Protoss vs Protoss has gone through many changes in Legacy of the Void, but the metagame right now is not as enjoyable as it used to be. The photon overcharge nerf in the last patch, which doubled its cost, has skewed the favor towards the harassing player against the defending player slightly more than what should be considered healthy in a mirror matchup. Namely, the stargate route has become so hard to deal with that rather than relying on stalkers and overcharge for defense, players prefer to play stargate themselves. Otherwise Protoss vs Protoss is my favorite match-up and in my opinion - the best designed mirror match-up. It feels slightly disappointing to watch mass phoenix vs mass phoenix when this match-up has so much more to offer.
A few weeks have gone by now for pro-players to adjust to the new patch and try to figure out means of counter-play, and although everything is not figured out yet, I'm fairly certain that there are improvements that can be made.
In the past I’ve worked alongside Theo on similar movements such as the carrier health nerf and the warp prism/disruptor cancellation mechanic only with the intent of improving PvP - both changes which are now live in the game. There are other examples similar to these that show that Blizzard is willing to discuss and test suggestions given to them - which is wonderful.
I thought about possible changes to improve this match-up, and I believe this is the best “next step” that also wouldn't affect the non-mirror match-ups.
The Change
My proposed change is as follows:
Oracle
changed from Light to Armored.
Phoenix wars usually happen when both players are opening with stargate. The stargate opener generally comes out ahead against non-stargate openers, but we don't see it all the time because you run the risk of opening oracle against phoenix or phoenix against non-oracle openers. Secondly, a phoenix vs phoenix battle itself is not as enjoyable to play or to watch as a spectator.
Oracles having armored tag would likely balance the power between the stargate route and the non-stargate routes. For example: instead of needing three stalkers per mineral line in early game, you could perhaps get away with two (stalkers have ten base damage and fourteen damage to armored).
Such a change would also reduce the amount of randomness in the match-up. Running oracles against a phoenix opener wouldn't be as punishing as you could kill just a few more probes before losing it. Similarly playing against oracle with non-stargate openers wouldn't feel like such an uphill battle.
It’s important to have somewhat evenly powerful strategies in a game to let players themselves choose what style they want to use. There is too much emphasis on the “triangle of counters” with oracle, phoenix and ground right now.
As far as the other match-ups go oracle being armored or light is completely irrelevant against Zerg and almost entirely irrelevant against Terran apart from the viking, ghost, thor and cyclone (once it's upgraded) interaction.
Summed up:
Phoenix wars wouldn't happen as often as it does now
The randomness in build orders would decrease
The other match-ups are not affected
Pro Opinions
I’ve gone around gathering other protoss players thoughts and this is what they had to say about the proposed change and where Protoss vs Protoss is at right now as a whole.
Phoenix war is the worst kind of PvP, feels extremely random and most of the time ends in 1 party taking a huge risk and it either paying off or not. There seems to be very little skill involved. Phoenix war normally happens when both players feel like they are committed to their stargate play(fast expand by opening oracle into phoenix). I also feel like oracle is a bit too strong of an opener in general and seems to beat any other opener that isn't a phoenix opener. Well the change is good, it sounds amazing. Like honestly.
Personally i feel like the problem with Fenix war is not necessarily the Fenix war itself but that we are forced to go there without any other options a lot of the time because the Oracle is just such a good opener since it takes a lot of shots from stalkers to kill it because of the Light armor. If it was armored It would give more options in the PVP matchup that would stabilize the matchup which has been in chaos ever since the photon overcharge nerf which i think everyone can agree has been nothing but terrible when it comes to PvP.
I think PvP is kinda random on the maps where you have access to a free base such as orbital shipyard and dusk towers. We end up very often in phoenix versus phoenix situations which are very random. So i haven't seen this change in action yet but I believe it could be a very good change for the matchup as a whole, we would have less randomness and more variety, which would be much appreciated. It's very likely that blink opener would become a lot more popular, Make stalkers great again !
Changing the unit type of the oracle from light to armored would be a good for the matchup. It would allow you to have more diverse openers and not be forced stargate every game. For example, if you open with robo you could more easily defend an expansion, while your opponent is stargate allinning by having less stalkers to deal with oracles in each mineral line, your defense at the front is stronger. Also a good change because it doesn't change other matchups.
While I do agree with the stargate over non-stargate advantage, I don't think we need to change the oracle to armored. I think it's possible to deflect the oracle damage without taking any losses with good scouting and unit positioning, but there's not much you can do to punish your opponent. While I hate the phoenix vs phoenix wars and I find them unpredictable and very random I think it's up to players who try to stack phoenixes and then the awkward war happens no matter if the oracle is armored or light. I think it would be a change to the way build orders work but I am not sure if it's a good or bad way.
When Morrow first told me a few weeks back that he was thinking about changing Oracles from Light to Armored to make Stalkers perform better versus Phoenixes, I liked the idea. But after some time of thought, it came to my attention that there are many other positive aspects of the change despite the primary reason mentioned above alone is enough to justify the change.
I really enjoy how Blizzard with the 50 energy Photon Overcharge change managed to promote more aggression in PvP. Expanding was relatively easy before, and it was very common to see “Nexus First.” However, a small problem was the increment in Oracle strength which I believe has exposed the matchup to instability in build orders and gameplay – to some this might be referred to as “coin flip or randomness.”
After conversing on the subject with Morrow, we decided to test Phoenix-versus-Phoenix a bit. As you know, units in Starcraft II have a built-in attack delay. While this does not have a great impact in general, it means a lot to Phoenix-vs-Phoenix as they can move and shoot. Disengaging a fight can be very difficult. If you open a unit test map yourself and test with 3 Phoenixes versus each other doing exactly the same thing, you will notice the inconsistency with their attacks.
This does not mean that Phoenix-vs-Phoenix cannot be enjoyable, but I think it should be and remain a “third-wheel-strategy”, just like it was throughout Heart of the Swarm, and nobody really raised any critical concerns about their place then. This is because Stalkers can perform well versus Phoenixes, but it is harder versus Oracles – we must not make Phoenixes a preferred counter to Oracle instead of Stalkers.
As said, Photon Overcharge was at 25 energy, but even then Oracles were flourishing at an acceptable level. Would Stalkers dealing 14 instead of 10 damage replace the 25 energy Photon Overcharge as defense versus Oracles? This I cannot say for certain, but I think it would be close, and I guess it would be worse than the old Overcharge – but still better than now.
So while Oracles will perform worse versus Stalkers, their Armored tag would allow them to perform better versus Phoenixes. A fair compensation. It is likely you will escape with your Oracle completely from a single Phoenix to get back to safety, and on some maps you might even be lucky to escape two Phoenixes to some extent.
And if that is not enough – by allowing Stalkers to perform better versus Oracles, we will also reduce the amount of Phoenix-vs-Phoenix play and of course Stargate-vs-Stargate play in general. I would argue this is a good thing as Phoenixes do seem to produce more volatile gameplay where micro is more limited due to the move-and-shoot mechanic.
Now, I do love Phoenixes for their unique mobility, but due to the difficulties of them playing against each other in mirror, I would argue that it is important that you can always equally or more so prefer Stalkers over Phoenixes as a counter to Oracle, because the moment you feel that it is better to use Phoenixes versus Oracles, you will run into an escalation of Phoenix versus Phoenix wars.
First I want to point out what MorroW said again, while an oracle change from light to armored might seems inconsequential since it will pretty much only affect PvP and not change balance in any way, I believe it would be a good design change to make PvP a less volatile match-up.
As it stands right now, especially with the nerf of photon overcharge, PvP is not strictly rock paper scissor, oracle is gonna be strong against pretty much everything that isn't phoenix (may it be robo expand, DT or some blink build), but first we have to understand why is that and why it is different than from Heart of the Swarm.
A little PvP 101 lesson, oracle gives you a lot of tools:
You pretty much have vision of everything your opponent is doing, it is really hard (obviously possible but it really shouldn't) to hide something from an oracle player, as such, trying to do timing attacks or tricky play is really hard.
You can take a third base really easily, while your opponent cannot punish it. This is because while your opponent is moving out, he must leave his mothership core at home + 3 stalkers to defend 2 base (and even more if he tries to take a third behind it !). Attacking vs an oracle player is extremely all-in and should never really work.
There is a lot of very good Adept/oracle opening that can really exploit anybody trying to not play phoenix, but since Walling is pretty common these days I'm gonna ignore this aspect of the unit for now, since it's not consistent at all.
This is one of the thing that changed from Heart of the Swarm, the pylon canon based defense is way stronger than the nexus canon based defense in that situation. It is so strong that it allows carrier play style to be viable in PvP ! With a 120 build time! Another thing that's different from Hots is that oracle is a critical part of the disruptor mid-game that you always want to get, while in Hots it was just a quality of life tool that wasn't critical.
The maps also play a big factor in the oracle vs stalker interaction, making it very different:
Lerilak Crest : This is in my opinion one of the worst oracle maps. There is not dead space behind the mineral line and you can set-up pylon/stalker at the edge of your main base to see the oracle coming super easily, the oracle can also only really come from one direction in the natural. I find this map really good for robo play since it's easy to not take damage from stargate play
Ruins of Serras : Polar opposite of Lerilak, this map is oracle heaven. This is actually really insane, the amount of dead space behind every mineral line make it that you can still do continuous damage even if you opponent has 3 to 5 stalkers. I really often make 2 oracle on that map, your opponent cannot defend everything at once, if he is a bit too much to the left side of the mineral line, you can go to the right and kill 4 probe in 3 second and move out, because the map allows you to come from that angle. With the way revelation works too, this is actually 100% consistent and you can do it every game with great success.
These were the two extreme examples of the current map pool, every other map goes from goodish (prion/dusk) to meh (ulrena/orbital) for oracle.
Right now, the best way to play vs oracle is just to straight up macro, fast third, and go into a macro game. I believe if the two players plays perfectly the game is even, but the problem is that an even game is the best case scenario for the non oracle player, whereas it's the worst case scenario for the oracle player. For the same level of play, the oracle player will usually always be ahead vs every build that's not phoenix.
“What would change with an armored oracle?”
It's pretty straightforward, atm you need 16 shots to kill an oracle, post patch you would need 12. The oracle would still be a very strong tool to safely take an expansion and scout your opponent, but it wouldn't be this unit that requires so much resources to defend if you ever wanna move out or that can kill you straight away if you have one less stalker than required. I still believe than the oracle would be very much still be in use in PvP, but we would see a lot more of robo and blink and Dt openings. This is a good change.
I think the change is good, right now PvP Stargate vs Stargate is way too luck based, skillless, and gimmicky. I agree with what everyone has written so far (he was linked some responses). I don't really have any other insight besides what you guys have written (referring to MorroW, Dns, Harstem, Drogo).
The Math: The significant change would be 12 compared to 16 volleys to kill an oracle per stalker. This means it would be 6 compared to 8 volleys per two stalkers. If we have 3 stalkers with the change it would only take 4 volleys. The way the game is played now currently with 3 stalkers it takes 6 volleys.
How I feel the change hopes to alter PvP for non stargate player:
player can play more aggressive
player can take easier third
will support more probes earlier on
can tech more easily
I am not sure if this change would be significant enough due to the role oracle plays.
It forces photon overcharge regardless
It can force more stalker warp ins at times you would prefer not to
You still need stalkers per each mineral line if oracle is used properly. The stargate player can still transition into phoenix while keeping other protoss defensive
Personal Feelings: I do not enjoy phoenix at all in pvp so I am all for any suggested change to help benefit the gateway army player.
My conclusion: This change would definitely give the defending player faster tech/third base, however I am not sure how significant it would be due the many strengths which phoenix are accompanied with and for the power of photon overcharge. Overall I believe the change is worth testing and I would definitely push for it.
Thanks for reading our thoughts about the mirror match-up and a special thanks to all the pros who gave their opinion. Please share what you think about the state of Protoss vs Protoss and what you think about my change to the oracle.
Poll: Do you agree with changing the oracle from light to armored?
Any vods or replays of the phoenix vs phoenix games that are luck-based? I've played many of them myself recently despite playing NA -> KR latency which is a real challenge for the micro and I never have felt like the game was decided by luck. I'd like to analyze some of the games that these pros felt came down to luck in order to see if I can find a mistake that changed the result of the game.
On March 14 2016 02:42 NonY wrote: Any vods or replays of the phoenix vs phoenix games that are luck-based? I've played many of them myself recently despite playing NA -> KR latency which is a real challenge for the micro and I never have felt like the game was decided by luck. I'd like to analyze some of the games that these pros felt came down to luck in order to see if I can find a mistake that changed the result of the game.
Maybe it's not that it's just down to luck, but that luck plays to much of a role, and this change would take some of that away.
