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On August 20 2011 06:27 HolyArrow wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2011 03:22 TehForce wrote:On August 20 2011 02:46 Huntz wrote:Also, I think there's a clear problem lategame PvT with ghosts. Both snipe and EMP are range 10, while feedback is only range 9. You might say the micro is hard, but with perfect micro from the terran player you end up with this situation where it's literally impossible for the protoss to do anything.
Splitting templar doesn't help when the terran is good enough to double snipe every templar individually (i.e. see SlayerS.taeJa vs ZeNEX.Puzzle game 1 on Katrina AE from the iCCup Nationvoice Korean weekly week 7 semifinals). Since templar feedback range is shorter than the snipe range if the terran micros correctly like we see taeja do, there is literally no way for templar to beat ghosts. QFT. I mean seriously, EMP out ranges feedback and storm by 3 (!) if used at max range. That's absolutely ridiculous. If the terran plays perfectly, he'll win every mid/late game TvP. That shouldn't have happen. EMP is difficult to cast at max range and has a very slight cast time, so I think range 8 or even 8.5 would be reasonable, so it still out ranges feedback at maximum range but at perfect skill I think both can go off simultaneously . Snipe might be OK as is because I think feedback/snipe can go off at the same time, otherwise a nerf to 9.5 range would fix it. Just think about it. Blanket EMPs + no storm will always result in a victory for Terran. In theory emp outranges feedback and so emp always wins. But it will never be the case that pro-gameplay reaches that level because it is impossible. You can't have 100% focus on every ghost of yours 100% of the time. So exactly at the moment you are focused on other stuff protoss player can feedback you. Also army positioning and moving (which is almost non existent even in pro play) can greatly decrease the effectiveness of the emp. 14 emps on 7 high templar doesn't sound that good, right? What you're essentially saying is, "EMP in theory always beats Feedback, but to do that, Terran players actually have to always pay attention to their micro, and if they ever stop paying attention, a Protoss who is always paying attention to his micro will win". Yeah. The guy that pays attention to micro should win the engagement >_> I don't see how that's relevant. The real problem here is that no matter how well the Protoss micros, if the Terran micros well, HTs cannot come out on top against Ghosts, but Ghosts can come out on top against HTs. Of course, this is all under the assumption that HTs and Ghosts are supposed to fight on even ground to begin with. Perhaps Protoss is meant to deal with Ghosts through other means.
In a lot of korean games recently, I've been seeing more and more protoss players using warp prisms to maneuver HT's around to avoid emp. Potentially useful I suppose. Although half the time they get sniped by vikings >_>
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On August 20 2011 05:47 Toadvine wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2011 05:43 Sotamursu wrote:
I thought the removal of VR speed was to help terran against mass void rays. Since you couldn't kite them with vikings anymore. Nope, it was supposed to fix lategame PvZ, because Kiwikaki kept beating Catz with mass speedray. I wish I was actually joking, but I've never seen anyone except Kiwi use them in actual high-profile games. :/
Leave it to Kiwi to be too creative t.t
I think a problem with some of the discussion (on all sides though I think it's particularly relevant to zergs discussing the infestor) is that they look at the ability or unit without the context of the matchup. FF's ability to restrict movement has different implications in the light of perma kiting marauders in PvT than . Terrans frequently say that emp doesn't kill health. That ignores the Toss army's normal ability against a large bio ball and what emp does to the toss army's ability to engage and its ability to retreat. I can't remember a toss argument along these lines except no one seems to address that if they made emp like feedback you risk sentry rape (Remember when MC's beautiful FFs cut july to pieces? Different matchup but we've seen terran armies surgically destroyed before too).
I think if the discussion should marginally hint about the implications of the change to the broader matchup. For instance, Emp might be better as a feedbackish spell or a much smaller radius because once a terran has x number of ghosts they can mass emp a toss army and roll it in a straight fight. This however ignores that without emp storm will devestate the army (Though they can micro against it/use medivacs) or that FF's can be absolutely brutal and no emp leaves no way for Terran to react against mass sentry threats (Whereas roaches can burrow).
