Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 121

On September 26 2011 12:59 Shiori wrote:

Storm is not "too effective" because it is never possible to land a full storm except by doughnuting the enemy with forcefields. emp is effective because it has a larger aoe, is instant, and, on average, does more damage. it's actually pretty rare for storm to outright "kill" something, so that argument is moot anyway.

feedback isn't terribly effective against ghosts either, because emp is such a long range spell. furthermore, feedbacking ghosts doesn't usually kill them (they're not infestors, after all) and means you have fewer storms. the problem here is that the ghost has the ability to counter casters and counter protoss compositions in general with just 1 spell. feedback is actually pretty terrible against ghosts in general. if you're using a warp prism to get near them to feedback, then chances are those high templars are dead meat anyway and some emps will go off anyway.

as for getting multiple prisms, i think it's just a bad strat. it's a mineral dump which basically just consists of you pumping more and more resources into a few storms being effective. what if they aren't? you lose. what if you over-invest? storm is great but it's not actually as strong as it seems. a critical emp is 100x better than a well-placed storm, simply because the damage cannot be mitigated after it hits. the other fact is that when protoss gets high templar, they do that as a composition choice. in signing those templar off to use feedback or sit in a warp prism, you're diminishing the actual core army. since templar are basically the highest tier units in any protoss comp (except ultra-late game) then the terran can very easily just kill your ground forces. even WITH STORM, terrans are quite able to break even with protoss. if we do the warp prism trick, we will at best break even with a competent terran (and usually will not make even that) which is a huge issue.

it's simply not possible to get a lot of ghosts, see the opponents composition, act a millisecond too late, and lose. emp outranges everything and is actually far more devastating to protoss than storm is to terran. why? because it nullifies protoss's two racial advantages: energy and shields. the sentry is literally the life of protoss armies. if you emp them, we have several hundred gas tied up in useless units. but it gets better. that same spell doubles as a larger-aoe storm that works better against protoss than storm ever could. you see, protoss units lose cost-for-cost to terran units and have a lower dps in general. we rely on the sentry/gateway composition coupled with high health/shield units in order to stand our ground (and i'd argue that this is a flawed concept in itself, but so it is). EMP nullifies both of these things. that's the problem. high templar just do more damage. they're expensive and, while they work well against terran t1 as a t3 unit should, they are not game-changing in a conventional sense. storm is great, but it's essentially an aoe attack that can be dodged for 50%+ of its damage. EMP is something which gives a definitive advantage in battle no matter what it hits.

as for the high templar being the counter to the ghost, that's just silly. it's a counter to the ghost in the same way that zealots counter marine/marauder. they're supposed to, and theoretically there are situations in which they could, but it's far easier for the ghost to kill the HT than vice versa. furthermore, ghosts aren't a risky investment and can't really be made useless except by other ghosts. feedback, in general, is a pretty average spell which pales in comparison to the anti-caster spells terran gets.

i actually don't have a problem with the fact that EMP is good against HTs. I think that's great. the ghost should be an anti-caster unit. EMP should not affect shields. At all. the ghost should be situational just like hts are, and just like infestors are starting to be. when you see your opponent teching to templar, you should smartly decide to get ghosts. you should not be rewarded for blindly teching to a unit that's good against everything. if the protoss doesn't get HTs, and you have ghosts, their effectiveness should be reduced. and before anyone complains about chargelot archon, terrans were beating that composition long before they discovered how good the ghost is.

so in summary: make emp only drain energy. then it's equally good against protoss and zerg (it's sad that a unit counters specifically an entire race). it would also probably be beneficial to reduce the range to 9 to bring it in line with the other aoe spells, but that's not as important.

basically, terran should not be able to do a 2-for-1 with EMP. it's either energy or shields. not both. and i think it would be better for it to drain energy rather than shields, simply because it makes more sense for the ghost as an anti-caster. since terran units are already so dps-heavy, they don't need a burst-damage spell the way protoss does (and to a lesser extent zerg). the balance in this regard is asymmetric. honestly, there's nothing balanced about the ghost right now; pretending otherwise is just silly and i think everyone pretty much knows that. it's way too versatile and can totally change the game in 1 second.

On September 26 2011 13:56 love4every1 wrote:
Second of all, emp is the same as storm in that it's main use (besides damage) is positional control. You emp their force as a terran, protoss shouldn't engage. You run away and leave a storm in your wake, they won't get through without evening the odds, and it works vice versa.

Thirdly, you forgot what we would be using the warp prism for: getting into the range of feedback and storm without giving the terran the edge in range. Since snipe and emp aren't going to kill the prism, and you can drop a feedback or a storm and have a larger than average chance of escaping with good dropship micro and multiple prisms, either choice would wreak havoc with a fairly high success rates.

Fourth, HT have the greatest anti-caster spell, not ghosts. HT have the ability to one shot any spellcaster, which is the most likely scenario considering the ghosts would be useless in battle otherwise, which would be the worst case scenario for a feedback. Just because ghosts have area of effect doesn't mean that they have the best anti-caster; protoss shouldn't have them all in one control group, just because they don't separate them doesn't make it AOE's fault. Plus, prism HT drops would negate AEO attacks vs. spellcasters.

