Last night, in my final HotS 1v1 match of the evening, I fell to my first cheese. It was bound to happen eventually, but I was hoping to at least get to wait until beta before taking my first embarrassingly quick loss in HotS. It was a PvP on one of the new maps here for HotS at Blizzcon, when a suspiciously early Probe scout entered my base. Naturally, I checked around my base for proxy Pylons and Cannons, but none were found so I felt a sense of relief. At least for a little bit. The sneaky Probe then proceeded to steal my gas at around 9 supply, before a Gateway or any structure other than a Pylon had been started in my opponents base. Again I felt a sense of relief, as in Wings of Liberty there's absolutely no reason to steal gas that early. Assuming that my opponent was a mere novice, I proceeded as normal, letting the Assimilator finish and getting my first Gateway up.
Before I knew it, red flashes lit up my minimap and a stern Protoss voice alerted me that my Probes were under attack. At first I thought it was just a little Probe harass, but then I realized that my opponent had placed an Arc Shield, one of the new Nexus abilities in HotS, on the Assimilator he had built in my base. The Arc Shield does bonus damage to light units, and before I knew it, my Probes were getting two shotted by this thing. Its range denied mining on five of my eight mineral patches, and my early economy was completely crippled at the cost of 50 Nexus energy. I frowned. I sighed. I said GG and took my quickest exit from the demo area this weekend.
I think that there will have to be some sort of change to availability the Nexus Turret ability as HotS closes in on beta testing or at least some way to prevent Probes from stealing Assimilators too early. For the cost of 75 mineral and 50 Nexus energy, my critical early-game economy was completely crippled. It was a sad, sad end to the night.
Oh joy. Such is balance though. Of course there are scenarios that they haven't really looked into and the game is a little while off anyway, I would imagine. I wouldn't fret about this.
Hahahaha well, if it's happening Blizzard are seeing it. They'll probably limit the useage for some buildings. I think it shouldn't be useable on pylons either.
Problem is they think of it as a helper against early agression... I think Arc Shield should be RLY a shield to make it defensive as it was intended to be primarly
Just add a cheap research that is available from the start. That will delay it a bit and lessen the impact, but still make it a viable defense against other cheese.
I would think that they would make it so it cannot be used on gas or pylons, or possibly put a limited range that the ability could be applied from. I don't think this will stay in the game long. Remember we are not even in beta yet.
As it requires gateway to use the ability, someone stealing your gas that early should be a pretty big tip off and you would have to sacrifice some econ to kill the assim. We all know this ability will be balanced and changed before release, but its nice to see that someone is atleast gettin some joy of free wins at blizzcon;p
On October 23 2011 06:58 Cluster wrote: Just add a cheap research that is available from the start. That will delay it a bit and lessen the impact, but still make it a viable defense against other cheese.
Let's call the research a "forge" and have it cost 150 minerals. Then you can build "cannons" for another 150 each. That should fix Protoss.
It's a bit funny that Blizzard didn't think of that way to use it. I am just waiting for the shredder to be used offensively vs Zerg since they don't get a unit with 5+ range for a looooong time. :p
The Nexus Canon is so dumb. I don't understand why it's necessary. There has to be another way to address issues instead of just tacking on random abilities.
On October 23 2011 06:58 YosHGo wrote: Problem is they think of it as a helper against early agression... I think Arc Shield should be RLY a shield to make it defensive as it was intended to be primarly
Adds in special tactics.
Bio pushes up ramp, see's nexus. OH SHIT 75 ENERGY!! turns around, arc shield in their face from that warpgate by the ramp. Poor poor bio.
On October 23 2011 07:00 LoseAlot wrote: Couldn't you of used the same skill on a building near the assimilator or your nexus?
It does damage to light, it's not going to kill the building while it destroys your mineral line. And there's no answer for the other races unless you have to blindly throw down refineries/extractors which is ridiculous.
This really isn't cheese, it's just straight up broken.
On October 23 2011 07:05 Draconicfire wrote: The Nexus Canon is so dumb. I don't understand why it's necessary. There has to be another way to address issues instead of just tacking on random abilities.
Yeah, like giving Protoss a unit that can do something at the start of the game like the Hellion or the zergling...
lol I love the idea of getting in the demo area at blizzconn and completely trolling someone that is trying to play around with the new HoTS units.
I think the ability requires gateway though? So you should be able to focus down assimilator in time? By the time it's in the game if it makes it into the game it will probably have to be on buildings powered by pylons.
This is going to be pretty easy to balance. Just make it so that the range of the spell in 20-30 so that it can only be used defensively. They can also allow for chains of pylon power extend this range or something.
On October 23 2011 06:58 Cluster wrote: Just add a cheap research that is available from the start. That will delay it a bit and lessen the impact, but still make it a viable defense against other cheese.
Let's call the research a "forge" and have it cost 150 minerals. Then you can build "cannons" for another 150 each. That should fix Protoss.
Flame-baiting at its finest. Keep your braindead, humorlous sarcasm to yourself.
To OP, thanks for answering my question about this unintended (I assume) use in cheese. Instead of cheap research, maybe having it have a cast range based on the nexus (Range 16 or 20 from nexus, gains the shooter turret). Still seeing some interesting proxy 2gate if you can keep them alive and exert some pressure with pylons defended by zealots protected by arc shield.
Well, there'll be changes. My guess would be that if the ability makes it into the final game you will not be able to place it on assimilators and pylons.
Arc shield should actually be a shield that gives a building +5 armor for 20 seconds, or alternativaly be basically a shield battery for buildings. Having it as a castable photon cannon will make it unbalancable because someone will find a way to break it offensively with some ridiculously stupid inbase proxy 2 gate or photon cannon cheeses, which will force blizzard to nerf it so much that it becomes useless for its intended purpose. Buffing armor/replenishing shields ensures that the arc shield will remain a very defensive ability.