On March 14 2016 02:42 NonY wrote: Any vods or replays of the phoenix vs phoenix games that are luck-based? I've played many of them myself recently despite playing NA -> KR latency which is a real challenge for the micro and I never have felt like the game was decided by luck. I'd like to analyze some of the games that these pros felt came down to luck in order to see if I can find a mistake that changed the result of the game.
Imo Phenix war isn't strictly luck based, but really really boring and volatile. You will ever lose on a missclic or both player will be cautious (AKA sit at home) enough to mass phenixs at home then transition to carrier behind some pylons/canons then it's like ?????? what do we do do we A move each other with spaceships ?
Maybe theres a better way to play phenix vs phenix than just the turtle carrier transition, but if theres is I don't know what it is and I would like to know, because right now phenix vs phenix is not something I look foward to play.
I thought about possible changes to improve this match-up, and I believe this is the best “next step” that also wouldn't affect the non-mirror match-ups.
As much as I wanna believe this, it can't be that easy. Every change comes with a price and just saying there is none won't make it true...
On March 14 2016 02:42 NonY wrote: Any vods or replays of the phoenix vs phoenix games that are luck-based? I've played many of them myself recently despite playing NA -> KR latency which is a real challenge for the micro and I never have felt like the game was decided by luck. I'd like to analyze some of the games that these pros felt came down to luck in order to see if I can find a mistake that changed the result of the game.
I think even if phoenix wars weren't luck based, the point of the stargate opening being too good still stands.
I can't describe how glad I feel Morrow came up with this initiative! The change is little but brilliant to fix one of the bigger issues we have in PvP! Really excited so see davids response to it but I honestly think he should just put it in straight away!
On March 14 2016 02:48 TwiggyWan wrote: The change would probably be good but visually the unit does not look armored at all...
tell that to the Ghost thats not light and the Ravager thats not armored. i agree that "lore" (for the lack of better term) is important but sometimes its important for game design to go against it. call me dumb but i actually do think the oracle looks armored, and i thought it was armored for years before i was protoss
On March 14 2016 02:42 NonY wrote: Any vods or replays of the phoenix vs phoenix games that are luck-based? I've played many of them myself recently despite playing NA -> KR latency which is a real challenge for the micro and I never have felt like the game was decided by luck. I'd like to analyze some of the games that these pros felt came down to luck in order to see if I can find a mistake that changed the result of the game.
I think even if phoenix wars weren't luck based, the point of the stargate opening being too good still stands.
What is wrong with opening stargate being a good way to go for a phoenix strat? It seems natural to me. It's not so high tech that it shouldn't be allowed as an opening. Same as DT or blink or immortal.
edit: Also don't understand how an opening that transitions you to a point in the game that you feel is luck-based is good. How good can it be if you don't know how to play it out for a win? If it's not improving your 50/50 chance to win that you started with, in what way is it good?
Simple, elegant change. Morrow is hands down one of the smartest players around.
But, giving the oracle an armored tag, won't it start with 1 armor and then make it more difficult for marines to shoot/stop in early game? I believe it still takes 6? If it took 8 or so, might that throw of PvT and make oracle rushing super powerful again (ala maximus black?) If this is wrong, please tell me
On March 14 2016 02:59 CursOr wrote: Simple, elegant change. Morrow is hands down one of the smartest players around.
But, giving the oracle an armored tag, won't it start with 1 armor and then make it more difficult for marines to shoot/stop in early game? I believe it still takes 6? If it took 8 or so, might that throw of PvT and make oracle rushing super powerful again (ala maximus black?) If this is wrong, please tell me
On March 14 2016 02:42 NonY wrote: Any vods or replays of the phoenix vs phoenix games that are luck-based? I've played many of them myself recently despite playing NA -> KR latency which is a real challenge for the micro and I never have felt like the game was decided by luck. I'd like to analyze some of the games that these pros felt came down to luck in order to see if I can find a mistake that changed the result of the game.
I think even if phoenix wars weren't luck based, the point of the stargate opening being too good still stands.
What is wrong with opening stargate being a good way to go for a phoenix strat? It seems natural to me. It's not so high tech that it shouldn't be allowed as an opening. Same as DT or blink or immortal.
edit: Also don't understand how an opening that transitions you to a point in the game that you feel is luck-based is good. How good can it be if you don't know how to play it out for a win? If it's not improving your 50/50 chance to win that you started with, in what way is it good?
I just wanted to point out that "phoenix wars are too luck based" is not the only argument they brought. The point about stargate opening being too good compared to the others is more important imo. It's about adding strategic diversity to the matchup
But I don't know nearly enough about PvP and won't speak for Morrow, he can speak for himself.
Having a few disagreeing voices would have been good for the article I think; 8/9 are positive and only 1 is neutral. I would like to hear from pro-players who are opposed to this.
On March 14 2016 03:28 bartus88 wrote: Having a few disagreeing voices would have been good for the article I think; 8/9 are positive and only 1 is neutral. I would like to hear from pro-players who are opposed to this.
They all died 4 minutes after this post to zerglingrushes. Inb4 DK "we think the oracle change will also be good for protoss in pvz, lets explore and wait and see what happends in july".
Oracles having armored tag would likely balance the power between the stargate route and the non-stargate routes. For example: instead of needing three stalkers per mineral line in early game, you could perhaps get away with two (stalkers have ten base damage and fourteen damage to armored).
Flattening stalker AA damage as suggested in other threads (to stabilize vs PvZ muta) would also have the same effect against oracle+phoenix without affecting other stuff much right now
Oracles having armored tag would likely balance the power between the stargate route and the non-stargate routes. For example: instead of needing three stalkers per mineral line in early game, you could perhaps get away with two (stalkers have ten base damage and fourteen damage to armored).
Flattening stalker AA damage as suggested in other threads (to stabilize vs PvZ muta) would also have the same effect vs oracle
And help stalkers fend off phoenixes easier too (let's see if i get it right this time heh).
On March 14 2016 02:59 CursOr wrote: Simple, elegant change. Morrow is hands down one of the smartest players around.
But, giving the oracle an armored tag, won't it start with 1 armor and then make it more difficult for marines to shoot/stop in early game? I believe it still takes 6? If it took 8 or so, might that throw of PvT and make oracle rushing super powerful again (ala maximus black?) If this is wrong, please tell me
Would that not make oracle openings useless? and wont we end with another useless unit?
If oracle openings disappear we will be back to wol state. No idea if people remember wol. You could not open with stargate because of dark templar rushes. You had no way to detect them. The oracle might still exist but if oracle can't deal enough damage, justify its cost so early in the game, nobody will open with an oracle and because of late detection players will avoid stargate openings at all.
Oracle can kill workers fast because it needs to justify its prize. The impact of an oracle in later stages of the game is very small. This change just seems to make the game easier, more predictable, for proplayers. We all admire partings oracle micro and how much he can get out of it, we wont see that anymore. On the otherside if oracles get actually +1 armor it will be much stronger against marins.
But if you play the game in dia league or lower you can just put a turret in every match. You dont need to cut every corner like a proplayer to have a chance. Its even better for you because you have not the reaction of a proplayer and a turret will help you with all kind of harassment. If people try to copy proplayers they just do more and bigger mistakes. I wish they would just add a second queen or a macro hatch when they can't inject in time instead of complaining on forums about macro mechanics or getting frustrated.
EDIT: Are phoenix wars not very rare? I havent seen a single game yet! Arent the phoenixes the problem?
Also i only commented on oracle getting armored tag.
On March 14 2016 02:48 TwiggyWan wrote: The change would probably be good but visually the unit does not look armored at all...
Tell me why a CC cant land on a burrowed ling hten.
Just because there exist some situations in which gameplay interaction has to go aganist visual presenation, that doesn't mean visual presentation should be something ignore just for 'balance' sake.
Visual presentation is desired to quickly clue in the players to what is happeneing or what this unit. Just imagine making Parasitic Bomb look like guardian shield (a bubble sphere). It would be confusing on why it is even dealing damage anyone. Or what about, make the Thor a light unit. If the point of the tag is for balance sake, why bother giving a name that implies a certain apperence.
Should've asked Nerchio's thoughts, he would've definitely have disagreed!
Grand Arbiter MorroW has spoken!, I feel a little bad for the sorry Terrans out there, who doesn't have MorroW to vouch for their shitty mirror matchup.
On March 14 2016 03:28 bartus88 wrote: Having a few disagreeing voices would have been good for the article I think; 8/9 are positive and only 1 is neutral. I would like to hear from pro-players who are opposed to this.
They all died 4 minutes after this post to zerglingrushes. Inb4 DK "we think the oracle change will also be good for protoss in pvz, lets explore and wait and see what happends in july".
Wait what july and Zerg in the same sentence..did David Kim just announce a July Zerg comebaaack? ...sorry, got carried away there for a second by a golden mouse flashback
On March 14 2016 02:48 TwiggyWan wrote: The change would probably be good but visually the unit does not look armored at all...
Tell me why a CC cant land on a burrowed ling hten.
Just because there exist some situations in which gameplay interaction has to go aganist visual presenation, that doesn't mean visual presentation should be something ignore just for 'balance' sake.
Visual presentation is desired to quickly clue in the players to what is happeneing or what this unit. Just imagine making Parasitic Bomb look like guardian shield (a bubble sphere). It would be confusing on why it is even dealing damage anyone. Or what about, make the Thor a light unit. If the point of the tag is for balance sake, why bother giving a name that implies a certain apperence.
why is a hellbat healable by a medivac and a hellion not?
Personally I don't see any negatives to this except sniping oracles with vikings in tvP lategame would be easier. If it prevents phoenix wars (which remind me of muta vs muta which was also terrible) then I think Protoss players who are already having a hard enough time getting penetrated by zergs around the world then it's a good change.
I don't buy visual representation to clue in players to know what a unit does. Not for a game as hardcore as Starcraft.
Nor do I think it matters as an eSport. Among the popular eSports, Dota2 and LoL are both visually a complete mess and it has little to no detraction as spectator games.
On March 14 2016 02:48 TwiggyWan wrote: The change would probably be good but visually the unit does not look armored at all...
Tell me why a CC cant land on a burrowed ling hten.
Just because there exist some situations in which gameplay interaction has to go aganist visual presenation, that doesn't mean visual presentation should be something ignore just for 'balance' sake.
Visual presentation is desired to quickly clue in the players to what is happeneing or what this unit. Just imagine making Parasitic Bomb look like guardian shield (a bubble sphere). It would be confusing on why it is even dealing damage anyone. Or what about, make the Thor a light unit. If the point of the tag is for balance sake, why bother giving a name that implies a certain apperence.
why is a hellbat healable by a medivac and a hellion not?
I'm just going to repeat this again in bold: Just because there exist some situations in which gameplay interaction has to go aganist visual presenation, that doesn't mean visual presentation should be something ignore just for 'balance' sake.
This is what I'm saying. This doesn't mean I support everything that is already in the game. You can keep putting up examples, but that doesn't change anything.
But to answer you new question. Hellbat looks similar to a Barrack unit, while the Hellion clearly looks like a vechical. And this is the opposite example compare to the CC landing on a burrowed ling.
Another fun fix would be if Guardian Shield made Probes immune to damage :D This change is great and I hope the design team agrees with the players on this one. Hoping for input from KR players and ShoWTimE/Lilbow next time
I thought about possible changes to improve this match-up, and I believe this is the best “next step” that also wouldn't affect the non-mirror match-ups.
As much as I wanna believe this, it can't be that easy. Every change comes with a price and just saying there is none won't make it true...
1. Will take it less hits from viking. 2. Will take more hits from thor. 3. The two above are irrelevant as thors are a myth in pvt and vikings by made very rarely. 4. That is all.
On March 14 2016 04:12 Liquid`Snute wrote: Another fun fix would be if Guardian Shield made Probes immune to damage :D This change is great and I hope the design team agrees with the players on this one. Hoping for input from KR players and ShoWTimE next time
On March 14 2016 04:12 Liquid`Snute wrote: Another fun fix would be if Guardian Shield made Probes immune to damage :D This change is great and I hope the design team agrees with the players on this one. Hoping for input from KR players and ShoWTimE next time
You have the scariest balance changes in mind.
nothing wrong about having to kill the sentry first :s
On March 14 2016 02:48 TwiggyWan wrote: The change would probably be good but visually the unit does not look armored at all...
Tell me why a CC cant land on a burrowed ling hten.
Just because there exist some situations in which gameplay interaction has to go aganist visual presenation, that doesn't mean visual presentation should be something ignore just for 'balance' sake.
Visual presentation is desired to quickly clue in the players to what is happeneing or what this unit. Just imagine making Parasitic Bomb look like guardian shield (a bubble sphere). It would be confusing on why it is even dealing damage anyone. Or what about, make the Thor a light unit. If the point of the tag is for balance sake, why bother giving a name that implies a certain apperence.
why is a hellbat healable by a medivac and a hellion not?
