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Hello fellow TL-community,
what I am about to say is something I had in my mind since the patch announcement, but I haven't really had the time and patience to write it down. Chill Edit: Why would you open a new thread for this instead of putting it in the thread about the Khaydarin Amulet removal?
So, yeah this is another thread about the High Templar and about the removal of its engery upgrade - the Khaydarin Amulet.
However, I am not going to comment on how this change effects balance and I don't want anybody to derail this thread into a balance discussion. This is not my intention at all.
What I am going to talk about, is how this change will probably make protoss a less dynamic and even more deathball-ish race than it already is making Protoss matches even more unappealing to watch.
So, as stated in the title, this topic is about a spectator's point of view. I am no expert but I think it is legit to say that the success of StarCraft:BW is not only due to its demanding mechanics, but rather to the fact that SC:BW is great to watch.
Pro games tend to have lots of action, with constant battling, harassing, skirmishes, pushing and counter attacking. A lot of BW games show a dynamic back and forth between the two armies.
Now let us take a look at SC2. I think TvZ is great to watch, like it a lot. Also PvT can be a very interesting match-up which can result in action packed games. AdelScott versus MVP comes to my mind. Both matches were awesome with a lot of back and forth and both players putting pressure on each other.
But I can't help but state how dull PvZ is to watch. How boring it is. How anti-climatic.
So what am I talking about? The deathball. Sure. What else. So many people did before. We all know it is plain stupid. And I am saying this as a Protoss.
But what has this to do with the Amulet change? A lot.
I am not that much into BW (I played it, but never really dived into it) but to me it seems that the dynamic of the game comes from the fact that both players can throw units at each other, trade units and reproduce them quickly enough to not lose the whole game if an engagement has a negative outcome for them.
The core units of T, Z and P were kind of "even". Either they were quite equal in fighting power cost for cost or the less cost efficient units wre backed up by a better economy so that for example Zerg can "throw money" at their opponents.
Let us look at Protoss in SC2:
Gateway units lose to equal costs of Zerg and T units.
Sure there are exceptions (sentry abuse, small numbers etc.) but in general this holds true. Well, this wouldn't be such a bad thing if P would be a race that is economically ahead and can throw money and accept ineffecient unit trades.
Since this is not the case, the common rule seems to be: You need colossi or HT to back up your gateway units if you want to battle your opponent cost-efficiently.
So P has to rely on HT or Colossi to actually be able to combat Z or T without having their gateway unit army smashed into pieces and not outright lose a game after this infavorable army trade.
Colossi and HT are not support units or auxilary units, they are Core Units of the Protoss army.
However, in PvT I recognized a nice trend lately. Backed-up with a good economy and fast upgrades P can stay very long on gateway units and use Colossi as auxiliary units to back up your core army of zealots and stalkers.
But in PvZ you have to get Colossi or HT very soon if you don't want to die to roaches and hydras.
The problem with Colossi is that they take long to build and that they are very expensive. Losing them is a huge loss. This led to the deathball-play we currently see.
In fact, this deathball stuff is a huge all-in if you ask me.
Because you either cripple your opponent and ensure yourself a win.
Or you don't and lose to a remaxed Zerg who is not only economically ahead but also has a way more cost effecient army to combat you than you yourself, who has just lost 4 colossi and can't reproduce them as quickly as you would have to, to be able to hold off the zergs counter attack.
And now I finally get to talk about the Amulet.
High Templars are the reason why gateway units are able to fight cost efficiently.
High Templars with Amulet allowed Protoss to immediatley reproduce an army that can compete with MMM or Roach/Hydra.
Amulet was like a fail-safe. If you as a Protoss went into a fight with Colossi and knew that Templars would be ready afterwards, you could accept losing your colossi since you would be able to quickly reproduce a cost-efficient army with HTs.
HTs with amulets encouraged me to play more aggressively. To sacrifice units in order to deal economic damage. A terran can drop, sent marauders on a 4 man suicide mission to snipe buildings. Zerg can harass with burrowed speed roaches. They can engage an enemy and trade units, knowing that they can reproduce quickly enough to stay alive.
Protoss can't. But they could with Amulet-HTs.
So what has become of HT since the patch? I still use them a lot. But I use them differently. I use them like colossi. I hate colossi. They are retarded. Against Zerg I play passively. Harass with air a bit and try to get a deathball consisting of everything including HT and Colossi. HT have become a huge investment. You need to warp them in and wait. And then you move out with them. Just like the deathball. And if you lose them, you warp them in again and wait. And when storm is ready. You move out again.
With Amulet it was okay to move out with a few Zealots and some HTs to pressure your opponent and eventually trade units.
Now that HTs need to wait until they are ready, I play passively with them too. I don't want to lose them - like in the same way I don't want to lose my Colossi. So I stay in my base and wait for my templar deathball. And if the attack fails, I hope that Storm wil be ready before the enemy is at my front door. And then I willwait again for my templar deathball to be ready.
I want the Amulet back. Not because it was strong, but because it was FUN. Because it meant ACTION. It meant "fast paced matches". Nerf storm. Do it. But give us the Amulet back. You might see some Storm drops eventually. Some aggression from Protoss without having their army maxed.
But the way it is now, you will most likely see only one thing:
Deathballs.
TL;DR: Amulet made the game dynamic because it allowed Protoss to quickly reinforce and reprdouce a cost-efficient army to not die against Z or T after losing the deathball resulting in more back and forth and harassment oriented matches. The Amulet removal has encouraged Deathball play even more, since Templar somehow become similar to the Colossi: They take a while to be ready for battle.
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I've never thought of the deathball as an "all in" before but it seems you got a point there.