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My 2¢: Fix Protoss Air. More specifically, reduce the cost of the Phoenix from 150M/100G to 100M/100G AND reduce their HP/SP from 120/60 to 100/60. Further, the Graviton Beam Energy cost should be reduced from 50 to 25 AND the duration from 10s to 5s.
Explanation: Making the Phoenix more viable gives Protoss a harass option they desperately need while providing a strong alternative to the 4 Warp Gate Rush so common in PvP. By reducing the cost by a mere 50 minerals would mean maybe one or two more Phoenixes are made or instead having enough resources to have some semblance of a ground army. This is offset by reducing the HP by a substantial 20 points, meaning that although a few more can be fielded each one can't hang in a fight as long.
The change in the Graviton Beam energy cost and duration would mean more can be cast, but the total duration of lifting up remains unchanged thereby preserving the behavior of the spell towards high HP units but increasing it's efficiency towards low ones. With a little added micro, this would make the Phoenix much more potent at harassing mineral lines. As it stands right now 3 or 4 Phoenix can only kill 3 or 4 workers which is negligible to a Terran who can MULE or Zerg who can Drone. Also this is pathetic when comparing to the Terran Banshee or Zerg Mutalisk air harass options. A T or Z who prepares properly will completely deny Phoenixes, but at least they MUST prepare - no different from what Toss must do presently vs air.
All values are suggestions, but changing this unit in this direction would solve some of the problems Protoss is facing right now. You'd have a truly viable air harass unit, an alternative to 4 Warp-Gate in PvP and making the only fast Protoss unit worth making and safe enough to transition out of.
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On August 20 2011 10:14 Fwiffo wrote:
My 2¢: Fix Protoss Air. More specifically, reduce the cost of the Phoenix from 150M/100G to 100M/100G AND reduce their HP/SP from 120/60 to 100/60. Further, the Graviton Beam Energy cost should be reduced from 50 to 25 AND the duration from 10s to 5s.
Explanation: Making the Phoenix more viable gives Protoss a harass option they desperately need while providing a strong alternative to the 4 Warp Gate Rush so common in PvP. By reducing the cost by a mere 50 minerals would mean maybe one or two more Phoenixes are made or instead having enough resources to have some semblance of a ground army. This is offset by reducing the HP by a substantial 20 points, meaning that although a few more can be fielded each one can't hang in a fight as long.
The change in the Graviton Beam energy cost and duration would mean more can be cast, but the total duration of lifting up remains unchanged thereby preserving the behavior of the spell towards high HP units but increasing it's efficiency towards low ones. With a little added micro, this would make the Phoenix much more potent at harassing mineral lines. As it stands right now 3 or 4 Phoenix can only kill 3 or 4 workers which is negligible to a Terran who can MULE or Zerg who can Drone. Also this is pathetic when comparing to the Terran Banshee or Zerg Mutalisk air harass options. A T or Z who prepares properly will completely deny Phoenixes, but at least they MUST prepare - no different from what Toss must do presently vs air.
All values are suggestions, but changing this unit in this direction would solve some of the problems Protoss is facing right now. You'd have a truly viable air harass unit, an alternative to 4 Warp-Gate in PvP and making the only fast Protoss unit worth making safe enough to transition out of.
or you can just make probes cost 5 minerals and you start off with a 200/200 army...just my 2¢
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On August 20 2011 10:14 Fwiffo wrote:
My 2¢: Fix Protoss Air. More specifically, reduce the cost of the Phoenix from 150M/100G to 100M/100G AND reduce their HP/SP from 120/60 to 100/60. Further, the Graviton Beam Energy cost should be reduced from 50 to 25 AND the duration from 10s to 5s.
Explanation: Making the Phoenix more viable gives Protoss a harass option they desperately need while providing a strong alternative to the 4 Warp Gate Rush so common in PvP. By reducing the cost by a mere 50 minerals would mean maybe one or two more Phoenixes are made or instead having enough resources to have some semblance of a ground army. This is offset by reducing the HP by a substantial 20 points, meaning that although a few more can be fielded each one can't hang in a fight as long.