I'm just going to repeat this again in bold: Just because there exist some situations in which gameplay interaction has to go aganist visual presenation, that doesn't mean visual presentation should be something ignore just for 'balance' sake.
This is what I'm saying. This doesn't mean I support everything that is already in the game. You can keep putting up examples, but that doesn't change anything.
But to answer you new question. Hellbat looks similar to a Barrack unit, while the Hellion clearly looks like a vechical. And this is the opposite example compare to the CC landing on a burrowed ling.
it looks more like a thor than a bio unit to me.
The oracle doesn't even look like it would be a light unit to me either.
On March 14 2016 04:12 Liquid`Snute wrote: Another fun fix would be if Guardian Shield made Probes immune to damage :D This change is great and I hope the design team agrees with the players on this one. Hoping for input from KR players and ShoWTimE next time
You have the scariest balance changes in mind.
Seriously, Snute thinks so different, he always suggests crazy changes that seem really fun. Would love him on the design team.
I thought about possible changes to improve this match-up, and I believe this is the best “next step” that also wouldn't affect the non-mirror match-ups.
As much as I wanna believe this, it can't be that easy. Every change comes with a price and just saying there is none won't make it true...
1. Will take it less hits from viking. 2. Will take more hits from thor. 3. The two above are irrelevant as thors are a myth in pvt and vikings by made very rarely. 4. That is all.
You don't make vikings to kill oracles but you need them late game to kill tempests where you also might see some oracles. Of course, vikings killing oracles is more of an accident than anything else.
On March 14 2016 04:12 Liquid`Snute wrote: Hoping for input from KR players and ShoWTimE/Lilbow next time
I mean honestly, I doubt the highest level Korean players find phoenix wars overly problematic and defending oracles without phoenixes overly hard.
Also this nerf is going to lead to more opportunities for casters to make lame ball puns about disruptor bowling, isn't it?
You're seriously going to tell me that these two images don't share decent similar to each other. Because the Maraduar looks just as much of a mech unit in comparison to the hellbat.
You're seriously going to tell me that these two images don't share decent similar to each other. Because the Maraduar looks just as much of a mech unit in comparison to the hellbat.
The look vs status has already been bastardized heavily in SC2. Ravager/Queen aren't armored and ghost isn't light.
If hellbats were armored, those marine hellbat pushes off 1.5 bases would be borderline unstoppable since hellbats can 1v1 roaches without any support. I don't think making the oracle armored would suddenly confuse everyone as to why it doesn't have a anti-deer grill on the front of it to show how big and bad it is
I don't think making the oracle armored would suddenly confuse everyone as to why it doesn't have a anti-deer grill on the front of it to show how big and bad it is
It definitly wouldn't. It's long past the time in which tags actually meant how they visually looked.
You need to add one more option to vote. I don't care because i'm zerg.
Protoss need some mechanic to stop phenixes like fungle does or red archone ability in bw. It will be micro involved. But it will affect to other match ups...
Actualy protoss have this mechanic - feedback. It one-shot phenix with full energy. But yes, it is hard to use it especialy on pro level.
If people are confused about a tag change just put an anti-deer grill on the front and be done with it :D
You need to add one more option to vote. I don't care because i'm zerg.
With zerg outnumbering protoss, that could be the #1 option on every poll. In the long term, more people would quit protoss & reroll to zerg so you'd have to play more zvz's - something that you probably care about
On March 14 2016 04:12 Liquid`Snute wrote: Another fun fix would be if Guardian Shield made Probes immune to damage :D This change is great and I hope the design team agrees with the players on this one. Hoping for input from KR players and ShoWTimE next time
You have the scariest balance changes in mind.
nothing wrong about having to kill the sentry first :s
WC3 Spirit Link on the units underneath the Guardian Shield. They share 50% of the damage taken, mb the Sentry itself could be excluded from this Link
On March 14 2016 04:12 Liquid`Snute wrote: Another fun fix would be if Guardian Shield made Probes immune to damage :D This change is great and I hope the design team agrees with the players on this one. Hoping for input from KR players and ShoWTimE next time
You have the scariest balance changes in mind.
Seriously, Snute thinks so different, he always suggests crazy changes that seem really fun. Would love him on the design team.
Was that not a joke? I mean its difficult enough to harass a protoss player that would be horrible for other races. Protoss has already the best defense. Pylon overcharge is mobile (compared to other defense), costs only energy and is strong.
On March 14 2016 04:25 stuchiu wrote: Do viewers like watching those matchups?
I don't think it's very interesting to watch, but that's just me.
Depends on who's playing and how it plays out. Not every phoenix vs phoenix game ends up being the same. Just like not every muta vs muta game plays out the same.
For the record, how common is phoenix vs phoenix on ladder? I don't feel like it happens extraordinairily often in Korean leagues atm. And also, isn't it just as much a consequence of the strength of the phoenix?
How is this a good thing. Oracle is such a ridiculous unit I wouldn't mind it being completely changed... Not only its a super fast air caster with almost infinite spells but it 2 shots workers and is incredibly annoying to deal with.
On March 14 2016 04:08 Nathanias wrote: Personally I don't see any negatives to this except sniping oracles with vikings in tvP lategame would be easier. If it prevents phoenix wars (which remind me of muta vs muta which was also terrible) then I think Protoss players who are already having a hard enough time getting penetrated by zergs around the world then it's a good change.
Morrow and I decided to include the fact that Oracle has had revelation range buffed to 12, and since the Oracle mostly will be threatened in the lategame in this case, there are many options in order to make sure the Oracle does not die.
On March 14 2016 04:12 Liquid`Snute wrote: Another fun fix would be if Guardian Shield made Probes immune to damage :D This change is great and I hope the design team agrees with the players on this one. Hoping for input from KR players and ShoWTimE/Lilbow next time
We did what we could to reach out to as many players as possible, and Lilbow was aware of the suggestion as he lives together with Ptitdrogo, and I would believe they would speak similarily on the issue.
Getting koreans to comments a community-made suggestion is harder unlike if it was like actual balance test notes.
And thanks, Snute :-)
On March 14 2016 02:42 NonY wrote: Any vods or replays of the phoenix vs phoenix games that are luck-based? I've played many of them myself recently despite playing NA -> KR latency which is a real challenge for the micro and I never have felt like the game was decided by luck. I'd like to analyze some of the games that these pros felt came down to luck in order to see if I can find a mistake that changed the result of the game.
I understand your concerns here, and for the most part phoenix wars would be identical to what it is currently - though likely in much less frequent numbers. So while there can be mixed opinions on the phoenix wars, I think it is objectively true that phoenix wars should not be a prefered strategy due to the potential it has with countering oracles.
Protoss players can still play phoenix as much as we like.
This was one of the main things I still was not sure about before suggesting writing the article to Morrow, but it occured to me that this does not actually improve Phoenix-vs-Phoenix explicity, assuming there are problems, but it reduces the frequency that it is played, and for players who dislike the style will have more means to play ground.
On March 14 2016 04:12 Liquid`Snute wrote: Another fun fix would be if Guardian Shield made Probes immune to damage :D This change is great and I hope the design team agrees with the players on this one. Hoping for input from KR players and ShoWTimE next time
You have the scariest balance changes in mind.
Seriously, Snute thinks so different, he always suggests crazy changes that seem really fun. Would love him on the design team.
Was that not a joke? I mean its difficult enough to harass a protoss player that would be horrible for other races. Protoss has already the best defense. Pylon overcharge is mobile (compared to other defense), costs only energy and is strong.
It wasn't exactly a joke, even if it seems radical. Sentries aren't really used much in openings anymore. Adding this type of buff to the sentry would it gain at least some value in build orders and it could be a step in the right direction in making units besides the MSC more useful.
Don't forget that blizz is considering moving evolution chamber tech drops into the later stages of the game (and send Zergs back to the same passive openings over and over) because Protoss are having trouble defending early lings. With a change like this, a sentry positioned in the mineral line would be able to protect against Zerglings for 11 seconds (22 if energy is sufficient) unless killed (surrounding it with probes would make this impossible, marines can still kill it though.).
So many people wish the mothership core removed and gateway units buffed: giving the sentry this type of shield would in my (totally amateur) design perspective help with that, add some versatility to Protoss openings and nerf lingdrops, without removing early ling drops from the game. But didn't mean to derail the thread too much with an idea, although it is slightly relevant :D
On a similar note, if this change to the Oracle were to go through, it's a step in a good direction: taking responsibility away from the MSC and adding defensive value to well positioned UNITS.
On March 14 2016 04:12 Liquid`Snute wrote: Another fun fix would be if Guardian Shield made Probes immune to damage :D This change is great and I hope the design team agrees with the players on this one. Hoping for input from KR players and ShoWTimE next time
You have the scariest balance changes in mind.
Seriously, Snute thinks so different, he always suggests crazy changes that seem really fun. Would love him on the design team.
Was that not a joke? I mean its difficult enough to harass a protoss player that would be horrible for other races. Protoss has already the best defense. Pylon overcharge is mobile (compared to other defense), costs only energy and is strong.
It wasn't exactly a joke, even if it seems radical. Sentries aren't really used much in openings anymore. Adding this type of buff to the sentry would it gain at least some value in build orders and it could be a step in the right direction in making units besides the MSC more useful.
Don't forget that blizz is considering moving evolution chamber tech drops into the later stages of the game (and send Zergs back to the same passive openings over and over) because Protoss are having trouble defending early lings. With a change like this, a sentry positioned in the mineral line would be able to protect against Zerglings for 11 seconds (22 if energy is sufficient) unless killed (surrounding it with probes would make this impossible, marines can still kill it though.).
So many people wish the mothership core removed and gateway units buffed: giving the sentry this type of shield would in my (totally amateur) design perspective help with that, add some versatility to Protoss openings and nerf lingdrops, without removing early ling drops from the game. But didn't mean to derail the thread too much with an idea, although it is slightly relevant :D
On a similar note, if this change to the Oracle were to go through, it's a step in a good direction: taking responsibility away from the MSC and adding defensive value to well positioned UNITS.
Perhaps make sentries provide units with +2 or +3 shield armor? That makes aesthetic sense and would make zerglings do -2 damage to probes as long as they have shields. I would find that to be interesting, actually.
Another thing was the possibility of nerfing queen cargo size on overlords before doing what blizzard proposes as mostly I think the queen drops are problematic due to the queen countering air units.
Ptitdrogo giving such detailed explanation :D Reminds me of why he's my fav protoss streamer. Love it and the article, thanks for the write up. Hopefully blizzard takes a look at this even if they don't implement it right away. THen we might be able to hear from KR pros too.
On March 14 2016 05:03 Liquid`Snute wrote: It wasn't exactly a joke, even if it seems radical. Sentries aren't really used much in openings anymore. Adding this type of buff to the sentry would it gain at least some value in build orders and it could be a step in the right direction in making units besides the MSC more useful.
Don't forget that blizz is considering moving evolution chamber tech drops into the later stages of the game (and send Zergs back to the same passive openings over and over) because Protoss are having trouble defending early lings. With a change like this, a sentry positioned in the mineral line would be able to protect against Zerglings for 11 seconds (22 if energy is sufficient) unless killed (surrounding it with probes would make this impossible, marines can still kill it though.).
So many people wish the mothership core removed and gateway units buffed: giving the sentry this type of shield would in my (totally amateur) design perspective help with that, add some versatility to Protoss openings and nerf lingdrops, without removing early ling drops from the game. But didn't mean to derail the thread too much with an idea, although it is slightly relevant :D
On a similar note, if this change to the Oracle were to go through, it's a step in a good direction: taking responsibility away from the MSC and adding defensive value to well positioned UNITS.
I keep looking at this thread. And while I agree that the change should be tested, all this topic has accomplished for me as a Terran is leaving me depressed, in that the only way I can kill oracles is the Protoss not paying attention.
I play only protoss. seems good for pvp, but im afraid mass oracle will become even stronger vs marines and hydras. I've already toyed with mass oracle into carrier PvT and PvZ. It's actually decent if you open mass oracle due to the constant use of utility spells. I can see this becoming too strong forcing vikings / corruptors.
On March 14 2016 06:10 MrSunny wrote: I play only protoss. seems good for pvp, but im afraid mass oracle will become even stronger vs marines and hydras. I've already toyed with mass oracle into carrier PvT and PvZ. It's actually decent if you open mass oracle due to the constant use of utility spells. I can see this becoming too strong forcing vikings / corruptors.
how does this change the interaction against marines and hydras?
On March 14 2016 06:13 Heyjoray wrote: "The other match-ups are not affected" Yeah right, they wont kill Roaches or Lurker. They already burn trough Ravager quite quickly. That change would end even more aggresive options for zerg
The change doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. It's not about the oracle's attack, it's about its own unit tags.
On March 14 2016 06:13 Heyjoray wrote: "The other match-ups are not affected" Yeah right, they wont kill Roaches or Lurker. They already burn trough Ravager quite quickly. That change would end even more aggresive options for zerg
The change doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. It's not about the oracle's attack, it's about its own unit tags.
