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We Must Fight For The Carrier - Page 82

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cpc
Profile Joined June 2011
Australia126 Posts
September 06 2012 05:35 GMT
#1621
Mostly why people don't like the tempest is that its super low dps and that it looks incredibly boring as a concept compared to the carrier.

Replacing the mothership with a super carrier sounds really silly. If we can get rid of the mothership it would be nice since hero units shouldn't really exist in sc but replacing it with a super carrier make it exactly the same but with a different model essentially.

Cloak
Profile Joined October 2009
United States816 Posts
September 06 2012 06:19 GMT
#1622
On September 06 2012 13:36 denyeverything wrote:
Honestly, I think the Carrier should be re-adjusted to take the place of the MOTHERSHIP, not the Tempest. Disagree across the board with Tempest hate, being able to snipe units is huge, and it's actually the cheapest of all the Stargate units (50/50 per supply), people just want to be derpy and treat it like an A-Move unit, which it isn't. Criticisms that you can just mass and crush it, is silly because, that's the case in general for Tech. So jeers to anyone who is anti-Tempest.

Now, the Mothership. Seriously, we already have to live with one cheap alien-movie-knock-off unit, do we really need another? Just turn the Mothership into a super-Carrier. Everyone will be happy, and you can leave whatever Mothership skills you want on it (or take them away) and just increase the cost/build time accordingly.


I don't know if cost/supply is the best metric to determine viability. If anything, you want a lower supply for more robust lategame compositions, especially for a Tier 3 air unit where they'll most likely only see action around that window. High supply is the only reason Zerg don't spam Roaches lategame. while Infestor (and now Warhound) are incredibly supply efficient.
The more you know, the less you understand.
SigmaoctanusIV
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States3313 Posts
September 06 2012 06:23 GMT
#1623
We should give carriers two different interceptor options that could make it more useful, I personally hate the tempest Protoss has WAY to many gimmicky units as it is, Also the tempest is only usable with the upgrade so you spend alot of those to come out,
I am Godzilla You are Japan
whsper
Profile Joined August 2010
Canada48 Posts
September 06 2012 19:39 GMT
#1624
To address Blizzard's claims that the carrier does not fill a unique role in the game:

Role Similarities
Carrier - Long range air unit
Tempest - Extreme long range air unit
Colossus - Long range "air" unit

(same counters - viking/corruptor)

Role differences
Carrier - Replenishing hit points in the field of combat, very large targets whilst having respectable number of hit points/shields, respectable damage at the expense of minerals (dying interceptors)
Tempest - Extreme range sniper
Colossus - AOE

Role in army
The Carrier increase the durability of the overall protoss army. At endgame situations, carriers provide an initial buffer for damage before the opposing player target fires. This is very important as the inital engagement is usually a wall of dead stalkers/zealots instead. The wave of interceptors act as a meat shield for some of the damage. While carriers may not have the highest damage in the protoss army in a large engagement, they provide respectable supporting fire while interceptors are still available. Given its damage and field combat health replenishment nature, Carriers are prime targets; they will be focused down. However, being an air unit, they provide interesting dynamics to large scale army control. You can bait the enemy army into yours, similar to a tempest. The difference between the Tempest and Carrier is that the Carrier a much more substantial threat to the enemy army. Unlike the Tempest, the damage output and interceptor presence forces more refined control. Units that focus air attacks as priority (Queen, Thor) will attempt to destroy interceptors first, requiring player intervention to refocus the attention of these stray firing units. Whereas the Tempest encourages active spotter removal to prevent range abuse, the Carrier encourages sharp reactions. Both of these capital ships demand keen awareness to prevent damage, but their approach in doing so is very different.

The Colossus
The other claim is the Carrier overlaps roles with the Colossus. Here's the primary difference: Colossus are used as AOE brute force units. Carriers are used as mobile support units. A play on words? The defining difference is the conditions in which Carriers and Colossus are summoned into service.

The Colossus is usually created as a backbone unit to provide an alternative to Storm. Being easier to obtain, Colossus are the go-to unit of many Protoss players. They provide amazing AOE and damage output, while maintaining reasonable mobility.

