On August 20 2012 21:26 johnny123 wrote: I made this post on the battlenet forums, i do know its kinda out of context, but its my argument as to why i think the tempest will be VERY useful. I do fully agree with the guy that said david kim thinks they will be much more useful than carriers.
do note, that the tempest will come out alot faster than some people seem to think ( people say stuff like Oh my god, it requires fleet beacon , Takes so long to come out! )
If you look at the mother ship core,it has an ability called energize. if you keep energizing your nexus it will literally have unlimited chronboost. With a permanent chronoboost on your stargates i see these suckers coming out fast.
I definately do not think tempest will be useless, they will pick away so much units from a distance and if you ever fly them into trouble a nexus recall should help.
if you think your base will be weak to timing pushes because of getting the tempest unit. This is where mothership core comes in yet again, it has a huge 13 range 60 damage cannon with just a simple click.
I dont think we can come to any conclusions as yet when determining what units will suck or be op.
Now to answer the question about if i think tempest will have a role?
yes i do think they will have many key roles in the game.
- they will be key units in the fight against swarm host timing pushes with spine crawlers. Think about it, if you loose your ground army to swarm hosts /spine-crawlers there is literally no way you can fight threw it to save your base. Tempests are the only units you have that can attack swarm hosts from a distance . That big cannon from the mothership core only lasts 20 seconds. With swarm hosts beign able to put out infinite units the realistic counter is THE TEMPEST. We all know what happens when protoss trys to engage into mass spinecrawlers /broodlords. There is no reason not to believe engaging into 7 + spine crawlers with swarmhosts/couple lings or roachs + easier to spread creep would present a serious problem for protoss. Tempests are more than likely to be THE answer to fend of this push.
-they will be key units in the fight against the zerg air death ball ( infestor/broodlord) and doing econ damage mid game.
-they will be key units in PvP against the massing of the colosus death ball. Think about it, in pvp what robo unit will counter the tempest? if you think you can blindly mass colosus in pvp late game anymore u will be mistaken. IF you think Blink stalkers will counter these guys, you are wrong, blink stalkers cannot reach that which is not on ground. I see alot of air wars happening in PvP, with both void rays and tempests . I see orcales coming in with energize casted on them and preodain granting vision for tempest to blast probes away from a distance. No robo unit will be able to reach tempest hence air wars will happen. With the mothership core cannon being able to handle 4 gate pushes easily, i think PvP is going to see massive changes in HOTS with literally every unit being used.
-They will be usefull in tvp, but i dont see them being TOO usefull. I personally think that if mech becomes more used in this matchup, voidrays instead will be the units to make a huge return in this matchup, especially for voidray busts.
Im not sure that Energize works on buildings. Anyone remember what the latest build on that was?
And ya Tppz! can you please specify what David Kim said and what is your opinion.
I would like so much if MC shows to Bli² how carriers are useful. He did it against Kas. I played once agaisnt a master, did the same, he hasn't enough vikings, i had 4 carriers, instant win.
And now, they appear on PvZ. I definitely don't understand why they want to remove an unit. They don't want too much ? Why ? Isn't variety better ? Wow, it will be great if for LotV they remove 5 others units in order to don't have "too many".
And btw, others units aren't more played than carriers. Reapers, ravens (yeah, they are now the hype late game TvZ, but carriers are for PvZ), prism hasn't not been few time ago, hydra aren't....
But, in the first case, player find a way to use them. Or, blizzard buffed them.
Now, players are using carriers. Not too much maybe, but i don't understand your "They can't be used". Just a little buff, more armor / hp, or make them able to hit and run, or decrease their time of productions, and they will be fixed.
On August 20 2012 20:52 Halozination wrote: I like they remove the carrier but that they remove vortex against air I dont like at all. mothership now seems almost pointless and it still costs tons of money.
The vortex is back in the beta said david
mothership now have mass stasis against air ( 20 seconds), arguably even more broken
Dont come to conclusions so fast.
Yeah I really should not have concluded anything... it was just the frustration speaking seeing that vortex is getting nerfed, I am happy to hear it isn't. It is hard to make any predictions how the different matchups will look like and how the mothership will influence them in the late game especially with this new ability.
On August 20 2012 05:40 Saat wrote: Anyway, the thing is : on what that is a problem if there are still carriers, useless and not used, in the game, for blizzard ? Nothing. They may appear only on 0.5% games, that hurts no one.
And furthemore, i'm pretty sure pgm may find a better place for them. Like MC against Kas. And anyway, they appear more and more in PvZ.
Seriously, Carriers are so important for Starcraft...Removing them seems just...So dumb.
They dont want too many units in the game and a unit doesnt isnt used in any matchup or only one isnt worth it.
