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It adds utility for Protoss, and screams poor design into the game when you need to grab other Races's units to supplement your army.
You've talked a lot about the benefits for Protoss. I think most people are aware of the potential which is why they dislike it. But you haven't listed enough of the drawbacks to the other two races in the game.
For instance how grabbing units of one race will offset the weaknesses of their own race. Traditionally units of the opposition army was countered by using units that did well against them. Immortals vs Tanks is one example.
Now with the Replicant in play, the counter becomes - Grab their unit and use it against them.
Wait..what happens to the oppositions counter then?
Can you imagine Gateway-Robo tech with Siege Tanks against Bio heavy builds? Infestors FG'ing everything Zerg has and then letting Collosi wreck them?
The races were designed around a certain theme.
Protoss - Beefy, Low DPS
Terran - High DPS, Range but moderate/low HP for the most part
Zerg - High Swarming Abilities, Low HP
Adding on a unit that grabs the oppositions unit skews the formula.
I just don't agree that it's poor design, replication is an effect that is very strategical in nature and I think it will make for interesting gameplay. If they introduced another unit that for example countered 1-1-1 as well as the replicant does, then most likely it would make for a very strong timing push. I think it's blizzards intention that all in timing pushes are limited because it doesn't make for the most entertaining gameplay or esport. Replicants for the most part won't play into timing pushes as it's a very responsive unit. It's true that this unit will mitigate a lot of protoss weaknesses, But the core armies of both terran and zerg are looking to get stronger and the replicant will mostly be a support unit, 200/200 and 4 food isn't really massable.
You think that the replicant will throw off the counter scheme in this game and i just don't agree at all. If you make more than 3 replicant tanks then you are starting to get very inefficient with your resources, the terran tanks will be vastly more numerous. The best example of a replicable unit being a counter of itself is the ghost...but terran will have more ghosts at a cheaper cost. It will come down to straight caster micro/skill instead of the current situation. And also, if you are going a heavy bio based play, why would you build tanks, just so the protoss can replicate it 0_o?
You mention the idea of how potent infestor + protoss AoE is, but you fail to acknowledge how strong viper/infestor is as a counter to it. In fact it seems to me that infestor + viper will kick protoss ass really hard and if protoss doesn't have HT/infestor to counter it he will get rocked, so here it boils down to a skill based caster micro battle. I think that colossus/infestor would still get it's ass kicked. The viper will just pull your 200/200 cost infestors and colossus into his roach meat grinder.
I think that end game comps will have the potential to be a lot more even, despite the extra caster utility that protoss will have. Burrow charge ultras and speed boost BCs have the potential to be a lot better that their in game counterparts and with mech being more viable for terran the build up into whatever end game comp you want will be a lot smoother.
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On November 07 2011 09:48 neoghaleon55 wrote:
Back in the broodwar days, getting a dark archon to get into range, have enough energy to mind control and bring both the archon AND the collected worker back to safety was an incredible feat, not to mention it was incredibly late game to get a into that situation.
But in HotS, you get the replicant off a robotics, you can literally replicate an opponent's worker about 8 minutes into any game. It's way too easy, rewarding and stupid to turn protoss into protoss-mirror matchup every single game!
It's true that the replicant will potentially blur racial lines more than the Dark Archon did, because it will be out a lot sooner, but I don't think this is going to be much of a problem. You mention that you can go terran tech 8 minutes into the game, but will it be viable? I mean you're claiming it will be rewarding but I doubt it will be worthwhile to go too far with terran tech. Orbital will be good, but then again, nexus are getting a lot more utility than they once had. All the terran units will be behind in upgrades, so I think we are really only looking at ghosts, medivacs and ravens to tech for and that is a huuuge investment to get these units. I'm not worried about protoss going too mirror, but playtesting will tell.
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At least if HOTS goes with the replicator, can we all agree on one thing?
That replicated units get new protoss skins. It doesn't have to be complicated or anything. Just add yellow? If they go for the replicator, I'd love for protoss siege tanks to have a protossy feel to them.
Again, it doesn't have to be complicated or anything - just enough so that the e-sports novice viewer can differentiate between "terran seige tank" and "protoss replicated seige tank." - Kinda like how the changeling appears different enough that you can tell the difference.
Now gameplay...
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Canada11563 Posts
I think I'm fine with them keeping the replicator as one of those things that hardly get used like the Dark Archon from BW. (Did anyone else turtle hardcore playing against comps with friends while amassing a fleet of battlecruisers with mind control?) But if it becomes a necessary unit in match-ups, you might as well let Protoss make tanks and infestors and forget about having 3 racially diverse sides.
The great diversity of the 3 sides was one of the bigger factors for my early attraction to BW and replicators start blurring that line.