The Carrier on the other hand is created as a late game tech switch to support an exisiting Storm/Gateway army. Notice that re-adding Colossus is also common, but that's when you're dealing with large swarms of units (Terran bio, Zerg roach/ling). If your opponent is switching to a higher tech army (Corruptor/Broodlord, Terran mech), Colossus quickly lose their appeal. The Carrier fills this high tech resouce intensive support unit in these situations and perform equally, if not better, than their Colossus counterparts in these situations. AOE damage is much weaker against the high health high armor mech army, and Colossus are only useful in clearing Broodlings and stalling roaches against the Hive army. While I understand Terran mech switch is rare, anyone can see that the Zerg late game will almost definitely consist of Broodlord/Corruptor/Infestor in some way. Carriers are making an appearance in late game PvZ for this exact reason.

Another argument, albeit weaker, can be made that Carriers provide stronger harass options being fully unrestricted by terrain and superior burst damage.

We can see that the role overlap does not exist by the simple fact that you do not build Carriers when Colossus are good, and vice versa.

The Tempest
Now our attention turns to the Tempest. The Tempest currently does 30 damage every 3.3 seconds. This is comparable to Stalkers, clearly not very much damage. The Tempest suffers from the same problem as the Carrier (air upgrades being difficult to amass in a timely fashion while the other half of your army is ground based). The Tempest excels in the situation where the opposing army is not in a situation to attack. Granted there are many tools in the Protoss arsenal to make this happen such as Forcefields and Storm utilized in a choke, their low damage creates openings to outright attack the Protoss army. The moment an engagement happens, the Tempest's low damage and high range becomes a liability. Since their only merit is extreme range, when an engagement is forced, the advantage is lost, and the Protoss player is left with a heavy investment for minimal army contribution. Given an equivalent backbone army, a Protoss player is almost always better off with Carrier support over Tempest support. The ability to inflict damage from a safe distance is heavily outweighed by the Tempest's inability to contribute to a straight up engagement. The Carrier, while having much shorter range, can still obtain a similar effect at the expense of risking an prompt anti-air response, at the same time providing more than just pure range to the table.

Of course, the Tempest is not without its charms. The Tempest has a distinct role in the game to provide fire from a safe distance, only rivaled(?) by Siege Tanks. This clearly does not overlap with the role of the Collosus, and can provide interesting game play. Unfortunately, it's high cost and tech requirements impact the standing Protoss army, similar to the Carrier.

Keeping Both Carrier and Tempest

Given the proposed idea of keeping both capital ships in the game creates a scenario where the Protoss army GAINS a unit that has a UNIQUE role, distinct from the existing Carrier and Colossus. This will expand the game play possibilities at the expense of "unit bloat". Does the inclusion of both ships add to the undesirable death ball? Perhaps, but not likely. Keep in mind that having both of these units in an army is prohibitively expensive and extremely high food. You may want only 2-3 Tempests and 2-3 Carriers max at the same time or risk dying during the lengthy and costly transition.

Unit Bloat Concerns

The final point to be addressed is unit bloat. The Tempest is a very simple unit. It has very long range. It's not a complex unit. The only thing that makes it "bloaty" is that it's another unit that Protoss can potentially build. However, since it's so unique, it won't cause very much confusion in the game. New players and veterans alike will be able to tell the difference between a Carrier (thing that swarms the opponent with flies) and the Tempest (flying rail gun) very easily. This is accentuated by the very unique attack styles/animations that the units possess.

TL;DR - Carrier = High mobility high burst single target support, Tempest = Long range support, Colossus = Long range AOE support. Roles do not overlap. Both capital ships at the same time expands gameplay options at minimal impact to deathballyness and game complexity.
rd
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States2586 Posts
September 06 2012 20:35 GMT
#1625
On September 06 2012 13:36 denyeverything wrote:
Honestly, I think the Carrier should be re-adjusted to take the place of the MOTHERSHIP, not the Tempest. Disagree across the board with Tempest hate, being able to snipe units is huge, and it's actually the cheapest of all the Stargate units (50/50 per supply), people just want to be derpy and treat it like an A-Move unit, which it isn't. Criticisms that you can just mass and crush it, is silly because, that's the case in general for Tech. So jeers to anyone who is anti-Tempest.