I respect your opinion. Indeed, I think this line of reasoning is behind Blizzard's decision to remove it. But allow me to provide the counter-arguement.
What is too many units? Is 14 too much? Is it a hard line like you absolutely cant have more than 14 or is it a soft line? And if it is a soft line than what unit would be more worthy of bending that soft line then the Carrier.
I agree that that too many units does dilute and damage SC2 but removing the Carrier as your first and only fix for this is cutting off the nose to spite the face. If your going to finally cut a unit from the game you should at least consider how much your community loves the unit, whether the unit represents starcraft and whether the unit is fun to play with. There are many units that arn't used currently and are getting second chances. Battlecruiser, hydra, reaper, warp prism, void ray. Arguments could be made for anyone that they would be better candidates for the chopping board.
The carrier is a lot worse than the Tempest in every way.
The Carrier is not worse than the Tempest in every way. You didn't give any examples of ways the Tempest is better but ill provide some for the Carrier, Lore, DPS, Microability, and viability vs late game PvZ. Its also theorized that the Carrier would be better against the Tempest.
The Tempest is completly new design while the carrier is a a-move unit, which you cant even micro.
His micro is bad in SC2 because the designers havn't made it micro like it did in SC1. The recent stealth buff they did made it more micrable (word?)
his dps is always bad in sc2 because you are always behind in air upgrades and it suffers a lot from armorupgrades of the other units.
Valid point. But if you make Stargate play more viable in HOTS than Protoss will get more air upgrades. Besides the Tempest also relies on air upgrades
Also with fast hydras the carrier, especially the interceptors are gettign worse with the addon. Zerg would kill the interceptors with speed hydras like marines do right now.
Fair point. Though the next part where you said that this means he will never be played is conjecture. And the conclusion that he should be removed if he is seldom played does not address allot of the other points that have been brought up (like Esports needing a "OMG I cant believe he used that unit to win!"
the BCs has a role in this game. Its used in every matchup.
I dont know if someone have told this before in this thread (i cant read it all) .. but the main problem with the carrier actually is the viper.. Vipers actually rapes carriers with the abduct, while the tempest is not weak at this. Im very sad for the carriers but without a HUGE redesign, cant be more likeable than the tempest.. And if u do a huge redesign, is not a carrier anymore. Also i've got a feeling about blizzard. They seems afraid to use bw units, they're taking it like an "honour point" to go ahead without the help of an old design. My suspect is .. they will bring the new units no matter what because they've already "take too much" from the bw design..sound stupid.. but sounds real to me.
On August 20 2012 05:40 Saat wrote: Anyway, the thing is : on what that is a problem if there are still carriers, useless and not used, in the game, for blizzard ? Nothing. They may appear only on 0.5% games, that hurts no one.
And furthemore, i'm pretty sure pgm may find a better place for them. Like MC against Kas. And anyway, they appear more and more in PvZ.
Seriously, Carriers are so important for Starcraft...Removing them seems just...So dumb.
They dont want too many units in the game and a unit doesnt isnt used in any matchup or only one isnt worth it.
I respect your opinion. Indeed, I think this line of reasoning is behind Blizzard's decision to remove it. But allow me to provide the counter-arguement.
What is too many units? Is 14 too much? Is it a hard line like you absolutely cant have more than 14 or is it a soft line? And if it is a soft line than what unit would be more worthy of bending that soft line then the Carrier.
I agree that that too many units does dilute and damage SC2 but removing the Carrier as your first and only fix for this is cutting off the nose to spite the face. If your going to finally cut a unit from the game you should at least consider how much your community loves the unit, whether the unit represents starcraft and whether the unit is fun to play with. There are many units that arn't used currently and are getting second chances. Battlecruiser, hydra, reaper, warp prism, void ray. Arguments could be made for anyone that they would be better candidates for the chopping board.
The carrier is a lot worse than the Tempest in every way.
The Carrier is not worse than the Tempest in every way. You didn't give any examples of ways the Tempest is better but ill provide some for the Carrier, Lore, DPS, Microability, and viability vs late game PvZ. Its also theorized that the Carrier would be better against the Tempest.
The Tempest is completly new design while the carrier is a a-move unit, which you cant even micro.
His micro is bad in SC2 because the designers havn't made it micro like it did in SC1. The recent stealth buff they did made it more micrable (word?)
There was? But I agree that they didnt make it like SC:BW so it sucks much more than it should. But that is only one argument. You could fix this one but you cant fix Interceptors which are terribad in SC2.
his dps is always bad in sc2 because you are always behind in air upgrades and it suffers a lot from armorupgrades of the other units.