Hey - let that poor man have his uninformed opinion! Don't pester his life with reason.
On March 14 2016 06:13 Heyjoray wrote: "The other match-ups are not affected" Yeah right, they wont kill Roaches or Lurker. They already burn trough Ravager quite quickly. That change would end even more aggresive options for zerg
The change doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. It's not about the oracle's attack, it's about its own unit tags.
Hey - let that poor man have his uninformed opinion! Don't pester his life with reason.
“Serious affairs and history are carefully laid snares for the uninformed.” Dejan Stojanovic I just love that quote xD
On March 14 2016 02:42 NonY wrote: Any vods or replays of the phoenix vs phoenix games that are luck-based? I've played many of them myself recently despite playing NA -> KR latency which is a real challenge for the micro and I never have felt like the game was decided by luck. I'd like to analyze some of the games that these pros felt came down to luck in order to see if I can find a mistake that changed the result of the game.
I agree
Not sure why so many are saying Phoenix vs Phoenix is luck based. I think it is very skill based, micro intensive, and decision oriented. Starcraft is a game of Risk vs Reward decision making in soooo many scenarios, I don't see where the criticism comes here.
On March 14 2016 06:13 iamCHOMP wrote: I honestly don't think the change is necessary. I've never seen any high level games result in phoenix vs phoenix.
Sounds like some one just doesn't like it when the situation happens.
It's good to have variety in strategy. Especially in pvp.
I hardly ever post anything on the forums, but I do read it on a consistent basis. Since you not the first person who brought this up in this thread I would like to elaborate on this. I feel like many people in this thread do not even know what issue Morrow is really talking about (limitation of choices due to the high investment to possibly defend an early oracle without receiving game-end damage in a pvp game) and also what a phoenix war means/is about.
The common midgame and lategame is blink-stalker & disruptor heavy with some immortals and 1-2 oracles for spotting (chargelots and dts mostly used for harassment). I watch high level protoss streams basically every day besides playing and I see mass phoenix on a regular basis. I have seen this on Morrow's stream (also when he spent quite some time investigating the correct air unit ratios if the games goes into mass air), but I have seen this quite some times also on other streams (e.g. Naniwa, Bails). This never happens if someone opens stargate while the opponent went for something else (like fast blink instead).
This scenario only happens when both players decide to open up with a stargate. Void rays are very situational units. They are used regulary for proxy stargate-one-base allins) and for switching into them after opening phoenix to hold of a fast blink allin. With the exception of those two scenarios void rays are not worth building in pvp at all. In bigger army fights guardian shield in combination with simply blink stalkers will do fine and if supply counts get higher archons/storm will rape them. They are only good in very low eco situations. Mass oracle does not work for hopefully obvious reasons ... which leaves the player opening stargate in pvp with the following reasonable "planned" scenarios:
1. open 1-2 oracle and then let the stargate idle until you might at some point later in the game you want to remake that an oracle for stalker-disruptor wars or you really add something like tempests in late game 2. you intend to open oracle into phoenix 3. you intend to get a bunch of phoenix (3-6 is common)
But these plans above are the ones you have in your mind when your oponent would go for some kind of normal NON-STARGATE opening. Once you spot or "think/guess/fear" that your opponent might or is actually going also for a quick stargate, most players will prefer to get phoenix out with perma chronoboost asap. The reason is simple: If you open only phoenix and the opponent goes for anything different from his stargate, you are in the better position. You can catch and kill his oracles quickly without losing anything and then you are not only ahead in ressources but also you gained nearly 2 phoenix in production time advantage which is huge early on. If the opponent does not decide to use his stargate, well then his other tech is delayed and he just wasted all his resources on the building, also fine for you (not very likely, he will only do that if he feels like you will have the upper hand in phoenix count and/or he does not want to fight mass phoenix wars). If the opponent makes void rays, well your gain full map control, scouting, harassment potential and voids perform slightly worse in void vs phooenix battles head on ... why would anyone make them in this scenario.
The crucial and annoying thing about phoenix vs phoenix is that they move very quickly but also MOVE-WHILE-SHOOTING. This ability is amazing to run down mutas, banshees etc but it also means that once your phoenix and the ones of your opponent get in range, you can literally not escape unless you are in your own base where you can fly over overcharged pylons/canons etc. This also means that if you have a higher phoenix count, you are super eager to engage because if you can do that, then you will trade in a favourable fashion (e.g. 6 vs 4 phoenix win with like 4 phoenix being alive, hence trading 2 vs 4 of his units and making your lead even bigger). Compare this to muta-vs-muta in zvz which is very different! If you have fewer mutas out you can still fly around and turn around when you see his, they can not shoot-while-moving! So even if you have a lower muta count, you can still use them actively. The second crucial difference is that other early-game protoss units do piteful low dps vs phoenix (stalkers do literally 6.9dps vs a phoenix while a phoenix will deal 19.2 dps to another phoenix). So if you are behind in the phoenix count, you do not really want to make up for it by adding stalkers, if you have 2-3 more phoenix you can still engage your opponent favourably within his base unless he has like 3 stalkers for each phoenix he has less which is obviously a ton early on.
Now what happens is that if you already made 2-3 phoenix but then scout/see that your opponent is doing the same ... you kinda do not want to stop making them. If you stop it means not only that you lose all map control, need to invest a lot into stalkers/canons to stop his harassment, but until you can get anything meaningful out to push your opponent (like warp prism + blink) will come very late because you opened with phoenix yourself. And you do not want to use your phoenix against his because they will die so quickly. Regarding the muta-vs-muta zvz example it would work out differently again, because if you have fewer mutas but later in the game you engage with your armies, the other units such as hydras will easily out-dps his mutas for cost, so there is no problem. You would not mind having fewer mutas and other units instead, you "only" lose map control and such early on but the opponent needs to capitalize on it, otherwise his units become very inefficient.
Nobody wants his tech building including 2-3 units he just produced to become entirely useless and be put into the situation of not being able to punish it clearly because counter tech/units will take very long after such an opening (which is a very different situation from having blindly opened blink for example, you can easily push with that). The pvp match ends up in a state where more phoenix are always kinda the better tech which continues even with more bases. Some players will try to get HT's for feedback out but all these transitions are too expensive early on. A player who too quickly transitions into something like carriers often times also loses, I have seen so many games (also played quite a lot of them myself since I open stargate a lot ... keep in mind that if you do not open stargate for yourself or always stop after the first oracle, you will never encoutner this situation, this only happens if both went for phoenix as an opening) where you see top gm players massing up phoenix. Good players like Naniwa or Morrow will stack them perfectly so if there is an engagement, all your phoenix will shoot instantly while the ones of the opponent won't, giving you the edge.
Is there skill/decision making evolved? Yes, a lot, like stacking the phoenix, timing when you get your range upgrade, when you can finally transition out of it (yes like after 30-40phoenix ...) or once a lot of phoenix died moving single ones back while having a move-while-shooting air battle etc but everyone hates it because it is hard to see the exact phoenix count of your opponent to know if you should engage and even if you are the better player, if you misjudge and you have fewer, you can not escape, you will lose your whole army while he has quite some units left and you end up with tech that is basically unusable for you now. If he has only few phoenix left you can immediately start with tempests or other stuff ... but otherwise you are kinda screwed. People mostly immediately gg out after losing this battle (talking about high gm here, not some gold league).
Now the oracle is definitely a very strong opening in PvP in general and some players even like to open stargate to simply have the cool combination of being able to shut down harass nicely (especially fast oracle, unless you have 3 stalkers early in each mineral line you lose way too much and you can always kill it, not just chase it away) and because it is a nice opening in general. Morrow suggests his change with the idea in mind that there are indeed quite some players who would only open stargate if they want to use air units themselves actively and not because they feel like defending potential oracles requires them to have so many units that early at home defensively unless they want to risk receiving game-ending damage early on.
However, this change would only solve that but not the annoyance of phoenix wars. Just imagine rock-paper-scissors where you could see what your opponent is doing. Now if you see scissors you should want to make a rock, but in pvp if you see a scissor (phoenix while you also already have phoenix out) is simply another scissor and another one ... maybe a smart guy has a good idea of a potential subtle change that might not affect other matchups and balance.
WHAT WOULD THIS CHANGE? A player might not feel the necessity to go phoenix after opening stargate because his oracle would survive much longer against a person opening with phoenix (he will not rely on stalkers defending his base vs oracles but with phoenix, who will now take literally twice the amount of time to kill them), he can still use this oracle to get some damage done until it dies, getting a good amount of investment back because he now has a useless stargate for the next 4-5minutes.
On March 14 2016 07:05 OtherWorld wrote: Not a single negative pro opinion? That's not nice for plurality
i grabbed any protoss i could get (high level tosses) and these were the fastest people to respond. it was just coincidencal that none of the protosses i asked dislike the change.
there was no protoss who disliked the idea that i dismissed from the article, that would make it biased and miss leading
A lot of people have not seen much spectator PvP because of the poor state of protoss representation.
WCS world championship had 35 zvz's and 7 pvp's.
Ting open had 56 zvz's and 0 pvp's.
as someone who watches sc2 & plays protoss, i probably know zvz better than my own mirror matchup - what hope is there for somebody who doesn't play protoss to have a good understanding of it?
On March 14 2016 06:37 Incognoto wrote: I think I've watched like 3 professional PvPs.
To me it's the least interesting match up to actually watch.
Er ZvZ on a dark map, I can barely make anything out. Don't particularly enjoy watching PvP's but if their were more Phoenix wars I probably would to be honest, I think when I have seen it the player with best micro generally wins. I saw one pro who I like very much said 'one missclick can cost you the game'. Well durp, don't missclick, surely that is the point. It's a volatile strat that you opt into and if your opponent does the same it's even more volatile. Lot's of one race games have similar issues with air wars though. Muta vs Muta, or Viking vs Viking, lot's of times it seems to be about massing numbers and not throwing units away, so eventually you just outnumber and crush the opponent by force.
On March 14 2016 06:37 Incognoto wrote: I think I've watched like 3 professional PvPs.
To me it's the least interesting match up to actually watch.
If you've only watched 3 of them how can you say it's not interesting to watch? 3 is way too small of a sample size.
I'd say most people only need 1 experience to decide whether they like something or not (for example: kale, ska music, anal, etc.)
But every game of Starcraft plays out differently, 1 game is never enough to judge an entire matchup. Imagine someone watched Heart of the Swarm and saw 1 TvZ. And by sheer coincidence it was ended by a roach/bane all-in. From that they concluded the matchup wasn't worth their time and did something else whenever TvZ was on. They formed their opinion on incomplete information and missed all the good stuff.
Er ZvZ on a dark map, I can barely make anything out.
There are several maps in the pool right now that have a pretty big issue with colors due to a bug or a bad setting. They display a narrow range of color like 30-220 instead of 0-255 and it makes everything very washed out and hard to see, especially in dark areas. Dusk Towers is the worst one.
That appears to be a flag in the map editor because it plagues a bunch of maps, especially many of the campaign missions but other maps (even in the ladder pool) run the proper color range.
I've been saying this for 4 months and nobody seems to care, would appriciate more word @ blizzard about it!
Er ZvZ on a dark map, I can barely make anything out.
There are several maps in the pool right now that have a pretty big issue with colors due to a bug or a bad setting. They display a narrow range of color like 30-220 instead of 0-255 and it makes everything very washed out and hard to see, especially in dark areas. Dusk Towers is the worst one.
That appears to be a flag in the map editor because it plagues a bunch of maps, especially many of the campaign missions but other maps (even in the ladder pool) run the proper color range.
I've been saying this for 4 months and nobody seems to care, would appriciate more word @ blizzard about it!
Well I agree, and i also have an answer 'GLOW-STICKS' for all zerg units in every ZvZ, no matter what the map. I bet Liquid'Snute would agree with these wild changes, he loves his Techno/Trance!
On March 14 2016 06:37 Incognoto wrote: I think I've watched like 3 professional PvPs.
To me it's the least interesting match up to actually watch.
If you've only watched 3 of them how can you say it's not interesting to watch? 3 is way too small of a sample size.
I'd say most people only need 1 experience to decide whether they like something or not (for example: kale, ska music, anal, etc.)
But every game of Starcraft plays out differently, 1 game is never enough to judge an entire matchup. Imagine someone watched Heart of the Swarm and saw 1 TvZ. And by sheer coincidence it was ended by a roach/bane all-in. From that they concluded the matchup wasn't worth their time and did something else whenever TvZ was on. They formed their opinion on incomplete information and missed all the good stuff.
I know that, but people don't have the patience to give something another chance, when there's plenty of other stuff out there. Just an observation how quickly people jump the ship these days.(I don't exlude myself from that)
On March 14 2016 07:47 Cyro wrote: A lot of people have not seen much spectator PvP because of the poor state of protoss representation.