The change in the Graviton Beam energy cost and duration would mean more can be cast, but the total duration of lifting up remains unchanged thereby preserving the behavior of the spell towards high HP units but increasing it's efficiency towards low ones. With a little added micro, this would make the Phoenix much more potent at harassing mineral lines. As it stands right now 3 or 4 Phoenix can only kill 3 or 4 workers which is negligible to a Terran who can MULE or Zerg who can Drone. Also this is pathetic when comparing to the Terran Banshee or Zerg Mutalisk air harass options. A T or Z who prepares properly will completely deny Phoenixes, but at least they MUST prepare - no different from what Toss must do presently vs air.
All values are suggestions, but changing this unit in this direction would solve some of the problems Protoss is facing right now. You'd have a truly viable air harass unit, an alternative to 4 Warp-Gate in PvP and making the only fast Protoss unit worth making safe enough to transition out of.
they should not decrease the phoenix price, but the energy is something that I already said in this thread. the way it is now, if you harass with your phoenix you can't defend, and if you are using then to defend you can't really spend the energy killing scv's.
if you could use phoenix to kill marines, the 1/1/1 would be a lot easier to hold.
they should make:
light units 25 energy
armored 50 energy
massive no amount of energy can lift then up
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On August 20 2011 10:24 Grampz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2011 10:14 Fwiffo wrote:
My 2¢: Fix Protoss Air. More specifically, reduce the cost of the Phoenix from 150M/100G to 100M/100G AND reduce their HP/SP from 120/60 to 100/60. Further, the Graviton Beam Energy cost should be reduced from 50 to 25 AND the duration from 10s to 5s.
Explanation: Making the Phoenix more viable gives Protoss a harass option they desperately need while providing a strong alternative to the 4 Warp Gate Rush so common in PvP. By reducing the cost by a mere 50 minerals would mean maybe one or two more Phoenixes are made or instead having enough resources to have some semblance of a ground army. This is offset by reducing the HP by a substantial 20 points, meaning that although a few more can be fielded each one can't hang in a fight as long.
The change in the Graviton Beam energy cost and duration would mean more can be cast, but the total duration of lifting up remains unchanged thereby preserving the behavior of the spell towards high HP units but increasing it's efficiency towards low ones. With a little added micro, this would make the Phoenix much more potent at harassing mineral lines. As it stands right now 3 or 4 Phoenix can only kill 3 or 4 workers which is negligible to a Terran who can MULE or Zerg who can Drone. Also this is pathetic when comparing to the Terran Banshee or Zerg Mutalisk air harass options. A T or Z who prepares properly will completely deny Phoenixes, but at least they MUST prepare - no different from what Toss must do presently vs air.
All values are suggestions, but changing this unit in this direction would solve some of the problems Protoss is facing right now. You'd have a truly viable air harass unit, an alternative to 4 Warp-Gate in PvP and making the only fast Protoss unit worth making safe enough to transition out of. or you can just make probes cost 5 minerals and you start off with a 200/200 army...just my 2¢
Or you could make sense or not post at all. Here's 2¢ more. Just 98 to go and you've got a whole dollar!
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On August 20 2011 10:29 rpgalon wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2011 10:14 Fwiffo wrote:
My 2¢: Fix Protoss Air. More specifically, reduce the cost of the Phoenix from 150M/100G to 100M/100G AND reduce their HP/SP from 120/60 to 100/60. Further, the Graviton Beam Energy cost should be reduced from 50 to 25 AND the duration from 10s to 5s.
Explanation: Making the Phoenix more viable gives Protoss a harass option they desperately need while providing a strong alternative to the 4 Warp Gate Rush so common in PvP. By reducing the cost by a mere 50 minerals would mean maybe one or two more Phoenixes are made or instead having enough resources to have some semblance of a ground army. This is offset by reducing the HP by a substantial 20 points, meaning that although a few more can be fielded each one can't hang in a fight as long.
The change in the Graviton Beam energy cost and duration would mean more can be cast, but the total duration of lifting up remains unchanged thereby preserving the behavior of the spell towards high HP units but increasing it's efficiency towards low ones. With a little added micro, this would make the Phoenix much more potent at harassing mineral lines. As it stands right now 3 or 4 Phoenix can only kill 3 or 4 workers which is negligible to a Terran who can MULE or Zerg who can Drone. Also this is pathetic when comparing to the Terran Banshee or Zerg Mutalisk air harass options. A T or Z who prepares properly will completely deny Phoenixes, but at least they MUST prepare - no different from what Toss must do presently vs air.