Valid point. But if you make Stargate play more viable in HOTS than Protoss will get more air upgrades. Besides the Tempest also relies on air upgrades
Hm this is a lot theorycrafting but vs Zerg and Bioterran its an huge investment and you cant rely on splash damage. And I think you need Splash damage vs zerg and Bioterran in SC2. These guys cost a lot of ressorces and Air Upgrades are also a lot more expensive than the other upgrades (why the hell is this that way?)
Also with fast hydras the carrier, especially the interceptors are gettign worse with the addon. Zerg would kill the interceptors with speed hydras like marines do right now.
Fair point. Though the next part where you said that this means he will never be played is conjecture. And the conclusion that he should be removed if he is seldom played does not address allot of the other points that have been brought up (like Esports needing a "OMG I cant believe he used that unit to win!"
Espots gets another "OMG I ..." unit with the Tempest. The Tempest also doesnt work that good versus very mobile units (if you start teching to it fairly quickly). I think its role is more Lategamish. Sniping Casters/Medivacs, force the opponent out of position, etc. It doesn this Lategame Job a lot better because it doesnt rely on upgrades that mcuh. Cause the Carrier has X Interceptors. Every one is a "dual shooter". So if you opponent has 2 or 3 armor the damage is heavily reduced. But when the Tempest hits the Battlefield it doesnt have so much problems with armor cause its single shot. The Carrier has a huge disadvantage and this is also why Protoss dont build Carriers until they have 1 attack or 2 attack upgrades as far as i saw). The BC has a similar problem with his masslasers, but its not that devastating like the disadvantage of the Carrier in that belong.
the BCs has a role in this game. Its used in every matchup.
Examples? This isnt what I have seen.
TvT: In the Lategame you can build BCs to overrun your meching opponent because Mech has bad Anti-Air Options. Also you can go skyterran. He has the yamato which makes him a lot better than the carrier cause the carrier has no ability. TvZ: Skyterran was seen a lot in the last few month. Byun and MVP showed us that Skyterran is the optimal lategame Army versus Zerg. (if you have support units and split the map) TvP: There is a build where ppl go for BCs in the very lategame. happy played it the most in the beginning but a lot others did and do it too. You can go for BCs cause Stalkers suck ahrd in the Lategame. So Protoss has to rely on its Stargate units and High Templars. The problem is just getting to this stage of the game
On August 21 2012 00:00 InVerno wrote: I dont know if someone have told this before in this thread (i cant read it all) .. but the main problem with the carrier actually is the viper.. Vipers actually rapes carriers with the abduct, while the tempest is not weak at this. Im very sad for the carriers but without a HUGE redesign, cant be more likeable than the tempest.. And if u do a huge redesign, is not a carrier anymore. Also i've got a feeling about blizzard. They seems afraid to use bw units, they're taking it like an "honour point" to go ahead without the help of an old design. My suspect is .. they will bring the new units no matter what because they've already "take too much" from the bw design..sound stupid.. but sounds real to me.
that can be true. We dont really know it cause only Blizzard is testing this heavily. Its all part of the same process: zerg gets a shitload more options for antiair: Swarm host, Viper(abduct), speed hydras. All those things make Carriers hugely ineffective. The Swarm Host will kill you minerals (interceptors) basically for free. Hydras rip those Interceptors and Vipers can abduct carriers afterwards.
The biggest problem of the carrier is the interceptor. I always said that. Its because the damage output is sooo high in sc2 and upgrades are so early.
___________ what belongs to david kims opnion and which are my assumptions of my post last page:
The Tempest is completly new design while the carrier is a a-move unit, which you cant even micro. his dps is always bad in sc2 because you are always behind in air upgrades and it suffers a lot from armorupgrades of the other units. Also with fast hydras the carrier, especially the interceptors are gettign worse with the addon. Zerg would kill the interceptors with speed hydras like marines do right now. thats why you cant give him a second chance. he will get worse in the addon cause of new stuff. reaper will be removed anyway imo.
<-- mine
he has no role in the game. Blizzard doesnt want units that arent used in their games. "if a unit only gets used in 1 or 2 matchup thats not good and blizzard wants to replace it.
On August 20 2012 05:40 Saat wrote: Anyway, the thing is : on what that is a problem if there are still carriers, useless and not used, in the game, for blizzard ? Nothing. They may appear only on 0.5% games, that hurts no one.
And furthemore, i'm pretty sure pgm may find a better place for them. Like MC against Kas. And anyway, they appear more and more in PvZ.
Seriously, Carriers are so important for Starcraft...Removing them seems just...So dumb.
They dont want too many units in the game and a unit doesnt isnt used in any matchup or only one isnt worth it.
I respect your opinion. Indeed, I think this line of reasoning is behind Blizzard's decision to remove it. But allow me to provide the counter-arguement.
