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On March 19 2014 22:24 bo1b wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2014 22:21 DinoMight wrote:On March 19 2014 22:12 Grumbels wrote:
I've become a little bit cynical about blink as an ability though. If you think about its three main uses, none of them require an earth shattering amount of decision making:
- blink forward to intercept
- blink backwards to escape
- individually blink hurt stalkers back (whack-a-mole)
I don't really see what blink adds to the game here, and it's a bit much to hear protoss players wax on about how slightly nerfing the cooldown is gutting the world's most skillful ability. In fact, blink sometimes rather reminds me of how warpgate can function: reinforce anywhere at will without it necessarily requiring amazing strategic planning; and with blink it is: ability to perfectly place your stalkers independent of any obstacles. i.e. it gives amazing benefits that can feel like you haven't earned them.
I do like the ability, doing quick snipes and dodging projectiles was enjoyable in Warcraft 3, and in Starcraft II you can use it for more complicated battle positioning moves and actively outmaneuvering your opponent. Let's just not pretend like it's the best ability in the game, because it does come with downsides. You can say the same about any ability in the game. Stim: Press T. When it wears off press T. EMP: When you see templar, EMP them. Cloak: When you don't want him to see you press C and you become invisible. Fungal: Press F and try to get as many of his units in it as possible PDD: When he attacks you make a PDD and he can't attack you. ... You get my point. Obviously I'm oversimplifying and all these abilities have intricacies to them I'm not explaining. You want to stim at the right time, and not too early. You want to wait to fungal until you can get a good flank or good baneling hits... etc. The same applies to Blink. I think you view it this way because of TvP Blink allins being so prevalent and because people are getting tired of it. But fundamentally the abilitiy is pretty neat, it allows for some interesting things to happen and it makes the game better. That and it's one of the only ways to deal with Muta before you can get Phoenixes out. Of the ones you just linked, fungal and pdd are really the only two which are with blink in that they are 'gimmicky' as far as rts abilities go. I think sc2 would be a lot better without such abilities personally, and if blink, fungal, forcefield, pdd and w/e else I'm forgetting were to go I think we would be much better off for it.
If you're going to take all these abilities out of the game you're better off just playing Red Alert 2 or Age of Empires.
The unit abilities are one of the defining aspects of StarCraft as an RTS.
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On March 19 2014 22:26 DinoMight wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2014 22:24 bo1b wrote:On March 19 2014 22:21 DinoMight wrote:On March 19 2014 22:12 Grumbels wrote:
I've become a little bit cynical about blink as an ability though. If you think about its three main uses, none of them require an earth shattering amount of decision making:
- blink forward to intercept
- blink backwards to escape
- individually blink hurt stalkers back (whack-a-mole)
I don't really see what blink adds to the game here, and it's a bit much to hear protoss players wax on about how slightly nerfing the cooldown is gutting the world's most skillful ability. In fact, blink sometimes rather reminds me of how warpgate can function: reinforce anywhere at will without it necessarily requiring amazing strategic planning; and with blink it is: ability to perfectly place your stalkers independent of any obstacles. i.e. it gives amazing benefits that can feel like you haven't earned them.
I do like the ability, doing quick snipes and dodging projectiles was enjoyable in Warcraft 3, and in Starcraft II you can use it for more complicated battle positioning moves and actively outmaneuvering your opponent. Let's just not pretend like it's the best ability in the game, because it does come with downsides. You can say the same about any ability in the game. Stim: Press T. When it wears off press T. EMP: When you see templar, EMP them. Cloak: When you don't want him to see you press C and you become invisible. Fungal: Press F and try to get as many of his units in it as possible PDD: When he attacks you make a PDD and he can't attack you. ... You get my point. Obviously I'm oversimplifying and all these abilities have intricacies to them I'm not explaining. You want to stim at the right time, and not too early. You want to wait to fungal until you can get a good flank or good baneling hits... etc. The same applies to Blink. I think you view it this way because of TvP Blink allins being so prevalent and because people are getting tired of it. But fundamentally the abilitiy is pretty neat, it allows for some interesting things to happen and it makes the game better. That and it's one of the only ways to deal with Muta before you can get Phoenixes out. Of the ones you just linked, fungal and pdd are really the only two which are with blink in that they are 'gimmicky' as far as rts abilities go. I think sc2 would be a lot better without such abilities personally, and if blink, fungal, forcefield, pdd and w/e else I'm forgetting were to go I think we would be much better off for it. If you're going to take all these abilities out of the game you're better off just playing Red Alert 2 or Age of Empires. The unit abilities are one of the defining aspects of StarCraft as an RTS.