All values are suggestions, but changing this unit in this direction would solve some of the problems Protoss is facing right now. You'd have a truly viable air harass unit, an alternative to 4 Warp-Gate in PvP and making the only fast Protoss unit worth making safe enough to transition out of. they should not decrease the phoenix price, but the energy is something that I already said in this thread. the way it is now, if you harass with your phoenix you can't defend, and if you are using then to defend you can't really spend the energy killing scv's. if you could use phoenix to kill marines, the 1/1/1 would be a lot easier to hold. they should make: light units 25 energy armored 50 energy massive no amount of energy can lift then up
I'm glad we're thinking along the same lines. My suggestion for lower cost at lower health is such that the build is viable in PvP vs 4 WG Rush.
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http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=21150
That right there is why balance shouldn't be done in most cases.
Blizzard throughout all of BW only had those patches to stop very abusive early rushes (even earlier 4 pool) and bug/crash fixes. Sure there are a couple others, but the game solved itself with the work of people being able to watch pros. If you saw how X held off Y then you could copy that. Also in BW many people held off the 4pool with ease.
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I think vikings should be light armored in the air and armored on the ground that way over producing vikings is easily countered by thors, and that hellions cannot own vikings landed. They need to add dps to vikings when landed 10x2.
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On August 20 2011 15:01 NoobSkills wrote:http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=21150That right there is why balance shouldn't be done in most cases. Blizzard throughout all of BW only had those patches to stop very abusive early rushes (even earlier 4 pool) and bug/crash fixes. Sure there are a couple others, but the game solved itself with the work of people being able to watch pros. If you saw how X held off Y then you could copy that. Also in BW many people held off the 4pool with ease.
While that is all fine and great for BW, (I love it btw), that doesn't mean we still can't tweak a few things with sc2.
I'd love to have a game that's as equally balanced as BW as much as the next person, but i feel like a lot of the perceived imbalance comes from maps and a few characteristics.
Like Warp-in. I realize it's a critical part of the protoss army, i feel like it just provides a little too much offensive capability. And of course, to counter balance that, you make gateway units "weaker" in comparison to Terran rax play.
now, you have to dance that razer thin wire, trying to balance early game strength with late game strength, since if gateway units were really strong, everyone would only 4gate ever, because there's no need for a robo, if you can kill people and reinforce instantly.
So you make their units weaker, leaving them open to stim timing attacks etc.
I feel like these are important factors that need to be discussed, at the very least, so that Heart & Legacy can be as complete as possible, and we don't accidentally end up with a pile of trash.
As for the phoenix changes the guys above are talking about, I personally feel like a change like that should result in, instead of lower hp, perhaps a slightly slower move speed. I'm not talking like, slow them to carrier speed or anything. But slow them down a little. So they can still outrun mutas, but not be so, oh, here's the enemy, time to instantly take no damage if you're harassing.
the slightly slower speed would make committing to harass good (i like the 25 energy light vs 50 energy regular & no massive), while the costs & hp remain the same. It would make killing scvs & marines / lings / hydras slightly more beneficial, and less committal, while still retaining an element of danger.
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Since 1-1-1 and pretty much every terran all-in is way too strong because of marines, I would give them -5 initial hp while buffing the +10hp upgrade to +15 so they keep being so good at everything later.
Banshees could need a nerf as well IMHO, since they are a better harrasment unit than anything protoss has (flying DTs) that actually do very well in a straight up fight, since protoss AA is terribad. Something like -10 or -20 hp to make it more clear that its a specialist harrass unit or used only to snipe stuff with their sick DPS.
Infestor also needs some work (has been discused to boredom) and it would be cool to have a decent reason to get carrier tech, even if just for the lulz in multiplayer games (Flux Vanes? VRs are crap anyway...).
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On August 20 2011 15:43 Salteador Neo wrote:
Since 1-1-1 and pretty much every terran all-in is way too strong because of marines, I would give them -5 initial hp while buffing the +10hp upgrade to +15 so they keep being so good at everything later.
