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Dvriel
607 Posts
On June 12 2012 08:13 Eifersuchtig wrote: TS;WM I'll do an extensive guide if you're interested. Please,can you REALLY write the GUIDE?I am sure,lot of P players will tahnk you.So "We are waitin on YA" | ||
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nOlifeTERRAN
United States153 Posts
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johnny123
521 Posts
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iGrok
United States5142 Posts
On June 12 2012 08:13 Eifersuchtig wrote: Please please please stop saying things like this. It is totally ridiculous to give carriers blink. It is ok for the stalker to have blink as a researchable ability because it allows it to have mid and late game viability after serving its early game purposes without being too strong. It also is a ground unit that can sometimes bypass elevation constraints given high ground vision. A carrier already flies, negating elevation differences. A carrier has no early game viability as it isn't available, so you aren't fixing a unit to make it applicable for more than one period of the game. What you are doing is giving a very good unit an ability which makes it totally overpowered. Just think about your suggestion. Blinking carriers. Blinking. Carriers. Let's give a unit that potentially has the greatest DPS in the game that flies, can be successfully massed by good players (See CCalms higher up, Crank, and Hongun's play in general), vies for the most hit points in the game, and does not actually need to be fixed. --- I know the carrier is a viable unit for PvZ. It's a viable unit in the mid game, late game, and super late game, but for entirely different reasons. TL;DR Carriers are really good. Ccalms is right. The suggestions in this thread are bad. Use the unit and you'll see it doesn't have to be fixed. TS;WM I'll do an extensive guide if you're interested. Re: CCalms, see my pm. Re: Blink Carriers, a couple points. First, understand that my aim is not to balance carriers. My aim is to get carriers included in HotS. I believe that the only way this will happen is if carriers become an integral part of Protoss strategy, not just a very specific counter. To do this, carriers need to be brought to the attention of all top tier Protoss players, to the point that they can't ignore them anymore. This can be done by using the tried-and-true Blizzard method of overbuff followed by nerf to balance, and is the one reason for which I advocate a Blizzard-esque balance method (shudder). If you understand my goals, I don't think we'll really disagree! On to your points: «A Carrier already flies, so blink won't be used to hop otherwise unpathable terrain. For precisely this reason, Blink has less of an impact on the carrier than it does on the stalker. Blink Carriers only abuse terrain blinking on top of cliffs to shed vision, but if they attack from the cliffs they will reveal vision (as all flying units do). «A carrier has no early game viability as it isn't available, so you aren't fixing a unit to make it applicable for more than one period of the game. Again, I'm not trying to! I'm trying to fix it to get it played on a large enough scale that Blizzard keeps the carrier in the game. Giving Carriers Blink would (I suppose) discourage Carrier before Twilight Council? But that is an extremely small impact on non-Carrier units. Rather than making it applicable for more than one period of the game, I'm trying to make it applicable for more than one tactic (sit with your deathball and focus down high-hp targets). I'm envisioning carriers blinking in, releasing swarms of interceptors, followed by your ground army (making targeted fire extremely difficult), or ways for carriers to be able to operate a little more independently. «What you are doing is giving a very good unit an ability which makes it totally overpowered. I would argue that the carrier is not a very good unit in its current incarnation. But that comes down to definitions, and my definition of a very good unit is one that excels no matter what situation it is in. I would argue that the carrier is very good in some rare cases, and Blink Carriers would expand the range of scenarios in which it is good. If blink carriers become a bit overpowered to the point that everyone uses them, I can live with that. Then at least its just a numbers change. | ||
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xPrimuSx
92 Posts