What is too many units? Is 14 too much? Is it a hard line like you absolutely cant have more than 14 or is it a soft line? And if it is a soft line than what unit would be more worthy of bending that soft line then the Carrier.
I agree that that too many units does dilute and damage SC2 but removing the Carrier as your first and only fix for this is cutting off the nose to spite the face. If your going to finally cut a unit from the game you should at least consider how much your community loves the unit, whether the unit represents starcraft and whether the unit is fun to play with. There are many units that arn't used currently and are getting second chances. Battlecruiser, hydra, reaper, warp prism, void ray. Arguments could be made for anyone that they would be better candidates for the chopping board.
The carrier is a lot worse than the Tempest in every way.
The Carrier is not worse than the Tempest in every way. You didn't give any examples of ways the Tempest is better but ill provide some for the Carrier, Lore, DPS, Microability, and viability vs late game PvZ. Its also theorized that the Carrier would be better against the Tempest.
The Tempest is completly new design while the carrier is a a-move unit, which you cant even micro.
His micro is bad in SC2 because the designers havn't made it micro like it did in SC1. The recent stealth buff they did made it more micrable (word?)
There was? But I agree that they didnt make it like SC:BW so it sucks much more than it should. But that is only one argument. You could fix this one but you cant fix Interceptors which are terribad in SC2.
his dps is always bad in sc2 because you are always behind in air upgrades and it suffers a lot from armorupgrades of the other units.
Valid point. But if you make Stargate play more viable in HOTS than Protoss will get more air upgrades. Besides the Tempest also relies on air upgrades
Hm this is a lot theorycrafting but vs Zerg and Bioterran its an huge investment and you cant rely on splash damage. And I think you need Splash damage vs zerg and Bioterran in SC2. These guys cost a lot of ressorces and Air Upgrades are also a lot more expensive than the other upgrades (why the hell is this that way?)
Also with fast hydras the carrier, especially the interceptors are gettign worse with the addon. Zerg would kill the interceptors with speed hydras like marines do right now.
Fair point. Though the next part where you said that this means he will never be played is conjecture. And the conclusion that he should be removed if he is seldom played does not address allot of the other points that have been brought up (like Esports needing a "OMG I cant believe he used that unit to win!"
Espots gets another "OMG I ..." unit with the Tempest. The Tempest also doesnt work that good versus very mobile units (if you start teching to it fairly quickly). I think its role is more Lategamish. Sniping Casters/Medivacs, force the opponent out of position, etc. It doesn this Lategame Job a lot better because it doesnt rely on upgrades that mcuh. Cause the Carrier has X Interceptors. Every one is a "dual shooter". So if you opponent has 2 or 3 armor the damage is heavily reduced. But when the Tempest hits the Battlefield it doesnt have so much problems with armor cause its single shot. The Carrier has a huge disadvantage and this is also why Protoss dont build Carriers until they have 1 attack or 2 attack upgrades as far as i saw). The BC has a similar problem with his masslasers, but its not that devastating like the disadvantage of the Carrier in that belong.
Ive yet to hear much enthusiasm about the Tempest. But thats besides the point. To be a "OMG I cant believe he just used that unit to win!" unit the unit needs to have been underused and considered worthless for many months. The Tempest can't do that since we havn't had months of not using it. Remember how excited people got when Protoss players first figured out how to win with the Mothership?
the BCs has a role in this game. Its used in every matchup.
Examples? This isnt what I have seen.
TvT: In the Lategame you can build BCs to overrun your meching opponent because Mech has bad Anti-Air Options. Also you can go skyterran. He has the yamato which makes him a lot better than the carrier cause the carrier has no ability. TvZ: Skyterran was seen a lot in the last few month. Byun and MVP showed us that Skyterran is the optimal lategame Army versus Zerg. (if you have support units and split the map) TvP: There is a build where ppl go for BCs in the very lategame. happy played it the most in the beginning but a lot others did and do it too. You can go for BCs cause Stalkers suck ahrd in the Lategame. So Protoss has to rely on its Stargate units and High Templars. The problem is just getting to this stage of the game
Ill check out the Byun vs MVP games but do you have any recent examples for the others? This is what we have for the Carrier so far (if people find more post them)
I would love if the Carrier would make it to HotS, recent games give me more reason to be a little little bit more optimistic.
As an alternative I would like to see the Carrier is reintroduced as a kind of "Light Carrier". Let it replace the voidray (never liked it anyways) and reduce hp and max. number of interceptors (4-6), increase their speed and let it able to be build pre fleet beacon. Of course there must be more adjustments if they go this way but I think the basic idea would be very interesting.