This also allows blizzard to remove the gateway requirement from arc shield so they don't have to worry about cannon cheese.
this is going to make it impossible for zerg to 15 hatch. It allows protoss to cannon rush for just 25 nexus energy and a pylon instead of a forge pylon and cannon. So a protoss can now build an assimilator or pylon near the zerg natural and deny a hatch until zerg gets a lot of lings....
On October 23 2011 07:09 Scorevath wrote: this is going to make it impossible for zerg to 15 hatch. It allows protoss to cannon rush for just 25 nexus energy and a pylon instead of a forge pylon and cannon. So a protoss can now build an assimilator or pylon near the zerg natural and deny a hatch until zerg gets a lot of lings....
The arc shield cannon only does damage to light units, so no. This won't be a problem. It also lasts for a short amount of time, too, so even if it could damage buildings, it still wouldn't be viable.
On October 23 2011 06:57 XXhkXX wrote: easiest solution: limit the radius that the spell can be cast around so this sort of cheese does not decimate the beta?
No, easiest solution is to have prerequisites for the arc shield like a cybernetics core.
Arc Shield should just activate only from the Nexus they were casted from. Have the top of the pyramid pop up and shooting psi bolts. That would look cool and sounds more balanced.
They definately need to do something to prevent this from happening, whether it be only allowing the cannon on a gateway, core, etc or having a radius around the Nexus that the Arc Shield can be used against, it needs to be balanced
So one person gets hit by something because he doesn't know about it and it's OP? Jesus you people, did you not hear about Artosis trying it on somebody else who actually bothered to respond and ended up losing all of 20 hit points on a single SCV?
At most it needs to require a Gateway (I assumed it did but judging by the anecdote it doesn't). Then it's in the same place on the tech tree as the Shield Battery was and will serve a similar purpose.
[EDIT] Actually on consideration the Artosis anecdote involved a Pylon, which costs more and has much less HP than an Assimilator. Nonetheless, there's still a ton of ways to render this a non-issue.
does it really 2-shot probes or is the OP exaggerating quite a bit? JP said that artosis did a pylon arc shield rush in his mineral line and only one of his scvs lost around 5 hp before the pylon was taken down...
A little bit better fix that would be great at stopping 6/7 pools when you FFE is to have an area of effect around the nexus that covers up until your ramp on most maps. That or Forge/Gateway/Cyber Core requirement..
On October 23 2011 07:09 Scorevath wrote: this is going to make it impossible for zerg to 15 hatch. It allows protoss to cannon rush for just 25 nexus energy and a pylon instead of a forge pylon and cannon. So a protoss can now build an assimilator or pylon near the zerg natural and deny a hatch until zerg gets a lot of lings....
The arc shield cannon only does damage to light units, so no. This won't be a problem. It also lasts for a short amount of time, too, so even if it could damage buildings, it still wouldn't be viable.
Why not just do a normal pylon block as protoss? Then zerg can't place their hatch at the natural and if they dry and kill the pylon with the normal 4-6 lings then you cast arc shield and kill them.
I just hope that when things are broken they don't haphazardly remove them or nerf them into the ground. Instead they take a long look at the problem and use a fix that is very specific to the issue at hand, which doesn't make things useless all game long. Requiring the cyber core for the arc shield is a perfect example of a good way to fix, because if early lings come and you scouted them last you will probably have your cyber down, but if someone cannon rushes they won't have a cyber and the defender probably will. But if a zerg is trying to take their natural, they can kill the pylon with some drones and lings before your cyber is up.
So that it isn't stupid strong and early for offense, and actually applies to it's intended purpose, defense.
I think making the ability so that it only targets unit-producing structures might work. It would make the ability way less effective for early cheese and still retain the use even when buildings are spread out.
I doubt that will even be possible in the beta in that form. No need to freak out guys, I don't even want to know what crazy stuff one could do in a really early pre-beta wol build.
On October 23 2011 07:09 Scorevath wrote: this is going to make it impossible for zerg to 15 hatch. It allows protoss to cannon rush for just 25 nexus energy and a pylon instead of a forge pylon and cannon. So a protoss can now build an assimilator or pylon near the zerg natural and deny a hatch until zerg gets a lot of lings....
The arc shield cannon only does damage to light units, so no. This won't be a problem. It also lasts for a short amount of time, too, so even if it could damage buildings, it still wouldn't be viable.
Why not just do a normal pylon block as protoss? Then zerg can't place their hatch at the natural and if they dry and kill the pylon with the normal 4-6 lings then you cast arc shield and kill them.
This isn't any different than a normal pylon block. Zerg just backs off for 20 seconds and waits for arc shield to dissipate, or he can maybe take his 3rd first, followed by his 2nd if he is doing the fast 3 base gasless style. Protoss then just wasted 1 or 2 chronoboosts for no good reason, and 75 minerals he could've received from canceling the pylon.
I'm not defending the arc shield cannon, I think its stupid and should just be an armor buff. But the criticisms you give aren't valid.
It will probably require a gateway to use arc shield. Makes sense for toss too due to them not having access of a different defence (ish) structure from making gateway.