On June 11 2012 23:28 iGrok wrote: Has anyone thought of giving Carriers Blink? Seems like that solves our problem of not being able to retreat without making them too strong. Its a simple solution, which should appeal to Blizzard. Gives them a more BW feel in that they need to be micro'd, and more importantly gives them a role no other Protoss unit really has (other than Forcefield) which is it forces your opponent to commit. Your opponent cant kill them without engaging your Army if you've positioned correctly. They can be a little ahead of your army to have a longer effective range, and blink back when your opponent tries to counter. I think it'd be better to give them a retooled version of the "phasing" ability that the old Protoss phase cannons had before they were removed. The Carrier becomes immaterial (requires all Interceptors to be docked) and gains a large speed bonus, but it can't interact with anything while phased. Call it Warp Jump or something. That Carrier can now penetrate any amount of anti-air to quickly attack something (taking advantage of that high burst damage) and then retreat. The only time it's vulnerable is when it is unphased. Slap a cooldown timer on it and call it a day, but you're never going to see anything like that happen. On June 12 2012 06:21 SarcasmMonster wrote: Buff the Carrier and replace the Colossus Blizz  Everyone hates them! To all those people who are still going "why won't they get rid of [Insert unit new to SC that wasn't from BW here]?" you've already answered your own question. The current Blizzard SC development team wants to keep all the units they added because they created them, it's a badge of honor that they rebuilt the game with their units and it works/is better than ever. By getting rid of their units, especially in favor of reintroducing what amounts to reskinned BW units, it would impinge on their ego, which is something they would try to prevent whenever possible. The Carrier is simply the best illustration of this. Please excuse the large amount of text to follow. The new team never wanted the Carrier in SC2 in the first place, instead it was cut for the original Tempest (hence forth referred to as the OG Tempest) as a DT version of the Carrier. Of course seeing as how this thing had no AtA and its shield didn't activate against AtA, it would be even more auto-countered than the current Carrier given the prevalence of Colossus play, and even if the OG Tempest would have been more popular than the Colossus, then the Colossus would have been auto-countered by people countering the OG Tempest, so their idea would have actually been even worse, even more useless than the situation we currently find ourselves in. Moving on, they brought back the Carrier because of the fan reaction and even recognized the need for the Carrier to have something else to it and introduced the idea of constructing limited time units to enhance the Carrier's combat capabilities (the Escort) given the state of the game when it came to killing off Protoss power units (the Colossus Paradox). This line of thought (buff Carrier to keep it competitive) was later abandoned cause... well who the heck knows, and the Carrier was released as is. Over time, the deficiencies of the Carrier became obvious to everyone playing the game, and Blizzard immediately reacted by decreasing Ultralisk build time and granting it the Frenzy permanent buff while increasing BC health, speed, decreasing its build time and tweaking its damage. Apparently these fixes could not help alleviate the problems of the ailing Carrier and so Dustin Browder kept going on and on about how useless it is and how much it and the Colossus overlap in their roles, to paraphrase Ned Flander's father, they'd tried nothing and they were all out of ideas, so it was better to just remove it and start fresh, with a unit they like to call, the Tempest  . Now this was not the be the OG Tempest, which would truly be the equivalent of spitting in the fans' faces, but rather a new Tempest that would definitely guarantee Protoss air superiority, up until it didn't. No longer able to make other air evaporate while providing some support damage against ground, the Tempest is now what we all should have assumed it was going to be, a long range, single target capital ship useful for some burst damage before it needs to back off to build more Interceptors er, I mean wait for its attack cooldown. Ah brute force and superior technology, truly a Dark Templar style* unit if there ever was one. So, instead of asking for things like the Colossus or the Roach, or the Marauder or any other new to SC2 unit to be removed, try to come up with ways to rework it or adjust it. Look at things like the Battle Mode Hellion, or the changes done to keep the Reaper in as your guide. Blizzard will not remove their new units for older stuff, however they are willing to modify them. If between some buffs to the Carrier and some mods to other units (that keep the spirit of the unit), you can figure out a way to make more dynamic gameplay that will allow the Carrier to become tactically useful go for it, but that's the only way this is happening. *Minor rant with the implementation of DT tech in SC2. + Show Spoiler + In BW, DT tech was all about being particularly good at something at the expense of a significant weakness that was addressed through some interesting trick/special ability to allow the unit to live and fight another day. Unit: Dark Templar Issue: Low durability, expensive melee unit Trick: Permanent passive invisibility allowing it to ignore its low durability so it can happily slaughter enemy ground units provided you can keep detection away from it Unit: Dark Archon Issue: Durable spellcaster with no direct offensive capability Trick: What part of SPELLCASTER did you not understand? It can