I never said unit abilities are bad, I said a select few of them are awful and need to go.
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On March 19 2014 22:29 bo1b wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2014 22:26 DinoMight wrote:On March 19 2014 22:24 bo1b wrote:On March 19 2014 22:21 DinoMight wrote:On March 19 2014 22:12 Grumbels wrote:
I've become a little bit cynical about blink as an ability though. If you think about its three main uses, none of them require an earth shattering amount of decision making:
- blink forward to intercept
- blink backwards to escape
- individually blink hurt stalkers back (whack-a-mole)
I don't really see what blink adds to the game here, and it's a bit much to hear protoss players wax on about how slightly nerfing the cooldown is gutting the world's most skillful ability. In fact, blink sometimes rather reminds me of how warpgate can function: reinforce anywhere at will without it necessarily requiring amazing strategic planning; and with blink it is: ability to perfectly place your stalkers independent of any obstacles. i.e. it gives amazing benefits that can feel like you haven't earned them.
I do like the ability, doing quick snipes and dodging projectiles was enjoyable in Warcraft 3, and in Starcraft II you can use it for more complicated battle positioning moves and actively outmaneuvering your opponent. Let's just not pretend like it's the best ability in the game, because it does come with downsides. You can say the same about any ability in the game. Stim: Press T. When it wears off press T. EMP: When you see templar, EMP them. Cloak: When you don't want him to see you press C and you become invisible. Fungal: Press F and try to get as many of his units in it as possible PDD: When he attacks you make a PDD and he can't attack you. ... You get my point. Obviously I'm oversimplifying and all these abilities have intricacies to them I'm not explaining. You want to stim at the right time, and not too early. You want to wait to fungal until you can get a good flank or good baneling hits... etc. The same applies to Blink. I think you view it this way because of TvP Blink allins being so prevalent and because people are getting tired of it. But fundamentally the abilitiy is pretty neat, it allows for some interesting things to happen and it makes the game better. That and it's one of the only ways to deal with Muta before you can get Phoenixes out. Of the ones you just linked, fungal and pdd are really the only two which are with blink in that they are 'gimmicky' as far as rts abilities go. I think sc2 would be a lot better without such abilities personally, and if blink, fungal, forcefield, pdd and w/e else I'm forgetting were to go I think we would be much better off for it. If you're going to take all these abilities out of the game you're better off just playing Red Alert 2 or Age of Empires. The unit abilities are one of the defining aspects of StarCraft as an RTS. I never said unit abilities are bad, I said a select few of them are awful and need to go.
You didn't explain WHY they are bad though.
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The thing with stim tho is those units that stim can still have an unit interaction with the enemies they meat.
While with blink, the unit interaction is like never there.
Designwise i rly dislike the blink that is on stalker. Only drawback to the blink is cooldown which makes the micro very boring for me in general, iam never impressed by it cuz its usually so onesided or the enemy cant do much micro themself against it.
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pdd = dark swarm, except stupid
fungal = ..did we forget about 2012?
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On March 19 2014 22:30 The_Red_Viper wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2014 22:29 bo1b wrote:On March 19 2014 22:26 DinoMight wrote:On March 19 2014 22:24 bo1b wrote:On March 19 2014 22:21 DinoMight wrote:On March 19 2014 22:12 Grumbels wrote:
I've become a little bit cynical about blink as an ability though. If you think about its three main uses, none of them require an earth shattering amount of decision making:
- blink forward to intercept
- blink backwards to escape
- individually blink hurt stalkers back (whack-a-mole)
I don't really see what blink adds to the game here, and it's a bit much to hear protoss players wax on about how slightly nerfing the cooldown is gutting the world's most skillful ability. In fact, blink sometimes rather reminds me of how warpgate can function: reinforce anywhere at will without it necessarily requiring amazing strategic planning; and with blink it is: ability to perfectly place your stalkers independent of any obstacles. i.e. it gives amazing benefits that can feel like you haven't earned them.