Hey to be honest.. when i came to know about the arc shield. This is the first thing I thought about. Being a protoss, I chuckled, But i thought that the damage was supposed to be low. But this is interesting lol!! Pylon and assimilator rush haha
As soon as this was announced, I knew this would be the fate of Arc Shield in early cheese strats. I'm not sure how Blizzard takes feedback or suggestions, but if the intent is to give Protoss some defense against early aggression, there are a few better ways I can see of doing this without allowing it to be used offensively:
1. The cannon ability is only activated for attacking units, so any units on attack move, patrol, or hold position, would be targeted, but workers gathering minerals would be ignored as well as enemy buildings (an exception could be made for bunkers since they serve as an attack functionality)
2. Arch Shield could act as inverse damage (my favorite option) in that when it is cast on a building, all attacks that take place in that building's field of vision are deflected back to the attacker. So if a marine fires in the field of vision of a building with Arc Shield, that marine takes 6 damage (assuming no upgrades). It would be similar to PDD except that it has the ability to deal damage to the attacker - of course you have the option to require detection in order to tell which building has the Arc Shield ability cast on it:
- modification #1 if original idea is proven to be too strong - have the building absorb half the damage in return for inflicting half the damage on the attacking unit - e.g. building takes 3 damage and marine takes 3 damage. If cast on the nexus, then the workers take twice as long to kill and the attacker only has a limited amount of time they can keep up the harass before having to retreat.
- modification #2 if original idea is balanced, but too cheesy when used on proxy pylons in battles: just remove the ability to cast it on a pylon
- modification #3 if they are hell bent against it dealing damage as a solution to early cheese, simply make Arc shield like the PDD where it nullifies attack damage from all units in its vision.
3. Simply require the Nexus to have vision of the building it casts Arc Shield on in order to prevent long range casting. If the idea is to enable Protoss the ability to defend against harass and early aggression, then casting Arc Shield on the Nexus, Assimilator, or a Pylon within vision should be sufficient to protect mineral lines.
Just some ideas...not sure if anyone in Blizzard considered them...seems this early cheese should have been a no-brainer.
I wonder why blizz even add sth like this, i feel that the most of hots changes are unnecessary to current balance and metagame. Idk why blizz is so scared about mutas that they need to make tempest instead buffing/changing carrier which is one of the icons of sc saga, same with oracle why just dont add arbiters, stasis would be great to control battlefield. As for zerg player point of view i am a bit dissapointed that overseer is gone. after 50/50 buff they were great, i cannot remember single game at lair stage when i didnt make at least one. Viper while make detection much harder and since only spores will left some dt/oracle/phoenix might became much more powerful than dt/sair vs Z.
On October 23 2011 07:32 Qbek wrote: Just add casting range for arc shield of , say, half the map lenght, no more cheese with it
Different maps would have different ranges then... also the problem with that is that in some 3v3 or 4v4 maps you might still be in range. I think the best solution is for it not to work on assimilators or pylons. To prevent early rushes all you really need it for is your gateway/forge/nexus and maybe cybernetics
Well I thought they changed it to require a gateway? If not then you could probably just add a range of 30 to the arcshield buff. Long enough to cover a whole base, short enough to not be able to offensively utilize it.
something doesnt fit here. you need a gateway to use it i think. additionally someone using it before said it took 4 scvs to kill it and the thing only got 1 of the scvs to 5 health
So, BEFORE HotS come out, Blizzard will have to cripple Protoss yet again because PvP is the most stupid matchup? Sounds about right. Oh, Tassadar, WHY?!
Problem is that to use the macro mechanics, terran has to depot->rax->OC, the zerg has to pool->queen, wheras protoss has theirs right off the bat, or 25/50 energy later if you want to get literal.
Just add the Nexus spells to require gate/core and this stuff - except chrono - will be easily fixed.
Bearing in mind that will probably remove the offensive potential of this ability... how often do you expect to have 50 energy available to use it on defense? It's kind of odd that they cut directly into the Protoss macro mechanic with this ability.
They should make arc shields not only attack light units but also other arc shields that way you could put one on your nexus early pvp if u know they are doing this and also place your first few pylons near your mins i think this would make the game interesting early for pvp.
I think they took the Arc Shield in the wrong direction. It was meant to be a deterrent to early-game cheese from light units, right? Instead of having your buildings shoot at ground forces, how about having Arc Shield make pylons cast a force field around themselves at the same radius at the Pylon energy? Units inside get +2 armor like with Guardian Shield, and only the casting player's units can move in and out of the AoE. Nexus energy does not recharge while the ability is in effect.
Now, you can easily block the 6/7-pools, protect your units from super-aggressive Marine pressure, but these acts of aggression still provoke a player to burn his Nexus energy. It protects Protoss from getting cheesed as heavily as they do without even making them as invincible as a walled-off Terran is from stuff like a 6-pool.
[edit]
Also give the ability a maximum casting range so that you can't go throw a pylon down in their mineral line and block off all mining :p. Even though that wouldn't hurt as bad as a cannon rush...
im absoluty sure that by beta that spell will only work on things like forges and any building that produces unites, and or tech buildings like templars arch.
Blizz is gonna make it so that you can't use it on pylons and assimilators I think. Seems like the easiest fix. Don't worry about balance, its the early beta, it will be fixed.
On October 23 2011 08:57 emc wrote: make it require cybernetics. There I think that would fix the problem?
It shouldn't effect Pylons, Assimilators OR cannons.
It's gotta be more than cybernetics. T/P still wouldn't have the means to kill of a stolen gas before the cybernetics core finishes. Maybe a marauder first/chrono'd zealot could start attacking it but they would have to pull off the whole mineral line while it was being killed.
The design of something like this really highlights how little Blizzard knows about their own game. Turn any building into a cannon? Whats the cheapest building... Assimilator. Where can you build those? Oh, only on gasses. Hey those are always by minerals!
Its actually not as big a deal as people are making out to be. There's a lesser known way in game to prevent your opponent from stealing your gas, you just need to bring a probe right by the vespene gas to prevent them from taking it.
The problem with the idea of it only working on unit-producing structures is that, at least from my understanding, the whole point of arc shield is to buff protoss in small-numbers engagements that terrans currently dominate (DROPS). Using an arc shield would give the protoss player help in stopping a drop, which would alleviate the difficulty of mass drops just destroying everything because protoss has to send a disproportionately higher amount of units to stop the drop effectively.
