EPT[A] Starbow - Page 322
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Danko__
Poland429 Posts
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
On July 07 2013 19:21 Danko__ wrote: Maybe sentinel could have passive regenerating his shield very fast when off combat? This would allow constant pokes. Just combine it with huge speed, decent Range and pathetic damage. Also a viable idea, I guess combined with stronger nullward, this will make it possible to kill 1-2 units and then retreat and regenerate shield. | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
Sentinel Costs 50 minerals, 100 gas. Build time 35 seconds from Robotic facility 40 HP, 60 Shields Speed 3 (Flying) Attack cooldown 1 second Damage 8 vs all (Can only attack ground units.) Range 5 Can use two spells: Safeguard requires upgrade. For 75 energy, channel a beam at target area. All friendly units inside that area gains Hardened shield. Lasts up to 30 seconds. (Stops if the Sentinel is destroyed.) Null Ward. (Starting spell.) For 25 energy, place a flying Null Ward at target location. Takes 7 seconds for it to be deployed. After that, it lasts 120 seconds and is cloaked. As soon as an enemy air or ground unit comes close, it launches a straight line attack towards it. All enemy units who are hit takes 25 dmg (15 vs light) and are slowed by 50% for 8 seconds. After the Null ward has attacked, it is destroyed. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/VBJqiY4.jpg) From the few games I´ve seen with it, it looks quite decent. The Null Ward seems ok and leads to some fun situations. Sentinels do some harassment, lure the enemy units into the Null Wards. But we must explore the unit more, so we know we are on the "right way" with the concept. | ||
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
Abstract: This article deals with the different ways for each race to increase their income and compares and contrasts the raw data. Call-down, chronoboosted queens! General One worker takes 22 seconds to build for each race. It takes 44.4 seconds to regenerate 25 energy and 88.8 seconds to regenerate 50 energy. (Assuming Kabel did not mess with this from SC2). One problem is to compare three somewhat different abilities. I did this by looking at the time it would take to make one worker if they had to be made one at a time. Zerg Queen's inject larva helps the zerg expand their economy. Since it costs 25 energy to inject larva and it lasts for 40 seconds we may as well ignore the 4 seconds we have to wait in order to inject again. The numbers: Each hatchery spawn a new larva every 18 sec. resulting in a possible 3.333 workers per minute producing (they don't have to finish) if the player always turn each new larva into a drone. With inject a hatchery can spawn a little more than 5 larva per min, so the zerg player will have 7 sec short of 5 workers in one min. This results in roughly 13.4 sec per worker if they were produced one at a time. Also keep in mind that the queen is the most expensive of all the eco-boosters with 150 minerals, but it has a lot of utility ofc. Protoss Chronoboost cost 25 energy, gives +50% speed reduction (kinda... it's a tad more complicated...) and lasts for 15 seconds. This actually results nicely in one chrono gives a 14,6 build time for one worker so it's about one chorno per worker. Unfortunately, the cooldown is 44 sec so you cannot chorno constantly like you almost can with queens. Assuming ONE nexus chornoing as often as possible, we have the following: A total of ca. +25 % production rate --> 17.5 sec per worker. Terran EDIT: New info: Calldown SCV is only 25 energy which changes things quite a bit. Cost 50 min, which again is redundant since it costs the same for toss and zerg workers as well. It takes 44.4 sec to regen 50 energy so I can again ignore the cooldown on 30 sec, but I think it should be in the game now. So, new math. With constant calldown (as often as possible, but assuming you start with 0 energy, since it costs to make the orbital and takes time) terran has a total of 4.1 workers per minute which averages 14.63 sec / worker. This is actually quite good! No need for further buffs here I think. Keep calling those SCV's down like clockwork! (Thanks for correction Kabel!) Conclusion I was surprised at the effectiveness of the call-down SCV. I thought it would be much worse than the chronoboost, but they are about the same (I have rounded down and up a lot, so they are probably almost just the same). Zerg is far superiour, but they cannot constantly produce workers from their larva like Protoss and Terran can. Still it might be too much. Personal Opinions I think we should revert a lot of the zerg changes. We reverted the zealot-buff. So there is really no need for the increased larva-spawn rate. I can make a new post with numbers for 20 sec rate and +50% queen if