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I like the Replicator, but if it goes in the game it's almost certain it will be nerfed into uselessness because it's so hard to balance.
As Idra said on SOTG, the Shredder is more needed by the Protoss than by Terrans. Scrap the Replicator, give Protoss the Shredder (with a new look and name, obviously), and give something entirely different to Terrans.
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To be honest with Cannons as the "easiest" ground to ground fixed defence i see no particular need for protoss to have the shredder. Terrans have the strangest static defences, which is pretty self-explanatory with the Siege tank and the PF, but PFs cover only expansions (and that not really well, considering you can always camp the mineral line while outranging the pf). So a unit for board control to cover Terrans backside is definitly needed. The only question is if the Shredder is a good unit, or if it is too strong or too weak.
The replicator on the other hand is a very strange unit from a design perspective. It fits the protoss race as "the most advanced" but from a gameplay PoV i have no idea why they thought it would be a good idea.
Either it needs to be hideously expensive both in ressources and food, or it would open massive windows of unit synergies for the protoss. Almost anyone playing Team games will be aware how annoying zealots can be in combination with medivacs, that's just one easy example of a unit which could be worth 3 food and a few ressources, because as a caster with energy that unit will just keep on helping as long as you micro it well.
Never mind the colossus/siege tank/high templar combo....
So in closing, i'd defend the need for the shredder for the Terrans, but i am deeply unsure how the replicator is going to work out (frankly i can't see any way for it to work out, it will either be too strong or too expensive, there is almost no middle room i can see)
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Personally, i detest the idea of the replicators. It just didn't wow me, and there are a lot of negative things people can say about it. Maybe it would be good, but it seems unlikely. Seems hard to balance, seems difficult to make truly viable, detracts from the distinct themes of each race, and feels like a "gimmick" unit. But who knows, if blizzard finds a genius way to work this unit, it might be pretty cool.
But I think the shredder is pretty cool, and I'm wonder for those who played the custom if it hits air.
Also the new nexus recall seems pretty intense... Like you get a warp prism, warp a crap ton of units into their base, do as much damage as possible, then just recall home. And your army will pretty much never die if you're careful. Perhaps OP?
Interesting changes, but the protoss and the terran stuff feel a bit iffy.
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I like the nexus recall, Terran can more or less do damage to a base without loosing units with medivac drops, I wouldn't be surprised if Protoss units can be damaged while they're being pulled out of there with recall.
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I think everyone should try the Hots ums on battle.net. Every unit is soooooo fun to play and are better than most ppl think. I talk about the oracle and the swarm host
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I think replicant sounds cool, but sadly that's mostly because protoss is fail now and i think the replicant will patch a lot of protoss holes. Which i suppose is what blizzard wants.
And i don't mind if replicant will make 'protoss' into 'protoss + mirror' because 'protoss + mirror' is frankly a pretty interesting race, of a sort you don't see that in any other game.
I don't think it'll really happen though, probably most games will include 0-3 replicated units. Replicating a small number of siege tanks or banshees or infestors is huge, replicating 30 of them is just overpriced.
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Russian Federation473 Posts
hey guys, let's talk about the shredder.
it looks cool, and seems to be a good idea, and received mostly positive feedback from the community (of course except for the terran haters that cried imba before they saw it).
but if you think about it is this unit really good?
it's basically a permanent static source of psi-storm with very wide radius (looks like 4 or even 5 in the presentation), and it shuts down if any friendly unit approaches.
what i don't like about it is that it seems to be another anti-zerg unit that won't do much against protoss or terran. against zerg, sure, many nice uses:
-block a ramp and forget about lings/blings
-place it near missile turrets and watch mutas explode
-try to bait enemy forces into shredder radiation field, take them in crossfire, destroy
but against ranged or beefy units (which almostly all terran and protoss units are) shredder doesn't look good.
stalkers, immortals, marauders, banshees, voidrays, colossi, tanks... do i need to continue?
it seems to be only good against marines and zealots, but even these guys will be able to snipe shredders quickly enough (if i calculate it correctly 3 zealots with charge will kill a shredder before they die, and marines can run in, shoot, and run back).
of course it will slow the enemy, but is this role big enough for a new unit? (especially considering that there is the battle hellion in terran arsenal now)
shredders could be a good choice to protect siege tanks from rushing opponents, but with their huge gas cost (150) i doubt it will be a good option (again there is the battle hellion available now).
if you think about other possible uses, they are also very situational. put it behind bunkers - 7 gate is deflected (but not a stalker-heavy 7 gate)
put it in a possible drop location - well what do you have missile turrets and radar towers for?
drop shredders - unlikely, they'll probably have long enough deployment time, and their high gas cost won't be worth it i think.
can you imagine some good ways to use the shredder in tvp/tvt?
