Community Feedback - No Changes to Stalkers - Page 8

On December 15 2017 06:23 Ransomstarcraft wrote:
D. Give the new Ghost, or an upgraded Reaper the ability to plant a bomb that would destroy or dramatically damage an opponent's tech building so that the explosion followed by a Reaper attack could flip the game on its side or something.

On December 15 2017 06:52 blooblooblahblah wrote:
I have no input about TvZ but I do think you are slightly off the mark in regards to TvP. TvP has evolved a lot in the last couple weeks and I actually think Terran has a lot of strength in the early game right now. Hellions, Reapers and Cyclones are all quite good in different ways (particular the former two, although Cyclones are actually so good against aggressive Protoss openings). Hellions run-bys are seriously hard to deal with right now when coupled with a drop in the main, and when it first started getting popular, it literally just killed 90% of Protoss players. Now that it's become more of a meta-standard, it's not quite as brutal but it still puts a lot of pressure on the Protoss player to defend well (Stats for example, really struggled against Gumiho). Multiple reapers is good again with the removal of Photon overcharge and there's a variety of builds such as 2 rax reaper into a macro game, or more aggressive proxy reaper openings. Cyclones have always been good in the very early game, and there are some cool builds popping up like Marauder/Cyclone, which seems pretty good (TY showcased this). Protoss has great map control once blink finishes, but before that it's actually quite a scary game atm with a bunch of aggressive options for terran. A lot of the very aggressive Protoss openers that were killing Terrans a lot when the patch first hit don't match up that well against the openings I just mentioned (the exception being the hellion one but having a factory early allows you to change it up and rush out a Cyclone).

On December 17 2017 07:07 QuinnTheEskimo wrote:

I cannot actually say whether I agree with you, or not. I think you are not looking at the big picture and therefore don't see a lot of what's important. Yes, T strength in TvP increased a lot ever since Oracles stopped being a free win, but the match up is still stupid af. The main reason is the insane utility of the Stalker. Everything T can do early game is efficiently fought off with Stalkers, even while expanding. The only exception is a massive commitment to Cyclone aggression. In this case Stalkers can (only) hold off the Cyclones cost efficiently, until Immortals are out. This makes a Stalker opening a no brainer. Still, it is even more annoying that Stalkers continue to be insanely good and efficient and it is never a bad idea to continue massing them.

Ironically, even though I am a T player, and TvP is my worst matchup by far, I was never in favor of the propsed Stalker changes. I'd prefer nerfs that *eventually* make it a bad idea to keep massing Stalkers, or at least create a big window where Stalkers are (a lot) weaker. Make them profit less from upgrades, make Blink require a templar archive, or even a robotics bay. Maybe even remove Blink altogether, I don't know, but there need to be way more situations where building other units is the better option for the P player.

Just one note: opening 2rax reapers is not a good idea in TvP because it will delay your expansion and or tech so much, that you need to do exceptional damage just to keep up with the macro of a fast expanding P, which they still do very commonly. I think 2 rax reaper in TvP can not be more than a gimmick that works occasionally.

On December 17 2017 07:43 blooblooblahblah wrote:


I was making a point about that specific point he was making about TvP early game which personally I didn't find too accurate. I am completely on board with the fact that TvP is really hard and needs changes. However, some of my thoughts:

I don't agree that everything T can do early game is efficiently fought off with stalkers. Yes, they have the potential to hold off most of the stuff, which is why it's such a good opening atm. But you still need really good position to hold off the the hellion build for example, it's not as clear cut as build stalkers and hold easy (I bring this up because we saw Stats just die to hellions multiple games and he was opening stalkers into blink > 3 gates > robo every single game). I've seen many games recently and IMO, they all show a lot of terran early game strength. If Protoss gets to mid-game, yeah the matchup is pretty messed up, I completely agree. I guess my intended point is that Blizzard needs to direct their attention to the later part of TvP, rather than the early game (e.g. I think looking at stalker upgrades would be more beneficial than looking at nerving Stalker's base stats, although potentially those could be toned down as well). That guy was trying to vouch for ridiculous buffs to the Terran early game that would make the matchup a complete mess and goes against the gameplay of most pro games in recent weeks. I think the oracle and shield battery nerf actually made quite the difference in balancing out the TvP early game a lot more.

TvP needs tweaking. It does not need movable bunkers, cyclones with hellion speed or reapers as fast as zerglings that can shoot air (yes he actually suggested all of those).

On the reaper note, have you seen the gumiho game? I think it has potential and is unexplored although I won't vouch for it being a super safe, every-game build. I do think proxy reaper builds are really strong right now though, I've faced a lot of GMs on the ladder doing multiple rax reaper and it can be brutal (uThermal beat Showtime with it the other day too)

On December 17 2017 11:42 AkashSky wrote:


As for the hellion thing, its more of a gimmick that does insane damage when units are out of position and zero damage when units are in position. As protoss learn to deal with it, its not going to be viable. I think the current most consistent terran opening to get damage done right now is cloaked banshees vs nonstargate openers - since you can always retreat into the deadspace and since banshees are faster than obs.