Fifth, HT are only a bad investment now because you aren't used to getting storms off. Storm counters units in general, so it is consistently good especially in the late game vs. terran IF you can get them off, which prism micro would allow. Storm decimates bio armies, and emp decimates shields. You did say that storms do not decimate bio armies however, so I am willing to agree if you provide replay examples.

Sixth, Ghosts and HT both have 2 for 1. Most likely if you get a feedback off on a ghost it actually is dead, so without saying it would be without energy. So instead of energy and shields, you're trading energy and health.

Seventh, Ghosts should be able to destroy sentries, which actually need to be clumped up and so I agree are decimated by storms unilaterally. Ghosts cost significantly more, and are higher up on the tech tree.

On September 26 2011 13:24 Interneting wrote:
Maybe these have been mentioned, but I don't have time to read 120 pages. So, in regards to the Ghost vs. Protoss...

How about High Templars have greater movement speed and acceleration so that they can be microed out of clumps easier?

On September 26 2011 14:49 CellTech wrote:
Can all you terrans stop pretending that its not hard as heck to feedback this miniature skinny ghost(s) mixed into a MMM army. You get gets BOTH the templars spells (basically) in an auto shot that has massive AoE.

On September 26 2011 16:01 Thrombozyt wrote:


You realize, that there are only two targets for feedback in a terran army (ghosts + medivacs) and it's good to hit both? You further realize, that if you spam F click on the minimap where the battle is about to take place, it will select the best fit energy unit?

So your observer detects 4 ghosts and 6 medivacs, you select 10 Feedbacks worth of HT and one backup, spread them abit, hit F, then hold shift and spam on their army on the minimap. BAM!

Now can you protoss stop pretending, that ALL terran has to do during battle is micro ghosts and wait for HT to drop from a prism?

Also dear protoss, riddle me this!
How many storms does it take to kill a marine that dodges at the best of his abilities? Two!
Now how many EMPs does it take to kill a zealot?

On September 26 2011 12:59 Shiori wrote:

Storm is not "too effective" because it is never possible to land a full storm except by doughnuting the enemy with forcefields. emp is effective because it has a larger aoe, is instant, and, on average, does more damage. it's actually pretty rare for storm to outright "kill" something, so that argument is moot anyway.

feedback isn't terribly effective against ghosts either, because emp is such a long range spell. furthermore, feedbacking ghosts doesn't usually kill them (they're not infestors, after all) and means you have fewer storms. the problem here is that the ghost has the ability to counter casters and counter protoss compositions in general with just 1 spell. feedback is actually pretty terrible against ghosts in general. if you're using a warp prism to get near them to feedback, then chances are those high templars are dead meat anyway and some emps will go off anyway.

as for getting multiple prisms, i think it's just a bad strat. it's a mineral dump which basically just consists of you pumping more and more resources into a few storms being effective. what if they aren't? you lose. what if you over-invest? storm is great but it's not actually as strong as it seems. a critical emp is 100x better than a well-placed storm, simply because the damage cannot be mitigated after it hits. the other fact is that when protoss gets high templar, they do that as a composition choice. in signing those templar off to use feedback or sit in a warp prism, you're diminishing the actual core army. since templar are basically the highest tier units in any protoss comp (except ultra-late game) then the terran can very easily just kill your ground forces. even WITH STORM, terrans are quite able to break even with protoss. if we do the warp prism trick, we will at best break even with a competent terran (and usually will not make even that) which is a huge issue.

it's simply not possible to get a lot of ghosts, see the opponents composition, act a millisecond too late, and lose. emp outranges everything and is actually far more devastating to protoss than storm is to terran. why? because it nullifies protoss's two racial advantages: energy and shields. the sentry is literally the life of protoss armies. if you emp them, we have several hundred gas tied up in useless units. but it gets better. that same spell doubles as a larger-aoe storm that works better against protoss than storm ever could. you see, protoss units lose cost-for-cost to terran units and have a lower dps in general. we rely on the sentry/gateway composition coupled with high health/shield units in order to stand our ground (and i'd argue that this is a flawed concept in itself, but so it is). EMP nullifies both of these things. that's the problem. high templar just do more damage. they're expensive and, while they work well against terran t1 as a t3 unit should, they are not game-changing in a conventional sense. storm is great, but it's essentially an aoe attack that can be dodged for 50%+ of its damage. EMP is something which gives a definitive advantage in battle no matter what it hits.

as for the high templar being the counter to the ghost, that's just silly. it's a counter to the ghost in the same way that zealots counter marine/marauder. they're supposed to, and theoretically there are situations in which they could, but it's far easier for the ghost to kill the HT than vice versa. furthermore, ghosts aren't a risky investment and can't really be made useless except by other ghosts. feedback, in general, is a pretty average spell which pales in comparison to the anti-caster spells terran gets.