I do like the ability, doing quick snipes and dodging projectiles was enjoyable in Warcraft 3, and in Starcraft II you can use it for more complicated battle positioning moves and actively outmaneuvering your opponent. Let's just not pretend like it's the best ability in the game, because it does come with downsides. You can say the same about any ability in the game. Stim: Press T. When it wears off press T. EMP: When you see templar, EMP them. Cloak: When you don't want him to see you press C and you become invisible. Fungal: Press F and try to get as many of his units in it as possible PDD: When he attacks you make a PDD and he can't attack you. ... You get my point. Obviously I'm oversimplifying and all these abilities have intricacies to them I'm not explaining. You want to stim at the right time, and not too early. You want to wait to fungal until you can get a good flank or good baneling hits... etc. The same applies to Blink. I think you view it this way because of TvP Blink allins being so prevalent and because people are getting tired of it. But fundamentally the abilitiy is pretty neat, it allows for some interesting things to happen and it makes the game better. That and it's one of the only ways to deal with Muta before you can get Phoenixes out. Of the ones you just linked, fungal and pdd are really the only two which are with blink in that they are 'gimmicky' as far as rts abilities go. I think sc2 would be a lot better without such abilities personally, and if blink, fungal, forcefield, pdd and w/e else I'm forgetting were to go I think we would be much better off for it. If you're going to take all these abilities out of the game you're better off just playing Red Alert 2 or Age of Empires. The unit abilities are one of the defining aspects of StarCraft as an RTS. I never said unit abilities are bad, I said a select few of them are awful and need to go. You didn't explain WHY they are bad though.
I need to explain why forcefield, fungal and pdd are bad?
pdd is the least obvious I guess, but basically the concept of a stackable ranged attack absorbing unit is horrendous. If it worked like d-matrix where it only absorbed a certain amount of damage on one unit that would be so much better, since you couldn't reapply it in order to stack it to an almost infinite level of damage absorbed, the spell is merely replaced. But with pdd we get situations where there might be 5 or more just floating in the sky totally nullifying projectiles until there energy is gone. You can watch any turtle mech vs swarm host game to see this.
I'd much prefer it if fungal worked like plague, instead of yet another anti micro ability.
I forgot about time warp, and guess what, I'm not a fan of that either! Timewarp, much the same as fungal is and forcefield that will never be able to be balanced, and causes so many problems. There is nothing quite like watching an army try to run away, and two gigantic bubbles are placed on it preventing them from escaping, before they basically lose the game.
I can't be bothered writing an essay on the problems of forcefield.
Suffice to say, that these abilities are really hampering the ease of which something can be buffed or nerfed to fix any balance problems that may occur, and apart from that they're just not fun to watch or play against. The immortal all in was filthy the first time I saw it, and it has only really gotten worse over time.
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On March 19 2014 22:26 DinoMight wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2014 22:24 bo1b wrote:On March 19 2014 22:21 DinoMight wrote:On March 19 2014 22:12 Grumbels wrote:
I've become a little bit cynical about blink as an ability though. If you think about its three main uses, none of them require an earth shattering amount of decision making:
- blink forward to intercept
- blink backwards to escape
- individually blink hurt stalkers back (whack-a-mole)
I don't really see what blink adds to the game here, and it's a bit much to hear protoss players wax on about how slightly nerfing the cooldown is gutting the world's most skillful ability. In fact, blink sometimes rather reminds me of how warpgate can function: reinforce anywhere at will without it necessarily requiring amazing strategic planning; and with blink it is: ability to perfectly place your stalkers independent of any obstacles. i.e. it gives amazing benefits that can feel like you haven't earned them.