WCS world championship had 35 zvz's and 7 pvp's.
Ting open had 56 zvz's and 0 pvp's.
as someone who watches sc2 & plays protoss, i probably know zvz better than my own mirror matchup - what hope is there for somebody who doesn't play protoss to have a good understanding of it?
GSL is at 22 ZvZs, 14 PvPs. S2SL is at 18 PvPs, 10 ZvZs (with at least 4 more PvPs on Thursday). Proleague will have 3 PvPs tomorrow. So it's not like it's completely impossible to watch PvP.
On March 14 2016 07:57 Cyro wrote: Can probes get glowsticks too? :D
They could get a flashlight. Also warp prisms should get disco lights.
On March 14 2016 07:47 Cyro wrote: A lot of people have not seen much spectator PvP because of the poor state of protoss representation.
WCS world championship had 35 zvz's and 7 pvp's.
Ting open had 56 zvz's and 0 pvp's.
as someone who watches sc2 & plays protoss, i probably know zvz better than my own mirror matchup - what hope is there for somebody who doesn't play protoss to have a good understanding of it?
GSL is at 22 ZvZs, 14 PvPs. S2SL is at 18 PvPs, 10 ZvZs. Proleague will have 3 PvPs tomorrow. So it's not like it's completely impossible to watch PvP.
I don't think you get that many Poenix wars in Korean PVP, maybe it's a European ladder thing? Why it would be interesting to get Korean input on this issue, my bet is they would say better micro wins. Fair play.
On March 14 2016 07:47 Cyro wrote: A lot of people have not seen much spectator PvP because of the poor state of protoss representation.
WCS world championship had 35 zvz's and 7 pvp's.
Ting open had 56 zvz's and 0 pvp's.
as someone who watches sc2 & plays protoss, i probably know zvz better than my own mirror matchup - what hope is there for somebody who doesn't play protoss to have a good understanding of it?
GSL is at 22 ZvZs, 14 PvPs. S2SL is at 18 PvPs, 10 ZvZs. Proleague will have 3 PvPs tomorrow. So it's not like it's completely impossible to watch PvP.
I don't think you get that many Poenix wars in Korean PVP, maybe it's a European ladder thing? Why it would be interesting to get Korean input on this issue, my bet is they would say better micro wins. Fair play.
I don't remember all of the games of course, but I think you're right and the number of actual phoenix wars (both players committing to the unit) in Korean leagues might be 5 or lower. Would be interesting to know how common it is in EU/NA and why it's more common (if it is).
So it's not like it's completely impossible to watch PvP
It's not, but it's probably the least played matchup by a wide margin and if you've caught some leagues and not others or not been watching for a lot of hours per week (i've only seen a few S2SL games) then you may have seen almost none of them
On March 14 2016 02:42 NonY wrote: Any vods or replays of the phoenix vs phoenix games that are luck-based? I've played many of them myself recently despite playing NA -> KR latency which is a real challenge for the micro and I never have felt like the game was decided by luck. I'd like to analyze some of the games that these pros felt came down to luck in order to see if I can find a mistake that changed the result of the game.
I understand your concerns here, and for the most part phoenix wars would be identical to what it is currently - though likely in much less frequent numbers. So while there can be mixed opinions on the phoenix wars, I think it is objectively true that phoenix wars should not be a prefered strategy due to the potential it has with countering oracles.
Protoss players can still play phoenix as much as we like.
This was one of the main things I still was not sure about before suggesting writing the article to Morrow, but it occured to me that this does not actually improve Phoenix-vs-Phoenix explicity, assuming there are problems, but it reduces the frequency that it is played, and for players who dislike the style will have more means to play ground.
It depends on what happens in the ultra early game, as far as probe scouting and possibly adept scouting, but at least when I go phoenix, I'm thinking that I must send out the first one to scout and the second one can be produced in time to defend against oracle. If I need 2 phoenixes to kill the oracle in a decent amount of time, then my build order will have to fundamentally change if I want to avoid fatal damage. And that's what we're trying to do is have build orders that can avoid fatal damage? So that a "build order win" is not an actual win but rather just an advantage leading into mid game?
But yeah, I think the phoenix vs phoenix thing has been overstated here. What this change really affects the most, imo, is 1 base oracle vs expand. If you look at the games from Katowice, mana actually lost twice with these builds on ruins of seras, to pilipili and huk, and he lost another game where stalker buff vs oracle would have helped (vs huk on prion terraces i think). And yet he was actually neutral, saying that he feels like stalkers are currently sufficient. I sort of agree with him. I got pretty scared for his build order when I saw how he was losing to 1 base oracle, but after analyzing the replays I felt there were indeed some things he could have done better to secure a win. Still a tough thing to defend. Huk was positive on the change, but seemed focused on the phoenix vs oracle side of it. Pilipili didn't comment.
I've been adamant from the start of LotV that expanding in PvP is not guaranteed to be a safe thing. At best on most maps, there will always be one build that can blind counter you, depending on what exactly you choose to build after expanding. So I don't know if people want stalkers buffed against oracle so it's easier to play an econ opening. Or maybe they just want to be able to open oracle harass without having to go all-in? This doesn't really help with that. If both players get a stargate, and one goes oracle and the other goes phoenix, they're both going to end up going phoenix anyway. I mean that's half of the interaction this change is focused on. Phoenix worse against defending oracle and stalkers better. The stalkers better part seems really boring to me. It's just helping out the players who insist on fast expanding. The phoenix vs oracle part is supposed to encourage people to choose oracle more, but only if they've scouted an enemy stargate, otherwise they're going to want to go oracle even less cuz stalkers wreck them. IDK. Doesn't seem like the right solution.
And if one of the goals is to avoid phoenix vs phoenix.. well, if you open oracle against phoenix, you still have to go phoenix after that oracle. You hope that the oracle can sneakily get a few kills so that being down 1.5 phoenix doesn't hurt you that much, but you still have to proceed to play phoenix vs phoenix. This change will help the oracle get more kills and then it's phoenix vs phoenix time. Still, no one wants to open oracle vs phoenix. If you do, then you're purposely playing a risky style, which is part of what we're trying to minimize right? It's forcing riskiness for both players. And no one will want to open oracle against stalkers anymore.
On March 14 2016 02:42 NonY wrote: Any vods or replays of the phoenix vs phoenix games that are luck-based? I've played many of them myself recently despite playing NA -> KR latency which is a real challenge for the micro and I never have felt like the game was decided by luck. I'd like to analyze some of the games that these pros felt came down to luck in order to see if I can find a mistake that changed the result of the game.
I understand your concerns here, and for the most part phoenix wars would be identical to what it is currently - though likely in much less frequent numbers. So while there can be mixed opinions on the phoenix wars, I think it is objectively true that phoenix wars should not be a prefered strategy due to the potential it has with countering oracles.
Protoss players can still play phoenix as much as we like.
This was one of the main things I still was not sure about before suggesting writing the article to Morrow, but it occured to me that this does not actually improve Phoenix-vs-Phoenix explicity, assuming there are problems, but it reduces the frequency that it is played, and for players who dislike the style will have more means to play ground.
It depends on what happens in the ultra early game, as far as probe scouting and possibly adept scouting, but at least when I go phoenix, I'm thinking that I must send out the first one to scout and the second one can be produced in time to defend against oracle. If I need 2 phoenixes to kill the oracle in a decent amount of time, then my build order will have to fundamentally change if I want to avoid fatal damage. And that's what we're trying to do is have build orders that can avoid fatal damage? So that a "build order win" is not an actual win but rather just an advantage leading into mid game?
But yeah, I think the phoenix vs phoenix thing has been overstated here. What this change really affects the most, imo, is 1 base oracle vs expand. If you look at the games from Katowice, mana actually lost twice with these builds on ruins of seras, to pilipili and huk, and he lost another game where stalker buff vs oracle would have helped (vs huk on prion terraces i think). And yet he was actually neutral, saying that he feels like stalkers are currently sufficient. I sort of agree with him. I got pretty scared for his build order when I saw how he was losing to 1 base oracle, but after analyzing the replays I felt there were indeed some things he could have done better to secure a win. Still a tough thing to defend. Huk was positive on the change, but seemed focused on the phoenix vs oracle side of it. Pilipili didn't comment.
I've been adamant from the start of LotV that expanding in PvP is not guaranteed to be a safe thing. At best on most maps, there will always be one build that can blind counter you, depending on what exactly you choose to build after expanding. So I don't know if people want stalkers buffed against oracle so it's easier to play an econ opening. Or maybe they just want to be able to open oracle harass without having to go all-in? This doesn't really help with that. If both players get a stargate, and one goes oracle and the other goes phoenix, they're both going to end up going phoenix anyway. I mean that's half of the interaction this change is focused on. Phoenix worse against defending oracle and stalkers better. The stalkers better part seems really boring to me. It's just helping out the players who insist on fast expanding. The phoenix vs oracle part is supposed to encourage people to choose oracle more, but only if they've scouted an enemy stargate, otherwise they're going to want to go oracle even less cuz stalkers wreck them. IDK. Doesn't seem like the right solution.
And if one of the goals is to avoid phoenix vs phoenix.. well, if you open oracle against phoenix, you still have to go phoenix after that oracle. You hope that the oracle can sneakily get a few kills so that being down 1.5 phoenix doesn't hurt you that much, but you still have to proceed to play phoenix vs phoenix. This change will help the oracle get more kills and then it's phoenix vs phoenix time. Still, no one wants to open oracle vs phoenix. If you do, then you're purposely playing a risky style, which is part of what we're trying to minimize right? It's forcing riskiness for both players. And no one will want to open oracle against stalkers anymore.
I saw the Katowice games, but I do not think I want to argue from their games at this time, and I agree things could´ve been done better.
For the record, I do not necessarily dislike phoenix vs phoenix personally, I just prefer ground vs ground. Right now I think there is a slightly stronger incitament to go stargate rather than ground. This is my official opinion if otherwise is interpreted in the article.
With that being said, the goal here for me is not to hurt phoenix vs phoenix, but decrease the frequency of it. And if not that then the potential frequency of it. This is not to hurt oracle vs phoenix or phoenix vs phoenix, but to promote the ability to remain safer while playing ground, especially defensive ground vs oracle. So your point is not actually related to the goals of what we want with this article. If anything we are actually buffing the oracle versus phoenix, and I think that is a good thing.
If we compare the current state of PvP with the state where photon overcharge was 25 - many people wouldve considered this a great state for PvP, despite expansions being quite easy to take like you said. However, now that PO is 50 energy, a stalker buff versus oracle would only make expansions that slightly amount easier, and we still saw a quite large percentage of games being aggressive in PvP even when overcharge was at 25 energy.
So the goal here is to not take away the great aggressive action we see now, but to slightly reduce the strength of the oracle. I do think it is slightly too strong versus ground, and I think 2 stalkers doing 28 damage is not quite going to be as strong as the 25 overcharge version, namely because of the other advantages 25 photon overcharge had when it came to defence, but also because it in and of itself may defend oracles better. If it does or does not it is still close, and I think this change would hit the compromise we are looking for between the ability to secure and expansion and to be aggressive against an expanding player, depending on map and style of course.
And when PvP has improved so much on the mid and lategame with the micro and action from disruptor, though it has had its´ own share of critique, I still think seeing a promoted economic PvP is always good despite that not necessarily being the goal of this article.
So to conclude - The main goal is to improve the Stalker versus Oracle situation. However it is a bonus that potential issues with Phoenix vs Phoenix also will be extensively fixed and also Phoenix vs Oracle.
When you say it's mainly about stalker vs oracle, are you saying it's mainly about 1 base oracle vs 2 base stalker? Like you want someone to be able to expand and have their scouting denied and still be able to efficiently defend against 1 base harass and all-ins?
Is there any argument at all for how this will improve the game? It sounds like just "I prefer to play this style and this pesky build is causing me problems. Let's weaken that build so I can play the way I want." There's nothing interesting about putting stalkers in a mineral line to ward off oracles. It's boring gameplay. And nothing new will come of it. The players who like to expand and defend against oracles by putting stalkers in their mineral lines will have their win rates increase slightly. That's all.
Looks like a nice change, agree with the sentry buff as well. By the way, anyone else thinks revelation is actually an op skill? It is really annoying to have a tagged army for a whole minute. The worst part is there is no counter play. It is so fast and high range, it is basically free vision
This change really isn't about the one base all-in oracle at all, wich is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay weaker than the oracle expand play. In general in the strictly opening stage of the game oracle is not a problem, you can have enough defense and it will not do much initially. It's just that it is a little bit too good in the midgame since it allows you to do a lot more than what the defending stalker player can (to be very broad but still truthful). Also when a player have an oracle fly into a phenix, he doesn't "go phenix himself", he lose the game, and that's pretty stupid.