i actually don't have a problem with the fact that EMP is good against HTs. I think that's great. the ghost should be an anti-caster unit. EMP should not affect shields. At all. the ghost should be situational just like hts are, and just like infestors are starting to be. when you see your opponent teching to templar, you should smartly decide to get ghosts. you should not be rewarded for blindly teching to a unit that's good against everything. if the protoss doesn't get HTs, and you have ghosts, their effectiveness should be reduced. and before anyone complains about chargelot archon, terrans were beating that composition long before they discovered how good the ghost is.

so in summary: make emp only drain energy. then it's equally good against protoss and zerg (it's sad that a unit counters specifically an entire race). it would also probably be beneficial to reduce the range to 9 to bring it in line with the other aoe spells, but that's not as important.

basically, terran should not be able to do a 2-for-1 with EMP. it's either energy or shields. not both. and i think it would be better for it to drain energy rather than shields, simply because it makes more sense for the ghost as an anti-caster. since terran units are already so dps-heavy, they don't need a burst-damage spell the way protoss does (and to a lesser extent zerg). the balance in this regard is asymmetric. honestly, there's nothing balanced about the ghost right now; pretending otherwise is just silly and i think everyone pretty much knows that. it's way too versatile and can totally change the game in 1 second.

On September 26 2011 14:51 0neder wrote:

How about players actually micro spread them. Movement speed and acceleration would actually make it harder to spread micro them. The whole point is you do this BEFORE you engage to prevent being totally gimped by 1 EMP. But the skill ceiling is still far off and even most top players aren't there yet like they were in BW.

On September 26 2011 16:27 Destructicon wrote:
I'm not sure how all of you came to the conclusion that Warp Prism HT micro is going to save the day for Protoss players when Terrans have this nifty unit called the viking which also happens to have a nice 9 range. Last I checked it takes only 7 Vikings to 1 shot a WP even with the buff they received, and Terrans always have either some Vikings lying around to prepare for Colossus, or have a starport ready to churn out said vikings if need be.

So to put it bluntly, if you put all your HT in a Warp Prisms and hope that you can get a storm or feedback, you're actually putting all your eggs in one basket, the terran can just retreat a bit while vikings 1 shot all your precious WP and HT. If you do a 2 or 3 pronged attack coming with WP and HT from different directions then your WP will be shot down, then the HT coming on foot will be EMPed or sniped before they can feedback or storm.

You are also assuming the terran is going to be dumb and not spread out his own specialists, if protoss attempts to split HT for favorable positioning then the terran can do the same with ghosts and still negate that advantage thanks to better range on snipe and EMP.

Edit: Also forgot to add that, usually a terran will scan ahead of of his army before engaging, if he even smells the scent of a warp prism then you're HT are in for a world of pain.

Again you people seem to be treating the WP HT trick as if its going to be some Deus Ex Machina for Protoss, while at the highest level of play its just a simple trick that will win one or two games before people learn how to fully adapt to that as well.

On September 26 2011 16:48 VirgilSC2 wrote:
....if only Storm did guaranteed effects like Fungal and EMP, it might be worth comparing the two.

You can't micro out of EMP, or Fungal, but you can micro out of Storm. I think that's the biggest discrepancy between the spells.

On September 26 2011 17:05 love4every1 wrote:


You also don't die from emp. You die from the follow up. Which is the same with storm.

Any good storm will either punish the terran from entering close enough to attack, or delay the engagement.

On September 26 2011 17:09 VirgilSC2 wrote:

The difference is EMP isn't designed to kill. Storm is.

On September 26 2011 17:05 love4every1 wrote:


You also don't die from emp. You die from the follow up. Which is the same with storm.

Any good storm will either punish the terran from entering close enough to attack, or delay the engagement.

On September 24 2011 04:43 MeLo wrote:
My balance suggestions for Protoss:

Make an Observer buildable from the Nexus available after Warpgate is finished.
- Increase Observer build time from 40 to 70 seconds.
- Nerf it's pre upgrade speed.
- Remove permanent cloaking.
- Add an upgrade to the Robotics Bay to permanently cloak Observers (cost 50/50).

Case for:
- Allows Protoss to avoid Robo tech altogether without the risk of losing to Cloak.
- Gives Protoss the 5gate, Charge/Blink build, fast High Templars, Stargate builds to fight against 111s without being fucked over by Cloak Banshees.
- Protoss can now do early game Pylon at edge on bottom of cliff warp up Dark Templars to main which would effectively be their Worker harass/raid unit which is what they need and what Terran (Hellions) and Zergs (Mutalisks) have fairly early.
- Makes Blink Stalkers much better in PvP, especially vs "I will have more Collosus than you" builds.

Case against:
- 6-7gate allin vs Zerg becomes 10x stronger.
- Effectively ends Dark Templar rushes in PvP.
- 4gate in all 3 matchups will become stronger (though I think is incredibly weak right now).

Case again