needful. Oh, what the heck, I'll just calculate it now: It very roughly amounts to 15 sec per worker. This might be not as IMBA (remember, zerg should have "faster build time on workers" than other races since they can't constantly produce workers). Better math: + Show Spoiler + Look at the number of larva instead of workers since each worker takes 22 sec to make: injected hatches makes 5.33 larva / min with current stats (3.333 when not injected). This amounts to 11,25 sec for each larva to spawn. With old stats it makes 4,5 larva / min when injected (3 when not). This amounts to 13.333 sec for each larva to spawn) Then we can revert the increase built time on spire and increased cost of some tech structures as well. This might be less "zergy" but a whole lot easier to balance. Right not Zerg gets a very strong eco ridiculously fast if the opponent fails to add enough pressure. It actually seems that Protoss is getting the short end of the stick, but they are also the only race which can use this ability for free and from the start. Xiphias out! | ||
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SolidSMD
Belgium408 Posts
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
Good job! Calldown SCV costs 25 energy. (Not 50.) Thoughts: - I am a bit doubtful about having no cooldown on Calldown SCV. A sloppy player will be able to immediately calldown up to 4 workers per Orbital command. It just feels like very quick saturation, which is a trait of the Zerg. The Zerg sacrifices Larvas for the workers, which is a larger risk. It also makes losing workers more forgiving? If I lose 4 SCVs due to good harassment, I can calldown new SCVs really quickly. I lose no mining time, just the cost of the workers.. - I would prefer to not nerf Larva spawn rate again. Just for the fun factor. Slow Larva spawn seemed to frustrate some people. (And it is quite lame.) Rather I would buff the other races. | ||
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Sumadin
Denmark588 Posts
One of the biggest conserns i got about protoss is their scouting. Observers come too late, their scouting timing got nothing on reapers/scan or Overlord runthroughs. This isn't a problem in PvT because that is the MU whose initials spell Totally Predictable. Terran have very little treating tools against Protoss in the early game, and there is only so much that can go wrong for the protoss. But in ZvP it is a whole other story. We see it all the time really. The lack of scouting options mean protoss either have to stick it safe and potentially lose in the eco race, or go builds that got a huge risk of being Hardcountered. Blind Stargate, Blind 2 base reavers. I see it all the time and i just have to wonder if we need too add something earlier for protoss to let them know wtf is going on. | ||
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
@ Zerg larva If you don't want to revert, would it not be easier to nerf all zerg units slightly instead of trying to buff both terran and toss, keeping the TvP MU in mind as well. Remember, buffing one unit from each race might not pan out well, this is not rock-paper-scissors. | ||
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decemberscalm
United States1353 Posts
Changing units: you are messing with really solid basic stats again if you do this. Giant swarms of units are not microable, yes they are the swarm, but in starcraft you want units to be substantial, not a-moving cannon fodder Changing P and T's eco ramp: They have to build infrastructure to start producing units. Z doesn't. High eco ramp favors them, P and T would need to have their production BT nerfed to let them get pushes out to hurt Z eco All sorts of reactionary changes you would have to do to make this work This is like having 1 unit that is too strong and balancing the entire game instead of that unit. Before Z MU's were a lot more balanced as far as I had observed and right now its really easy for Z to mass eco and flood units, nullifying any push. We've played with larva rates before resulting in either really under powered or overpowered Z. Were we not at at a nice number before or something? | ||
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
