|
In my view, there has been only one protoss champion and it was MC. If you take him out, protoss results look pathetic compared to Zerg and Terran. Since I dont believe the notion that all protoss players suck I have to agree with the other possible notion that protoss is weaker race compared to other two.
Since I believe protoss support units are strong such as collosus and templar the core reason should be the weakness of gateway units. Now gateway units has to be weak mostly because of forcefields.
Therefore, solution requires a drastic change like removing forcefield and buffing stalker and zealot OR removing forcefield and bringing immortal to gateway. Obviously both changes will probably require follow up tweaks but I think it is doable.
|
On May 31 2013 09:06 TheRabidDeer wrote: I stand by giving the WP an ability to energize HT energy so that storm drops can come back. Emphasize harass, not "holy shit now I just need to ever build 1 WP because its so fast it wont die"
Storm drops just flat out suck in SC2, it's pretty much impossible to do enough damage to justify the cost/risk to the dropping units and the amount of attention you have to pay to the drop to execute it.
Storm drops were purely a BW strategy that worked because the opponent had to individually reassign every single worker back to its own mineral patch after a drop. This meant even a perfectly defended storm drop where no workers were lost would still require more focus on your opponent's part than executing the drop took for you. In addition, even if no workers were killed, a small unnoticed mistake in the reassigning of workers would cause your drop to eventually pay for itself.
In SC2, none of this exists. If he saves all his workers, one click gets them all mining again. Lost workers are easily replaced by just moving 1 rally point and then queueing them up.
On top of all this, there are other problems. SCVs tend to not die to a single storm even if they're not run away at all, because it takes 75% of a storm to kill an SCV and 1 storm doesn't actually cover the entire area between the command center and the mineral patch. Also, between 25-40% of a Terran's mineral economy is completely unkillable, (MULEs) severely restricting the damage you actually can do. Against Zerg, even if you wipe out a whole mineral line, that mineral line can be fully replaced in 20 seconds by changing 1 rally point and hitting 2 hotkeys. It's not not worth the effort, focus, and risk of dropping when the damage is so easy to repair.
|
I played with the Warp prism around a bit, it seems like there could be some really fancy openings based around some fast 1 gas robo into expand and warp prism harass with a handful of stalkers and clean pick-up micro. If the patch makes it through and we see that kind of thing I think it will be really good. That shit is not so easy to do efficiently, yet aggressive, non-commiting and entertaining to watch imo.
Storm drops were purely a BW strategy that worked because the opponent had to individually reassign every single worker back to its own mineral patch after a drop. This meant even a perfectly defended storm drop where no workers were lost would still require more focus on your opponent's part than executing the drop took for you. In addition, even if no workers were killed, a small unnoticed mistake in the reassigning of workers would cause your drop to eventually pay for itself. Honestly I can't complain about such mechanics disappearing. It sounds silly and it doesn't make sense lore wise :D
- "ALL THE SCVS WERE SAVED AND THAT THREACHEROUS HOLIER-THAN-THOU TEMPLE GUY IS DEAD MY GENERAL! - But how do we get the guys back to mining now? :'((( - UHHHHHH - The templar guy is good, we're in deep shit now."
|
I think increasing the WP speed is a step in the right direction. I am glad they are at least thinking through how to make protoss a more interesting race.
Every time i start thinking through bigger changes, though, I almost always come back to the conclusion that the race needs a complete rebalancing around more interesting mechanics.
I feel like forcefields and collosi are the two major army mechanics that the race is balanced around, and those are both boring units that encourage deathball play.
|
On May 31 2013 10:20 Xequecal wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2013 09:06 TheRabidDeer wrote: I stand by giving the WP an ability to energize HT energy so that storm drops can come back. Emphasize harass, not "holy shit now I just need to ever build 1 WP because its so fast it wont die" Storm drops just flat out suck in SC2, it's pretty much impossible to do enough damage to justify the cost/risk to the dropping units and the amount of attention you have to pay to the drop to execute it. Storm drops were purely a BW strategy that worked because the opponent had to individually reassign every single worker back to its own mineral patch after a drop. This meant even a perfectly defended storm drop where no workers were lost would still require more focus on your opponent's part than executing the drop took for you. In addition, even if no workers were killed, a small unnoticed mistake in the reassigning of workers would cause your drop to eventually pay for itself. In SC2, none of this exists. If he saves all his workers, one click gets them all mining again. Lost workers are easily replaced by just moving 1 rally point and then queueing them up. On top of all this, there are other problems. SCVs tend to not die to a single storm even if they're not run away at all, because it takes 75% of a storm to kill an SCV and 1 storm doesn't actually cover the entire area between the command center and the mineral patch. Also, between 25-40% of a Terran's mineral economy is completely unkillable, (MULEs) severely restricting the damage you actually can do. Against Zerg, even if you wipe out a whole mineral line, that mineral line can be fully replaced in 20 seconds by changing 1 rally point and hitting 2 hotkeys. It's not not worth the effort, focus, and risk of dropping when the damage is so easy to repair. I disagree. With 3 HT you can kill 2/3 of the mineral line almost every time even with quick reactions from the T player (if he doesnt pull early). 2 storms in the line itself and 1 storm on the exit path they will take. Should have the same effectiveness on Z.