On March 14 2016 10:44 NonY wrote: When you say it's mainly about stalker vs oracle, are you saying it's mainly about 1 base oracle vs 2 base stalker? Like you want someone to be able to expand and have their scouting denied and still be able to efficiently defend against 1 base harass and all-ins?
Is there any argument at all for how this will improve the game? It sounds like just "I prefer to play this style and this pesky build is causing me problems. Let's weaken that build so I can play the way I want." There's nothing interesting about putting stalkers in a mineral line to ward off oracles. It's boring gameplay. And nothing new will come of it. The players who like to expand and defend against oracles by putting stalkers in their mineral lines will have their win rates increase slightly. That's all.
While 1 base oracle vs 2 base stalker is also strong, that is more bound to the regulation that the oracle guy is likely allining, as otherwise he could open the oracle with an expansion behind it. In this case it is more clear how the defending player can proceed to win the game and/or secure himself a more mathemathically equal position as any player would expect to happen in such games with the highest level of execution.
However, due to the strength of the oracle most likely requiring 3 stalkers per mineral line during a temporary phase to which the oracle player can secure a lead (ptitdrogo does in this case talk about taking a fast 3rd, skipping mothership core etc.) -- these are the issues we are talking about while it still can be difficult to defend the oracle.
Of course if nothing but the oracle is present, the defending player still needs to deal with limited scouting information if say he opens 1 gate gas expand into stalkers, and in this case he needs to prepare for allins, voidray switch, voidray/immortal switch and other things. It can be difficult to secure his own 3rd base and it is likely a strongly microed oracle can secure a probe kill here and then while still having a lot of value in the midgame.
You are choosing to ignore the arguments rather than listening to them, and I feel this because I do not see you addressing the arguments. I can provide more if deemed necessary, but the main argument was that the oracle was not underperforming when photon overcharge was at 25 energy, and that 25 energy photon overcharge will not equally or less replace stalkers doing 40% more damage to the oracle. You may also include the opinion of many top pro gamers, and since we are talking about a mirror-matchup, the preference of the majority of pro-players should empower this case. (While I am normally against this form of argumenation.)
But it is just a fact to me that the oracle right now is slightly overperforming, at least overperforming to the extent that this change would roughly stabilize the problem. And yes it is oracle vs ground, of course. Not versus phoenix or other things. And it is not just 1 base oracle versus 2 base, it is oracle play in general, as the guy opening oracle versus the guy playing defensive expand will have a larger advantage on information that the defending player can not catch up on in time.
While I am not saying you just "win" games because of the oracle, it still provides with smaller but crucial advantages throughout the course of many games. Likewise, if oracle took more damage from stalkers, the oracle would still be strong.
Stalkers in mineral lines would be exactly the same with or without the change. The question is whether we would want stalkers to happen more, or at the very least if stalker openers would not seem disadvantageous versus the oracle. So if the oracle is still strong after a change like this then I am afraid you will still have to see boring stalker vs oracle. However if we are wrong, then you should be happy and no longer see stalkers in mineral lines defending oracles. A win-win sitaution for you I would say. And speaking of arguments, I could say exactly the same thing about your position. Why is it us, who just wants a certain playstyle to work, and not opposite?
I think I roughly agree with ptitdrogos position mentioned above. While it is true that an oracle with sufficient probe kills himself can get himself in a good position versus phoenix, it stills seems to mostly depend on the roulette situation (phoenix actually finding the oracle and the oracle dodging the phoenix) too much. Even if this change goes through, big maps like seras etc. can have a phoenix take out the oracle before it even arrives.
And to clarify my position as what otherwise could be interpreted in the article: I am not necessarily arguing that phoenix wars are "luck" based, but I do think it is very volatile - meaning engagements typically requires actions made in windows down to 1 or 2 seconds. Lower phoenix count and you want to disengange? This decision is almost instantaenous to make and if failed you likely lose. There are many good things about phoenix-vs-phoenix, but I do think the problems right now outweigh the good things to an extent where we should prefer the option to go stalkers (versus oracles) rather than phoenixes versus oracles. It just happens to be a debatably positive side-effect that phoenix wars would happen less due to the increased option of going stalkers versus oracles.
This does not mean that I do not think a map or two should value phoenix play over stalker play with reference to Blizzards intention of improving strategic diversity per map, but right now I think there is a superior preference with stargate and I would argue this goes against this very goal.
Now if you would like my other arguments on the subject, I would advise you to actually read my statement in the article which you can find by clicking on my yellow face. (Non-stereotypically spoken.)
Great change, and even greater Idea we need more Idea's for Protoss in PvT and PvZ as protoss seems in a fragile state I would say it's the weaker of the other 2 races atm esp. after the double Nerf and Nerf's from HoTS to LoTV (such as Collsi too weak) and The hydra buff mid/late in HoTS expo carried over to LoTV Lurkers are big problem in PvZ when you factor in static and other ground units to tank. Also Liberators are too strong with they get 6+ they melt Protoss ground and Stalkers are the only Gateway counter atm, but very very fragile vs stim bio/medi with the Liberators. Just some Thoughts I've played only protoss since 2012.
While I loved the idea at first... Are we even sure this would end the phoenix wars? The counter to the phoenix still seems to be to have more phoenixes (or archons ofc).
Flattening the stalker AA damage to 14 does the exact same thing (a nerf to oracles in PvP), but also helps stalkers vs phoenix (so it might end the phoenix wars) and vs mutas. It sounds like a plain better solution.
This change would also make it better to open viking to deal with Stargate/Warp Prism play. This is not the point of the change but it would propose an interesting feature in other match ups!
I like this change, although I am a little bit disappointed in the sense that I expected a post proposing a nerf to revelation. Honestly, I feel that it's too strong at the moment, the low cost / high duration / high range / large AOE make that you can have continually vision on your opponent army even to invisible units without any risk to the oracle.
On March 14 2016 20:26 Vanadiel wrote: I like this change, although I am a little bit disappointed in the sense that I expected a post proposing a nerf to revelation. Honestly, I feel that it's too strong at the moment, the low cost / high duration / high range / large AOE make that you can have continually vision on your opponent army even to invisible units without any risk to the oracle.
If you nerf revelation you must buff the obs or protoss relies on a paper unit that can be sniped all day vs ghosts and lurkers.
On March 14 2016 20:26 Vanadiel wrote: I like this change, although I am a little bit disappointed in the sense that I expected a post proposing a nerf to revelation. Honestly, I feel that it's too strong at the moment, the low cost / high duration / high range / large AOE make that you can have continually vision on your opponent army even to invisible units without any risk to the oracle.
What you're describing sounds an awful lot like scanning with orbitals
On March 14 2016 17:21 Salteador Neo wrote: While I loved the idea at first... Are we even sure this would end the phoenix wars? The counter to the phoenix still seems to be to have more phoenixes (or archons ofc).
Flattening the stalker AA damage to 14 does the exact same thing (a nerf to oracles in PvP), but also helps stalkers vs phoenix (so it might end the phoenix wars) and vs mutas. It sounds like a plain better solution.
As suggested in the other thread this would probably solve a lot of problems with the dreaded mass-muta switches pvz, but alongside all the other issues as well. Thinking about it this seems like an elegant solution to several issues at once.
I'm just a zerg scrub but I think this change sounds positive for the game, it lacks drawbacks and improves a lot of things that Blizzard values. Good job Theo fleshing it out for us even further.
I don't understand people that claim koreans don't seem to share this "problem", I see tons of stargate openings in PvP.
On March 14 2016 20:26 Vanadiel wrote: I like this change, although I am a little bit disappointed in the sense that I expected a post proposing a nerf to revelation. Honestly, I feel that it's too strong at the moment, the low cost / high duration / high range / large AOE make that you can have continually vision on your opponent army even to invisible units without any risk to the oracle.
If you nerf revelation you must buff the obs or protoss relies on a paper unit that can be sniped all day vs ghosts and lurkers.
I don't disagree with that, of course protoss is not too strong at the moment and revelation is an important tool in the late game, so if nerfed other tools would be needed. maybe a bigger range of the observer and a speed buff so it can stay behind and thus safer while detecting cloacked/burrow army.
To answer Fig, I don't really understand the comparaison with scans. The comparaison would be valid only if scan lasted 43 secondes instead of 9, and followed the scanned army during that length of time.
Revelation is 9 range + radius of 6 so there is not a single unit in Zerg arsenal that can deny an oracle to continuously tag an army, and for terran in practice even the 9 range viking can not deny it due to the large radius of the spell and the fact that the oracle is fast enough to avoid the shot of the viking.
This feels like an overall nerf to protoss vs other races.
corruptors, vikings and other AA units deal extra damage vs armored. Youre proposing a change to affect early game PvP timings and builds in a very minor way.
The second major use of the oracle is in lategame situations to cast Revelation. This change will cause your oracle to die more easily in those situations - and personally I feel Protoss needs lategame love anyway.
I think a change to armored might be good, but there are obviously many questions about what people want to be viable. I've always loved the phoenix, but I agree it's not great to watch when it turns into 3 stargate vs 3 stargate mass phoenix with a race to whoever gets range first, with no hope of a comeback.
To avoid derailing the thread, I'll just respond to you in PM Vanadiel.
On March 14 2016 22:44 weikor wrote: This feels like an overall nerf to protoss vs other races.
corruptors, vikings and other AA units deal extra damage vs armored. Youre proposing a change to affect early game PvP timings and builds in a very minor way.
The second major use of the oracle is in lategame situations to cast Revelation. This change will cause your oracle to die more easily in those situations - and personally I feel Protoss needs lategame love anyway.
Protoss is still fine late game if they get there. But more importantly, the nerf to the oracle against Zerg and Terran is barely noticeable anyway due to the oracle's speed, no AA unit that does bonus damage to armored can reliably kill the oracle, unless the Protoss fucks up (or it gets grabbed by vipers in which case it's dead no matter the tag).
On March 14 2016 02:48 TwiggyWan wrote: The change would probably be good but visually the unit does not look armored at all...
tell that to the Ghost thats not light and the Ravager thats not armored. i agree that "lore" (for the lack of better term) is important but sometimes its important for game design to go against it. call me dumb but i actually do think the oracle looks armored, and i thought it was armored for years before i was protoss
Yeah, ghost, hellbat, ravager, it surely won't be the only unit to have a rather deceiving look.
As I said, I don't think your gameplay change is bad at all
On March 14 2016 19:51 GerichRail wrote: I ALSO THINK NEED CHANGE COLLOS SUPPLY TO 5 AND DISRUTPOR TO 4 , TO PREVENT MASSING OF DISRUPTORS AND BACK COLLOSI IN SOME GAME_SITUATIONS
Dts should also replace the zealot. 100 mins for a invisible soldier at the 2 min mark that can 1 shot everything at the point would be great. Stops them from having the money to even build a stargate.
Ez fix.
We also should make the lurker be able to move underground at the speed of a upgraded bashee and make stim Give health instead of taking it. Oh and make BC's have nukes!
On March 14 2016 02:48 TwiggyWan wrote: The change would probably be good but visually the unit does not look armored at all...
tell that to the Ghost thats not light and the Ravager thats not armored. i agree that "lore" (for the lack of better term) is important but sometimes its important for game design to go against it. call me dumb but i actually do think the oracle looks armored, and i thought it was armored for years before i was protoss
Yeah, ghost, hellbat, ravager, it surely won't be the only unit to have a rather deceiving look.
As I said, I don't think your gameplay change is bad at all
For the record, ravagers not being armored kinda makes sense if you think about it. As roaches they're very compact and highly armored inside of their durable shell. When they become ravagers the shell cracks open in exchange for more firepower, so they lose some armor.
Noone said anything about Vikings as a counter measure, where they would have an increased damage output against Oracles by 40%.
I really don't think the proposed change is necessary. If anything, Phoenix openers in PvP rather show how shitty the tools are that Protoss has in the ground-to-air department. This is the same with deflecting Mutas in PvZ. I rather have Blizzard look at the ground options Protoss have to combat Phoenix/ Muta in PvP/PvZ, rather than introduce a change which, for all tense purposes, could produce nothing useful
On March 15 2016 00:48 Jonsoload wrote: Noone said anything about Vikings as a counter measure, where they would have an increased damage output against Oracles by 40%.
Because of the speed difference vikings aren't a good counter to oracles even with this change. Maybe they could deflect them, but 6 marines also deflect an oracle, and you actually want those.
I thought about possible changes to improve this match-up, and I believe this is the best “next step” that also wouldn't affect the non-mirror match-ups.
As much as I wanna believe this, it can't be that easy. Every change comes with a price and just saying there is none won't make it true...
Speaking as a Terran, switching Oracle from Light to Armored changes nothing about the matchup for me. Marines and Missile Turrets do the same damage vs Light and Armored, and are what you use to defend early Oracle harass.
Midgame and further, you have either Vikings, Liberators, and Cyclones to zone out/kill Oracles. Vikings would gain bonus damage but are slow, so not super relevant.