On July 08 2013 05:53 decemberscalm wrote: Changing anything but Z larva back down to balance the races vs each other is a terrible solution for balance problems. Changing units: you are messing with really solid basic stats again if you do this. Giant swarms of units are not microable, yes they are the swarm, but in starcraft you want units to be substantial, not a-moving cannon fodder Changing P and T's eco ramp: They have to build infrastructure to start producing units. Z doesn't. High eco ramp favors them, P and T would need to have their production BT nerfed to let them get pushes out to hurt Z eco All sorts of reactionary changes you would have to do to make this work This is like having 1 unit that is too strong and balancing the entire game instead of that unit. Before Z MU's were a lot more balanced as far as I had observed and right now its really easy for Z to mass eco and flood units, nullifying any push. We've played with larva rates before resulting in either really under powered or overpowered Z. Were we not at at a nice number before or something? Except matchups aren't balanced at all. IMO its a mess up at the moment; PvT = Easier for toss. PvZ = Easier for zerg TvZ = Easier for terran (assuming the terran does reaper into reactor vulture) Problem with the old zerg eco was that it didn't incentive any action at all. Right now, both terrans and toss's are rewarded for making offensive units within the first 10 minutes of the game to kill of the econ of the zerg player. However, the difference between those two races, is that vultures and reapers are much better at harassing than anything protoss has. With stalkers at 15 damage vs light and normal armour (my suggestion), things will likely look completely different. I expect many early stalker pressure builds. Perhaps in a combination with some warp prism play. As a follow up, one could imagine some kind of sentinel play - The nullward trap still needs further refinement (and bug fix) to be usefull as an harass ability, however once/if it gets there - Toss will suddenly also have really strong tools to harass the zerg early econ, and the matchup will be a lot more fair. Keep calling those SCV's down like clockwork! (Thanks for correction Kabel!) Uhh.. The teacher made an incorrect conclusion based on the wrong type of math  You left out the opportunity cost of not getting a suply depot for free ^^ Since you can't compare those two values with each other without assumption of a discount rate (which is unobserved and depends on a lot of factors), any type of math in this scenario is really not practical at all. And furthermore, you also have to assume that everything else remains equal, which it doesn't, becasue if a suply depot call down can give you a larger army quicker, it means you can take a faster 3rd which may actually lead to a better economy in the long term. Rather it is better to just look at how much you have at various times in the game when you spend energy on calling down suply depots compared to when you you call down scvs. | ||
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
I disagree on the MU. I don't think ZvT is particularity Terran favored. And if spawn rate was reverted, the rest could be balanced with units (I think). | ||
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
On July 08 2013 06:29 Xiphias wrote: This was not intended as a "what is a better use of energy" at all. If so, I would have had to take other queen abilities into account and chornoboost on other structures as well. That's enough work for a small thesis. I was simply isolating the different eco-boosters. I wanted to see and compare (as much as possible) which race got the better eco-boost and especially how well the SCV calldown actually is. (Better than I first thought) I disagree on the MU. I don't think ZvT is particularity Terran favored. And if spawn rate was reverted, the rest could be balanced with units (I think). Yeh it seemed that way, untill you concluded that we should use scv calldown as much as we can - I disagree with that. Terran vs zerg would probably be easy for zerg if it wasn't for reaper into reactor vulture. That build is so much much better than pure bio openings. There is almost no way for the zerg not to get behind going into the midgame. And terran can follow up with everything. Further, even if you make hydras on the assumption that he will follow up with mech, you can't really attack without overseer with speed, since spider mines are really good after the most recent patch. | ||
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
But let's talk a little more about a possible future. Assume we revert larva spawn rate and the increased tech building cost and build time. Let us further assume that we nerf/specialize the stalker (less HP, better blink (?)) and introduce immortals (on gateways, with very different stats than SC2 and no hardened shields). I have no hard numbers suggestion. Then we can maybe do something about that opening (I still don't see how it is so good if the zerg player just get's fast queen's out, maybe more than one queen per hatch can solve that one....). What is left then? Maybe some stats change for some further balance. Am I missing something important here? | ||
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