immolate any unit with energy, freeze biological units in place, and mind control everything else. In exchange for a lack of direct offensive capability the DA gained lots of indirect offensive capability as well as combat disruption abilities, whose strategic use allowed it to influence the nature of combat from the safety of the back of your army. Unit: Corsair Issue: No AtG attack Trick: If I can't shoot you, you can't shoot me. The Corsair's Disruption Web allowed it to negate GtA attacks to compensate for its lack of an AtG attack, so it only needed to worry about taking damage from things it could shoot back. Minor Phoenix rant + Show Spoiler + So the old Protoss air superiority fighter could negate the GtA fire it couldn't respond to in kind, the new one instead gains the ability to attack those ground units back, except unlike the abilities of the other new AtA units in the game, it requires at least 2 units (1 Phoenix and 1 other unit that can hit air) to make any offensive use of it. WTF?! A Viking can transform and be useful in the air or on the ground all by its lonesome. A Corruptor can use Corruption on a unit and then gain benefit by attacking that unit mano a mano, but the Phoenix, no, it needs someone to do the dirty work for it. Now in SC2 we have Unit: OG Tempest (here simply to for the sake of it) Issue: Long range AtG siege unit with no AtA attack Trick: A special shield that only activates against GtA attacks, cause that will really help it survive longer against all those other air units shooting at it given that fact it shouldn't be in range of its targets on the ground in the first place. Unit: Stalker Issue: It's kinda a meh unit, does that count? It has a bit of the jack of all trades, master of none action going on. Trick: Blink, I think everyone understands what Blink Stalkers means. This ability single-handedly elevates the Stalker from 'meh' to 'awesome,' however it is also the largest contributor to why the unit is 'meh' in the first place. Unit: Void Ray Issue: Umm, it's kinda slow, both in movement and in killing things Trick: If it's attacking something long enough the Void Ray starts doing a ton more damage to it, but wait, isn't its damage an issue only because it has this trick in the first place, much like the Stalker? [Blizzard]No, shut up[/Blizzard] Alright, what about its speed, it has an upgrade which increases it... [Blizzard]No, it doesn't.[/Blizzard] Well OK then, just the damage trick it is, with no compensatory changes to the units base speed, cost, or any other unit stat, none at all. Void Ray trick idea + Show Spoiler + The Prismatic Core is supposed to grant it nearly limitless energy, so then why not have the ability to redistribute that energy. At the cost of damage output let the VR channel power to its shields or its engines for a limited amount of time. It can help it to either engage in/disengage from or tank during (shields regen while under fire)/recover after (increased shield regen rate) combat. Make it a cooldown ability where for the duration you can switch between modes. Unit: Oracle Issue: A fragile spellcaster with no offensive capability Trick: Umm, it's fast? No wait, it can cloak (which is not passive)... anything but itself apparently (for a cost) and they can't cloak each other so umm, yeah. Unit: Tempest Issue: Super long attack cooldown Trick: Umm, way long range? Honestly, only the Stalker feels anything like a DT designed unit thanks to Blink, except for the fact that Blink drastically improves the Stalker across the board as opposed to simply shoring up a weakness, meaning the Stalker can never be a good generalist unit, because once Blink hits it'd be too good. | ||
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HelioSeven
United States193 Posts
On June 12 2012 08:13 Eifersuchtig wrote: I know the carrier is a viable unit for PvZ. It's a viable unit in the mid game, late game, and super late game, but for entirely different reasons. TL;DR Carriers are really good. Ccalms is right. The suggestions in this thread are bad. Use the unit and you'll see it doesn't have to be fixed. TS;WM I'll do an extensive guide if you're interested. As someone who also uses carriers a lot, I agree almost completely with your tl;dr. I would still like to see the re-targeting tweak to the interceptors (allowing the carrier to pick new targets within the extended range 14, but only launch new interceptors within range 8), but on the whole, carriers are a whole lot more effective than most people think, and CCalms is more or less on point that a lot of people think they are bad because they haven't taken the time to actually experiment with them. On a related note, I do want to point out that while the carrier has the most applications in solving the late-game PvZ problem, I've found that it can actually be quite effective in PvP as well. It's a really strange way of playing PvP, and that might be why I have as much success with it as I do (surprise factor and all), but I've been having great success recently with immortal/carrier builds. As soon as your opponent sees you massing carriers they immediately mass blink stalkers with a few sentries for guardian shield support, which normally wreck carriers. Immortals pretty much completely negate that one giant weakness in mass carrier builds, and with decent micro (splitting and target firing) are pretty effective at holding their own against colossi as well (not that colossi do too well against carriers to begin with). As far as I've tested it, chargelot/archon seems to be pretty terrible (carriers just target fire archons, and then yay free zealots) and I've never even seen anyone attempt mass voids, which seems like the only hard counter to immortal/carrier, but even that just seems like prime candidate for an archon toilet. | ||