Also, I generally don't see Oracles past the early game unless they pop by to drop a revelation on my army and zip away again.
Can't speak to ZvP as I don't play Zerg, but it's a complete non-issue for Terran.
On March 14 2016 20:26 Vanadiel wrote: I like this change, although I am a little bit disappointed in the sense that I expected a post proposing a nerf to revelation. Honestly, I feel that it's too strong at the moment, the low cost / high duration / high range / large AOE make that you can have continually vision on your opponent army even to invisible units without any risk to the oracle.
What you're describing sounds an awful lot like scanning with orbitals
Orbital scans are restricted to the area scanned, are much shorter than revelation, and have an economic cost (every scan is one less MULE). If you had to Chrono Boost the Oracle to use and maintain Revelation then I could see a fair comparison, otherwise its apples:oranges.
On March 14 2016 19:51 GerichRail wrote: I ALSO THINK NEED CHANGE COLLOS SUPPLY TO 5 AND DISRUTPOR TO 4 , TO PREVENT MASSING OF DISRUPTORS AND BACK COLLOSI IN SOME GAME_SITUATIONS
Dts should also replace the zealot. 100 mins for a invisible soldier at the 2 min mark that can 1 shot everything at the point would be great. Stops them from having the money to even build a stargate.
Ez fix.
We also should make the lurker be able to move underground at the speed of a upgraded bashee and make stim Give health instead of taking it. Oh and make BC's have nukes!
Also Please nerf revelation its bullshit in the later stages of PvZ. Zerg got no anti caster and it can be casted before u can abduct it or anything else so Tempest can do free damage and you can't do anything about it.
On March 14 2016 22:44 weikor wrote: This feels like an overall nerf to protoss vs other races.
corruptors, vikings and other AA units deal extra damage vs armored. Youre proposing a change to affect early game PvP timings and builds in a very minor way.
The second major use of the oracle is in lategame situations to cast Revelation. This change will cause your oracle to die more easily in those situations - and personally I feel Protoss needs lategame love anyway.
they actually only deal + damage to massive, not armored.
besides that, you think zerg wants to make corruptors to deal with oracles? lol. we only make corruptors if there is an insane phoenix count otherwise we have the LotV hydra which is improved from previous versions. Oracles are made to spot lurkers primarily which means there are hydras. Corruptors are too damn slow to even catch an oracle anyway, the toss would have to be sleeping to get caught by 2-3 corruptors. If zerg has any more corruptors than that just to deal with oracles then you have a bigger problem, they are massing brood lords or the zerg is literally that dumb to tie up 6+ supply in a unit to counter units that toss doesn't need to make anymore (colossus, void rays).
I really don't see this as a nerf at all, this is good for the game.
On March 15 2016 01:43 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i hate to sound like a totally insensitve, dick-faced asshole but here goes... will any one at platinum or lower even notice this change?
if so many high level players like it.. and platinum and below can't tell the difference... i say "stick it in a PTR and test it out Mr. Kim."
this change is designed to barely effect balance at all except in one specific match up and at the highest leagues possible. I would expect nothing less than a balance map, that's blizzards MO
Wish Oracle could get a mid-lategame buff for how shitty they are post early game. Oracles do have a temporary moment where en mass they are good too, but quickly deteriorates, like reapers.
Revelation used to make the oracle into a mobile detector for a period of time which was better early in the game (for using 1 oracle to hunt down and kill 3 dt's, for example.. it was added to give an alternative to an observer so that you didn't have to have a robo early in every pvp)
the redesign now encourages mid-lategame use of repeatedly tagging 50 supply worth of stuff with the huge range, AOE and duration; especially as it provides much more reliable detection than observers in some situations (hydra/lurker moving forward with overseers or sitting behind spore crawlers)
they're pretty decent in combat but mostly work against light stuff. They're low range, high DPS and rely on using mobility to avoid damage rather than standing up to it so the scaling is naturally going to be bad unless you change the unit design i think - solid buffs to make them decent later in the game would make them OP early with the current design
On March 15 2016 13:03 Cyro wrote: Reaper is a good comparison. Oracle is good mid & late because of the design of revelation, but not because of its combat ability.
Revelation used to make the oracle into a mobile detector for a period of time which was better early in the game (for using 1 oracle to hunt down and kill 3 dt's, for example.. it was added to give an alternative to an observer so that you didn't have to have a robo early in every pvp)
the redesign now encourages mid-lategame use of repeatedly tagging 50 supply worth of stuff with the huge range, AOE and duration; especially as it provides much more reliable detection than observers in some situations (hydra/lurker moving forward with overseers or sitting behind spore crawlers)
they're pretty decent in combat but mostly work against light stuff. They're low range, high DPS and rely on using mobility to avoid damage rather than standing up to it so the scaling is naturally going to be bad unless you change the unit design i think - solid buffs to make them decent later in the game would make them OP early with the current design
You could always have upgrades via the fleet beacon or even just the cyber core, so when they come out vanilla they aren't overly strong. Revelation is a good skill, but generally speaking you don't need to build more than a single oracle. Given them a little bit of hardiness in battle could go a long way.
On March 15 2016 13:03 Cyro wrote: Reaper is a good comparison. Oracle is good mid & late because of the design of revelation, but not because of its combat ability.
Revelation used to make the oracle into a mobile detector for a period of time which was better early in the game (for using 1 oracle to hunt down and kill 3 dt's, for example.. it was added to give an alternative to an observer so that you didn't have to have a robo early in every pvp)
the redesign now encourages mid-lategame use of repeatedly tagging 50 supply worth of stuff with the huge range, AOE and duration; especially as it provides much more reliable detection than observers in some situations (hydra/lurker moving forward with overseers or sitting behind spore crawlers)
they're pretty decent in combat but mostly work against light stuff. They're low range, high DPS and rely on using mobility to avoid damage rather than standing up to it so the scaling is naturally going to be bad unless you change the unit design i think - solid buffs to make them decent later in the game would make them OP early with the current design
You could always have upgrades via the fleet beacon or even just the cyber core, so when they come out vanilla they aren't overly strong. Revelation is a good skill, but generally speaking you don't need to build more than a single oracle. Given them a little bit of hardiness in battle could go a long way.
That reminds me of a chat on Naniwa's stream about void ray acceleration and difficulty moving to avoid various forms of damage without losing too much DPS. There could be an upgrade for that too with a cool name like "Flux Vanes"!
For specifics, more VR speed would be nice but isn't as big of a deal as the acceleration buff IMO if speed creates balance issues. Accel just means easier dodging & splitting against the stuff that's dangerous - corrosive bile spam, fungals, parasitic bomb etc; it also contributes to a bigger gap in effectiveness between weak and strong micro players.
Back in BroodWar ZvZ was incredibly exciting mathcup bcuz it was all about smartness of ling harras, incredible muta micro and smart overlord positioning to counter this harrases while not losing them. So, people played ling muta vs ling muta for years and had fun and excitiment from it. Why would you want to change same situation in SC2 PvP? Why it is always foreign players want to change smth instead of adapting to it and actually win smth like korean players do? In like 90% situations when you want to change smth the real answer is "keep everything as it is and get good to deal with it".
On March 15 2016 19:50 LuckyGnomTV wrote: Back in BroodWar ZvZ was incredibly exciting mathcup bcuz it was all about smartness of ling harras, incredible muta micro and smart overlord positioning to counter this harrases while not losing them. So, people played ling muta vs ling muta for years and had fun and excitiment from it. Why would you want to change same situation in SC2 PvP? Why it is always foreign players want to change smth instead of adapting to it and actually win smth like korean players do? In like 90% situations when you want to change smth the real answer is "keep everything as it is and get good to deal with it".
This might be true in many cases and can be applied to many aspects in life, but keep the following in mind:
"Because it is possible that you are able to do very well with a certain play style but still hate some aspects of it. Something being fun and enjoyable can at times be very different from being fair/balanced and having the right skillset."
For instance it is not enjoyable at all when you open stargate in pvp and choose to go oracle instead of directly into phoenix, just to face someone going directly for phoenix and since you are now behind by about 1.5 phoenix he can move around wherever he likes while you need to camp your base because you would not be able to disengage and risk losing all of your units. This decision was something that you could not base on game information unless you expected/saw his stargate and therefore would not go for a stupid oracle first. I had people gging out after their oracle died and they saw that they are behind in the phoenix count in masters league ... I don't think they enjoyed the result of their small blind decision at all. Muta-ling is very different from phoenix wars in pvp (I play also zerg on ladder), you can disengage with mutas because they do not have MOVE-WHILE-SHOOTING and you can transition much faster/easier into unit compositions which wreck mutas.
One idea behind the change is that it would be easier to fend of an oracle in the early game of PvP where you can not know for sure what tech he is choosing (because scouting it can be denied and can simply not always be accomplished) but needing 3 stalkers in each mineral line is quite a lot (especially if they do make a 4 stalker + core poke in the front at the same time ...), which might be a good or bad thing (like Nony stated maybe this would make things such as fast expanding too easy in pvp and it is good the way it is). But this was the main intention of the thread creator.
The second idea is that since stargate openings are quite good in pvp in general and therefore many people opt for it, you definitely always want to directly go into phoenix without cutting any phoenix for any reason (like supply block etc), because whoever has the lead gains full map control and if at any point you can see the chance to engage (his core has no energy, there is only one canon next to his phoenix etc) you simply fly in an rape his whole air. The player who goes oracle first is mostly kinda screwed unless you get enough kills with your first oracle to compensate for this huge disadvantage. This mostly just happens if you kinda circumvent his first phoenix "blindly" because he feels like playing less of a gamble and wants to know if he needs for example fast detection. Since I open with phoenix a lot I personally do not mind at all that phoenix rape oracles that hard, but it kinda limits the options of how you can open in the matchup and I am not sure if this restriction is good or a change might be beneficial. Overally a matchup benefits a lot from variety and not having the feeling that there are very few good ways to open (where you do not have sufficient information about your opponent yet because it is impossible to get in before you need to choose ... wall-in at the front in pvp and core scout does not always work out). The concept is similar to PvZ right now, where you kinda feel that if you play zerg that you have many options regarding timings/allins and midgame unit composition choices/transitions while as a protoss you feel like you kinda have to open phoenix or quickly transition into them blindly midgame because otherwise in most cases a lot of mutas show up which even if they do not manage to do sufficient damage, they usually do a good job of preventing you from taking a 4th until you get a decent phoenix count up, which takes long enough from having no stargates out blindly to a point where the zerg simply has way too much stuff (the main mines out so fast in lotv, in hots you could literally sit on 3 bases with a high probe count, i.e. 20-24 probes on minerals instead of 16) for a while to build up your count or get enough templar out to leave them behind. So the matchup restricts the way you play a lot, hence (balance aside) more options mostly result in more enjoyment of the whole matchup.
The point of the thread was not if the oracle can not be sufficiently handled in the pvp matchup (it can) or if it is balanced (it is a mirror matchup ...), but rather if it was beneficial from a game design point of view in terms of enabling more variety in options due to having to not commit so much to one of the many options at a stage of the game where you simply can not know for sure what your opponent decides to go for, because this could allow for more variety. If you do not prepare for an oracle, it mostly does game ending damage that early on (talking about fast stargate directly into oracle). If however a potential change would create the opposite effect in that opening oracle would feel generally weaker/not sufficient any more, the whole change would miss its point. One thing to keep in mind is that the longer the game goes on, a good player can (if the opponent does not have phoenix), go in and out several times always picking of 1-2 probes at a time and reuse it later for revelation (stasis ward can be good ... but it's more of a hit or miss :-)), but canons+core can be circumvented a lot easier than stalkers which could easily make these moves too risky/kinda impossible if stalkers did 14 instead of 10 damage a hit on an oracle which does not have full hp any more. Is getting a fast stargate including an oracle (300/300) that early on still good enough/beneficial then?
A change like this could easily be tested soon at least in balance test maps or even patched and reverted if it potentially proved to not be beneficial at all, since it only really affects one aspect of a mirror matchup without risking destroying the game balance dramatically for tournaments.
How is this a good thing. Oracle is such a ridiculous unit I wouldn't mind it being completely changed... Not only its a super fast air caster with almost infinite spells but it 2 shots workers and is incredibly annoying to deal with.
Let's just give all 3 races pillows to fight with instead of weapons, weapons are too dangerous.
Random here. I like this change because I like seeing variety in builds. I prefer SG openers to begin with but right now I really hate gateway vs. oracle, and I think this would make builds less predictable. I'm not good enough to say if it's solvable w/o a tweak.