On December 17 2017 07:43 blooblooblahblah wrote:


I was making a point about that specific point he was making about TvP early game which personally I didn't find too accurate. I am completely on board with the fact that TvP is really hard and needs changes. However, some of my thoughts:

I don't agree that everything T can do early game is efficiently fought off with stalkers. Yes, they have the potential to hold off most of the stuff, which is why it's such a good opening atm. But you still need really good position to hold off the the hellion build for example, it's not as clear cut as build stalkers and hold easy (I bring this up because we saw Stats just die to hellions multiple games and he was opening stalkers into blink > 3 gates > robo every single game). I've seen many games recently and IMO, they all show a lot of terran early game strength. If Protoss gets to mid-game, yeah the matchup is pretty messed up, I completely agree. I guess my intended point is that Blizzard needs to direct their attention to the later part of TvP, rather than the early game (e.g. I think looking at stalker upgrades would be more beneficial than looking at nerving Stalker's base stats, although potentially those could be toned down as well). That guy was trying to vouch for ridiculous buffs to the Terran early game that would make the matchup a complete mess and goes against the gameplay of most pro games in recent weeks. I think the oracle and shield battery nerf actually made quite the difference in balancing out the TvP early game a lot more.

TvP needs tweaking. It does not need movable bunkers, cyclones with hellion speed or reapers as fast as zerglings that can shoot air (yes he actually suggested all of those).

On the reaper note, have you seen the gumiho game? I think it has potential and is unexplored although I won't vouch for it being a super safe, every-game build. I do think proxy reaper builds are really strong right now though, I've faced a lot of GMs on the ladder doing multiple rax reaper and it can be brutal (uThermal beat Showtime with it the other day too)

On December 18 2017 05:07 youngjiddle wrote:
aligulac PvT is at 54% now btw without the chrono and disrupter nerf in the game yet.

On December 17 2017 14:52 Ransomstarcraft wrote:


As a Protoss player, you sound pretty unqualified to offer suggestions about reliable Terran openings. Look man, Reapers and Hellions are bad against about 80% of Protoss units. You're just not considering how the game will shake out if a Terran takes a big tech risk and it fails. It's near game ending if you build 6 reapers and they get killed for nothing, and even if they survive they aren't useful in your army or as a harass unit later in the game. Comparing the general utility of 6 reapers or 6 hellions vs. 3-5 stalkers at the time these units come out in PvT is laughable.

I had two points, that Terran needs reliable harass and flexibility in offense/defense for openers. You seem to think Terran has both, and you're wrong.

I appreciate what you said about the mid game, that TvP gets worse then. But I am operating under the assumption that the early game is the problem because that's been the case in general at many times in the past in TvP. The Protoss has to turtle until he gets the tech up that can allow him to go do some work. Now Protoss can choose a Gateway army, tech, or macro, and Terran has to play defensively leaving all this open. It's bad design. This is why I offered many (some very random) design suggestions. And you're sitting there in your computer chair telling all the Terrans to build Reapers and Hellions in TvP.

I don't know that simply buffing Marauders is the answer. It seems to be a zero sum game with the Marauder-Stalker relationship. In Wings of Liberty Marauders absolutely wrecked stalkers. As soon as the Terran got concussive shell it was over. I think there can be more of a risk vs. reward relationship than that, so I'd like more creative options than to just buff the marauder. I really don't want to find myself in a month seeing forums filled with complaints about how Stalkers are obsolete because Marauders in equal numbers make them worthless.

On December 18 2017 07:43 Ransomstarcraft wrote:
In a way, yes, a positive for one race is always something of a negative to others. But for years the Marauder has been the primary Terran response to Stalkers. This is mostly because, as I've already said, all the other Barracks units are pretty bad vs. Stalkers. Right now, I don't think Marauders are terribly bad vs. stalkers, nor do I think they're terribly good. I could go either way on a buff vs. Marauders, but I will say that I think they should be really good vs. some Gateway unit. Either that or their zone-controlling ability through concussive shell could have some sort of small splash upgrade.

As to your point, I think some sort of deterrent to warp gate could be in order, and this might be a good time to try it. To my knowledge this has never been tried, but having warpgate units warp in with say 20 shields already damaged or with a 5 second slow would be a small deterrent for massing gateway units in your opponents face. The shields down is comparable to the stim effect, and would not affect something like Adept backstabs as much as it would reinforcing units. All in all, I think the effect would be that a lot of Protosses would warp in their units at home and have them walk across the map to attack as that would be about the time needed for the shields to regenerate.

On December 17 2017 06:19 QuinnTheEskimo wrote:

Can we please refer to this as "the Tanja upgrade"?

On December 18 2017 13:28 JimmyJRaynor wrote:

I remember when the game devolved into Tanya drops and they had to slow down how quickly she falls out of airplanes.

I think Tanya could run from building to building blowing them up 1 by 1. in the proposed Terran change I think the Ghost or Reaper would just have 1 bomb and couldn't move from building to building decimating an entire base.

On December 18 2017 09:25 Ransomstarcraft wrote:
But with defensive warp-ins, you could have shield batteries in place. This is a similar relationship to stim plus medivacs.

On December 19 2017 01:01 MockHamill wrote:
Is the patch live yet?