Now, the Mothership. Seriously, we already have to live with one cheap alien-movie-knock-off unit, do we really need another? Just turn the Mothership into a super-Carrier. Everyone will be happy, and you can leave whatever Mothership skills you want on it (or take them away) and just increase the cost/build time accordingly.


Or just bring back an air caster (oracle) to replace the arbiter and let the mothership die off, and then rebuff the carrier while removing the tempest. Replacing the mothership with the carrier is essentially removing the carrier from the game.
ThirdDegree
Profile Joined February 2011
United States329 Posts
September 06 2012 20:40 GMT
#1626
I definitely see the tempest as a completely different role to the carrier. Now granted HotS beta just came out, and everything will likely change before release, but between hellions and warhounds, it seems like a meching terran will be impossible to beat as toss. I see the deathball of warhounds and think "man, carriers sure would be helpful in this fight." I think having both tempest and carrier would be the (a) way to go.
I am terrible
Dyme
Profile Joined November 2010
Germany523 Posts
September 06 2012 20:49 GMT
#1627
On September 06 2012 14:35 cpc wrote:
Mostly why people don't like the tempest is that its super low dps and that it looks incredibly boring as a concept compared to the carrier.

The concept of carrier was the worst ever.

What does the Carrier do? Medium range, medium speed, medium damage, medium everything, no interesting micro (in sc2). It doesn't excel at anything. It's boring and trash.

While the Tempest doesn't look amazing, I can see it having an actual role. It might apply light pressure, to force engagements. Carrier couldn't do that. Carrier couldn't do anything non-cheesy if you weren't already way ahead.
UrielSC
Profile Joined January 2011
Canada143 Posts
September 06 2012 20:52 GMT
#1628
Don't lose the mothership!! PvZ late game is dependant on that mothership for both P & Z
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland25875 Posts
September 06 2012 22:21 GMT
#1629
On September 07 2012 05:49 Dyme wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 06 2012 14:35 cpc wrote:
Mostly why people don't like the tempest is that its super low dps and that it looks incredibly boring as a concept compared to the carrier.

The concept of carrier was the worst ever.

What does the Carrier do? Medium range, medium speed, medium damage, medium everything, no interesting micro (in sc2). It doesn't excel at anything. It's boring and trash.

While the Tempest doesn't look amazing, I can see it having an actual role. It might apply light pressure, to force engagements. Carrier couldn't do that. Carrier couldn't do anything non-cheesy if you weren't already way ahead.

It could if you fixed the unit. Carrier is one of the few units that hasn't been touched pretty much since the WoL beta. But yeah, it obviously can't be fixed or made to fit a role if no attempt to make it viable in that sense is ever done.
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
Serpico
Profile Joined May 2010
4285 Posts
September 06 2012 22:24 GMT
#1630
I'm still coming to terms that a unit as classic as the CARRIER got replaced by the tempest.....it just hurts .
j.k.l
Profile Joined September 2012
112 Posts
September 06 2012 22:25 GMT
#1631
considering what zerg and terran have gotten especially with the battle cruiser buff, we need this back.
~ Spirit will set you free ~
j.k.l
Profile Joined September 2012
112 Posts
September 06 2012 22:27 GMT
#1632
guys i want to tahnk you for doing giving me an opportunity to play sports at another level. Not just for me, but for everybody who is in need of help. I look forward to continuing to recieve your support. WIsh you guys the best of luck!
~ Spirit will set you free ~
j.k.l
Profile Joined September 2012
112 Posts
September 06 2012 23:02 GMT
#1633
I am not in the beta, and i hope to eventually join it. But from the videos of it that i have seen, i found my self unhappy with what i have seen from Protoss. Toss, is my favorite class to play so maybe i have a bias.

Here is my concern about removing carriers:

Originally Terran had their Thor's altered/removed for the implementation of warhounds, which made the concept of removing another classes units seem a tad bit more fair/balanced. But now Terran and Zerg keep EVERY unit that was in wings of liberty. i no longer see a logical reason to remove the carrier.