Banshees could need a nerf as well IMHO, since they are a better harrasment unit than anything protoss has (flying DTs) that actually do very well in a straight up fight, since protoss AA is terribad. Something like -10 or -20 hp to make it more clear that its a specialist harrass unit or used only to snipe stuff with their sick DPS.
Infestor also needs some work (has been discused to boredom) and it would be cool to have a decent reason to get carrier tech, even if just for the lulz in multiplayer games (Flux Vanes? VRs are crap anyway...).
I feel like you're lacking a general theory through your thread. Not to attack your ideas, but let's think about them constructively?
1. I don't know if it's necessarily the marines that are the overpowered unit. What could be done instead of just moving the HP around (while discussed earlier in the thread, and possibly a good idea), it might be good to consider something like the u-15 upgrade in BW (increased the range of the marine). I feel like drastically reducing the HP of the marine by 1 whole ling hit would also drastically change the state of the game in TvZ. Throw in fungals, and you stim, and you literally kill all your marines (if you don't have the HP upgrade).
2. Banshees - are we trying to pigeonhole them into a harass unit too much? they already move pretty slowly (in comparison to other harass units), and while they can cloak, they still cost a lot of gas, and build comparatively very slowly.
People often say that "DTs are countered by spore crawlers / turrets." and that's why they "suck" as a harass unit. Just because they can be seen, doesn't mean they still don't 1shot workers. So if you can catch a player off guard, you can make out with a fair few worker kills. A similar vein with the banshee, 1 photon cannon / spore / turret shuts down harass at a particular mineral line.
3. I'm unconvinced that the infestor needs a lot of work. Yes, it is an extremely powerful caster unit, but ghosts and templar are equally powerful. Feedback and EMP can do massive amounts of 'damage' even if it's just depleting the energy in the infestor. (As for the VR comment, i don't know what to say to that, I feel like VRs can deal massive amounts of damage i certain situations, esp PvZ).
I'm not trying to pick a fight or anything, i'm just trying to provide counter arguments to the ideas you've put forward, so we can flush them out and come up with something actually good.
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On August 20 2011 15:35 reneg wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2011 15:01 NoobSkills wrote:http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=21150That right there is why balance shouldn't be done in most cases. Blizzard throughout all of BW only had those patches to stop very abusive early rushes (even earlier 4 pool) and bug/crash fixes. Sure there are a couple others, but the game solved itself with the work of people being able to watch pros. If you saw how X held off Y then you could copy that. Also in BW many people held off the 4pool with ease. While that is all fine and great for BW, (I love it btw), that doesn't mean we still can't tweak a few things with sc2. I'd love to have a game that's as equally balanced as BW as much as the next person, but i feel like a lot of the perceived imbalance comes from maps and a few characteristics. Like Warp-in. I realize it's a critical part of the protoss army, i feel like it just provides a little too much offensive capability. And of course, to counter balance that, you make gateway units "weaker" in comparison to Terran rax play. now, you have to dance that razer thin wire, trying to balance early game strength with late game strength, since if gateway units were really strong, everyone would only 4gate ever, because there's no need for a robo, if you can kill people and reinforce instantly. So you make their units weaker, leaving them open to stim timing attacks etc. I feel like these are important factors that need to be discussed, at the very least, so that Heart & Legacy can be as complete as possible, and we don't accidentally end up with a pile of trash. As for the phoenix changes the guys above are talking about, I personally feel like a change like that should result in, instead of lower hp, perhaps a slightly slower move speed. I'm not talking like, slow them to carrier speed or anything. But slow them down a little. So they can still outrun mutas, but not be so, oh, here's the enemy, time to instantly take no damage if you're harassing. the slightly slower speed would make committing to harass good (i like the 25 energy light vs 50 energy regular & no massive), while the costs & hp remain the same. It would make killing scvs & marines / lings / hydras slightly more beneficial, and less committal, while still retaining an element of danger.