I do like the ability, doing quick snipes and dodging projectiles was enjoyable in Warcraft 3, and in Starcraft II you can use it for more complicated battle positioning moves and actively outmaneuvering your opponent. Let's just not pretend like it's the best ability in the game, because it does come with downsides. You can say the same about any ability in the game. Stim: Press T. When it wears off press T. EMP: When you see templar, EMP them. Cloak: When you don't want him to see you press C and you become invisible. Fungal: Press F and try to get as many of his units in it as possible PDD: When he attacks you make a PDD and he can't attack you. ... You get my point. Obviously I'm oversimplifying and all these abilities have intricacies to them I'm not explaining. You want to stim at the right time, and not too early. You want to wait to fungal until you can get a good flank or good baneling hits... etc. The same applies to Blink. I think you view it this way because of TvP Blink allins being so prevalent and because people are getting tired of it. But fundamentally the abilitiy is pretty neat, it allows for some interesting things to happen and it makes the game better. That and it's one of the only ways to deal with Muta before you can get Phoenixes out. Of the ones you just linked, fungal and pdd are really the only two which are with blink in that they are 'gimmicky' as far as rts abilities go. I think sc2 would be a lot better without such abilities personally, and if blink, fungal, forcefield, pdd and w/e else I'm forgetting were to go I think we would be much better off for it. If you're going to take all these abilities out of the game you're better off just playing Red Alert 2 or Age of Empires. The unit abilities are one of the defining aspects of StarCraft as an RTS.
Or remove it and design better spells is one direction to go also
On March 19 2014 22:38 bo1b wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2014 22:30 The_Red_Viper wrote:On March 19 2014 22:29 bo1b wrote:On March 19 2014 22:26 DinoMight wrote:On March 19 2014 22:24 bo1b wrote:On March 19 2014 22:21 DinoMight wrote:On March 19 2014 22:12 Grumbels wrote:
I've become a little bit cynical about blink as an ability though. If you think about its three main uses, none of them require an earth shattering amount of decision making:
- blink forward to intercept
- blink backwards to escape
- individually blink hurt stalkers back (whack-a-mole)
I don't really see what blink adds to the game here, and it's a bit much to hear protoss players wax on about how slightly nerfing the cooldown is gutting the world's most skillful ability. In fact, blink sometimes rather reminds me of how warpgate can function: reinforce anywhere at will without it necessarily requiring amazing strategic planning; and with blink it is: ability to perfectly place your stalkers independent of any obstacles. i.e. it gives amazing benefits that can feel like you haven't earned them.
I do like the ability, doing quick snipes and dodging projectiles was enjoyable in Warcraft 3, and in Starcraft II you can use it for more complicated battle positioning moves and actively outmaneuvering your opponent. Let's just not pretend like it's the best ability in the game, because it does come with downsides. You can say the same about any ability in the game. Stim: Press T. When it wears off press T. EMP: When you see templar, EMP them. Cloak: When you don't want him to see you press C and you become invisible. Fungal: Press F and try to get as many of his units in it as possible PDD: When he attacks you make a PDD and he can't attack you. ... You get my point. Obviously I'm oversimplifying and all these abilities have intricacies to them I'm not explaining. You want to stim at the right time, and not too early. You want to wait to fungal until you can get a good flank or good baneling hits... etc. The same applies to Blink. I think you view it this way because of TvP Blink allins being so prevalent and because people are getting tired of it. But fundamentally the abilitiy is pretty neat, it allows for some interesting things to happen and it makes the game better. That and it's one of the only ways to deal with Muta before you can get Phoenixes out. Of the ones you just linked, fungal and pdd are really the only two which are with blink in that they are 'gimmicky' as far as rts abilities go. I think sc2 would be a lot better without such abilities personally, and if blink, fungal, forcefield, pdd and w/e else I'm forgetting were to go I think we would be much better off for it. If you're going to take all these abilities out of the game you're better off just playing Red Alert 2 or Age of Empires. The unit abilities are one of the defining aspects of StarCraft as an RTS. I never said unit abilities are bad, I said a select few of them are awful and need to go. You didn't explain WHY they are bad though. I need to explain why forcefield, fungal and pdd are bad? pdd is the least obvious I guess, but basically the concept of a stackable ranged attack absorbing unit is horrendous. If it worked like d-matrix where it only absorbed a certain amount of damage on one unit that would be so much better, since you couldn't reapply it in order to stack it to an almost infinite level of damage absorbed, the spell is merely replaced. But with pdd we get situations where there might be 5 or more just floating in the sky totally nullifying projectiles until there energy is gone. I'd much prefer it if fungal worked like plague, instead of yet another anti micro ability. I forgot about time warp, and guess what, I'm not a fan of that either! Timewarp, much the same as fungal is and forcefield that will never be able to be balanced, and causes so many problems. There is nothing quite like watching an army try to run away, and two gigantic bubbles are placed on it preventing them from escaping, before they basically lose the game. I can't be bothered writing an essay on the problems of forcefield.