On August 20 2012 21:26 johnny123 wrote: I made this post on the battlenet forums, i do know its kinda out of context, but its my argument as to why i think the tempest will be VERY useful. I do fully agree with the guy that said david kim thinks they will be much more useful than carriers.
do note, that the tempest will come out alot faster than some people seem to think ( people say stuff like Oh my god, it requires fleet beacon , Takes so long to come out! )
If you look at the mother ship core,it has an ability called energize. if you keep energizing your nexus it will literally have unlimited chronboost. With a permanent chronoboost on your stargates i see these suckers coming out fast.
I definately do not think tempest will be useless, they will pick away so much units from a distance and if you ever fly them into trouble a nexus recall should help.
if you think your base will be weak to timing pushes because of getting the tempest unit. This is where mothership core comes in yet again, it has a huge 13 range 60 damage cannon with just a simple click.
I dont think we can come to any conclusions as yet when determining what units will suck or be op.
Now to answer the question about if i think tempest will have a role?
yes i do think they will have many key roles in the game.
- they will be key units in the fight against swarm host timing pushes with spine crawlers. Think about it, if you loose your ground army to swarm hosts /spine-crawlers there is literally no way you can fight threw it to save your base. Tempests are the only units you have that can attack swarm hosts from a distance . That big cannon from the mothership core only lasts 20 seconds. With swarm hosts beign able to put out infinite units the realistic counter is THE TEMPEST. We all know what happens when protoss trys to engage into mass spinecrawlers /broodlords. There is no reason not to believe engaging into 7 + spine crawlers with swarmhosts/couple lings or roachs + easier to spread creep would present a serious problem for protoss. Tempests are more than likely to be THE answer to fend of this push.
-they will be key units in the fight against the zerg air death ball ( infestor/broodlord) and doing econ damage mid game.
-they will be key units in PvP against the massing of the colosus death ball. Think about it, in pvp what robo unit will counter the tempest? if you think you can blindly mass colosus in pvp late game anymore u will be mistaken. IF you think Blink stalkers will counter these guys, you are wrong, blink stalkers cannot reach that which is not on ground. I see alot of air wars happening in PvP, with both void rays and tempests . I see orcales coming in with energize casted on them and preodain granting vision for tempest to blast probes away from a distance. No robo unit will be able to reach tempest hence air wars will happen. With the mothership core cannon being able to handle 4 gate pushes easily, i think PvP is going to see massive changes in HOTS with literally every unit being used.
-They will be usefull in tvp, but i dont see them being TOO usefull. I personally think that if mech becomes more used in this matchup, voidrays instead will be the units to make a huge return in this matchup, especially for voidray busts.
See, here's my problem: all those roles you mention as to why tempests will be good for the meta-game? The carrier already does all of those things:
- Spine crawler/swarm host will be very similar to spine crawler/brood lord, and carriers are already the counter to that. The only thing that carriers do really badly against is things with high base armor, which neither spine crawlers, swarm hosts, nor brood lords have.
- Skytoss is already the most effective build I have in PvZ. Carriers with mass recall is stupidly effective at base raiding, and forces Zerg to re-engineer his late-game army composition.
- Carriers are already the answer to the late-game PvP colossus problem. Carrier/immortal compositions absolutely wreck your standard colossus/stalker composition, even void ray/colossus compositions as well. It's pretty easy to spread immortals out to minimize colossus splash, and after that colossi kind of become a joke.
- Carriers are also already the answer to mech TvP. Phoenixes are stupid effective against mech, and Terran's natural counter choice is obviously the thor. Carriers are pretty good against thors, last time I checked (maybe the ninja 1.5 changes made thor splash more effective against the newer, more bunched up interceptors, I dunno). Void rays are pretty good as well, but they stack much worse than carriers, have shorter range, and are generally more susceptible to air splash (a la thor). The only thing that the tempest has over the carrier in this scenario is bonus vs massive, making tempests more viable against battlecruisers (the only thing the carrier is extremely weak against vs mech), but the void ray exists for a reason.
Just thinking about various situations. With the mothership core making it easier to survive early game and the new oracle, stargate openings will become a lot more common in every matchup. The protoss then has the stargate along with the cybernetics core available early in the game.
Watching the battle reports it seems that the tempest is an excellent unit to prevent slow pushes with siege tanks or swarm hosts, where the carriers interceptors would get shredded by marines/hydras and are also more vulnerable to widow mines or the vipers abduct
Similarly the carrier is currently a good choice versus brood lord compositions, however abduct again means the tempest is a better choice.
Also I can see them being useful in pvp picking off colossus or archons, though they are basically useless against anything else and as mentioned above the carrier does already work. Also With oracles both protoss will have less income so mass colossus will likely be less common. Imagine the comedy value in casters/observers trying to cover a tempest v tempest battle.