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NicolBolas
United States1388 Posts
By getting rid of their units, especially in favor of reintroducing what amounts to reskinned BW units, it would impinge on their ego, which is something they would try to prevent whenever possible. Dropping reskinned SC1 units into SC2 would represent intellectual bankruptcy. If the only ideas you have for the new game are old ideas, then why bother making a new game at all? The new team never wanted the Carrier in SC2 in the first place, instead it was cut for the original Tempest (hence forth referred to as the OG Tempest) as a DT version of the Carrier. Of course seeing as how this thing had no AtA and its shield didn't activate against AtA, it would be even more auto-countered than the current Carrier given the prevalence of Colossus play, and even if the OG Tempest would have been more popular than the Colossus, then the Colossus would have been auto-countered by people countering the OG Tempest, so their idea would have actually been even worse, even more useless than the situation we currently find ourselves in. To be fair, the Viking in those days didn't have the ludicrous range they have now. And the OG Tempest did have AtA attacks; it just didn't have AtA shields. Also, the Phoenix was rather more capable of dealing with Viking swarms thanks to their Overload ability. Oh, and the OG Tempest was short ranged (relatively); that's why it had the shield mechanic. It also probably wasn't much more expensive than the Void Ray. It wasn't a "capital ship" any more than the Void Ray was. You can't look at old units in a vacuum; you have to look at them as a whole. The OG Tempest was designed for the game as it was then, not as it is now. It would have been a good compliment to the SC2 units that existed at the time. They would have been more successful against Marines due to higher durability-per-unit-cost. They would have pushed the enemy to go for more air against them, where Phoenixes and/or Void Rays would be able to cover their weaknesses. And so forth. Oh, and the Colossus in those days wasn't the AoE machine it is now. It did single-target damage, using small burst attacks (disguised as a beam, ala the Void Ray), which switched targets automatically when something died. It could fire at targets that move outside of its natural range. Sound familiar? The Colossus was a walking Carrier back then. In fact, if you want to know who to blame for the current Colossus, just look in the mirror. Because everyone kept saying "we want the Carrier back!", Blizzard had to change the Colossus into something less Carrier-like so that it would fit. The timing works out too: the Colossus got the AoE beem about 4 months after the Carrier was re-introduced. That worked out great, didn't it community? Thanks, guys. Ah brute force and superior technology, truly a Dark Templar style* unit if there ever was one. Who says the new Tempest is a Dark Templar unit? It's got plenty of gold on it. This ability single-handedly elevates the Stalker from 'meh' to 'awesome,' however it is also the largest contributor to why the unit is 'meh' in the first place. Yes. And if Dark Templars only did 20 damage a hit, they'd be able to have more HP. You can make that argument about any balanced unit. Unit: Void Ray The Void Ray is supposed to be a mixed Dark/Light Templar unit, co-designed by both races. | ||
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TomoeMami
Japan48 Posts
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zmansman17
United States2567 Posts
On June 13 2012 02:00 TomoeMami wrote: Please keep Carriers in HOTS BLZ I would love to see the Carrier remain, mainly because it hasn't been experimented with enough in its current form. It's the highest dps unit in the game, according to Artosis and Protoss players really don't use them enough even if there are only a few times when they can be highly successful. | ||
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i)awn
United States189 Posts
How can you convince them otherwise? That's the real question. | ||
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Crownlol
United States3726 Posts
