On October 25 2011 04:23 RCMDVA wrote: I'm thinking the #1 target to replicate PvT would be an SCV.
The problem is.... just how do you get the SCV out of the terran main/natural base alive?
#1 - Warp Prisim? #2 - Nexus recall? #3 - Get lucky and catch a scouting SCV?
I think it would be great to get an SCV early in the match if you could.
SCV->make a CC -> make an Ebay -> Plantaries & Sensor Towers & Mechanical repair would be fantastic.
But, IMO the actual mechanics of rushing to go snag one *early* SCV with a warp prism seem to be very hard. Or very expensive with a nexus recall (its 3 chronobosts... right?)
I don't think there would be a real way to get a SCV until the Terran tries to take a 3rd, unless you get really lucky.
It helps alot to watch the video of the unit. The replicator stays in a spot and when vision is gained of the target unit then the "replicate" ability can be used. The target unit is then copied at the Replicant's current position.
So you could send an observer into the enemy base, gain vision of an scv and then turn the replicant into an SCV in your own base. Pretty easy. However, i'm not convinced this will see much competitive useage.
Really? It is almost impossible to not use this unit in any game that goes past the 2base. You can never really put a value on how much units like the Ghost, Viper or Infestor would cost if it were a Protoss unit, but it is almost a given that during some point in the game it WILL be worth investing 200/200 and 4pop for one. Especially Ghosts and Vipers. One of the harder things to do with Protoss is engaging out in the open, but if you have two or three Vipers replicated, their Cloud ability will make it sooo much easier
It is definitely a unit that rewards having a great understanding of the game, thus it will see much more meaningful use by the very top players as opposed to the mediocre.
It just opens up a whole bunch "what if" scenarios.
We have all seen Protoss camp the bottom of an enemy ramp or choke to contain them, but what about that exact same contain WITH two or three Siege tanks to boot?
Or maybe even replicating the new Thor like unit from Terran. It has such long range anti air, if you ever manage to secure an advantage in the early to mid game, then replicating one or two of those units will help immensely swatting away Vikings. Imagine pushing into the Terran base with some of those to back you up.
How a good player will use this unit will change game to game, scenario to scenario. It isn't like making a Colossus, that has a clear role, the Replicants only goal is whatever you make it to be.
Replicating Tanks in one game might be totally worth the unit cost whilst in your next game it would be the dumbest idea ever.
What it is worth replicating depends completely on the current state of the game your in. Just like the above example it might be worth replicating Siege tanks _right now_, but 5minutes later you could be finding your self a situation where the last thing you need is a Siege tank
As a terran when I think they are going replicant, I'll go mmm so the best thing they can replicate is medivac/marauder/marine, don't make any tanks or they can make them. :D
Wrote this in another thread, posting it here too.
The Replicant
This unit has been getting a decent amount of criticism, and while I think that this unit is kind of lame, it does have the ability to be extremely useful, given the current stats (which are subject to change). Massive theory crafting incoming.
The replicant builds in 30 seconds and combined with the ability to copy your own units, complete with abilities/energy, it could allow for some nasty tech-switches late game.
Source:
Cost of 1 replicant: 200/200/4pop 30sec build time
Scenario 1: You have 2 robos already and scout your opponent going for broodlords.
Step 1: Throw down stargate, start making replicants 1 stargate = 150/150/60sec 4 replicants = 800/800/ 60 sec (30sec*2=60, and with 2 robos, thats 4 per minute)
Subtotal: 1 Stargate: 150/150 16 replicants 3200/3200/64 population 3 VR: 750/450/9 population
Total Resource Cost: 4100/3800/73 population Total time cost: 240 seconds (4 minutes)
Scenario 2: You already have 2 robos and scout your opponent going for broodlords, but you don't like the replicant. You throw down brand-new stargates instead.
Step 1: Throw down 3 stargates 3 stargates = 450/450/60sec
Subtotal: 3 Stargate: 450/450 18 VR: 4500/2700/54 population
Total Resource Cost: 4950/3150/54 population Total resource cost with 19 Voidrays: 5200/3300/57population
Total time cost: 420 seconds (7 minutes)
Conclusion: Making replicants as a tech switch to voidrays from robo tech is not that effective in resource cost, but very effective in terms of time.