That said they do not seem that useful outside of those situations, their dps is similar to a single stalker which makes them a terrible choice for any direct battle.
A terran simply will not rely on siege tanks. Going for air units against mech seems like a good idea. Though against widow mine/hellion/warhound a standard gateway army plus tempest came across as a weak choice in the battle report. Without the carrier the options are then phoenix/void ray which has potential and could then push the terran into viking/raven/battlecruiser which thinking about, would be a great game to watch. A few carriers added in would make the composition so much stronger where as the tempest is pitifully weak. It takes 9 tempest shots to kill a battlecruiser. The low dps also means anything that is not one-shot can move out of range or be repaired before the next volley.
I understand some of the reasons for removing the carrier, mainly interceptors getting destroyed, however the tempest seems like it will have even less uses. Blizzard are adding upgrades for a lot of units. If trying to encourage stargate play, why not more upgrades for stargate units? Perhaps some version of the speed upgrade for the void ray or let the tempest switch to a short range high dps mode or have some kind of ability with a cool down that can make it useful beyond tickling units from afar when it comes to engagements. Then there really would be no need for the carrier, that said changes or upgrades for the carrier could mean there would be no need for the tempest.
Just thinking about various situations. With the mothership core making it easier to survive early game and the new oracle, stargate openings will become a lot more common in every matchup. The protoss then has the stargate along with the cybernetics core available early in the game.
I agree, more and more and more players will be getting the stargate and fleet beacon for Oracles and their upgrades. And suddenly you've teched to carriers without really even meaning to.
Watching the battle reports it seems that the tempest is an excellent unit to prevent slow pushes with siege tanks or swarm hosts, where the carriers interceptors would get shredded by marines/hydras and are also more vulnerable to widow mines or the vipers abduct.
The thing is, and I have a feeling this is your point, that slow pushes really won't be seen as much. Bio will still be the main choice vs Protoss, even if Mech is used more, and Tempests are even worse than carriers at dealing with bio. PvZ, I get this feeling that some sort of hydra-ling will become the metagame. This enables constant attacking with high-DPS units and the tempest would be absolutely hard countered by the hydra and unable to stop the flow of lings or banelings. The carrier is not good vs hydras either but it can be used to stem the flow of ling bane coming through. In HOTS you will never see 200/200 carrier armies. That still just won't work. What I do feel like you will see is the carrier being used as both a support and harassment unit. It can be used to stem the flow of ling bane, as I said, and for the hydras, something like 1 or 2 colossi would be needed, maybe some sentries for guardian shield. And for harassment you can just drop a carrier behind your opponent's mineral line, kill it, and get out and back to your base. You might lose the carrier afterwards, but it's definitely a possibility. As for PvP, who knows? It could stay 4gate 60% of games, or it could be completely overhauled into a point where the lategame, and thus the carrier/tempest, are seen often. I really don't know about PvP.
Similarly the carrier is currently a good choice versus brood lord compositions, however abduct again means the tempest is a better choice.
I agree with this, but the abduct could be found to be absolutely imbalanced and be nerfed, maybe like Neural Parasite, not being able to target Massive units. (For those who are unfamiliar, Neural Parasite was nerfed in about November 2011 to be unable to target massive units. Obviously the nerf has since been undone.)
Also I can see them being useful in pvp picking off colossus or archons, though they are basically useless against anything else and as mentioned above the carrier does already work. Also With oracles both protoss will have less income so mass colossus will likely be less common. Imagine the comedy value in casters/observers trying to cover a tempest v tempest battle.
I agree with this as well, however the carrier could be used for the same should it get a speed or range buff.
That said they do not seem that useful outside of those situations, their dps is similar to a single stalker which makes them a terrible choice for any direct battle.
And this is why the Tempest should be scrapped. They would see no more, if not less action, than the carrier does today. A good buff for the carrier in the right spot could make them lategame PvX metagame.
A terran simply will not rely on siege tanks. Going for air units against mech seems like a good idea. Though against widow mine/hellion/warhound a standard gateway army plus tempest came across as a weak choice in the battle report. Without the carrier the options are then phoenix/void ray which has potential and could then push the terran into viking/raven/battlecruiser which thinking about, would be a great game to watch. A few carriers added in would make the composition so much stronger where as the tempest is pitifully weak. It takes 9 tempest shots to kill a battlecruiser. The low dps also means anything that is not one-shot can move out of range or be repaired before the next volley.
As you said, tempests will never be used for engagements and during battles will be doing nothing but taking up supply, whereas the carrier could be actually contributing to the game and the battles.