Keep Tempests as siege burst weapons, or give them back AoE AtA so that they don't overlap roles. Allows for super cool SkyToss compositions, especially when you've got multiple Carriers, some with Dive Bombers and some with Interceptors. Allowing the Carrier to overlap part of the Colossus's role (ground aoe) makes the Carrier worth the investment and the Colossus less necessary. Sure, you'd get 2 Colossi early against MMM pressure, but a Carrier transition would still be viable against Bio armies, with Tempests to help against Vikings or Corrupters. Additionally, the AtG function of the Carrier may allow for more split-attack techniques, sending a pair of them to your opponent's third base while you push with a gateway army, etc. | ||
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Cosmos
Belgium1077 Posts
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Crownlol
United States3726 Posts
On June 13 2012 05:49 Cosmos wrote: The carrier in it's current shape is better than the tempest. Yeah the dps seemed reaaaaaal low on Tempest | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10324 Posts
On June 12 2012 14:06 xPrimuSx wrote: I think it'd be better to give them a retooled version of the "phasing" ability that the old Protoss phase cannons had before they were removed. The Carrier becomes immaterial (requires all Interceptors to be docked) and gains a large speed bonus, but it can't interact with anything while phased. Call it Warp Jump or something. That Carrier can now penetrate any amount of anti-air to quickly attack something (taking advantage of that high burst damage) and then retreat. The only time it's vulnerable is when it is unphased. Slap a cooldown timer on it and call it a day, but you're never going to see anything like that happen. To all those people who are still going "why won't they get rid of [Insert unit new to SC that wasn't from BW here]?" you've already answered your own question. The current Blizzard SC development team wants to keep all the units they added because they created them, it's a badge of honor that they rebuilt the game with their units and it works/is better than ever. By getting rid of their units, especially in favor of reintroducing what amounts to reskinned BW units, it would impinge on their ego, which is something they would try to prevent whenever possible. The Carrier is simply the best illustration of this. Please excuse the large amount of text to follow. The new team never wanted the Carrier in SC2 in the first place, instead it was cut for the original Tempest (hence forth referred to as the OG Tempest) as a DT version of the Carrier. Of course seeing as how this thing had no AtA and its shield didn't activate against AtA, it would be even more auto-countered than the current Carrier given the prevalence of Colossus play, and even if the OG Tempest would have been more popular than the Colossus, then the Colossus would have been auto-countered by people countering the OG Tempest, so their idea would have actually been even worse, even more useless than the situation we currently find ourselves in. Moving on, they brought back the Carrier because of the fan reaction and even recognized the need for the Carrier to have something else to it and introduced the idea of constructing limited time units to enhance the Carrier's combat capabilities (the Escort) given the state of the game when it came to killing off Protoss power units (the Colossus Paradox). This line of thought (buff Carrier to keep it competitive) was later abandoned cause... well who the heck knows, and the Carrier was released as is. Over time, the deficiencies of the Carrier became obvious to everyone playing the game, and Blizzard immediately reacted by decreasing Ultralisk build time and granting it the Frenzy permanent buff while increasing BC health, speed, decreasing its build time and tweaking its damage. Apparently these fixes could not help alleviate the problems of the ailing Carrier and so Dustin Browder kept going on and on about how useless it is and how much it and the Colossus overlap in their roles, to paraphrase Ned Flander's father, they'd tried nothing and they were all out of ideas, so it was better to just remove it and start fresh, with a unit they like to call, the Tempest . Now this was not the be the OG Tempest, which would truly be the equivalent of spitting in the fans' faces, but rather a new Tempest that would definitely guarantee Protoss air superiority, up until it didn't. No longer able to make other air evaporate while providing some support damage against ground, the Tempest is now what we all should have assumed it was going to be, a long range, single target capital ship useful for some burst damage before it needs to back off to build more Interceptors er, I mean wait for its attack cooldown. Ah brute force and superior technology, truly a Dark Templar style* unit if there ever was one. So, instead of asking for things like the Colossus or the Roach, or the Marauder or any other new to SC2 unit to be removed, try to come up with ways to rework it or adjust it. Look at things like the Battle Mode Hellion, or the changes done to keep the Reaper in as your guide. Blizzard will not remove their new units for older stuff, however they are willing to modify them. If between some buffs to the Carrier and some mods to other units (that keep the spirit of the unit), you can figure out a way to make more dynamic gameplay that