Is the concept of having carriers with the tempest (the new capital ship) OP? Well it might be except for the fact that it would take ridiculously long in the game to pull it off. This combo wouldn't be something someone can rush and get away with. Lets not forget that both units need their individual fleet beacon upgrades to be worth while. I think it would be unrealistic to assume that this combo would arise in most pro/ladder games. If by chance it does and is still OP, just change the purpose of the tempest in the Protoss ball.
~ Spirit will set you free ~
Archerofaiur
Profile Joined August 2008
United States4101 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-09-07 01:11:13
September 07 2012 01:09 GMT
#1634
Has everyone here seen this feedback page?
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6490460908?page=1


Also thank you Shkudde and RagePandas2 for those replays


And Roadog posted a cool strategy, check it out
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=363821
http://sclegacy.com/news/28-scl/250-starcraftlegacy-macro-theorycrafting-contest-winners
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland25875 Posts
September 07 2012 01:33 GMT
#1635
On September 07 2012 10:09 Archerofaiur wrote:
Has everyone here seen this feedback page?
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6490460908?page=1


Also thank you Shkudde and RagePandas2 for those replays


And Roadog posted a cool strategy, check it out
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=363821

Feedback page is largely terrible, half the posts I saw were people whining about not being in Beta. However we could make them aware of this page and the arguments presented within on there, might change a few minds.

Unlikely I know, but hey it's worth a try
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
absalom86
Profile Joined April 2010
Iceland1770 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-09-07 02:07:30
September 07 2012 02:05 GMT
#1636
whitera has been using tempests on his stream vs zerg, rather early, when popular carrier builds vs zerg would have their carriers out. he needs 3 shots to kill a single hydra and has lost within minutes two games in a row. People that think the carrier was completely unused are blind to their power.

What I'd like to see for the tempest personally would be a speeding up attack the closer the tempest is to its target ( increasing its dps while not sniping ) or giving the attack a aoe ability at closer ranges.

300 gas 300 minerals and 6 supply for a unit that does less damage than an unupgraded marine seems very, very wrong.

Another thing I'd personally love most of all was keeping carrier in and just adding tempest as a poke unit, lowering its cost a lot as well as the supply cost to something like 4 supply and 200 200, or 250 150. This would leave us with the carrier for its straight up power when you base around air, but still keep the tempest in the game with its fun, but niche, role.
Thief @ #teamliquid @ Quakenet
Jasiwel
Profile Joined June 2012
United States146 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-09-07 03:36:34
September 07 2012 03:35 GMT
#1637
The Carrier should return with Brood War strength and the same spawn time with the 4 Interceptors. It's simply too fragile as is for what it is. The Tempest needs a DPS or damage boost if it is to stay: it is surprisingly more durable than I had thought originally, but it's really just a nuisance rather than a formidable foe. Basically what's making me mad is that Blizzard is turning the Stargate into a Harassment Tech Tree, which is really irritating because it has almost no flexibility for the costs of more powerful units like Void Ray or Carrier. I miss when Stargate was used as a valid weapon rather than a rock. Thankfully Phoenix are still a good countering unit and can be used to utterly deny popular aerial harassments (Banshees, Mutas, Viking Drops, etc.).
PauseBreak
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States270 Posts
September 07 2012 04:28 GMT
#1638
Honestly, if the Carrier is so great why don't we see it more in high level pro games? Rarely, does it ever make an appearance.
Either fix the Carrier or just remove it.
Tamburlaine
Profile Joined April 2010
Canada288 Posts
September 07 2012 04:37 GMT
#1639
On September 07 2012 13:28 PauseBreak wrote:
Honestly, if the Carrier is so great why don't we see it more in high level pro games? Rarely, does it ever make an appearance.
Either fix the Carrier or just remove it.

That...

That's what everyone's been saying.

Though most people fall on the "improve the damn thing, already" side.
I like things.
Infernal_dream
Profile Joined September 2011
United States2359 Posts
September 07 2012 04:40 GMT
#1640
On September 07 2012 13:28 PauseBreak wrote:
Honestly, if the Carrier is so great why don't we see it more in high level pro games? Rarely, does it ever make an appearance.
Either fix the Carrier or just remove it.


Remove it and replace it with a fucking 300/300/6 flying version of a stalker? Yeah, no. It needs to be fixed. Tempests forcing engagements isn't working. it's forcing protoss to gg because they're garbage.
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