I understand some of the reasons for removing the carrier, mainly interceptors getting destroyed, however the tempest seems like it will have even less uses. Blizzard are adding upgrades for a lot of units. If trying to encourage stargate play, why not more upgrades for stargate units? Perhaps some version of the speed upgrade for the void ray or let the tempest switch to a short range high dps mode or have some kind of ability with a cool down that can make it useful beyond tickling units from afar when it comes to engagements. Then there really would be no need for the carrier, that said changes or upgrades for the carrier could mean there would be no need for the tempest.
Exactly. A few changes here, an upgrade there, and BAM one is suitable for both jobs, but I agree that the need for the tempest's job is even more rare than that for the carrier's. And this is why the carrier should stay in the game.
EDIT: Ok, I appear to have written a bit of a rant here, so..gonna take a break from this thread. XD
On August 05 2012 12:03 Aetherial wrote: After watching the OSL finals where Jangbi used carriers I'm convinced they need to keep and 'fix' the carrier in HotS... I hope they do.
I say thesame. I want carriers more than the tempest.
That cannot be the most important argument for a decision. If Blizzard would have asked the fans how they want SC2, we would now have Broodwar with widescreen graphics. Even though if you don't like this particular change for HotS, you should be able to see the greater good of developing a franchise forward instead of using the same old content over and over.
In this case, a 'fixed' carrier would make the unit very unlikely like a carrier, so it is good that the unit gets replaced entirely instead of keeping the name for an effectively new unit.
I call BS my friend.
Changing stats/range of the Carrier and giving it back moving shot do not make it a 'new unit.'
Scrap the carrier for all I care, but don't give me a shallow unit with no depth. The carrier has 3-4 layers of depth that make it cool. The tempest, a single layer.
the carrier has no depth its the msot Amove unit in existance its exactly like a broodlords only worse since the intercepters can be shot down
Perhaps the SC2 carrier, but the BW carrier, that was a wonderful unit. Required micro to use properly and was sufficiently powerful (against terran at least).
I know I'm constantly asking you guys for videos but if anyone remembers great examples of goliath/carrier micro from BW I can put it in an upcoming segment on why the Carrier was so good for gameplay in BW.
En Taro Carrier!
There were carriers in Jangbi vs Zero (PvZ) (I think, Kim Carrier cried so I assume so) and Jangbi vs Fantasy (PvT) in the last OSL.
I wasnt able to find the Jangbi vs Zero game. Does anyone else remember any other broodwar games with awesome Carrier/goliath micro? This is your chance ot help the Carrier!
On August 20 2012 21:26 johnny123 wrote: I made this post on the battlenet forums, i do know its kinda out of context, but its my argument as to why i think the tempest will be VERY useful. I do fully agree with the guy that said david kim thinks they will be much more useful than carriers.
Just quoting my post
do note, that the tempest will come out alot faster than some people seem to think ( people say stuff like Oh my god, it requires fleet beacon , Takes so long to come out! )
If you look at the mother ship core,it has an ability called energize. if you keep energizing your nexus it will literally have unlimited chronboost. With a permanent chronoboost on your stargates i see these suckers coming out fast.
I definately do not think tempest will be useless, they will pick away so much units from a distance and if you ever fly them into trouble a nexus recall should help.
if you think your base will be weak to timing pushes because of getting the tempest unit. This is where mothership core comes in yet again, it has a huge 13 range 60 damage cannon with just a simple click.
I dont think we can come to any conclusions as yet when determining what units will suck or be op.
Now to answer the question about if i think tempest will have a role?
yes i do think they will have many key roles in the game.
- they will be key units in the fight against swarm host timing pushes with spine crawlers. Think about it, if you loose your ground army to swarm hosts /spine-crawlers there is literally no way you can fight threw it to save your base. Tempests are the only units you have that can attack swarm hosts from a distance . That big cannon from the mothership core only lasts 20 seconds. With swarm hosts beign able to put out infinite units the realistic counter is THE TEMPEST. We all know what happens when protoss trys to engage into mass spinecrawlers /broodlords. There is no reason not to believe engaging into 7 + spine crawlers with swarmhosts/couple lings or roachs + easier to spread creep would present a serious problem for protoss. Tempests are more than likely to be THE answer to fend of this push.
-they will be key units in the fight against the zerg air death ball ( infestor/broodlord) and doing econ damage mid game.
-they will be key units in PvP against the massing of the colosus death ball. Think about it, in pvp what robo unit will counter the tempest? if you think you can blindly mass colosus in pvp late game anymore u will be mistaken. IF you think Blink stalkers will counter these guys, you are wrong, blink stalkers cannot reach that which is not on ground. I see alot of air wars happening in PvP, with both void rays and tempests . I see orcales coming in with energize casted on them and preodain granting vision for tempest to blast probes away from a distance. No robo unit will be able to reach tempest hence air wars will happen. With the mothership core cannon being able to handle 4 gate pushes easily, i think PvP is going to see massive changes in HOTS with literally every unit being used.