will allow the Carrier to become tactically useful go for it, but that's the only way this is happening. *Minor rant with the implementation of DT tech in SC2. + Show Spoiler + In BW, DT tech was all about being particularly good at something at the expense of a significant weakness that was addressed through some interesting trick/special ability to allow the unit to live and fight another day. Unit: Dark Templar Issue: Low durability, expensive melee unit Trick: Permanent passive invisibility allowing it to ignore its low durability so it can happily slaughter enemy ground units provided you can keep detection away from it Unit: Dark Archon Issue: Durable spellcaster with no direct offensive capability Trick: What part of SPELLCASTER did you not understand? It can immolate any unit with energy, freeze biological units in place, and mind control everything else. In exchange for a lack of direct offensive capability the DA gained lots of indirect offensive capability as well as combat disruption abilities, whose strategic use allowed it to influence the nature of combat from the safety of the back of your army. Unit: Corsair Issue: No AtG attack Trick: If I can't shoot you, you can't shoot me. The Corsair's Disruption Web allowed it to negate GtA attacks to compensate for its lack of an AtG attack, so it only needed to worry about taking damage from things it could shoot back. Minor Phoenix rant + Show Spoiler + So the old Protoss air superiority fighter could negate the GtA fire it couldn't respond to in kind, the new one instead gains the ability to attack those ground units back, except unlike the abilities of the other new AtA units in the game, it requires at least 2 units (1 Phoenix and 1 other unit that can hit air) to make any offensive use of it. WTF?! A Viking can transform and be useful in the air or on the ground all by its lonesome. A Corruptor can use Corruption on a unit and then gain benefit by attacking that unit mano a mano, but the Phoenix, no, it needs someone to do the dirty work for it. Now in SC2 we have Unit: OG Tempest (here simply to for the sake of it) Issue: Long range AtG siege unit with no AtA attack Trick: A special shield that only activates against GtA attacks, cause that will really help it survive longer against all those other air units shooting at it given that fact it shouldn't be in range of its targets on the ground in the first place. Unit: Stalker Issue: It's kinda a meh unit, does that count? It has a bit of the jack of all trades, master of none action going on. Trick: Blink, I think everyone understands what Blink Stalkers means. This ability single-handedly elevates the Stalker from 'meh' to 'awesome,' however it is also the largest contributor to why the unit is 'meh' in the first place. Unit: Void Ray Issue: Umm, it's kinda slow, both in movement and in killing things Trick: If it's attacking something long enough the Void Ray starts doing a ton more damage to it, but wait, isn't its damage an issue only because it has this trick in the first place, much like the Stalker? [Blizzard]No, shut up[/Blizzard] Alright, what about its speed, it has an upgrade which increases it... [Blizzard]No, it doesn't.[/Blizzard] Well OK then, just the damage trick it is, with no compensatory changes to the units base speed, cost, or any other unit stat, none at all. Void Ray trick idea + Show Spoiler + The Prismatic Core is supposed to grant it nearly limitless energy, so then why not have the ability to redistribute that energy. At the cost of damage output let the VR channel power to its shields or its engines for a limited amount of time. It can help it to either engage in/disengage from or tank during (shields regen while under fire)/recover after (increased shield regen rate) combat. Make it a cooldown ability where for the duration you can switch between modes. Unit: Oracle Issue: A fragile spellcaster with no offensive capability Trick: Umm, it's fast? No wait, it can cloak (which is not passive)... anything but itself apparently (for a cost) and they can't cloak each other so umm, yeah. Unit: Tempest Issue: Super long attack cooldown Trick: Umm, way long range? Honestly, only the Stalker feels anything like a DT designed unit thanks to Blink, except for the fact that Blink drastically improves the Stalker across the board as opposed to simply shoring up a weakness, meaning the Stalker can never be a good generalist unit, because once Blink hits it'd be too good. Interesting post. I enjoyed it. But are the new tempest and old corsair really DT units? Anyways, I didn't think of it like that, (that DT units are really strong strengths but also very large weaknesses, at least in relation to other units). They do seem to have lost that feel/theme. | ||
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K_osss
United States113 Posts
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xPrimuSx
92 Posts