The strength of replicants is that you can effectively turn your robos into stargates, allowing you to begin constructing “voidrays” immediately upon scouting broodlords rather than having to wait a minute before production begins (stargates take 60 seconds to build during which time you are building no voidrays).
Replicants are a good stopgap measure to begin producing voidrays or immortals or high-templar quickly so that you can mass a lot of them ASAP. However, it isn’t a replacement because generally, you end up with a lot more population going into replicants. You also spend more resources in the long run. But if you began using your robos to produce replicants while you made a few stargates, you could have 2 replicants per robo in the time that your stargates are building, and then 2 more replicants per robo per voidray (voidrays also take 60 seconds to build). After you make a few stargates, it is better to just go pure voidrays unless you have a lot of gas to spare, or really need extra units NOW.
High Templar: In the case of high templar, you could get about 2 replicants per robo in the time that your templar archives is building (50 seconds), and then another 3-4 while the storm research finishes (110 seconds). This allows you to get full-energy high templar with the ability to storm right after your templar archives is finished. Might be useful: having "HT" with full energy and storm right as your templar archives finishes and not having to wait an extra 110 seconds for storm to finish researching.
In general, the warp-in mechanic makes it more reasonable to just make templar after storm finishes though (unless you really need those storms quickly) since the cost for a replicant is so high (200/200/4pop vs 50/150/2pop). The warpgate mechanic means that the replicant's short build-time is not as effective as in the void-ray's case, because in addition to HTs "building" faster (5 sec with warp-in), you also can get them anywhere. Replicants only spawn at robos.
Replicants allow you to decide if you want immediate storms for 150 more minerals, 50 gas and 2 pop per templar, or not.
Immortal: you can get ~2 replicants in the time it takes to get one immortal (55sec build time), but it costs twice the gas.
Dark templar: it's probably not that cost effective due to warp in.
The key strength is the ability to trade money for time: building a 3 stargates and then 3 voidrays at a time is a lot slower than making 4 replicants per minute from 2 robos + 1 voidray per minute from a stargate.
This allows a protoss who lacks enough production facilities to produce units he needs NOW (including the enemy’s) and gives him time to build up the infrastructure he really needs in the meantime. The downside is that you will pay a higher cost, especially gas and population.
On October 25 2011 05:07 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: OMG lol you could make 2 200 food armies in BW? insane xD
No, that's not true.
You could actually make 3 200 food armies in Brood War. You could command all 3 races at once. And it wasn't so much that you'd want to max out an army, even if you could, it would be that you could tech up and continually produce 1 or 2 unit types that would smash your opponents army. If you stole a drone, you'd want to go lurkers, and if you stole an SCV, you'd want to go tanks and vultures.
I think the real problem with the replicant is that it flies, and you can clone units that you have vision of regardless of where the replicant is. That means cloning tanks or swarm hosts allows you to gain a positional advantage much easier.
im sitting here pondering... trying to imagine a world where this isnt insanely imbalanced but....I dont think its possible lol. So many incredible roles that terran units can fill in the toss army as the OP mentioned. And yes, fungal storm is the most destructive force ever seen.
Or better, replicate Tanks, Hellions, etc in their mineral line.
[edit]
Oh forgot they replicate the state too, so siege thaks are sieged if you replicate them sieged. So indeed instant shreaders in mineral line is the way to go =P
On October 25 2011 05:05 sleepingdog wrote: I can't imagine that the replicator will ever make it into the game as it was intended - how could you possibly balance protoss if it had access to its opponents tech-tree? That's like....balancing 2 whole different, additional races at any given random point in time o_O
Marine/colossus-deathball anyone? vikings and bio both melts in seconds
Marines are too squishy and their range is too short to be very effective in that role, I think. A 5-range ground unit isn't going to be very good at warding away 9-range flying units.
You would also be giving up a lot of the advantages of Stalker/Colossus, such as shared upgrades, warp-in reinforcements, ability to abuse/ignore most terrain and regenerating shields between fights.
On October 25 2011 04:55 Asymmetric wrote: How about a few medivacs? There common enough so it shouldn't be an issue.
Healing zealots would be pretty bloody hard to kill. Expensive, but potentially worth it.
