto explode, make it so the only way a baneling blows up is if you hit the 'x' button. This means zergs will actually have to micro and have sick baneling control (maybe increase damage to compensate?). It will help seperate top tier zergs from noob ones. Only exception is when dropping from an overlord where they will instantly explode.
Warp Gates Reason: Negating distance is sooo stupid. It gives no defenders advantage at all! Genreally in Protoss games there is never any back and forward action like you see in TvZ. This is because of stupid warp gates, if you can't kill the protoss ball in the first push you are dead because of instant reinforcement anywhere on the map. Solution: If a pylon is not near a nexus, then warp in is 3-4 times slower. This means warp gate is still useful for defence but not OP when attacking. Give warp prisms normal warp in time and this unit will actually become useful.
I would change that to making the initial wg upgrade make it so that you can warp in anywhere inside of a ring (like the terran sensor tower, but only visible to the player controlling it) and then an upgrade that would allow you to warp in at a pylon anywhere (late tech upgrade, maybe on the cyber core that unlocks when you get a dark shrine, or robo bay, or templar archives or fleat beacon). Then buff zealots and stalkers to compensate.
As a side note, if you buff zealots, you should buff lings to compensate.
Collosus Reason: Too strong and easy to use. Basically means when a Protoss pushes, it is kill the whole ball or lose. It also forces you too make a hard counter AA unit. Very boring unit. Solution: Not sure.
the sad thing about the collosi is that at least 9/10 people have it on their list of 3 units to change or remove. It will be funny when they are unchanged in HotS...
Marauder Reason: This is such an anti micro unit, once concussive shells hit you escape is impossible. It doesn't make sense that a unit that requires no micro can unleash such a powerful spell. Solution: Make concussive shells an active ability.
I would like to see how you would implement this. Would it be a timed ability? would it be a 25 energy ability and they would start at 50 energy? How much would the attack do? What would you do about tricks where ppl could do a normal shot and then a concussive shot to deal double damage... being a spell would a player be able to just pump out 4 conc shots plus 2 reg shots to deal like 150 damage to armored units? It would be funny to see a marauder rape a stalker even worse with this.
Roach Reason: When I think of ZvP all I can see in mass roach and attack move. Where is the skill in that? Very boring and easy to use unit. Solution: Not sure.
The solution is to either get rid of this unit or put it at tier 2 (with a diff specialty) and put hydra back at tier 1. I would advocate to start testing at 1f, 7dmg, 2.5 move speed, .86 atk speed, a range upgrade (like it has) and a speed upgrade (like it had). this would also make it ez to implement the lurker.
Baneling Reason: It is an awesome and fun unit but too easy to use. Only problem is that it doesn't require much skill to use, most people just move it past the tanks then attack move. Solution: Get rid of auto explode, make it so the only way a baneling blows up is if you hit the 'x' button. This means zergs will actually have to micro and have sick baneling control (maybe increase damage to compensate?). It will help seperate top tier zergs from noob ones. Only exception is when dropping from an overlord where they will instantly explode.
While I am all for making micro important, the tank messes with your entire plan. this unit already eats a shit sandwhich vs tank marine, the only saving grace is that it absolutely annihilates marines. I would get rid of the baneling. Yeah, I play zerg and I hate this unit. It is expensive (50min/25 gas each), fragile and so powerful that they are on the verge of being op. taking out 30 marines in 1 shot should be nothing less than a micro miracle. Someone else said it perfectly, "nail some wings to the baneling (gently), rename it scourge and tell it to get rid of the corrupter."
On June 02 2011 14:52 iCanada wrote: Most other units should be as flexible and microable as a marine, not the other way around.
Well said. For me the embodiment of this concept would be the vulture (with spider mines). It was both defensive and offensive, and capable of extreme efficiency in the hands of a skilled player but a powder keg in the hands of novice. And unlike forcefield the micro wasn't one-sided. (Youtube "Bisu's crazy micro against spider mines" if you haven't.)
It takes a lot of the tactical use away from Battlecurisers, Carriers, Colossus, Broodlords, Voidrays, Phoenix, Medivacs and other Viking
Air units are too mobile as they effectively move in free space--9 Range air-to-air shouldn't exist on fairly accessibly units. It should be like in Broodwar and how the Goliath had long range anti air, but due to it being a ground unit it fell victim to terrain so it didn't completely cripple air units
As a Protoss player I would like to see the warp in mechanic similar to the Zerg's creep mechanic. You would have to spread your warp in area throughout the game similar to spreading creep via creep tumors. This would mean you would have to earn the right to take away the defenders advantage and warp in units near the opponents base. It would also solve PvP and the 4 gate in general, and on large maps we would see warp prism usage I believe as it was designed to be used.
I feel this would also pave the way for gateway units to be buffed (stalkers mainly) and the colossus to be nerfed, which would result in a more diverse array of playstyles available for toss in all matchups.
Well imo most boring are marauder and roach which are made to counter themselves and stalkers. There was no need for these kinda units. Hard to say for the 3rd place there are so many dull units. Maybe its colossus since its so much talked about.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Collosus - Scrap it. When every match-up relies on the same unit there's instantly a big problem with it. Overseer - Redesign it with another spell or an energy upgrade so it can Contaminate right away. It shouldn't be scrapped though because of balance. Ultralisk - Cut the Ultra size down, like they did with Thor's, so it's not 10 buckets of retardation when trying to move 2 of the fucking things.
I could go on, but I won't.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. EMP Forcefield Unit movement (balls instead of armies is a no-no)
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? Meh. Don't care.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Zerg needs a moderately timed siege unit to hold out, so Lurkers would be nice. Terran could do with either Vulture or Goliath. Goliath fits in better though because of the Hellion. A bit more mobile style of mech would come back. Protoss could do with something better suited to harass instead of balling up to 200/200 then 1A to victory. DT kind of fits, but only barely. Stalker too I guess, but a bit faster to get and assault with. It can be built on Gateway, builds faster than a Zealot, is faster, but nowhere near as strong. Kind of an assault or defensive posture on which one you get first.
- Units that need rework/redesign 1. Mothership - comes up as a very cool unit at first, but its current spells are too similar to the Brood War arbiter that make it a not very interesting unit. The problem might lies to the fact that it is currently a hero unit. - New unit or remove hero status.
- Spells that need rework/redesign 1. Marauder's Concussive Shells - got no problem with the concept of the spell, but it nelgate micro; punishes opposing player too much that make the matchup uninteresting. - Minor tweaks to the spell, maybe make it an active ability (with cooldown).
- Mechanics that need rework/redeisgn 1. Mule - not a really interesting marco mechanic, very little thinking involved when compare to the other races marco mechanic (although might say that Terran has to choose between Scan and Mule, but I find it Mule itself uninteresting). - Minor tweaks.
- New units/buildings/abilities 1. a Zerg ground to air unit - Zerg has only two ground to air units in the game which one of them (Queen) is a totally immobile off creep.
2. a Zerg spell that neutralize opponent's energy (similar to Feedback and Emp).
On June 02 2011 13:25 Meta wrote: Here are a few of my thoughts: - What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Colossus I think the colossus is a poorly designed unit. It's viable as a core-army unit in every matchup. It's almost required in 2/3 matchups. Strictly speaking, it either needs to lose mobility or lose damage. Or they need to can it and bring back reavers. Choosing between reaver/HT tech would actually be a tough choice.
This would be a nice change and we also would see more Warp Prism
Still also think that maybe Blizz should scrap Warp Gates tech > better PvP, HT could get back their Amulet (no instant Stroms because you build like in BW).
EPT