If it only worked on unit-producing structures, it would not really be anywhere near as useful for defending far-away expansions, unless you build a warpgate at every single expansion you take.
Its obviously designed so that protoss doesnt need to get a forge to defend a 6-8 pool (and thus fall way too behind if the zerg is smart), instead protoss can go standard gateway->cyber and then defend early pool it with the arc shield.
imo make it require a gateway or have it a certain radius should be enough. req on cyber just defeats the purpose
the protoss units seem like they need a lot more work put into them because its seems like they all are super strong, but i think Dustin Browder was even saying the protoss units had a lot more work to be done.
I laughed a bit after reading it. but it seems pretty lame to have it early in the game perhaps after cyber is done or something. should be changed imo ;D!
they'll block it on extractors, you'll find tons of more stuff like this since its only alpha, they added the stuff and not thought about blocking it on anything etc etc ... If you remember the first presentation of sc2. 1 Gateway could warpin as long as you had ressources etc.
Granted that this is almost impossible to prevent a probe from laying an assimilator down unless u Start one of your own assimilators first to avoid it... It's a problem.. You would need to dedicate and unneccesary amount of workers to stop this before it finished building. Also I can see major problms in already annoying piling blocks in ZvP becoming even more annoying and "auto-win" for protoss.
How to fix: 1) to cast arc-shield, the targeted building must be within a certain radius of the nexus Or 2) Must be within a certain radius of a pylon but cannot be a pylon itself.
The first option of the 2 seems more logical, I like the idea of "offensive arc shield" I think it gives the game some flavor and crowd appeal, but it would be too strong early game, unless they delayed the research of it but that would eliminate the use of it against cheese rushes.
On October 23 2011 07:13 ChineseWife wrote: does it really 2-shot probes or is the OP exaggerating quite a bit? JP said that artosis did a pylon arc shield rush in his mineral line and only one of his scvs lost around 5 hp before the pylon was taken down...
Yes, it really was 2-shotting my Probes. I'm pretty sure it does exactly 20 damage per shot to light units.
The whole idea of arc shield is pretty stupid. I don't really get what utility they are going for with the introduction of this spell. Defense against early pool, easier fast expand requiring no forge? Seems to break the early game or make for a useless spell.
I think this could be fixed by allowing it to be cast only on buildings powered by a pylon. That way, at the least, it would take a pylon + 150 minerals to use this someplace.
Ugh, cannon rushes seem like they would be even more powerful. proxy 2 gate would be just as horrible as well.
I hope Blizzard does some kind of nerf to it to only change the buildings that are within a certain radius of the Nexus. I feel like that would be a little bit more balanced. We'll see come beta testing and what Blizzard decides to change based on our feedback.
This is crazy imo.. This makes PvZ and PvT into a situation where they can be extremely greedy at the start, like 1 Zealot into 100 chrono boosted phoenixes.. Hope its balanced or I'm just missing something.
sounds disappointing =/ im surprised someone would spend a game like that (cheese... unless the winner stays in?)
but one thing that is a relief is that if they haven't even thought of things like this, it means really a lot of things can change from what they's shown so far, meaning the questionable units like the oracle may be fixed (vs them being very sure of their work and too late in development to remove/change the new things in time for HotS)
ok, here is the idea that i thought of that has not been mentioned.. possibly making the arc shield do as much damage as you have teched to. for instance, if all you have is a gateway it does say 1 damage per shot etc. (basically enough to damage workers but not actually kill any), once the cyber core is done is gets strong enough it can kill a few lings/ workers/ damage zealots (probably not kill a zealot as a zealot is much tougher than a zergling) once the robo / stargate /twighlight council is up and running it gets to do more damage and possible small area of effect...
the idea being it could be a viable ability throughout the game and not just to stop early pools... possibly upgrades needed to make it more viable or smething...
it shouldn't be so powerfull that you are like oh **** i am being all inned and the roaches and lings are 5 seconds outside of my base, well i am glad i am protoss and i can stop any attack any time ( Templar pre amulet haha) but instead should be in such a way that you are like, oh i am being all ined, well i will save a little energy and and should be able to hold with fewer losses
i guess blizzard still has a lot of balancing to do
Given that it is designed to stop drops, runbys and other forms of harass, it doesn't really need to be unlocked that early on when Protoss is on 1 base and units are concentrated. I would prefer it to be unlocked at Forge, since then it also helps those macro FFE'ing plays. Range limits and such aren't bad ideas but I reckon that would be a little complex of a mechanic for Blizzzard's taste.
I welcome the addition of a new Nexus ability, it sort of echoes the choice Terrans need to make between using Mules immediately for mega dollars, or save scans for potential cloaked units.
It just needs to have a range on it. I can't believe Blizzard didn't think about that sooner. When I first heard about it, I thought about a situation where you could place a pylon in someones base and use it offensively, but the gas in many situations actually makes more sense. It will be changed, so it isn't a problem.
Guys, it's not going to require an upgrade or cyber core.
Arc cannon is most likely being added to the game so that players in silver/bronze can hold off six pools. In silver/bronze it's common for a toss to blind wall into his main with a forge and two pylons, then put a cannon up behind it because it's the only way some players have figured out to safely hold a six pool.
Well Dustin spoke that they were considering the issues, and that most likely it will be an ability only available to be casted on GWs/ Tech structures and will require a Core. This solves the assimilator/pylon issue. It also solves the proxy gate issue since they will need a core.
I really think that it should be limited to a range of ~20-25 around a nexus, enough to defend a base well but not even close to being viable for offensive use.
Lol damn man... You guys start bitching SO FAST once protoss shows any kind of strength. This is obviously to hold early bio / ling pushes. Going forge 1st delays tech so much and makes it so that we are very vulnerable early game.
While it's not a big deal and will get fixed immediately, it makes me wonder how much actual testing Blizzard does before deciding on fundamental functions of new units and abilities.