I don't agree at all with the pros saying that phoenix vs. phoenix is based in luck (and that it's not fun to play or watch -- I really enjoy opening phoenix and I have fun when my opponents do too). My favorite units are the fastest (ling, muta, phoenix) so I've basically been all about the phoenix since WoL, and I definitely don't feel like engagements are random. That said, I'm not a pro, and in masters you can definitely be active on the map and force mistakes with phoenixes so the "turtle in fear" style never really happens and "die in a misclick" is awesome, life on the edge, lets your explore your skill with the unit.
I kind of view it like how muta vs. muta was at the start of HoTS... I really enjoy playing it when it happens, but there was a period when you felt like you had to go muta or you were dead, and it got really stale. And muta vs. muta isn't about luck, it's about forcing mistakes out of your opponent, taking small advantages. Muta/ling micro has more depth than phoenix wars IMO, but it's not that different conceptually.
A straight buff to Stalker AA is also a possibility. It would help vs Oracle but also vs muta and liberator, which feel slightly overpowered in PvZ / PvT right now.
as for me and protoss it is so strong, even if you do not need to boost Oracle's if you look at the Zerg swarm a host is already completely not usable therefore proposes Blizzard over boost the unit which like for me at the moment could not exist
How is this a good thing. Oracle is such a ridiculous unit I wouldn't mind it being completely changed... Not only its a super fast air caster with almost infinite spells but it 2 shots workers and is incredibly annoying to deal with.
Let's just give all 3 races pillows to fight with instead of weapons, weapons are too dangerous.
^_^ that ridiculous statement of his reminds me of all the kids who were crying about how broken Oracles would turn out to be when Blizzard buffed its speed and acceleration.
just replace pulsar beam with something else. a fast flying unit with high burst damage was a horrible idea from the start (like so many others), props to the geniuses in charge who think that exploding workers equal fun
How is this a good thing. Oracle is such a ridiculous unit I wouldn't mind it being completely changed... Not only its a super fast air caster with almost infinite spells but it 2 shots workers and is incredibly annoying to deal with.
Let's just give all 3 races pillows to fight with instead of weapons, weapons are too dangerous.
I kinde agree with MaNa. The proposed balance change may improve things, but it is not really a solution the phoenix vs phoenix battles overall. I kinda feel like phoenixes could use some changes in general as they seem dominant in every match up. I dont mean that they should be nerved, but rather that the way they are used could be changed slightly, so they become part of a unit composition, instead of being a massable unit.
On March 17 2016 00:52 DevilDriver wrote: I kinde agree with MaNa. The proposed balance change may improve things, but it is not really a solution the phoenix vs phoenix battles overall. I kinda feel like phoenixes could use some changes in general as they seem dominant in every match up. I dont mean that they should be nerved, but rather that the way they are used could be changed slightly, so they become part of a unit composition, instead of being a massable unit.
They are used as part of the unit composition and not blindly massed up ever with the exception of a certain stage of pvp (see below).
They are not a blindly massable unit, in pvt it is only possible to get out a couple (like up to 6), otherwise you can easily get hardcountered or straight up die for the lack of other units that you need for your gas (templar/tempests). Terran has many hardcounters including marines with their crazy dps, thors, mines and liberators even with splash. The only reason phoenix are so viable as an opening or early on in lotv compared to hots is actually that the adept exists which allows protoss to get a decent unit composition going fast and with much more efficiency while at the same time having to defend much more space early on (3 base at early stages) and deal with things such as early liberators.
In pvz phoenix are a lot stronger since hydras do not even come close to the dps of marines and whenever they have a low unit count somewhere you can pick them off. Furthermore they help a lot vs lifting lurker, make you kinda safe early on vs ravager etc and are somewhat a you want to make blindly to prevent muta play. Massing them up however is a terrible idea again since a tech switch (e.g. ultralisks) or certain spells (fungal growth but I am talking specifically about the viper here actually ...) can rape your whole army, nobody can use these units and presplit them perfectly all the time while still using them constantly.
In pvp phoenix have never really been used in midgame or later stages of the game. They are too cost inefficient and get hardcountered by archon/feedback and upgrades easily. Phoenix wars exist because the stalker is the only regular anti air ground unit protoss has and very early on the production of protoss is very slow (warpgate tech as well as blink takes quite a while now). They do so little dps to light units (6.9dps vs light, 9.7dps vs armored, compared to for example a marine, stimmed 10dps, unstimmed 6.67dps or hydra 14.4dps) while a phoenix will be able to do 9.6dps vs the stalker on the shields and 7.68dps on his hitpoints. So in terms of cost the phoenix only performs slightly worse than an unupgraded stalker early on in terms of stalker-vs-phoenix, but the phoenix gets all the map control, pick up etc. If it was any different, opening phoenix would be committing suicide in pvp. You switch out of phoenix anyways pretty soon. Phoenix wars (at stated already in this thread) only are there when both opened stargate and the phoenix is kinda the only useful unit you can make now against what the opponent might be doing. Since early on the stalker is such a useless support for your phoenix (if you want to engage, you would need 3 extra stalkers for each phoenix you have less due to phoenix dealing so much anti-light-damage to each other: 19.2dps).
So lets say you have 7 phoenix and go to your opponents base, he only has 5 phoenix (because maybe he built an oracle early on, lost something or was supply blocked ...). Now if he only has 3-4 stalkers to support his phoenix you can literally simply fly into his phoenix simply disrespecting the fact that the stalkers are also shooting you (he actually is fighting with more army value) because you will still trade a little bit better. In reality he will position himself over pylons for overcharge as well, so you would never do that with 7 vs 5 phoenix, but this simply shows the value of another phoenix after opening stargate when the opponent is also making phoenix and a stalker. However, if something like stalker anti air dps were to be flattened like discussed in another thread, even making phoenix might be a thing of the past in pvp since stalkers with 14 instead of 10 dmg vs light air would kill you so easily with any kind of push. Maybe this side effect/annoyance in a very specific scenario just has to be dealt with in order to keep it valid (unless the role of the void ray was changed a lot to keep stargate valid outside of proxy-1base allins in pvp).
In general the issue I felt the phoenix has in general is that you kinda always need to make a certain amount of the unit, otherwise the unit is next to useless since you need to spend 50e every time to pick something up. This is very different from lets say making a banshee. [/QUOTE]
In general the issue I felt the phoenix has in general is that you kinda always need to make a certain amount of the unit, otherwise the unit is next to useless since you need to spend 50e every time to pick something up.
They can't attack when they lift either
3 phoenix will kill workers (well, everything) twice as fast as 2, you need four phoenix to kill a queen in 1 lift etc. Most people tend to cut at fairly low numbers (4-7 vs T/Z) because you need a certain amount for them to be useful but too much investment is bad
Maybe a little off topic since it appears to be a PvP reflexion, but I don't think the issue with the oracle is his actual firepower/longevity. It's the fact that no matter what, an oracle will always bring a huge reward to protoss unless it's shutdown by phenixes in a perticular matchup (PvP early game).
Most mech players have been complaining about tempest making mech terrible against protoss. What actually makes mech terrible against protoss is the revelation. Attacking a mech position is all about scouting, to evaluate the defenses. Terrans have scans, that are short, costly until late game. Zergs have changelings, that are a very long controllable scout, unless the opponent is perticularly vigilent. Protoss have the obs, that's costly, but can provide very good information if placed correctly, for an undetermined amount of time. Then there's the revelation. 9 cast range, 6 radius, 50 energy, 60 seconds duration, and reveals cloack.
I know it's been in the game for a while, but the fact that it pretty much makes the oracle a way to perma scout the opponent's army WHILE the oracle is already a banshee on steroids... It pretty much isf an insanely upgraded hallucination scout, and very abusive early game TvP or late game in conjunction with tempests. I do agree that protoss need another form of detection than robo, but I don't see how the revelation is still in the game design wise. It's like the tankivac, invisible nydus or blinkprism. It just baffles me.
On March 18 2016 08:20 JackONeill wrote: Maybe a little off topic since it appears to be a PvP reflexion, but I don't think the issue with the oracle is his actual firepower/longevity. It's the fact that no matter what, an oracle will always bring a huge reward to protoss unless it's shutdown by phenixes in a perticular matchup (PvP early game).
Most mech players have been complaining about tempest making mech terrible against protoss. What actually makes mech terrible against protoss is the revelation. Attacking a mech position is all about scouting, to evaluate the defenses. Terrans have scans, that are short, costly until late game. Zergs have changelings, that are a very long controllable scout, unless the opponent is perticularly vigilent. Protoss have the obs, that's costly, but can provide very good information if placed correctly, for an undetermined amount of time. Then there's the revelation. 9 cast range, 6 radius, 50 energy, 60 seconds duration, and reveals cloack.
I know it's been in the game for a while, but the fact that it pretty much makes the oracle a way to perma scout the opponent's army WHILE the oracle is already a banshee on steroids... It pretty much isf an insanely upgraded hallucination scout, and very abusive early game TvP or late game in conjunction with tempests. I do agree that protoss need another form of detection than robo, but I don't see how the revelation is still in the game design wise. It's like the tankivac, invisible nydus or blinkprism. It just baffles me.
One possible reason the design team didn't look very hard at Revelation before LotV was released is that in HotS PvZ and PvT, Oracles had a pretty high attrition rate running in to cast it, given the presence of things like Vipers and Viking clouds for dealing with Colossi. With Zerg teching to Vipers a little bit later relative to overall game development and Terrans completely forgoing Vikings in favor of Liberators for any sort of air presence, Oracles get away with casting a lot more Revelations in their lifespan. It's still a pretty expensive investment, though.
As for LotV, given the state of PvZ and how essential Revelation is for dealing with Lurker play, it's probably pretty low on the list of things the design and balance teams might want to look at.
Yeah don't get me wrong, revelation is "fine" in late game situations where very large armies interact with each other. With lukers and liberators, if protoss had to rely on obs only, they'd be unable to take fights.
It's really early/mid game where I feel like the oracle is abusive and sort of investment free. 300/300 (with SG) to get a very good harass unit that gives perma scout while being able to somewhat stall pushes with the stasis wards feels like a no brainer though.
Mixing some Archons with your phoenixs can many times change the tide of the Phoenix vs Phoenix battle.. I think its a creative change and would probably be cool but I dont really see that much of a problem with the phoenix vs phoenix war. I also dont really think it would fix the fact that everyone opens phoenix in pvp.. They arent only good vs oracles. You have 1-2 stalkers and opened phoenix you still shut the oracle down pretty easy and people still end up wishing they went phoenix instead. Idk maybe Im wrong but this is how I see it playing out in my head.
On March 14 2016 04:12 Liquid`Snute wrote: Another fun fix would be if Guardian Shield made Probes immune to damage :D This change is great and I hope the design team agrees with the players on this one. Hoping for input from KR players and ShoWTimE next time
You have the scariest balance changes in mind.
nothing wrong about having to kill the sentry first :s
I could see some potentially abusive all-ins that contain workers happen here, or an extremely easy defense against a zergling all-in, when you can just surround the sentry with a few probes or wall one in with a few pylons. etc.
11(or 22) seconds is a huge amount in strict timings.
On March 24 2016 05:28 Empirimancer wrote: Just buff Stalker anti-air damage, imo. It fixes everything.
So that they can snipe vipers more easily? Or broodlords? Or medivacs even? So they have to be even less careful about mutalisk transitions and scouting with overlords becomes even more problematic?
There has been nothing about this proposed change in the community feedback updates. Is this being ignored, considered, or did they explain why it was a bad idea... anyone know?
On March 14 2016 02:42 NonY wrote: Any vods or replays of the phoenix vs phoenix games that are luck-based? I've played many of them myself recently despite playing NA -> KR latency which is a real challenge for the micro and I never have felt like the game was decided by luck. I'd like to analyze some of the games that these pros felt came down to luck in order to see if I can find a mistake that changed the result of the game.
It comes down to how greedy you are and how lucky you are scouting. For example, if I get first scout and my opponent doesn't, I'll throw down a Stargate before getting my Mothership core. But he will delay his SG until after because he didn't scout me first. So my first Phoenix will come out before his, etc...
On March 29 2016 05:34 BronzeKnee wrote: There has been nothing about this proposed change in the community feedback updates. Is this being ignored, considered, or did they explain why it was a bad idea... anyone know?
remember lotv beta with economy models. it's being ignored, that's it. but kim phan will for sure give another interview saying how much they care about the community any time soon.
Shame that Blizzard never responded to this suggestion, as with many suggestions it seems they ignore the community and pick their own topics when it fits them.
I necro'd this thread because with the current changes to Photon Overcharge, it would be wise to reconsider making the Oracle armored because Photon Overcharge will be out of the game and we've never had the Oracle in the game without Photon Overcharge.
The shield restore clearly isn't enough to save Probes in a meaningful manner versus Oracles and Stalkers don't have enough DPS to kill Oracles before they kill ~8 Probes and effectively end the game. Or we'll all be opening Stargate in PvP.
it took three years for blizzard to make a change that morrow thought of in 5 minutes, god bless you morrow you should have been the replacement for david kim
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