Also, you should care about killing 16+ workers against any race. Your last paragraph makes your entire argument hilarious. "Oh it is worthless to kill economy because they can just use a huge amount of any bank to rebuild over a slower period of time and also have less of an economy while it builds" That is not an argument, that is... foolish.
Storm is vastly unexplored because of how long it takes to get it. Storm is still great to use as harassment though.
|
On May 31 2013 10:46 petered wrote: I think increasing the WP speed is a step in the right direction. I am glad they are at least thinking through how to make protoss a more interesting race.
Every time i start thinking through bigger changes, though, I almost always come back to the conclusion that the race needs a complete rebalancing around more interesting mechanics.
I feel like forcefields and collosi are the two major army mechanics that the race is balanced around, and those are both boring units that encourage deathball play.
But I don't think it doesn't need to be that fast at the start. 3.375 is the same speed as stimed units (M&M) and hydra on creep. Maybe buff the base speed to 2.7 (a little slow than Viking) and move the upgrade to C core (little bit more expensive? 125/125). That might be better than speed auto-researched prism with only 200 mineral.
Or (just ramdon idea) no speed upgrade but make it pay 150/150 for phase mode!!! XD
(the whole point of my argument is that WP should require some extra mineral&gases not only 200 minerals)
another point: I think the blizzard want to see more abitar-like units (the old Mrecall of mamaship) in matches by giving the buff to WP...
|
juicyjames
United States3815 Posts
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/9165886752?page=2#34
FYI like we said before, this is not yet a final change that we're absolutely going with. A lot of comments/feedback we're seeing in various forums are phrased as though this change will go in for certain, so I just wanted to clarify that once more.
If Protoss does turn out to be weak, testing this buff will allow us to react to that situation more quickly than in the past. We already know a bit what the previously tested Oracle changes do. We want to test this other change so that we can make the right fix if we find a change is needed.
The best feedback for us comes from players who take the time to actually playtest the change and base their judgments on that. Thank you so much as always.
-David Kim
|
On May 31 2013 10:20 Xequecal wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2013 09:06 TheRabidDeer wrote: I stand by giving the WP an ability to energize HT energy so that storm drops can come back. Emphasize harass, not "holy shit now I just need to ever build 1 WP because its so fast it wont die" Storm drops just flat out suck in SC2, it's pretty much impossible to do enough damage to justify the cost/risk to the dropping units and the amount of attention you have to pay to the drop to execute it. Storm drops were purely a BW strategy that worked because the opponent had to individually reassign every single worker back to its own mineral patch after a drop. This meant even a perfectly defended storm drop where no workers were lost would still require more focus on your opponent's part than executing the drop took for you. In addition, even if no workers were killed, a small unnoticed mistake in the reassigning of workers would cause your drop to eventually pay for itself.
if it was a movie I'd imagine templar is somekind of devil guy who causes havoc, all workers start running around in panic, and their boss has to calm them down and get them back to work
|
On May 31 2013 10:20 Xequecal wrote: Storm drops were purely a BW strategy that worked because the opponent had to individually reassign every single worker back to its own mineral patch after a drop. This meant even a perfectly defended storm drop where no workers were lost would still require more focus on your opponent's part than executing the drop took for you. In addition, even if no workers were killed, a small unnoticed mistake in the reassigning of workers would cause your drop to eventually pay for itself.
Workers spread themselves out more slowly in BW than in SC2, but not enough for that to be the reason storm drops are stronger. I mean.... what?
|
On May 31 2013 12:46 Mindcrime wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2013 10:20 Xequecal wrote: Storm drops were purely a BW strategy that worked because the opponent had to individually reassign every single worker back to its own mineral patch after a drop. This meant even a perfectly defended storm drop where no workers were lost would still require more focus on your opponent's part than executing the drop took for you. In addition, even if no workers were killed, a small unnoticed mistake in the reassigning of workers would cause your drop to eventually pay for itself. Workers spread themselves out more slowly in BW than in SC2, but not enough for that to be the reason storm drops are stronger. I mean.... what?