: ( Idk. Could they just make it only castable on production buildings? You can probably still defend the things you want to defend without the spell becoming an offensive option.
Need to place a building + small range + 50 energy per use = probably pretty damn easy to defend. This guy fell for it because he had no clue it was possible.
I don't like them weeding anything based off of alpha tests, because it makes the first phase of beta so damn fun. 35 second WG anyone? Concussive shell from the getgo? Fucking roaches?
Well its always amusing how fast people exploit stuff like this lol
Still i doubt this ability will make it on its current state to the final version, if what you posted is truth the least they can do to avoid this kind of cheese is to add as requirement for the use of this ability a cybernetics core or a forge, because i think that avoiding a gas steal is near impossible unless you take them first yourself, and if you pull workers to kill it the other guy can always cancel the building getting a refund and making you waste important mining time.
All the new protoss stuff is going to get nerfed because of edge-case unintended uses to the point where they doesn't really fulfill the roles that blizzard designed them for. This is the foundation of HotS, and it's obviously flawed, but it's too late to do more than tweak at this point. Protoss is going to be hollowed out in HotS.
On October 23 2011 06:58 YosHGo wrote: Problem is they think of it as a helper against early agression... I think Arc Shield should be RLY a shield to make it defensive as it was intended to be primarly
Adds in special tactics.
Bio pushes up ramp, see's nexus. OH SHIT 75 ENERGY!! turns around, arc shield in their face from that warpgate by the ramp. Poor poor bio.
Obvious fixes: -limit arc shield to a certain radius around the nexus -limit arc shield to being placed on nexi and buildings powered by pylons (not including pylons themselves) -prereq cyb core, or gateway, or forge, or some other early-game building
More interesting fixes: -require continuous line of sight between caster nexus and target building -block assimilator steal with a worker -arc shield cannot target workers or buildings -killing arc-shielded building stops nexus probe production for 60 seconds
i believe arc shield will be nerfed no proxy buildings can get the arc shield, must be within casting range of nexus. otherwise proxy gateway rushes will be invincible.
Oh that's nasty. Assimilator + hatch block pylon, yeah you're limited by your nexus energy but this could be a really viable delay tactic and might sometimes ruin your opponent by yourself.
On October 23 2011 07:04 blackbrrd wrote: It's a bit funny that Blizzard didn't think of that way to use it. I am just waiting for the shredder to be used offensively vs Zerg since they don't get a unit with 5+ range for a looooong time. :p
Blizzard doesn't think very much apparently. They really didn't think people would do stuff like this when a good chunk of ladder games are pure cheese in the form of Marine/SCV all-ins, 6 pools, Cannon Rushes, Bunker rushes ect...
It is the first thing I thought of when they announced the ability. Build a pylon in enemy mineral line. Cast Arc Shield. Profit.
If it requires Cyber-Core it would be completely useless. If it's to stay (and I think it absolutely should) then it has to either be castable only on pylon-powered building and/or require a Gateway. Requiring a cyber-core means it comes too late to be useful defensively.
since this seems to be for holding early pushes and last minute expo defense you could do something like make i require the enemy units to attack something that belongs to the player or an ally, to make it a truly defensive spell.
On October 23 2011 16:09 untiemyshoe wrote: basically they need to make it an area only near the nexus.
Or they could just make the assimilator an invalid target. 4 SCVs were able to kill an arc shielded pylon without taking any losses when Artosis tried it.
Let me see, writer got the equalivalent of a 6 pool done to him and we scream broken? Chill out... 1stly this cheese is so easy to break it is deserves no mention.
Others have already said, set drone next to extractor as scouting probe comes in or failing that, arc shield your own Nexus set some drones on it and continue mining...
On October 23 2011 15:26 Aberu wrote: CombatEx will love this.
Same thing popped into my head too lol.
Funny to see all of the silly bugs / abuses surface as blizzard develops this game. I'm hoping that upon release it will be slightly more balanced than WOL was upon release.
Again, just because one person lost to it one time doesn't make it too strong. Cannon rushes are strong, proxy gates are strong, 6-7pools are strong. Can we all stop concluding that you can't do anything against this?
On October 23 2011 16:18 Elwar wrote: Again, just because one person lost to it one time doesn't make it too strong. Cannon rushes are strong, proxy gates are strong, 6-7pools are strong. Can we all stop concluding that you can't do anything against this?
Yeah, it's not like it's the 1/1/1. :p
It's mostly to help hold drops and early aggression, which is a big reason toss loses right now, especially PvT. That's basically it.
On October 23 2011 16:18 Elwar wrote: Again, just because one person lost to it one time doesn't make it too strong. Cannon rushes are strong, proxy gates are strong, 6-7pools are strong. Can we all stop concluding that you can't do anything against this?
Exactly. I'm quite sure that arc shield will be able to destroy an assimilator with or without drone assistance. If Artosis of all people can deal with it, quite frankly 1 of 2 succesful attempts does not make a good sample size for discussion.
On October 23 2011 16:23 mewo wrote: This is really broken. Make the assim and the guy must attack it. Then you just cancel the damn thing. Did blizzard just not test at all?
On October 23 2011 16:23 Elwar wrote: Yeah....also the spell is on the building for 15 seconds supposedly and costs 50 mana.
I have the ultimate counter.
Run your scvs away for 15 seconds and you're still way ahead. You're welcome all.
lol not even close 15 seconds of halted mining is totally worth 75 mins and 50 energy, running your shit away would put you so far behind
No, its not. They've sent a probe early (lost mining time), planted down a assimilator (delayed tech, lost minerals), used energy (crucially slowed their economy down early game by not chronoboosting nexus). All for denying 5 mineral patches for a few seconds (which will be less than 100 minerals lost). Actually, sounds like you get a bargain if the enemy is dumb enough to attempt it.