All in all the spells have no good unit interactions, thats why they are so boring/bad to me
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I forgot about abduct as well, thats another spell that needs to be replaced with something much better.
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On March 19 2014 22:38 Grumbels wrote:
pdd = dark swarm, except stupid
fungal = ..did we forget about 2012?
You seem to have missed quite some changes if you think 2012 fungal is relevant now.
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On March 19 2014 22:43 Karpfen wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2014 22:38 Grumbels wrote:
pdd = dark swarm, except stupid
fungal = ..did we forget about 2012? You seem to have missed quite some changes if you think 2012 fungal is relevant now.
That's a pretty good example of why the ability design is awful really, it swings wildly between op and awful.
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Tbh your explanations read like "it wasn't in BW, that's why it is bad."
Imo these spells are not better or worse per se, the only difference is that smartcasting makes most spells boring and unfun.
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Fungal currently is just so weak that it doesn't have the chance to be problematic. I would say it's in a good state and I'm happy with the ability, but there are enough grounds to be skeptical about it. Mostly because it hasn't changed that much since 2012, the projectile improves the design but ultimately doesn't completely address it. I think it's better to have abilities that can be a little bit too powerful and don't immediately break the game, it makes the balance less fragile. Although obviously for almost any ability design it's possible to find "goldilocks values" where it is just fine.
On March 19 2014 22:47 The_Red_Viper wrote:
Tbh your explanations read like "it wasn't in BW, that's why it is bad."
Imo these spells are not better or worse per se, the only difference is that smartcasting makes most spells boring and unfun.
Yeah, but abilities should be designed around smartcasting. If forcefield would be an amazing ability without smartcast, that offers no consolation at all. I don't think you can analyze spells without taking the existence of smartcasting into account, otherwise you completely lose the context in which it operates. No smartcasting would make abilities easier to design though.
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On March 19 2014 22:47 The_Red_Viper wrote:
Tbh your explanations read like "it wasn't in BW, that's why it is bad."
What? How on earth did you get that from what I wrote
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On March 19 2014 22:47 The_Red_Viper wrote:
Tbh your explanations read like "it wasn't in BW, that's why it is bad."
Imo these spells are not better or worse per se, the only difference is that smartcasting makes most spells boring and unfun.
No it dont.
You hit that fungal=What can the opponent do?=Thats a boring/bad unit interaction.
You hit a storm=You can move out of it at anytime. The sc2 storm is bad tho cuz its not designed with smartcast in it.
Every powerful spell in broodwar that rly blocks the enemy is:
mealsstorm=8sec stun
statis=freezes the enemy for 40(?)sec, makes them immune to everything.
Lockdown
They all are:
1) Latetech to very latetech
2) High mana cost
While other spells in broodwar like ensnare can be dispelled from the medics.
Can be feedbacked from darkarchon.
Its not perfect in broodwar but its still much better than sc2 and it was made 14years ago.
Every spell in sc2 more or less makes one side not able to do much while the other side have to much power.
THAT is bad unit interaction
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On March 19 2014 22:48 bo1b wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2014 22:47 The_Red_Viper wrote:
Tbh your explanations read like "it wasn't in BW, that's why it is bad."