I think the radius and damage are going to be the two things. It "felt" like 2 storms got the whole mineral line and even escaping the second tick would kill a huge chunk.
edit: But yeah Mules and inject change the importance of harass damage. Chrono also ofc though seemingly to a lesser extent.
|
Not a good change. Won't impact Protoss lategame which is the biggest problem. By then they should already have warp-prism speed. They need to think of changes that will take away from the late game deathball.
|
Ok that's it. I actually don't care whether warp prism got imba upgrades like battery shileld, blink, invincible but
DON'T REMOVE THE UPGRADES!!!
You've already removed reaper upgrades and tank upgrade (although it went fine thanks to wm), and we already have units with lots of abilities for that doesn't require additional money for research (Raven, viper, medivac, oracle, MSC, sentry(hots). they all have more than 2 'stuffs' without any researches. e.g. medivac-transportation, heal, burner at the same time. Mamacore-photon overcharge, timewrap, recall. Raven-detection, auto turret, seeker missile, point defence drone).
Just move that to c core... I think I'm spamming this over and over again
|
I think moving the upgrades from a protoss army around to other buildings and tweaking the costs will be really good.
For those that think all ins get stronger, no they won't, at all. There is no all in that relies on microing your warp prism over vast amount of space, so the speed increase does nothing to all ins whatsoever.
I do think that with the speed upgrade removed, and the speed increased, it will make a much more fun PvT where i can start doing immortal drops without overcommitting to it. You have to remember that all harass options from a protoss side requires dedicated tech choices in it's current state ( speedprism drops require robo bay, DT's require DT shrine + twilight etc. ) and while yes these tech choices can de used in some parts of the game, they do require a huge investment early on, and that's why you don't see protoss going for a harass style.
Medivacs are a core unit to a terrans army, regardless of matchup and playing style ( mech vs bio ) so they will always be usefull, while the harass options from a protoss are not usefull if your opponent hits a timing against it.
A terran can easily hit his normal 10 minute stim, +1, 4 medivac timing against toss that went for early DT's and just roll him over because that's how bad gateway units are. This encourages turtle style playing and deathball behaviour.
A zerg can just mass up roach off 3 base and kill you if you went for DT harass, and it easily gets shut down by a queen and 2 lings together with a spore crawler.
All in all i think if the protoss gets core units that can harass better then it's all for the better of the game. a speed prism is really usefull if you go attack, because now you don't rely on sneaking probes around the map to get pylons up, but you an use your prism in your main army for pylon and pick up micro for colossi/ht's/immortals etc.
All in all, BRING IT ON and give me some extra tools to be more agressive!
|
On May 31 2013 20:45 TechSc2 wrote: I think moving the upgrades from a protoss army around to other buildings and tweaking the costs will be really good.
For those that think all ins get stronger, no they won't, at all. There is no all in that relies on microing your warp prism over vast amount of space, so the speed increase does nothing to all ins whatsoever. Of course they will. Even if it just means that the Prism arrives earlier. The Prism buff is an early game buff. Protoss already is the "timing attack-race". If they want to buff Protoss harass, they should buff something that can't bring an entire army into the enemy base.
|
On May 31 2013 13:37 SsDrKosS wrote: Ok that's it. I actually don't care whether warp prism got imba upgrades like battery shileld, blink, invincible but
DON'T REMOVE THE UPGRADES!!!
You've already removed reaper upgrades and tank upgrade (although it went fine thanks to wm), and we already have units with lots of abilities for that doesn't require additional money for research (Raven, viper, medivac, oracle, MSC, sentry(hots). they all have more than 2 'stuffs' without any researches. e.g. medivac-transportation, heal, burner at the same time. Mamacore-photon overcharge, timewrap, recall. Raven-detection, auto turret, seeker missile, point defence drone).
And meanwhile hydras require two 150/150 upgrades to be usable, even though they don't have any special abilities.
|
On May 31 2013 23:21 Chocobo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2013 13:37 SsDrKosS wrote: Ok that's it. I actually don't care whether warp prism got imba upgrades like battery shileld, blink, invincible but
DON'T REMOVE THE UPGRADES!!!
You've already removed reaper upgrades and tank upgrade (although it went fine thanks to wm), and we already have units with lots of abilities for that doesn't require additional money for research (Raven, viper, medivac, oracle, MSC, sentry(hots). they all have more than 2 'stuffs' without any researches. e.g. medivac-transportation, heal, burner at the same time. Mamacore-photon overcharge, timewrap, recall. Raven-detection, auto turret, seeker missile, point defence drone).