On October 23 2011 16:23 mewo wrote: This is really broken. Make the assim and the guy must attack it. Then you just cancel the damn thing. Did blizzard just not test at all?
Pretty sure the building has to be complete, bro.
Pretty sure you didn't understand my post at all bro. It costs more to attack it than to cancel it.
On October 23 2011 06:59 Moobutt wrote: I can see it being limited to buildings that are supplied with pylon power, or a pylon itself.
Why has no one else quoted this guy in this thread. This is literally the best solution minus the ability being able to be cast on a pylon. Just make the ability cast only on buildings that have pylon power and add the Nexus to the list automatically. Problem solved.
On October 23 2011 16:23 mewo wrote: This is really broken. Make the assim and the guy must attack it. Then you just cancel the damn thing. Did blizzard just not test at all?
Pretty sure the building has to be complete, bro.
No he means that if you attack the assimilator while its building, the opponent thats offensively assimilatoring (lol) can just cancel and force you waste mining time.
I think it's very unlikely that this ability will make it through the beta. Being able to use the nexus energy for defensive purposes like that doesn't promote fun gameplay I think. Dropping/harassing protoss will become even harder then as P could just use some spare energy on the nexus to get instant free cannon when needed (all harass units are basically light anyway). I do like they are looking into giving nexus energy some other use then chronoboost, which opens up the use for lategame energy and gives some extra tactical choices early on. I just don't like the 2 abilities they thought of so far. The recall ability could be ok i guess if harassing becomes more viable with it as P would actually have a way to retreat then.
I would rather have them use nexus energy in a more fun and unique way. For example make a unit that can only be made at the nexus and costs nexus energy in addition to gas/minerals to make, for example a harass unit or some superzealot or whatever. It would give that nice lategame outlet for nexus energy and provide interesting midgame decisions of, do i make a probe and use chronoboost or do i make this special unit.
they should just make it so that u cant use it on assimiulators, who the hell is gonna defend their assimulators from zerglings anyway. im actually looking foward to this ability as it opens many new options for protoss early game, no longer do we have to forge first on big maps since we could just gate first and use this to prevent ling runbys then add a forge or core based on scouting
If this spell is to be used only defensively, wouldn't be easy to change it so that it gives firepower only to buildings in a specific radius of the Nexus? I think that this would solve the problem.
I don't get why this is needed even? The only thing i can think off is against early pools and you get a late scout. In those cases i guess something like this could be needed.
But seems to make cannon rushes even better when even the pylons can shoot? =/
This is probably gonna be altered in someway, I'd be surprised otherwise xd.
On October 23 2011 21:11 Zorgaz wrote: I don't get why this is needed even? The only thing i can think off is against early pools and you get a late scout. In those cases i guess something like this could be needed.
But seems to make cannon rushes even better when even the pylons can shoot? =/
This is probably gonna be altered in someway, I'd be surprised otherwise xd.
It can help with early aggression and 1-1-1 once only the clump of marines are left after tanks get taken out, cannons on top of buildings will let the protoss have a safe haven and allow some high HP/armor defense.
On October 23 2011 21:22 HuTSC2 wrote: why are we making protoss immune to cheese anyway.. it's bad for the game if we remove too much shit like this..
Isn't this the same as saying terran is immune to DTs because they got scan? costs 50 energy to get it down, and you gotta get it in a radius that defends everything. If you just dropped mules, or you chronoed probes (Which actually makes a pretty big difference early on) you're not immune. That's how I understood it anyway, havent seen the energy cost
On October 23 2011 22:55 CellTech wrote: Its clear david kim was sick and tired of dying to zealots and ling runby counters. Hence the shredder and battle helion.
Im calling it now, HotS will be more Terran dominant than WoL.
I'm also on board with this. Terran has so many units that counter armored units, forcing the other race to go for units that aren't armored (Lings/Banelings/Mutas/Zealots/Sentries/Archons) just to compete and forcing TvT away from Marauders.
Now they want to give Terran a way to easily deal with all those other units too? Units that hard counter other units are a bad idea for the race who can tech switch the fastest, and now Terran can pretty much hard counter any ground easily.
And they want to limit harass with the Shredder? So Zerglings will be hard countered by Hellions in battle, and now by Shredders for harass, so Zerglings could potentially have no role in TvZ? And they decided not to limit drop harass from Terran vs Zerg in anyway? I am really worried about TvZ, and I play Protoss.
I'm just not understanding the decision making here. If anything, it seems to fill the holes of Terrans game, while giving Zerg and Protoss some gimmicky units.
A simple fix would be to make this ability more powerful the closer it is to the Nexus that is using the ability. The further away the weaker it is. Give it 2-3 "levels" of power and it is generally fixed.
i really dont know why ppl think this will be a problem to balance... if u see a protoss player taking your gas u should know right away he is up to something and u should probably have a pylon or something to morph into cannon too... this is a gameplay of they ability
and u also need a gateway to do so... so is not like right away cheese with just a nexus...
On October 24 2011 00:34 Treva wrote: Funny story heh but no worries it's these kinds of things that they like to know when people test it out.
I feel like this is the case. HOTS isn't something we should be worrying about right now. We should just be playing WoL and enjoying what we've got.
If it's still able to 2 shot probes at 5 of the 8 mineral patches when hots is finally released, then yes, we can have some problems. But there's absolutely no need to be concerned atm.
On October 24 2011 00:34 Treva wrote: Funny story heh but no worries it's these kinds of things that they like to know when people test it out.
I feel like this is the case. HOTS isn't something we should be worrying about right now. We should just be playing WoL and enjoying what we've got.
If it's still able to 2 shot probes at 5 of the 8 mineral patches when hots is finally released, then yes, we can have some problems. But there's absolutely no need to be concerned atm.