On June 13 2012 00:26 NicolBolas wrote: Dropping reskinned SC1 units into SC2 would represent intellectual bankruptcy. If the only ideas you have for the new game are old ideas, then why bother making a new game at all? Widow Mine. Stalker. An independently produced Spider mine that can attack air and doesn't immediately detonate? Tell me more. Similarly, a durability and damage nerfed Dragoon that learns how to teleport? Amazing. It's not like Blizzard hasn't or does not continue to reskin SC1 units and add some new quirk to them for SC2. The point is whether or not the changes made actually make the unit better than it was before or are simply changes for changes sake. On June 13 2012 00:26 NicolBolas wrote: To be fair, the Viking in those days didn't have the ludicrous range they have now. And the OG Tempest did have AtA attacks; it just didn't have AtA shields. Also, the Phoenix was rather more capable of dealing with Viking swarms thanks to their Overload ability. Oh, and the OG Tempest was short ranged (relatively); that's why it had the shield mechanic. It also probably wasn't much more expensive than the Void Ray. It wasn't a "capital ship" any more than the Void Ray was. You can't look at old units in a vacuum; you have to look at them as a whole. The OG Tempest was designed for the game as it was then, not as it is now. It would have been a good compliment to the SC2 units that existed at the time. They would have been more successful against Marines due to higher durability-per-unit-cost. They would have pushed the enemy to go for more air against them, where Phoenixes and/or Void Rays would be able to cover their weaknesses. And so forth. Oh, and the Colossus in those days wasn't the AoE machine it is now. It did single-target damage, using small burst attacks (disguised as a beam, ala the Void Ray), which switched targets automatically when something died. It could fire at targets that move outside of its natural range. Sound familiar? The Colossus was a walking Carrier back then. In fact, if you want to know who to blame for the current Colossus, just look in the mirror. Because everyone kept saying "we want the Carrier back!", Blizzard had to change the Colossus into something less Carrier-like so that it would fit. The timing works out too: the Colossus got the AoE beem about 4 months after the Carrier was re-introduced. That worked out great, didn't it community? Thanks, guys. Oh, you think because the Carrier was brought back the Colossus got changed to what it is now? That's kinda funny, and also truly looking at things in a vacuum. The Colossus and the Reaver existed side-by-side in the early days of SC2, allowing the early Colossus to be something different, something new. Blizzard eventually decided they occupied the same role (kill lots of weak units or deliver a strong punch to tough units with a high damage attack on a long cooldown) and opted to go with the Colossus because it was more mobile and easier to use, beside it was so unique since it occupied that niche without resorting to using splash damage. Also, I wouldn't call the Colossus attack similar to the Void Ray at all. It was a channeled ability, more like the Thor's Strike Cannons, except that instead of the damage being constrained to 1 unit like the Thor, the Colossus would always move to a new unit if it still had damage left to deal in that attack cycle (and of course it wasn't a spell but a straight up attack), nothing Carrier like about it, especially considering the Carrier immediately stops its attack and will not engage a new target with the Interceptors if outside of the 8 release range (unlike BW). However, the Colossus failed to kill enough things fast enough to really matter given its extreme vulnerability so at first Blizzard messed with its damage, then let it engage multiple targets at once, and finally acquiesced to the inevitable and gave it splash. The reason the Colo is the AOE fiend it is today is because Blizzard picked it over the Reaver and their initial design just wasn't cutting it, it has nothing to do with the return of the Carrier. Back to the OG Tempest and Protoss air in the pre-07 Blizzcon days. As to whether or not the Shurikens could engage air as well as ground, I'll take your word for it since I only recall them ever being used on ground targets and Blizzard emphasizing their anti-ground capability. The OG Tempest itself appeared to have Range 6 or 7 from the vids IIRC, that's not all that shorter than the Carrier. From the announcement vid that showed off the OG Tempest, Soul Hunter, and Twilight Archon, the Shuriken also seemed to have almost a range boost themselves (probably equal to the range of 2 that the Interceptor's attack has) and kept attacking things beyond the release range of the OG Tempest. With the special shield the OG Tempest had it would have retained the ability to engage base defense and serve as a siege breaker, something which I never doubted. However, that doesn't alleviate the problems it would face, Shuriken would evaporate just like Interceptors, and without any shields against Air (plus its decreased range), it would be even more vulnerable than the current Carrier to counter attack. The thing would need to be much cheaper than a Carrier to still be a worthwhile investment, and I doubt it was Void Ray cost. As to the Phoenix, it was still a range 4 unit, it would still be outranged