And meanwhile hydras require two 150/150 upgrades to be usable, even though they don't have any special abilities.
Besides looking totally awesome!
|
To me it doesn't matter, give them the prism but they should buff protoss defance alot more and nerf all ins some how. Nexus cannon can do tripple dmg or sentry energy from a nexus. The cost would be better defense for zerg or a nerf to protoss production somehow.
|
The problem with protoss is that it is a gimmicke race.
|
Well there are two different things we have to consider regarding this future patch : -the fact they tend to remove upgrades, and why (1) -the fact that it could or would favor early attacks from toss, and why (2)
(1) The answer is quite simple
They want to make the game more complex (this is the whole point of HotS) but at the same time reduce the actual added complexity to the minimum. Because they are not stupid : they know each unit you add at this point in the game has an exponential effect on the whole game greater than the sum of for example the last two units added combined (it's a principle, numbers are for the example). So to speak, if they have to balance something, or want to, the smartest idea to have is to KEEP an ability (that brings complexity in the game and describes a unit) but delete it AS an upgrade. Why on earth would it be the smallest change possible, will you ask ? Because just before this one, on the same level, we have numbers. In fact, you could argue it changes nothing to nerf a prism to 98% percent of its actual HP (or buff it to 102%). Problem is that tweaking numbers in general is extremely risky and is done with much care (see the bio buff of the spore), because the interactions in game are insane, and a single buff/nerf can kill a MU. I think those two ways to balance are the less risky (and this a huge issue) for ability/units that are currently used and introduce a problem of balance or variety in the game.
You also have to consider the motives : here it's obvious they want to test the least amount of change at the same time, to be certain that all the consequences come from this and only this cause (the change). So if they change both speed and ability (or other things at the same time), they won't be sure (methologically speaking) of the actual cause of this.
So : testing one thing at a time is great as a way to discover HOW this particular change implies metagame changes and balance. Changing an upgrade is also the smallest disorder possible you can bring to a balance state at this point, thus the best method possible (since balance is extremely fragile).
(2) As said earlier, there is no all-in that needs prism speed to be executed now. But they could quickly appear if a push based on the survival of 4 sentries, 2 immos or a colossus is forged. The biggest threat would be, i think in PvZ with a colossus or 2 immos.
But the paradox is, imo, that they want it to be used in late game, and it's surprisingly true that we never see this (or its really rare) in pro matches, also because proxy pylons can serve the same purpose to some extent.
As always, practice will show exactly if those all-ins are viable and if the harass it too cost effective. If you remember well what was said of the oracle when it got released, you will understand that damage does not means necessarily cost-effectiveness.
|
On May 31 2013 10:04 foxmulder_ms wrote: In my view, there has been only one protoss champion and it was MC. If you take him out, protoss results look pathetic compared to Zerg and Terran. Since I dont believe the notion that all protoss players suck I have to agree with the other possible notion that protoss is weaker race compared to other two.
Since I believe protoss support units are strong such as collosus and templar the core reason should be the weakness of gateway units. Now gateway units has to be weak mostly because of forcefields.
Therefore, solution requires a drastic change like removing forcefield and buffing stalker and zealot OR removing forcefield and bringing immortal to gateway. Obviously both changes will probably require follow up tweaks but I think it is doable.
This topic came up on Meta this week (great show; highly recommended). The point was made that while Protoss feels balanced in a vacuum, the race is at a disadvantage in tourneys because it's so build order dependant. Right now, high level protoss play revolves around 2-base pushes/all-ins and abuse of forcefields. Because those factors are so incredibly strong, it's a tough prospect for a Protoss player to forgo trying to seize a win earlier in the game -- they have stronger timings than Zerg and Terran. The issue in tourneys is that it's incredibly hard to beat the same (elite) oppontent with various early/mid-game cheese.
The entire thought process is flawed for a Protoss -- do they practice builds with lower-win rates to be better prepared for multi-game series in tourneys? Seems dumb. Instead, Blizzard needs to give the race a more comfortable way of taking a third (buff), while at the same time weakening the strength of 2-base all-ins (nerf). The results would hopefully be better showings in tourneys.
The topic is actually much bigger than just Protoss not performing well in Tourneys though, it speaks to the overall approach to balance with every race, at every level of play, in every format. While they can work to improve balance in every scenario, the main focus is balance is grand master level play, 1v1, one match.
|
|
|
|