What? How on earth did you get that from what I wrote
You specifically criticize spells that are new in sc2.
Then you say "I'd much prefer it if fungal worked like plague", i think it fits well together 
But whatever, i don't agree with your claim that the spells in sc2 are awfully designed, they are just too spamable for my liking (smartcast)On March 19 2014 22:52 Foxxan wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2014 22:47 The_Red_Viper wrote:
Tbh your explanations read like "it wasn't in BW, that's why it is bad."
Imo these spells are not better or worse per se, the only difference is that smartcasting makes most spells boring and unfun. No it dont. You hit that fungal=What can the opponent do?=Thats a boring/bad unit interaction. You hit a storm=You can move out of it at anytime. The sc2 storm is bad tho cuz its not designed with smartcast in it. Every powerful spell in broodwar that rly blocks the enemy is: mealsstorm=8sec stun statis=freezes the enemy for 40(?)sec, makes them immune to everything. Lockdown They all are: 1) Latetech to very latetech 2) High mana cost While other spells in broodwar like ensnare can be dispelled from the medics. Can be feedbacked from darkarchon. Its not perfect in broodwar but its still much better than sc2 and it was made 14years ago. Every spell in sc2 more or less makes one side not able to do much while the other side have to much power. THAT is bad unit interaction
So because it comes later it is better designed?
I can agree with higher manacost (that makes it less spamable, something i also think is bad)
But overall i don't agree with it either, the real problem of sc2 is smartcast imo.
"The sc2 storm is bad tho cuz its not designed with smartcast in it"
what?
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On March 19 2014 22:54 The_Red_Viper wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2014 22:48 bo1b wrote:On March 19 2014 22:47 The_Red_Viper wrote:
Tbh your explanations read like "it wasn't in BW, that's why it is bad."
What? How on earth did you get that from what I wrote You specifically criticize spells that are new in sc2. Then you say "I'd much prefer it if fungal worked like plague", i think it fits well together But whatever, i don't agree with your claim that the spells in sc2 are awfully designed, they are just too spamable for my liking (smartcast).
I actually don't think that all spells in sc2 are bad, and when I said I'd prefer it worked like plague I mean I'd prefer if it just did damage.
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On March 19 2014 22:24 bo1b wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2014 22:21 DinoMight wrote:On March 19 2014 22:12 Grumbels wrote:
I've become a little bit cynical about blink as an ability though. If you think about its three main uses, none of them require an earth shattering amount of decision making:
- blink forward to intercept
- blink backwards to escape
- individually blink hurt stalkers back (whack-a-mole)
I don't really see what blink adds to the game here, and it's a bit much to hear protoss players wax on about how slightly nerfing the cooldown is gutting the world's most skillful ability. In fact, blink sometimes rather reminds me of how warpgate can function: reinforce anywhere at will without it necessarily requiring amazing strategic planning; and with blink it is: ability to perfectly place your stalkers independent of any obstacles. i.e. it gives amazing benefits that can feel like you haven't earned them.
I do like the ability, doing quick snipes and dodging projectiles was enjoyable in Warcraft 3, and in Starcraft II you can use it for more complicated battle positioning moves and actively outmaneuvering your opponent. Let's just not pretend like it's the best ability in the game, because it does come with downsides. You can say the same about any ability in the game. Stim: Press T. When it wears off press T. EMP: When you see templar, EMP them. Cloak: When you don't want him to see you press C and you become invisible. Fungal: Press F and try to get as many of his units in it as possible PDD: When he attacks you make a PDD and he can't attack you. ... You get my point. Obviously I'm oversimplifying and all these abilities have intricacies to them I'm not explaining. You want to stim at the right time, and not too early. You want to wait to fungal until you can get a good flank or good baneling hits... etc. The same applies to Blink. I think you view it this way because of TvP Blink allins being so prevalent and because people are getting tired of it. But fundamentally the abilitiy is pretty neat, it allows for some interesting things to happen and it makes the game better. That and it's one of the only ways to deal with Muta before you can get Phoenixes out. Of the ones you just linked, fungal and pdd are really the only two which are with blink in that they are 'gimmicky' as far as rts abilities go. I think sc2 would be a lot better without such abilities personally, and if blink, fungal, forcefield, pdd and w/e else I'm forgetting were to go I think we would be much better off for it.