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On November 15 2011 18:50 Ganseng wrote:
hey guys, let's talk about the shredder.
it looks cool, and seems to be a good idea, and received mostly positive feedback from the community (of course except for the terran haters that cried imba before they saw it).
but if you think about it is this unit really good?
it's basically a permanent static source of psi-storm with very wide radius (looks like 4 or even 5 in the presentation), and it shuts down if any friendly unit approaches.
what i don't like about it is that it seems to be another anti-zerg unit that won't do much against protoss or terran. against zerg, sure, many nice uses:
-block a ramp and forget about lings/blings
-place it near missile turrets and watch mutas explode
-try to bait enemy forces into shredder radiation field, take them in crossfire, destroy
but against ranged or beefy units (which almostly all terran and protoss units are) shredder doesn't look good.
stalkers, immortals, marauders, banshees, voidrays, colossi, tanks... do i need to continue?
it seems to be only good against marines and zealots, but even these guys will be able to snipe shredders quickly enough (if i calculate it correctly 3 zealots with charge will kill a shredder before they die, and marines can run in, shoot, and run back).
of course it will slow the enemy, but is this role big enough for a new unit? (especially considering that there is the battle hellion in terran arsenal now)
shredders could be a good choice to protect siege tanks from rushing opponents, but with their huge gas cost (150) i doubt it will be a good option (again there is the battle hellion available now).
if you think about other possible uses, they are also very situational. put it behind bunkers - 7 gate is deflected (but not a stalker-heavy 7 gate)
put it in a possible drop location - well what do you have missile turrets and radar towers for?
drop shredders - unlikely, they'll probably have long enough deployment time, and their high gas cost won't be worth it i think.
can you imagine some good ways to use the shredder in tvp/tvt?
Just go try it in 'HOTS Custom', instead of theocrafting.
With the current stats tested in that map, from what we saw at Blizzcon, it IS really powerful right now.
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Russian Federation473 Posts
On November 15 2011 18:57 Merlimoo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2011 18:50 Ganseng wrote:
hey guys, let's talk about the shredder.
it looks cool, and seems to be a good idea, and received mostly positive feedback from the community (of course except for the terran haters that cried imba before they saw it).
but if you think about it is this unit really good?
it's basically a permanent static source of psi-storm with very wide radius (looks like 4 or even 5 in the presentation), and it shuts down if any friendly unit approaches.
what i don't like about it is that it seems to be another anti-zerg unit that won't do much against protoss or terran. against zerg, sure, many nice uses:
-block a ramp and forget about lings/blings
-place it near missile turrets and watch mutas explode
-try to bait enemy forces into shredder radiation field, take them in crossfire, destroy
but against ranged or beefy units (which almostly all terran and protoss units are) shredder doesn't look good.
stalkers, immortals, marauders, banshees, voidrays, colossi, tanks... do i need to continue?
it seems to be only good against marines and zealots, but even these guys will be able to snipe shredders quickly enough (if i calculate it correctly 3 zealots with charge will kill a shredder before they die, and marines can run in, shoot, and run back).
of course it will slow the enemy, but is this role big enough for a new unit? (especially considering that there is the battle hellion in terran arsenal now)
shredders could be a good choice to protect siege tanks from rushing opponents, but with their huge gas cost (150) i doubt it will be a good option (again there is the battle hellion available now).
if you think about other possible uses, they are also very situational. put it behind bunkers - 7 gate is deflected (but not a stalker-heavy 7 gate)
put it in a possible drop location - well what do you have missile turrets and radar towers for?
drop shredders - unlikely, they'll probably have long enough deployment time, and their high gas cost won't be worth it i think.
can you imagine some good ways to use the shredder in tvp/tvt? Just go try it in 'HOTS Custom', instead of theocrafting. With the current stats tested in that map, from what we saw at Blizzcon, it IS really powerful right now.
i did go to the hots custom and i don't see how it's powerful in tvt/tvp.
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On November 07 2011 11:06 SolidZeal wrote:Show nested quote +
It adds utility for Protoss, and screams poor design into the game when you need to grab other Races's units to supplement your army.
You've talked a lot about the benefits for Protoss. I think most people are aware of the potential which is why they dislike it. But you haven't listed enough of the drawbacks to the other two races in the game.
For instance how grabbing units of one race will offset the weaknesses of their own race. Traditionally units of the opposition army was countered by using units that did well against them. Immortals vs Tanks is one example.
Now with the Replicant in play, the counter becomes - Grab their unit and use it against them.
Wait..what happens to the oppositions counter then?
Can you imagine Gateway-Robo tech with Siege Tanks against Bio heavy builds? Infestors FG'ing everything Zerg has and then letting Collosi wreck them?