-They will be usefull in tvp, but i dont see them being TOO usefull. I personally think that if mech becomes more used in this matchup, voidrays instead will be the units to make a huge return in this matchup, especially for voidray busts.
See, here's my problem: all those roles you mention as to why tempests will be good for the meta-game? The carrier already does all of those things:
- Spine crawler/swarm host will be very similar to spine crawler/brood lord, and carriers are already the counter to that. The only thing that carriers do really badly against is things with high base armor, which neither spine crawlers, swarm hosts, nor brood lords have.
- Skytoss is already the most effective build I have in PvZ. Carriers with mass recall is stupidly effective at base raiding, and forces Zerg to re-engineer his late-game army composition.
- Carriers are already the answer to the late-game PvP colossus problem. Carrier/immortal compositions absolutely wreck your standard colossus/stalker composition, even void ray/colossus compositions as well. It's pretty easy to spread immortals out to minimize colossus splash, and after that colossi kind of become a joke.
- Carriers are also already the answer to mech TvP. Phoenixes are stupid effective against mech, and Terran's natural counter choice is obviously the thor. Carriers are pretty good against thors, last time I checked (maybe the ninja 1.5 changes made thor splash more effective against the newer, more bunched up interceptors, I dunno). Void rays are pretty good as well, but they stack much worse than carriers, have shorter range, and are generally more susceptible to air splash (a la thor). The only thing that the tempest has over the carrier in this scenario is bonus vs massive, making tempests more viable against battlecruisers (the only thing the carrier is extremely weak against vs mech), but the void ray exists for a reason.
ill go threw your answers 1 by 1
-spinecrawler /swarm host is not countered by carrier. Swarmhosts can hit AIR as well , that would be utterly retarded to try and fend of swarm hosts with carriers since its like running all your interceptors into a meat grinder. Not to mention the amount of tech you need to get out a few carriers.. I dont see them as the counter to swarmhost timing pushes at all compared to tempests.
-carriers are hardly ever used in PvZ, only ultra ultra ultra late game , The tempest can be purchased very early on in the game and stay useful threwout.
-Again, Carriers hardly ever see use in pvp, Thats if you can even live to late game. Saw last gsl ? the whole series ended in like 1/2 hr .. As i said, tempest will force air battles because protoss has nothing on the ground that can hit tempest if they are shooting from far off land, thereby diversifying the matchup.
-For carriers against mech, yea that is the only use i can see for them, but your example is prettty bad because nobody ever goes mech in WOL against protoss . And If they do you certainly do not need carriers to defeat it.
So far you have identified 1 use of the carrier in HOTS. My vote as i said in the previous post was to have both of them in, but if blizzard insists they have to cut. I hope the tempest stays in, it seems way more interesting to me.
Guys its a lost battle. Bringing back the carriers means that they want to reminisce about Brood War. Albeit the fact that you guys are making compelling points for the cause, Blizzard is now really resilient on their ego.
Oh well, better to get on that "new things = better" wagon of bandmates.
In the next couple days ill upload a bunch of replays of me going carriers and them helping me win a game in PvZ. Also i'm a 1450 point masters so this isnt me just trolling the lower leagues. Carriers are a very viable late game unit that upgrades very well and is the only non gimmicky way to beating zerg late game. (Please don't say archon toilet isn't a gimmick, even though pros have made the least gimmicky way possible, 4 archons only it's still a gimmick) A mass carrier mothership army best answer to a late late game zerg. If Blizzard is taking away that vortex affects air units, TEMPEST WILL DO NOTHING TO MASS CORRUPTOR!!!
Anyways ill add replays in a day or two once I get at least 5, so far I have 2, both showing well the power of the carriers and the NECCESITY OF THEM IN STARCRAFT 2!!!!
On August 21 2012 11:23 RagePandas2 wrote: In the next couple days ill upload a bunch of replays of me going carriers and them helping me win a game in PvZ. Also i'm a 1450 point masters so this isnt me just trolling the lower leagues. Carriers are a very viable late game unit that upgrades very well and is the only non gimmicky way to beating zerg late game. (Please don't say archon toilet isn't a gimmick, even though pros have made the least gimmicky way possible, 4 archons only it's still a gimmick) A mass carrier mothership army best answer to a late late game zerg. If Blizzard is taking away that vortex affects air units, TEMPEST WILL DO NOTHING TO MASS CORRUPTOR!!!
Anyways ill add replays in a day or two once I get at least 5, so far I have 2, both showing well the power of the carriers and the NECCESITY OF THEM IN STARCRAFT 2!!!!
EPT