My point was the game worked itself out not blizzard reworking the game. Flash came up with his two armory build and then protoss figured out that they could recall their army on top of those armories before 2/2 finished. That isn't necessarily the best example, but one that shows my point at the least. I do agree with you though on warp in mechanic making the protoss ground army weaker which was actually all protoss used (usually) in brood war except for the carrier or reaver/dt corsair build. I don't like that I feel my zealots are weak when I play toss or my stalker ineffectual. The 4 gate however was never "OP" because even in PvP people were beginning to hold it off quite easily as well as in the other matchups. People were working things out on their own hell Day9 had a show where he worked out a build with immortal zealot which was pretty good.
Though I do want a better experience for the last game there are soooooo many factors which is why I really don't like balance talk.
Races
Pro players who actually suck compared to others.
Build Order
Unit choice
IMO a shitty map pool compared to BW
rather weak siege units.
Units no longer always do damage (hellion vs marauder) there are types involved.
Just seems like so much is underdeveloped to be making balance decisions from them.
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Personally I think Blizzard has shot itself in the foot when it comes to leeway for balancing units and creating new ones. The reason why is pretty simple: It is very easy to get and use high concentrations of units in SC2. This makes all area attacks potentially broken (too powerful) and even for single attack units it can be extremely powerful if they have a ranged attack. In Brood War the Siege Tank and Psi Storm did more damage and it was "ok" simply because they would hit only a limited amount of units, but in SC2 those had to be "toned down" because they would be too powerful otherwise.
There have been lots of threads about the imbalance of the MULE (which cant be discussed without looking at the Zerg and Protoss counterparts) and the "Perfect unit movement" here on TL, but they were mostly looking for an imbalance for one race or the other. Perfect and tight unit movement allows for "the Protoss deathball" to exist and thus it created some potential imbalance on some maps and the macro boost utilities for all three races (1) speed up the unit production to such an extent that it can mean the difference between win or loss at the start of a game if you dont do what your opponent does and he simply overruns you with a mass of units.
A solution to this is highly unlikely - unless the majority of the community can agree on this being bad - because it affects the core of the game which isnt units. I dont see such a unified cry for change happening because people tend to be stupid and try to fix the EFFECT instead of the CAUSE.
Personally I think it is illogical that Warp Gate should speed up the unit production, because it should be more complicated to warp in a unit "somewhere in a power field" instead of "in a structure designed for warping in units". The choice should be between "faster production" (in a Gateway) and "produce anywhere" (with a Warp Gate) and could open more options for the players. This is the easiest change I could imagine for those things which I think as "bad for balancing".
Downright nerfing the MULE, Larva inject and Chronoboost could be done since the numbers are big enough, BUT the Reactor is part of the Terran "speedy production process" and it would have to be changed to a simple "speed up the production" to be changed in sufficiently small increments. Instead of "100% production speed" it could become 50%, but then it might not be as attractive anymore due to the limited unit selection. Maybe the whole Reactor would need to be changed into a research at the Fusion Core to upgrade the Tech Labs with additional speed boost (just like the optional Reactor+TechLab from the campaign). The whole balance design should be started from scratch IMO without all the macro speed ups ... as long as there is still an expansion to come to totally change the game it is a possibility. It is necessary to allow for maximum creativity for unit design.
(1) MULE, Reactor, Larvae inject, Chronoboost and to a lesser extent Warp Gate (because it also speeds up the production)
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The Protoss warp-in mechanics are bunk, imho. Can't rally. Can't queue. You have to move your screen and click for each unit, then you cant even issue an attack command until they finish warping in. This sucks during battles.
Chronoboost also needs to be targeted on varying buildings on a situational basis, while inject and MULEs always go on mineral/hatch.
Edit: Let Toss set rallies to pylons, if they select the gateways and produce units, the units go to the rally (useful when you cant look away). But, if you press W to warp in, you still get to select where each unit goes like the current system.
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problem with phoenix only using 25 to lift up light owuld be the only counter zerg would have to phoenix would be infestor, seeing as phoenix would rape hydras even harder than they already do
and i guess corruptors but if you make corruptors to counter phoenix youre doing it wrong i m o
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United States7483 Posts
On August 20 2011 10:14 Fwiffo wrote:
My 2¢: Fix Protoss Air. More specifically, reduce the cost of the Phoenix from 150M/100G to 100M/100G AND reduce their HP/SP from 120/60 to 100/60. Further, the Graviton Beam Energy cost should be reduced from 50 to 25 AND the duration from 10s to 5s.