I don't see this being too effective because Zealots are kind of supposed to die. And then you make more. Protoss is so gas-hungry that you almost always have minerals out the wazoo to spend on Zealots, whereas you don't want to spend gas on replicating Medivacs.
Maybe...
But at present Zealots shields just get blown away with EMP and it's there armour, health and guardian shields that keep them standing. Medivacs might just create a tipping point where combined with some guardian shields they just won't die from accumulative defences. I'd have to see it in action first.
If only zerg got them. Medivacs/queens on ultralisks in 2v2 is hilarious.
Might be plausible, but remember that Terrans will now have use of Battle Hellions, which are pretty much explicitly made to roast Zealots.
On October 25 2011 05:24 Meatloaf wrote: actually medivacs would be quite good to have with protoss...
would they heal zealots stalkers sentries & templars? the sentry seems a weird unit to heal...
As a sidenote , i think they should give us a real unit , i dont like the idea of replicating units bc we dont have competent units for ourselves...
I'm cool with the other 2 units they showed although
Medivacs can only heal BIOLOGICAL units. In the protoss arsenal that are zealots and high and dark templars. All other units are MECHANICAL and cannot be healed. The can be repaired by scvs or MULEs though.
Think late game they could be useful for quick tech changes, but even then depending on build time the standard amount of robo's would restrict it, aswell to stockpile them untill hitting the switch would leave your standing army weaker while tieing up food.
Perhaps ravens, toss down a PDD if they have a heavy marauder composition, though if that became the norm Terran would just not build the ravens to start with. (They don't seem to build them anyway)
On October 25 2011 04:23 RCMDVA wrote: I'm thinking the #1 target to replicate PvT would be an SCV.
The problem is.... just how do you get the SCV out of the terran main/natural base alive?
#1 - Warp Prisim? #2 - Nexus recall? #3 - Get lucky and catch a scouting SCV?
I think it would be great to get an SCV early in the match if you could.
SCV->make a CC -> make an Ebay -> Plantaries & Sensor Towers & Mechanical repair would be fantastic.
But, IMO the actual mechanics of rushing to go snag one *early* SCV with a warp prism seem to be very hard. Or very expensive with a nexus recall (its 3 chronobosts... right?)
I don't think there would be a real way to get a SCV until the Terran tries to take a 3rd, unless you get really lucky.
It helps alot to watch the video of the unit. The replicator stays in a spot and when vision is gained of the target unit then the "replicate" ability can be used. The target unit is then copied at the Replicant's current position.
So you could send an observer into the enemy base, gain vision of an scv and then turn the replicant into an SCV in your own base. Pretty easy. However, i'm not convinced this will see much competitive useage.
It's odd that you can copy units of other races. This would make so much more sense if it was limited to protoss units, allowing for faster tech switches at a cost (as outlined above). It would make PvP interesting if a player didn't go robo first, but it would start to standardize builds so that robo is the first thing you go for and then the interest really remains in the later parts of the game. The other problem I have with this is the unlimited range. This really doesn't make sense to me. I'd rather give it a range of 10 or 13 and just leave it at that.
So it's 50 shields 50 life? I'd like to see it be even more fragile than that or at least have a "warp-in" time.
On October 25 2011 05:14 bovineblitz wrote: What happens if a zerg NPs a replicator and replicates something?
I don't see why it would be anything other than the obvious. The Zerg controlled-Replicator would turn into whatever you pick, and then would revert to Protoss control in a few seconds, still in the shape of whatever the Zerg turned it into.
On October 25 2011 04:23 RCMDVA wrote: I'm thinking the #1 target to replicate PvT would be an SCV.
The problem is.... just how do you get the SCV out of the terran main/natural base alive?
#1 - Warp Prisim? #2 - Nexus recall? #3 - Get lucky and catch a scouting SCV?
I think it would be great to get an SCV early in the match if you could.
SCV->make a CC -> make an Ebay -> Plantaries & Sensor Towers & Mechanical repair would be fantastic.
But, IMO the actual mechanics of rushing to go snag one *early* SCV with a warp prism seem to be very hard. Or very expensive with a nexus recall (its 3 chronobosts... right?)
I don't think there would be a real way to get a SCV until the Terran tries to take a 3rd, unless you get really lucky.
Use oracle to make scv's flee, then replicate them :D
EPT
