In HOTS, low pylons no longer power high ground - Page 46

On June 13 2012 08:59 Toadvine wrote:


I agree too, we should also make the spawning pool require two overlords. Any change that gets rid of cheese and early aggression is great, right?

On June 13 2012 09:12 v3chr0 wrote:
This change isn't all that big, and isn't nearly as important as high-to-low ground pylon power.

Yea, obviously it disables low-to-high ground pylon power, but thats incredibly strong to be able to warp into high ground from low ground, that's why we Protoss have the Warp Prism which can do that with style.

On June 13 2012 02:57 BronzeKnee wrote:


There are a lot problems with this change.

First, Protoss Tier 1 banks heavily on Warpgates, and thus anytime you nerf it, you should in return buff something else in Protoss Tier 1 arsenal. If that is the case, then great, but otherwise this is a massive nerf.

Imagine if Blizzard required an Overlord before Spawning Pool so Zerg couldn't 6 pool. Great change a lot of players would say, gets rid of all that early Pool cheese right? Sure but it also nerfs Zerg heavily, and allows Protoss and Terran to expand in a much greedier fashion. The same logic applies here. As long as you can protect your front from the relatively weak Tier 1 Protoss units, then you are safe early.

Second, this makes the Stargate increasingly less useful. With air units you could spot and then use Pylons to attack into an enemies base. But now only a Warp Prism is there. You might say "well that gets rid of the cheesy VR-allin." It sure does, but then what role does the Stargate play in PvT? Absolutely none.

We might as well nerf Tanks while we are at it, because the Factory plays a small role in PvT generally and it would rid us of the 1-1-1 completely. What kind of logic is that?

Finally, a lot of players like to use the low ground pylon in the natural early to power the high ground to place down their Cybercore to protect their Cyber from early attacks in PvZ (Cloud Kingdom is an example of this). It will be vulnerable in the natural again, enpowering Zerg cheese vs Protoss.

So the problem here, and the convincing argument is, why is Blizzard removing aggressive options from Protoss, which is the race that struggles to apply aggression (other than all-ins) often in the first place? Like removing the 6 Pool or 1-1-1, this change would only make it harder to punish people playing very greedy or taking blind economic risks.

And that is what bothers me most. People who like to play a more aggressive style (like me) are constantly being punished by the map pool and these changes. And it will lead to everyone playing one macro style that doesn't require much scouting, and then the game will come down to one big engagement itself and who controls slightly better. And that certainly doesn't mean there is more skill involved. I hate when games come down to one big engagement in the middle, one misclick and any lead you have (or your opponent) is gone and the player who played worse the entire game can take it. I don't think there is anything more coin-flippy than that, since it isn't even something you can control by scouting or any other means.

So much for creativity.

On June 13 2012 08:49 teamhozac wrote:


Welcome to the club, they pretty much nerfed all Terran early aggression

On June 13 2012 09:25 ticklishmusic wrote:
Zerg can 6pool and get units out faster than anyone can build anything
Totally acceptable, not cheesy at all

Terran can proxy rax outside your base
Totally acceptable, not cheesy at all

Toss can warp in on high ground from low ground with vision
So OP, cannon rush and proxy buildings not fair. Better take that away, whew dodged a bullet.

In all fairness, an in-base proxy 2gate takes a lot longer than say, a proxy rax or 6pool, and is also way more all-in.

The defender's advantage (high ground) is very strong compared to BW as well, because you can't shoot units on high ground unless you have vision of them.

Far as low ground pylon cannon rushes go, its really your fault for not scouting if you're losing to those. It's a ridiculous investment to cannon crawl all the way from the edge of the opponent's base to their buildings. They're not viable unless you're playing a monobattle or something.


Also, pylon energy would, more logically, be projected as a dome. So high ground still makes sense.

On June 13 2012 09:12 v3chr0 wrote:
This change isn't all that big, and isn't nearly as important as high-to-low ground pylon power.

Yea, obviously it disables low-to-high ground pylon power, but thats incredibly strong to be able to warp into high ground from low ground, that's why we Protoss have the Warp Prism which can do that with style.

On June 13 2012 01:54 Fragile51 wrote:


This idea wouldn't work for 2 simple reasons.

1: One way to implement this change is have the maximum length of the cooldown be the same length as the current cool down, or else protoss will be forced to stay passive the entire game, because they can't apply pressure. If you want to take away aggressive options from the protoss and force them to stay in their base, then this would be the proper way to do it. And i think everyone agrees that that's a terrible implementation.

2: The other way to do it would be to double the cooldown as compared to the current situation, but improve unit stats accordingly, otherwise protoss will get rolled any day of the week. So when you do this people will just go proxy 4 gate and completely wreck face, because their units are now the best in the game.

Distance dependent warp gates simply don't work. You might as well take warpgate research away from the game entirely and just let protoss have gateways with adjusted unit stats (which wouldn't be a terrible idea).

On June 13 2012 10:20 Kluey wrote:


This change is huge... You can no longer do a 4-gate or even 3-gate pressure. Do you know what that means in PvP? I can do the most greedy things ever. As long as I have enough units to stop a probe from walking up and making a pylon, there's no way someone up my ramp and into my base.

It's a huge change and quite unnecessary in my opinion. Now every PvP will be a timing attack or sit back and 200/200.

On June 13 2012 10:57 KenZo- wrote:

Isn't that what people want ? PvP to be more versatile ? I don't get why players would want PvP to be 4gate vs 4gate or 3gate robo vs 3grobo every game.