On July 08 2013 06:57 Xiphias wrote: Oh, I was just encouraging good macro mechanics. I think you misunderstood that one. I made no assumptions regarding the supply/SCV calldown relation. But let's talk a little more about a possible future. Assume we revert larva spawn rate and the increased tech building cost and build time. Let us further assume that we nerf/specialize the stalker (less HP, better blink (?)) and introduce immortals (on gateways, with very different stats than SC2 and no hardened shields). I have no hard numbers suggestion. Then we can maybe do something about that opening (I still don't see how it is so good if the zerg player just get's fast queen's out, maybe more than one queen per hatch can solve that one....). What is left then? Maybe some stats change for some further balance. Am I missing something important here? But its not a nerf of the stalker. Its a big overall gateway PvZ buff, assuming the toss has the "right" unit composition. Stalkers willl be much more cost effective vs hydras (15 damage ainstead of 13,), and vs lings it will be 15 damage instead of 11 (assuming my stats gets implemented). I also suggested a zealot HP buff upgrade, though that likely won't be implemented ASAP (but it should if zealots still aren't really used as tanks). Suddenly you can do early pressure with like 2 zealots and 4 stalkers and you can hold a 3rd much much easier without relying on reavers. If we didn't buff protoss gateway, but instead nerfed zerg econ, no action at all would really happen early game (pre 10 minute mark). Why would protoss attack? Zerg econ won't be that good since drone production will be less. Instead, he will still fear that the zerg will just overrun him out on the map if he moves out with his relatively weak gateway units. Thus he is more likely to sit home and turtle early game. The problem wasn't that we buffed zerg econ, the problem was that we nerfed zerg econ and didn't give toss strong enough early game tools (like terran has) to deal with it. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
But its not a nerf of the stalker. Its a big overall gateway PvZ buff, assuming the toss has the "right" unit composition. Stalkers willl be much more cost effective vs hydras (15 damage ainstead of 13,), and vs lings it will be 15 damage instead of 11 (assuming my stats gets implemented). Maybe I'm missing something, but why do you think there is an immortal needed if this stalker gets implemented? PvP aside, this stalker would be better vs zergling, baneling, hydralisk, mutalisk, marine, medic, vulture workers. Basically the only common units it would be worse against are siege tank, goliath, lurker, queen. I'd just say, try this stalker, see if Protoss really lacks something then. Because that Stalker covers so many options, that though it is worse vs some units, the buff vs the more numerous/common support units may still mean it's overall stronger. | ||
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SolidSMD
Belgium408 Posts
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
On July 08 2013 08:19 Big J wrote: Maybe I'm missing something, but why do you think there is an immortal needed if this stalker gets implemented? PvP aside, this stalker would be better vs zergling, baneling, hydralisk, mutalisk, marine, medic, vulture workers. Basically the only common units it would be worse against are siege tank, goliath, lurker, queen. I'd just say, try this stalker, see if Protoss really lacks something then. Because that Stalker covers so many options, that though it is worse vs some units, the buff vs the more numerous/common support units may still mean it's overall stronger. You actually covered half of the answer so your self.  What we (I) want is stronger gateway units vs zerg, but not against terran Against terran instead, we want to reduce the efficiency of the current prevent-function of the protoss gateway units. The introduction of the immortal allows us to acocmplish both things in such a simplistic way as the immortal will be much more useful vs terran than zerg and as the immortal will be much worse at dealing with vulture runbys and dropplays (which is needed). So actually this is like the stalker receiving a PvZ buff while being redesigned in PvT. That isn't to say, that immortals would be useless PvZ (that would be lame), because it will be needed vs lurkers and ultras, but it will definitely have a smaller role than in PvT. But there is just no other way we can get to the desired gameplay in such a simple way. Regardless of which stats we give to the stalker (without introducing the immortal), it can't work well in both PvZ and PvT. | ||
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decemberscalm
United States1353 Posts
Mech vs Toss hinges on Toss is able to get in close with his fighting units. If getting straight up to tanks for is as simple as hitting the blink button there is a problem. Should anyone bother with warp prisms if your stalkers can basically act as warp prism drops? Holding off a base with a few tanks vs stalkers? Impossible unless you've got PF. All sorts of issues arise fitting in SC2 "blink goons" vs BW mech. | ||