Exactly. Like getting pylon blocked as Z. Not game ending by a far stretch for either side, unless the cheesee became totally unconscious while Arc shield was on the assimilator.
On October 24 2011 00:41 sc2holar wrote: Is the Arc sheild permanent or up for a limitied duration only?
For the cost of 75 mineral and 25 Nexus energy is just for 20seconds
Where are you getting that 75 mineral cost from? it says 25 nexus energy only in the picture. And it seems like it already requires a gateway, so the offensive arc sheild rush shouldnt be that much of a problem then?
On October 24 2011 00:41 sc2holar wrote: Is the Arc sheild permanent or up for a limitied duration only?
For the cost of 75 mineral and 25 Nexus energy is just for 20seconds
Where are you getting that 75 mineral cost from? it says 25 nexus energy only in the picture. And it seems like it already requires a gateway, so the offensive arc sheild rush shouldnt be that much of a problem then?
somebody in MLG web page was talking about this... he said it cost 75minerals
On October 24 2011 00:41 sc2holar wrote: Is the Arc sheild permanent or up for a limitied duration only?
For the cost of 75 mineral and 25 Nexus energy is just for 20seconds
Where are you getting that 75 mineral cost from? it says 25 nexus energy only in the picture. And it seems like it already requires a gateway, so the offensive arc sheild rush shouldnt be that much of a problem then?
somebody in MLG web page was talking about this... he said it cost 75minerals
/engage brain. How much does an assimilator cost again?
On October 24 2011 00:41 sc2holar wrote: Is the Arc sheild permanent or up for a limitied duration only?
For the cost of 75 mineral and 25 Nexus energy is just for 20seconds
Where are you getting that 75 mineral cost from? it says 25 nexus energy only in the picture. And it seems like it already requires a gateway, so the offensive arc sheild rush shouldnt be that much of a problem then?
On October 24 2011 00:41 sc2holar wrote: Is the Arc sheild permanent or up for a limitied duration only?
For the cost of 75 mineral and 25 Nexus energy is just for 20seconds
Where are you getting that 75 mineral cost from? it says 25 nexus energy only in the picture. And it seems like it already requires a gateway, so the offensive arc sheild rush shouldnt be that much of a problem then?
75 minerals refers to the Assimilator.
yes, my bad, but anyway i think this will cost money too... this way is easy in term of balance wise..
i really dont know why ppl think this will be a problem to balance... if u see a protoss player taking your gas u should know right away he is up to something and u should probably have a pylon or something to morph into cannon too... this is a gameplay of they ability
and u also need a gateway to do so... so is not like right away cheese with just a nexus...
The problem with it is that by the time they have the ability to use arc shield, you also just got your gateway up, so you have no units to kill the assimilator/arc shield. The shield can only attack units, not buildings, so you cannot use your own arc shield to kill it.
This leaves you with two options. Either take BOTH of your gasses before your opponent can or use your own arc shield to rush him. Both of these make for games that aren't very fun. It's broken because the only ways to stop it are so bad. Even if you do stop it by taking both of your gasses, they can just build a pylon instead and use that.
i really dont know why ppl think this will be a problem to balance... if u see a protoss player taking your gas u should know right away he is up to something and u should probably have a pylon or something to morph into cannon too... this is a gameplay of they ability
and u also need a gateway to do so... so is not like right away cheese with just a nexus...
The problem with it is that by the time they have the ability to use arc shield, you also just got your gateway up, so you have no units to kill the assimilator/arc shield. The shield can only attack units, not buildings, so you cannot use your own arc shield to kill it.
This leaves you with two options. Either take BOTH of your gasses before your opponent can or use your own arc shield to rush him. Both of these make for games that aren't very fun. It's broken because the only ways to stop it are so bad. Even if you do stop it by taking both of your gasses, they can just build a pylon instead and use that.
If you see someone take your gas and doing that, well just move your probes out of the way for 20 seconds on the mineral patches that it can target etc. Seems totally fine to me.
Having a tech requirement for Arc Shield is stupid. It's supposed to a defensive tool that's available very early on. That includes 6pools and proxy gates. So you can't just make it require Cybernetics Core. It would be much better if it can only be cast on certain buildings like not on a pylon and not on an assimilator.
On another note: I wonder when people will stop suggesting balancing things in regard to the distance of a nexus/orbital/hatch. This is not how Starcraft works.
Because a 6 pool or bunker rush would already be up the ramp by then.
Why not just block it as usual then? Fully wall off with a forge and another pylon and when the initial gate finishes, you should be good. (Assuming you are building at the top of your ramp against zerg, as you should be.)
Working as intended... I don't really see it as a big problem though, it's probably gonna get nerfed anyway. I would rather see someone experience with the shredder
It's kind of amazing that after being out for a 15 months people are still overreacting to undocumented cheese that may or may not be a problem in an alpha build of an unreleased expansion.
Blizzard games seem to attract a certain sort of slavering moron.
how is it a problem in PvP?! how about saving up energy yourself?
if you fear that he is going to do that then why not simply use it on your nexus and let it shoot the building before it even finishes?
it's not a problem, it's available from the start for both players. it's not like a cannon rush where the person without the forge is screwed if he doesnt scout it in time.
and you cant possibly build it out of enemy vision... you cant work your way towards the enemy like you can with cannons. if probes attack the building you have to arc shield it, probes run away, wait 20 secs and then return to kill the building.
so it must be near the mineral line from the start, and if people see that a pylon is warped in, they will simply force the cancellation by pulling probes or just arc shielding the nexus or whatever. it's not an issue.
uhm.... do people forget that you can actually block the gas from being taken by your enemy by putting a probe right next to it? no need for an asimilator...
I'm just wondering how terran is going to drop now :/ Dropping is a huge part of tvp. With this arc shield, plus warp in plus mass recal, how will we drop?