i am pretty sure nowadays people are actually liking the fungal.
sick fungal is really sick.
pdd also has some really cool moments such as using it to block marauder shots in tvt mech
and using pdd to push out mech against swarmhost that mvp uses etc
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On March 19 2014 23:21 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2014 22:24 bo1b wrote:On March 19 2014 22:21 DinoMight wrote:On March 19 2014 22:12 Grumbels wrote:
I've become a little bit cynical about blink as an ability though. If you think about its three main uses, none of them require an earth shattering amount of decision making:
- blink forward to intercept
- blink backwards to escape
- individually blink hurt stalkers back (whack-a-mole)
I don't really see what blink adds to the game here, and it's a bit much to hear protoss players wax on about how slightly nerfing the cooldown is gutting the world's most skillful ability. In fact, blink sometimes rather reminds me of how warpgate can function: reinforce anywhere at will without it necessarily requiring amazing strategic planning; and with blink it is: ability to perfectly place your stalkers independent of any obstacles. i.e. it gives amazing benefits that can feel like you haven't earned them.
I do like the ability, doing quick snipes and dodging projectiles was enjoyable in Warcraft 3, and in Starcraft II you can use it for more complicated battle positioning moves and actively outmaneuvering your opponent. Let's just not pretend like it's the best ability in the game, because it does come with downsides. You can say the same about any ability in the game. Stim: Press T. When it wears off press T. EMP: When you see templar, EMP them. Cloak: When you don't want him to see you press C and you become invisible. Fungal: Press F and try to get as many of his units in it as possible PDD: When he attacks you make a PDD and he can't attack you. ... You get my point. Obviously I'm oversimplifying and all these abilities have intricacies to them I'm not explaining. You want to stim at the right time, and not too early. You want to wait to fungal until you can get a good flank or good baneling hits... etc. The same applies to Blink. I think you view it this way because of TvP Blink allins being so prevalent and because people are getting tired of it. But fundamentally the abilitiy is pretty neat, it allows for some interesting things to happen and it makes the game better. That and it's one of the only ways to deal with Muta before you can get Phoenixes out. Of the ones you just linked, fungal and pdd are really the only two which are with blink in that they are 'gimmicky' as far as rts abilities go. I think sc2 would be a lot better without such abilities personally, and if blink, fungal, forcefield, pdd and w/e else I'm forgetting were to go I think we would be much better off for it. i am pretty sure nowadays people are actually liking the fungal. sick fungal is really sick. pdd also has some really cool moments such as using it to block marauder shots in tvt mech and using pdd to push out mech against swarmhost that mvp uses etc
Indeed pdd has its cool moments, you can't mech without pdd against swarmhosts if david kim would nerf ravens then all there would be left is Mvp's 2 2 timing that has to be a kill. Which turns almost all tvz games into massing enough muta's to kill the bio player.
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so cool! it stops attacks from happening!
Zerg has an incredible 25% winrate in proleague vs terran, I'm sure that them mass mutas are causing massive amounts of problems.
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On March 20 2014 04:28 bo1b wrote:
so cool! it stops attacks from happening!
Zerg has an incredible 25% winrate in proleague vs terran, I'm sure that them mass mutas are causing massive amounts of problems.
I'm not an expert on Brood War, but I think Dark Swarm was used at least as much offensively as defensively. Zerg relies on melee units and lurkers (which have relatively short range), so I think it's stronger offensively. Terran on the other hand has a wealth of powerful long-ranged units, which seems like it plays into using it defensively.
I think pdd in the 1-1-1, where it is used offensively in broken fashion, is mostly a case of the ability arriving too quickly though. Defilers were really late tech.
Anyway, another point is that zerg in Brood War had more bases on average than its opponent, while terran had fewer. Defender's advantage is acceptable when you have to defend many additional bases, but for a race that's already content to sit at three bases having such extreme defender's advantage can be broken.
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EPT