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
On July 08 2013 07:10 Hider wrote: But its not a nerf of the stalker. Its a big overall gateway PvZ buff, assuming the toss has the "right" unit composition. Stalkers willl be much more cost effective vs hydras (15 damage ainstead of 13,), and vs lings it will be 15 damage instead of 11 (assuming my stats gets implemented). I also suggested a zealot HP buff upgrade, though that likely won't be implemented ASAP (but it should if zealots still aren't really used as tanks). Suddenly you can do early pressure with like 2 zealots and 4 stalkers and you can hold a 3rd much much easier without relying on reavers. If we didn't buff protoss gateway, but instead nerfed zerg econ, no action at all would really happen early game (pre 10 minute mark). Why would protoss attack? Zerg econ won't be that good since drone production will be less. Instead, he will still fear that the zerg will just overrun him out on the map if he moves out with his relatively weak gateway units. Thus he is more likely to sit home and turtle early game. The problem wasn't that we buffed zerg econ, the problem was that we nerfed zerg econ and didn't give toss strong enough early game tools (like terran has) to deal with it. I kinda see your point here. I think we should give buffed zealots another try perhaps. Since zerg econ seemed to be more buffed than what we first though, spending a lot of resources holding off early zealots is not that big of a sacrifice that it used to be. The problem remains, however. An increased spawn rate adds exponentially into the late.game and becomes very hard to balance. Maybe all is magically solved by redesigning the toss core units. Slightly buffed zealots, and making a good Stalker/Immortal relationship, though I doubt the immortal will play a big role in PvZ. On the other hand, you could make immortal drops quite early in PvZ if it's gateway tech (and we can load 4 of them in a WP, and they do fairly well vs buildings (Not even close to SC2 stats though). That should keep zerg in its base (if they are not going mutas....) | ||
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
On July 08 2013 16:05 Xiphias wrote: I was typing a response to Big J's post, but HideR just did and it was basically the same. Your solution is the problem. We need a stalker that is NOT good vs everything, and we can do that by implementing the immortal. I kinda see your point here. I think we should give buffed zealots another try perhaps. Since zerg econ seemed to be more buffed than what we first though, spending a lot of resources holding off early zealots is not that big of a sacrifice that it used to be. The problem remains, however. An increased spawn rate adds exponentially into the late.game and becomes very hard to balance. Maybe all is magically solved by redesigning the toss core units. Slightly buffed zealots, and making a good Stalker/Immortal relationship, though I doubt the immortal will play a big role in PvZ. On the other hand, you could make immortal drops quite early in PvZ if it's gateway tech (and we can load 4 of them in a WP, and they do fairly well vs buildings (Not even close to SC2 stats though). That should keep zerg in its base (if they are not going mutas....) I think we should design the such that PvZ feels very even in the midgame. Later in the game (let's say 20 minute mark), I am not particularly worried if zerg is on 6 bases and 70 drones compared to the protoss's 4 bases and 55-60 probes. Having a worse economy will balance out the fact that protoss with HT + reavers will be really really cost efficient vs zerg lair units, and I think this will create an interesting dynamic as long as the zerg just can't solve issues the easy way by going for a 15-18 minute Hive. If instead he is "forced" to stay on lair units for the first 20 minutes of the game, he will be rewarded for army trading and harassing the econ of the protoss player. This reward will come to exist for two reasons; 1) He has a better econ and trading units therefore benefits him. 2) His units scales worse. AOE units, such a reavers and HT's are usually better in larger numbers than smaller numbers. So to sum up, below is how I see the intended dynamic of the matchup (assuming toss goes for gateway heavy style): 6-10 minute mark: Toss pressures the zerg to make sure his early game drone count doesn't get out of control. 11-16 minute mark: Two relatively mobile armies battling each other on "fair terms". 17-23 minute mark; Zerg begins benfiting from better econ, and toss gets out units such as reavers and HT's. Zerg is willing to take a lot of cost-ineffective engagements. 24 minute mark+ = Late game, and w/e can happen. | ||
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