by the Viking (Range 5 as of 2008), and the Overload ability was already headed towards nerf city. By the time of the great "reveal" where Blizzard started posting unit info on the SC2 site (mid-2007), the Phoenix Overload had a set number of targets it could engage and was no longer truly AOE, but rather massively single target (like the Colossus would eventually become), although the unit did do more damage than it currently does. Still, the OG Tempest would outrange Vikings by a bit, however it would be too slow to actually run away, and Vikings can safely attack outside of the range of Phoenices, honestly, a bunch of Phoenices going Overload would be a good thing for Vikings since they could just up and sit back and fire while the Phoenices were stuck in place. Admittedly you could use this tactic to buy your OG Tempests time to run away with the Phoenices forming a deadly barrier (a kinda cool tactic I gotta admit) but Protoss still isn't winning the air war. On June 13 2012 00:26 NicolBolas wrote: Who says the new Tempest is a Dark Templar unit? It's got plenty of gold on it. I retract that statement. When I was looking up the Tempest for a refresher on the SC wiki, it listed the Tempest under DT tech, but when I went back today I figured out that they meant the OG Tempest and that because of the new Tempest the wiki is having issues with differentiating between the 2 with all pages referencing back to the new Tempest that should be discussing the OG Tempest. On June 13 2012 00:26 NicolBolas wrote: Yes. And if Dark Templars only did 20 damage a hit, they'd be able to have more HP. You can make that argument about any balanced unit. Not the point, the point is that DT units in BW were purposefully both OP and UP in that they had some amazing strength balance out with some terrible weakness that was only mitigated through the use of some trick. It was that feel of the units which made them stand out from the regular Protoss arsenal of "I'm expensive and awesome, fear me." The SC2 DT units do not have that same feel to them. Also, if the DT still retained its cloak, you really wouldn't see too much of a health boost since passive cloak is so powerful. On June 13 2012 00:26 NicolBolas wrote: The Void Ray is supposed to be a mixed Dark/Light Templar unit, co-designed by both races. It uses tech from both races, yes (powered by both Void energy and the Protoss psionic matrix), but in terms of it's stated affliation, it is a DT unit, so it should feel like a DT unit. On June 13 2012 06:11 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Interesting post. I enjoyed it. But are the new tempest and old corsair really DT units? Anyways, I didn't think of it like that, (that DT units are really strong strengths but also very large weaknesses, at least in relation to other units). They do seem to have lost that feel/theme. Well I'm glad you enjoyed it. The Corsair is a DT unit (described as being used to protect their fleets), but the new Tempest is unknown. Blizzard has made no statement as far as I know and what I thought stated that it was a DT unit was a mess up at the SC wiki because of the new Tempest and the OG Tempest. | ||
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Callynn
Netherlands917 Posts
Just for an example, the enormous range on the Tempest could easily be given to the Carrier (increase the range at which interceptors may fly away from their Carrier) without punishing the strategies of their opponents too much. Right now, not going Spire against any Protoss (due to the Oracle, but also due to the Tempest) is just not going to be an option for Zerg. While if they were interceptors, at least anti air (such as spores and hydras) would have some use. This seems to narrow down possible builds in the PvZ matchup for HotS instead of motivating to go for a more wider variety of strategies. There are of course a variety of other buffs for the Carrier possible as is said in the posts above, but I don't think they need to be complex or a new ability alltogether - the Carrier is fine as it is now if Interceptors could fly into the fray without endangering the Carriers. | ||
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SiegeFlank
United States410 Posts
You might say that Vikings are still an effective counter to Carriers, but the thing is that not only will Vikings not benefit from vehicle upgrades that factory units are getting, but investing in Vikings weakens the strength of the ground army (at least Goliaths were still decent vs other ground units in BW). | ||
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nihoh
Australia978 Posts
Or why can't they just make the Tempest gather 100 interceptors in its centre and fling it at the target. That'd be much cooler than a Plasma ball. | ||
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D4V3Z02
Germany693 Posts
Seriously: Like blizz said the carrier has no specific role, and he suffers from armor till each interceptor attack gets blocked by armor. They should make it long ranged with kamikaze interceptors and replace with it the tempest or remove it. | ||
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