On October 24 2011 01:13 Pants536 wrote: Why not just make it so that you can only use Arc Shield on a building which is being powered by a pylon?
Because a 6 pool or bunker rush would already be up the ramp by then.
This is not meant to help against cheese because cheese can be defended easily without this mechanism. This is for early game aggression, probably specifically terran since early terran is so strong and can even kill a greedy toss. This could probably help out against drops as well.
My problem is if it's casted on a forward Pylon, then the Pylon is hidden in a tight choke, if the Protoss moves out I have no opportunity to snipe the Pylon at all as a Zerg, which is very stupid. But if it didn't stop me from sniping it in that situation, then it would be completely useless as a weapon elsewhere..
On October 24 2011 02:14 beute wrote: how is it a problem in PvP?! how about saving up energy yourself?
if you fear that he is going to do that then why not simply use it on your nexus and let it shoot the building before it even finishes?
it's not a problem, it's available from the start for both players. it's not like a cannon rush where the person without the forge is screwed if he doesnt scout it in time.
Doesn't work. The cannon does bonus damage to light, not structures. If you save your energy to use it defensively on your Nexus, it won't actually kill the assimilator.
Quite simply, this is going to have to be changed and is broken atm (which is, after all, the point of having a beta so that Blizzard can find and fix this sort of thing). It is a cannon rush at about the same speed as a worker rush. I doubt they will change this to require cyber though since that defeats the whole point of it to stop early 6 pools/proxies. Should change it to only work in a certain radius from your nexus so it is only defensive.
just give it a huge radius from the nexus, make it so big it easily covers every base. that way you'd have to proxy a nexus to use offensively, and you would still be able to use it on any building you need to when defending.
What world are you people living in where you get a gateway if you're cannon rushing? A solid plurality of this thread has their heads so far up their asses and is simply viewing any new game developments through the narrow, tribal prism of their favorite race in SC2. There will be some cheese featuring this ability, but people really seem to be overreacting to a build that has been used once against a (shitty) unprepared opponent.
On October 24 2011 04:18 ShamTao wrote: This will also make cannon rushes even stronger
Then you are just buffing Horror Gate, lol
You should make the arc shield be an upgrade on the cybernetics core. So you have to get it after warpgate finishes (or if you really want, get the arc shield upgrade before warpgate)
On October 24 2011 04:18 ShamTao wrote: This will also make cannon rushes even stronger
Then you are just buffing Horror Gate, lol
You should make the arc shield be an upgrade on the cybernetics core. So you have to get it after warpgate finishes (or if you really want, get the arc shield upgrade before warpgate)
I think they intend this to be used to defend things like 6pools and Marine/SCV all-ins, otherwise they would have done that from the start.
The fact that they didn't tack on the Cybernetics requriement from the start might mean that they want Protoss fast expands also be a little safer at the cost of a slightly worse eco
On October 24 2011 04:18 ShamTao wrote: This will also make cannon rushes even stronger
Then you are just buffing Horror Gate, lol
You should make the arc shield be an upgrade on the cybernetics core. So you have to get it after warpgate finishes (or if you really want, get the arc shield upgrade before warpgate)
That would be dumb, because the whole point of Arc Shield is so you can fast Nexus without dying to early bio or scv/marine all ins
I think arc shield is an awesome idea, I'm glad that blizzard is giving protoss more option with their nexus energy. The assimilator rush does seem a bit off, but easily fixed. Only targets within pylon radius sounds like the best option to me. I like pylons as a target because it prevents lings from killing forward pylons too easily, but roaches can still be pylon hitmen no problem. Marine drops and ling run by got weaker, but they were really good and could end the game or at least swing it to zergs/terrans favor very easily. I'm glad they took some pressure off protoss. Marauder drops are still going to be good, though more counter able with SG tech, yay.
On October 24 2011 02:30 dangm24 wrote: I'm just wondering how terran is going to drop now :/ Dropping is a huge part of tvp. With this arc shield, plus warp in plus mass recal, how will we drop?
Most likely by using medivacs? Toss doesn't get to use these new abilities for free...
This thread is one of the biggest failfests I have ever seen on TL. How is it possible that people are still repeating the same false statements over and over for a dozen pages? (Needs to require gateway, kill it with our own arc). I would expect that if you can write, you can read as well!
I guess cybercore requirement sounds reasonable. Cheese is part of the game but things like that just sound utterly broken. I wouldn't freak out right now since this is a prealpha version which is exactly there to test stuff like that. I hope they fix these things soon though, so people can actually start testing how it was meant to be used.
only requires a gateway awsomes!, so i'll proxy gate, you'll have to pull scv/drones/probes to fight then oh damm, are my proxy gates also cannons too LOLOL
On October 24 2011 05:31 Phoobie wrote: what if it required a Cybor Core?
It's still extremely early, they would only have a few units by then which can be killed by the cannon (zerglings and marines will easily die to the cannon). It needs to not provide cannon on pylons or assimilators, as I've done with the HOTS custom map courtesy of a suggestion by avilo. Browder also mentioned he did not want it as an offensive spell and considering these two are the only offensive buildings (apart from photon cannon but weapons dont stack) they would most likely be the two it won't work on in the final version.
I dont see this expansion making it into competitive play until the koreans get to test it and send their feedback. It is the same thing with the maps; the koreans know a lot more than blizzard. Gold bases were a mistake, and the koreans dealt with it. A ton of blizzard maps were bad and imbalanced, koreans made their own. Just wait for them to thoroughly test it and everything will be fine. I personally hope that the expansion never see's competitive play, and that most people stick with Wings.
if he 6pools or any type of early attack, just cast the arch sheild on load of buildings and watch the lings die, down right stupid
The only thing that is stupid about this is the 6 pool part. 6 pool has to be the most annoying and imbalanced thing in the game.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://p.twimg.com/AcS9CN1CAAA3mn5.jpg)