The races were designed around a certain theme.
Protoss - Beefy, Low DPS
Terran - High DPS, Range but moderate/low HP for the most part
Zerg - High Swarming Abilities, Low HP
Adding on a unit that grabs the oppositions unit skews the formula.
I just don't agree that it's poor design, replication is an effect that is very strategical in nature and I think it will make for interesting gameplay. If they introduced another unit that for example countered 1-1-1 as well as the replicant does, then most likely it would make for a very strong timing push. I think it's blizzards intention that all in timing pushes are limited because it doesn't make for the most entertaining gameplay or esport. Replicants for the most part won't play into timing pushes as it's a very responsive unit. It's true that this unit will mitigate a lot of protoss weaknesses, But the core armies of both terran and zerg are looking to get stronger and the replicant will mostly be a support unit, 200/200 and 4 food isn't really massable. You think that the replicant will throw off the counter scheme in this game and i just don't agree at all. If you make more than 3 replicant tanks then you are starting to get very inefficient with your resources, the terran tanks will be vastly more numerous. The best example of a replicable unit being a counter of itself is the ghost...but terran will have more ghosts at a cheaper cost. It will come down to straight caster micro/skill instead of the current situation. And also, if you are going a heavy bio based play, why would you build tanks, just so the protoss can replicate it 0_o? You mention the idea of how potent infestor + protoss AoE is, but you fail to acknowledge how strong viper/infestor is as a counter to it. In fact it seems to me that infestor + viper will kick protoss ass really hard and if protoss doesn't have HT/infestor to counter it he will get rocked, so here it boils down to a skill based caster micro battle. I think that colossus/infestor would still get it's ass kicked. The viper will just pull your 200/200 cost infestors and colossus into his roach meat grinder. I think that end game comps will have the potential to be a lot more even, despite the extra caster utility that protoss will have. Burrow charge ultras and speed boost BCs have the potential to be a lot better that their in game counterparts and with mech being more viable for terran the build up into whatever end game comp you want will be a lot smoother.
in addition to that, replicated units may be behind in upgrades the longer the game goes on (I really don't think we'll get 3/3 tanks for free  ), being even more inefficient. This leads to 2 major uses: 1) countering specific timing pushes (111 with tanks), 2) replicating opponent's casters (ghost, infestor, viper).
In the second scenario, 200/200 and 4 supply (while normal casters are 2 supply) mean a worse deathball with better caster support. Which is very, very good in my opinion.
I don't like Oracle and Tempest, but the Replicator is probably the most strategic between the new units.
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i think the zerg ones are OP >> if they just use the cloud how in the world can you defend the base against that
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- And the free army is absolute cheese for Zerg, the swarm host.
- The terran new hellions looks too strong
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I think protoss has decent ones. creative and all
And i like the shredder for terran that is good idea.
And the zerg new ultras are nice, but they need to make it defendable....
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IMO, the shredder would be more appropriate as a protoss unit
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guys try out the hots custom map. zerg is fking awesome now with the viper and swarm host. Swarm host and speedhydra is the sex. oh and viper is wtf good.
man when hots comes out the sc2 world is gonna explode. games will take more skill and we will see a bigger gap between the good and the bad.
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On November 18 2011 16:46 Roxy wrote:
IMO, the shredder would be more appropriate as a protoss unit
Yeah, the one race that has static D that shoots both ground and air and also has warp in and mass recall and is soon going to have a stupidly good nexus recall...... the last thing protoss needs is more board control.
The reason Terran needs it is because terran can't instantly have an army anywhere like Protoss or Zerg. Terran is the only race negatively effected by large maps do to how slow their army moves and the fact that the only way a Terran army is getting anywhere is with two feet and a heart beat because we don't have creep, nydus worms, warp-in or recall.
Not to mention any and all forms of terran board control either suck, take supply from the army (which stupidly shredders are going to do anyways) or are easily abused like planetaries. Protoss and Zerg seem to think planetary fortresses are actually good for some reason while they sit their units outside of the range killing our workers or just walking up to it with a deathball of collosus and picking it off without losing anything at all in seconds.
Terran is in the most need of some board control because so many Terran wins lately despite the outcry of imbalance is due to base trades because terran in some situations even at pro level has no way to deal with counter attacks because of the slow way our armies move even when going for a mobile MMM based composition it is still less mobile than protoss and zerg forces when talking about the army as a whole not including drop tactics. (which protoss and zerg also have the ability to drop...they just don't do it for god knows what reason.)
I'm actually shocked that Idra on that SotG reviewing blizzcon said Terran did not need board control when he himself played Terran in BW. I'd ike to see him play a TvP in BW without using spider mines at all. Not much has changed about Terran as far as the need for that in SCII.
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