Explanation: Making the Phoenix more viable gives Protoss a harass option they desperately need while providing a strong alternative to the 4 Warp Gate Rush so common in PvP. By reducing the cost by a mere 50 minerals would mean maybe one or two more Phoenixes are made or instead having enough resources to have some semblance of a ground army. This is offset by reducing the HP by a substantial 20 points, meaning that although a few more can be fielded each one can't hang in a fight as long.
The change in the Graviton Beam energy cost and duration would mean more can be cast, but the total duration of lifting up remains unchanged thereby preserving the behavior of the spell towards high HP units but increasing it's efficiency towards low ones. With a little added micro, this would make the Phoenix much more potent at harassing mineral lines. As it stands right now 3 or 4 Phoenix can only kill 3 or 4 workers which is negligible to a Terran who can MULE or Zerg who can Drone. Also this is pathetic when comparing to the Terran Banshee or Zerg Mutalisk air harass options. A T or Z who prepares properly will completely deny Phoenixes, but at least they MUST prepare - no different from what Toss must do presently vs air.
All values are suggestions, but changing this unit in this direction would solve some of the problems Protoss is facing right now. You'd have a truly viable air harass unit, an alternative to 4 Warp-Gate in PvP and making the only fast Protoss unit worth making and safe enough to transition out of.
The mineral cost of the phoenix isn't the issue, it's the gas cost. That, and it can't hit buildings and isn't strong in a straight up fight unless you outnumber the enemy units, or they are fighting air units. It's a bad harass unit compared to most other harass units in the game.
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Lets make this clear: BW is not balanced.
The moment you make a map where forge expand is impossible, balance is broken.
Increasing mineral patches shifts balance P>T>Z>P. Decreasing shifts it in the other direction.
Balance(or the impression of balance) in BW is created by well crafted maps and resource control on them. Korean mapmakers have done a tremendous job, while ladder maps of sc2 are pretty much trash. Add to it some ridiculous ideas like altering terrain(force field), cloaked flying unit with too much firepower(banshee), stopping unit movement(fungal), ability to not have any workers(orbitals), etc etc and people wonder why balance wont find itself like it did with BW.
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my 2cents
Redesigning the game from scratch is too much of a hassle now, I think the correct approach would be balancing around maps. I don't mean make every map the exact same, but have something like a standard. Blizz takes a look at each races stats and says if the MU is close to 50%, then it's perfectly fine. What I'm suggesting is that they take a much much harder look at the winrates on each map, then find out how games are being won, what builds are being used, then question, "Why is race x doing so well on map y". Also having something like a diamon league or master league and above filter, so that they can tell the players are both competent and around the same skill level.
Blizz isn't incapable of having a very very solid balanced map pool (shakuras,metal,xel naga, tal'darim etc), they just choose not to (close positions, delta quadrant, scrap station, some of the new maps etc)
At the moment I feel like they're going, "Heres your new maps, see you in four months". Maybe the blizzard map makers are not thinking enough about how maps will play out.
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On August 20 2011 17:30 DragonDefonce wrote:
Lets make this clear: BW is not balanced.
The moment you make a map where forge expand is impossible, balance is broken.
Increasing mineral patches shifts balance P>T>Z>P. Decreasing shifts it in the other direction.
Balance(or the impression of balance) in BW is created by well crafted maps and resource control on them. Korean mapmakers have done a tremendous job, while ladder maps of sc2 are pretty much trash. Add to it some ridiculous ideas like altering terrain(force field), cloaked flying unit with too much firepower(banshee), stopping unit movement(fungal), ability to not have any workers(orbitals), etc etc and people wonder why balance wont find itself like it did with BW.
I am hoping for a new style of maps where it is introducing factors instead of fixing them. The self-destroying watchtower on Xel' Naga Fortress was a good idea showing that Protoss usually never uses the watch tower in a game where they are not ahead, and is only used by Zerg during non-battle periods.
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EPT
