Call to Action: Balance Testing (2012/11/20) - Page 92

On November 27 2012 06:36 S1eth wrote:
It's (+25 vs psionic), not massive.

On November 27 2012 06:39 TheDwf wrote:
+25 vs Psionic*.
9* Snipes per Corruptor (due to regeneration).
Snipe is 25 energy so a full energy Ghost has 8 Snipes, not 4.

Just correcting even if your conclusion is OK.

On November 27 2012 13:42 Richard Nixon wrote:I'd much rather have a change that makes Ravens be a more consistent investment, such as reducing the cost of seeker to 75 energy and have the seeker explosions disarm other seekers (to prevent damage stacking).

On November 27 2012 13:48 Crawdad wrote:


What about giving the ability a cooldown?

On November 27 2012 13:50 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Wow... this is genius. 75 energy with cooldown please! XD (and either remove seeker missile upgrade, or combine/remove some of other raven upgrades...)

On November 27 2012 14:15 Richard Nixon wrote:


Because a cooldown doesn't solve the problem of damage-stacking. The whole reason Blizzard doesn't want to buff seeker is because, unlike psi storm and fungal (which apply an effect, and thus "stacking" it will only extend the duration, not increase dps), seeker can be stacked to potentially eliminate entire armies instantly within the time period of a second or two.

You give Ravens a cooldown and they can still launch 1 seeker per Raven at the same time. You have 10-15 Ravens and you will see a good size army simply evaporate. This isn't a good thing for the game, and makes Ravens a nightmare to balance, which leads to having the awkward, unreliable unit we have today.

On November 27 2012 13:42 Richard Nixon wrote:




Thanks, fixed my post. Even with the mistakes, Ghosts are still an awful response to Corruptors.

On November 27 2012 16:04 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:


Hm, i haven't thought of that before. I can't think of any ways to fix this except to simply make it a DPS spell over time kind of thing... AKA irradiate. Surely there must be another to add some diminishing effect to using a lot of them in the same immediate area?

On November 27 2012 16:07 Talack wrote:


Irradiate would be x10000 more interesting and better than seeker missile. Wish they would take out seeker and implement it since it would be a lot better in all 3 match ups compared to seeker missile ugh

On November 27 2012 14:15 Richard Nixon wrote:


Because a cooldown doesn't solve the problem of damage-stacking. The whole reason Blizzard doesn't want to buff seeker is because, unlike psi storm and fungal (which apply an effect, and thus "stacking" it will only extend the duration, not increase dps), seeker can be stacked to potentially eliminate entire armies instantly within the time period of a second or two.

You give Ravens a cooldown and they can still launch 1 seeker per Raven at the same time. You have 10-15 Ravens and you will see a good size army simply evaporate. This isn't a good thing for the game, and makes Ravens a nightmare to balance, which leads to having the awkward, unreliable unit we have today.

On November 27 2012 14:15 Richard Nixon wrote:


Because a cooldown doesn't solve the problem of damage-stacking. The whole reason Blizzard doesn't want to buff seeker is because, unlike psi storm and fungal (which apply an effect, and thus "stacking" it will only extend the duration, not increase dps), seeker can be stacked to potentially eliminate entire armies instantly within the time period of a second or two.

You give Ravens a cooldown and they can still launch 1 seeker per Raven at the same time. You have 10-15 Ravens and you will see a good size army simply evaporate. This isn't a good thing for the game, and makes Ravens a nightmare to balance, which leads to having the awkward, unreliable unit we have today.

On November 27 2012 16:07 Talack wrote:


Irradiate would be x10000 more interesting and better than seeker missile. Wish they would take out seeker and implement it since it would be a lot better in all 3 match ups compared to seeker missile ugh

On November 27 2012 19:12 Wombat_NI wrote:
Whoever talked about changing fungal vs air, I really do feel that's a change that is needs to be properly done in HoTS. As much as I hate the spell, I do feel it fills holes that will be super hard to fix for Zerg in WoL. Anyway, moving on the point I wish to make.

Consider the phoenix, I am not sure, but I believe this is a unit that people generally like. It's an APM sync, it rewards finesse, it even has a bit of utility, in that you can lift units out of danger, or target dangerous casters. It's my favourite harass unit in the game in terms of how it functions in many ways.

1. It costs a reasonable amount of cash to make, so it's not particularly massable.
2. Unless sniping air units, to do direct damage (i.e not just forcing spores), you have to manually cast graviton beam. This adds multitasking to the Protoss race, it's not a unit you can stick in a mineral line and forget about.
3. Going back to the cost issue, it's quite a good balance. It's not a cheap, mineral-only unit, able to be thrown out 2 at a time, and run straight into mineral lines like Hellions quite often are, especially those with blueflame. Equally it's not a huge investment, both in terms of time and cash like DTs are that pretty much HAVE to do some kind of damage and rely on the surprise factor to do so oftentimes.
4. It doesn't really suit being massed, or exploit too many weaknesses that any specific race may have. In the days of Muta ZvP, on maps that suited that style it was extremely tough to beat as a Protoss due to a lack of ground-to-air, pre-storm/archon AoE damage. The Muta/Marine dynamic is what a harassment unit should aim for. You pick away and look for an opening, but equally you get punished hard for over-extending to try and do damage.

However, it's a rather situational unit, primarily in terms of PvZ when I'm talking about it. Again, I'm not sure, but I believe that graviton beam costs energy, rather than say being a cooldown ability because otherwise massive phoenix plays might do too much damage to Zergs with their relatively limited anti-air arsenal. However, the drawback of this is that even if you surprise a Zerg, oftentimes you cannot do damage, sometimes you deserve to get more of an advantage, if your opponent neglected to scout/build blind defences. The other one is that Phoenixes, bar the occasional miracle flank, are close to useless the second infestors pop.

Now, if Zerg get better compositions options in HoTS, the necessity of fungal being so good against all manner of units is lessened. This does depend on how HoTs develops, or if mooted changes to Infestors do go through.If the AoE damage/root of fungal is needed less against units like marines or stalkers due to other units being available, then it can be toned down in that sense. If the anti-air capabilities of Zergs are less weak, then fungal can be reduced in effectiveness against air. Perhaps both can be done, perhaps neither or either!

Now imagine Protoss players who have at their potential disposal, if these mooted 'psionic' changes go through in WoL, and fungal is toned down a bit in other ways in HoTs:

1. Phoenixes that have harassment potential beyond the period before infestors. That are fast and offer scouting information, and can snipe workers for a longer period, or at least force spores.
2. Oracles, that are fast and the last time I checked seemed to have a good anti-structure ability.
3. Warp prisms, potentially carrying DTs which aren't shut down as hard by fungals.
4. The mothership core and its recall ability.

Now, this may turn out to, in combination be a completely, completely broken set of unit functionalities when combined. However, come on, the realistic chance to play a multitask-intensive style as Protoss that wouldn't be a stylistic choice, or a way to show off. It would potentially offer a style that isn't just flashy, but could be equally effective from the deathballing style many people bemoan.

On November 28 2012 04:26 zmansman17 wrote:


Yeah irradiate would be awesome. What's the fear of implementing that which was awesome in sc1

I also think Blizzard will have a hard time recruiting Terran players in HotS. I for one, stopped playing a few seasons ago after becoming jaded with Terran. I was able to just pick up Protoss and Zerg and have better results than my Terran and that bothered me. I'm sure with the removal of the Warhound and the reluctance of Blizzard to add new Terran units, they may well have a hard time getting Terrans interested.