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On April 05 2011 02:19 goldfishs wrote:
I've never thought of the deathball as an "all in" before but it seems you got a point there.
Doesn't all-in imply some degree of risk though? A deathball is an almost guaranteed way to win against Zerg with very few exceptions, unlike most "established" forms of all-in.
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On April 05 2011 02:24 hmunkey wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2011 02:19 goldfishs wrote:
I've never thought of the deathball as an "all in" before but it seems you got a point there. Doesn't all-in imply some degree of risk though? A deathball is an almost guaranteed way to win against Zerg with very few exceptions, unlike most "established" forms of all-in.
Well from one point of view, the protoss really wants to finish the zerg off in one great push, and losing its core leads to direct loss
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Well, it is not really an obvious all-in. But if you define all-in as: "No real plan of what to do afterwards or not to have a real follow up" then the Deathball is kind of all-inish. If you get punished, you get punished really hard and are very likely to lose the game. After your deathball's dead there's not much to do. HT were kinda a good failsafe that helped you stay in the game.
Actually if HTs got EMPed, you could warp then in and still storm. But now that the Amulet is gone... If you make a mistake and 2 EMPs hit your HTs you have basically lost. Just like a deathball that loses his colossi to Viking or Corrupter snipes.
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Very intelligent post. As a pretty high level Protoss this describes my feelings on high templar exactly. You get this scenario against terran with ghosts, obviously its a micro battle but if the *do* emp all your templars your army folds like a wet paper bag, its not even remotely close, the terran will lose next to nothing and your whole army evaporates. You really needed amulet to allow for these situations and defend the counter attack, from the terrans perspective this is unbalanced because they cannot be aggresive other than with drops. But the core dilema is as the OP said the inherent weakness of the gateway units vs the t/z ball. The situation is very similar to when Protoss goes collosus and terran has a critical mass of vikings, all the collosus die and the gateway units are meat. The same situations arise in pvz but its easier to use pvt to illustrate what im saying.
I think both amulet out and amulet in create problems but the OP is right in saying that "in" surely creates more dynamic and interesting games for both players, not only the protoss.
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you're wrong;
the HTs made it so that not only could the Protoss make a deathball, but also reinforce easily, defend against harass, and have great map control
a deathball is a deathball -- it is a long delayed attack meant to crush your opponent, and the removal of amulet only fits that because if you wait, HTs can get enough energy for storm
before, the Protoss could defend against harass and all that and etc like you said while also having a deathball... which was too good
at least, this is what I feel
oh also about the gateway units and not being able to trade armies efficiently -- which is true, if your plan is for a deathball right from the start, then you can use a more lategame oriented build, aka early expansion and that can put you ahead in econ
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On April 05 2011 02:31 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
you're wrong;
the HTs made it so that not only could the Protoss make a deathball, but also reinforce easily, defend against harass, and have great map control
a deathball is a deathball -- it is a long delayed attack meant to crush your opponent, and the removal of amulet only fits that because if you wait, HTs can get enough energy for storm
before, the Protoss could defend against harass and all that and etc like you said while also having a deathball... which was too good
So we had to give up harass defense, mobility, awesome whack-a-mole battles and serious warp-in tactics just so blizzard didn't have to nerf one of the most boring units in the game?
WTT HT Nerf for Colo nerf.
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So we had to give up harass defense, mobility, awesome whack-a-mole battles and serious warp-in tactics just so blizzard didn't have to nerf one of the most boring units in the game?
WTT HT Nerf for Colo nerf.
yes unfortunately  if only colossi were more like reavers, haha
like how hellions attack slowly but can do lots of damage, that is epic and fun to watch
but colossi attack too fast and aren't very "hype" - ish like that one hype thread addressed
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I could not disagree more, as a viewer there was nothing more annoying than HTs basically making protoss immune to medivac drops once the energy upgrade was researched.
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On April 05 2011 02:27 Iamyournoob wrote:
Actually if HTs got EMPed, you could warp then in and still storm. But now that the Amulet is gone... If you make a mistake and 2 EMPs hit your HTs you have basically lost. Just like a deathball that loses his colossi to Viking or Corrupter snipes.
Be careful here- remember that EMP only removes 100 energy, so HTs with 175+ energy can still storm.
To the OP: While I'll agree with you in that your idea has merit, I have to say that the game comes first, and KA was changed because it needed to be changed.
I wouldn't convince myself that suddenly everything is deathball-oriented. For some reason, the removal of KA has made HTs a bad, unusable unit in many player's eyes, but there's still lots of capacity for harassment. For some reason, players are omitting storm drops from their play solely because they can't warp in and insta-storm, which would take longer than just simply dropping, storming, and retreating a warp prism full of high templar. If anything, it adds more risk and excitement to the drop, just like loading up a medivac full of units for a drop.
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On April 05 2011 02:15 Iamyournoob wrote:
I am not that much into BW (I played it, but never really dived into it) but to me it seems that the dynamic of the game comes from the fact that both players can throw units at each other, trade units and reproduce them quickly enough to not lose the whole game if an engagement has a negative outcome for them.
I agree with you on this part. I think it is important for SC2 to get into a state where we have a dynamic that ensures constant battles all over the place. This is the case for ZvT (if T goes Bio) already. However, I think the Amulet was too strong in many ways. Í think the warp-in ability alone is very dynamic and ensures some safety for the protoss. I hope that blizzard patches or uses the expansion to introduce new elements into SC2 that ensures more of the awesome dynamics we sometimes see in ZvT and, not yet as often, also in other match ups.
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On April 05 2011 02:15 Iamyournoob wrote:
(...)
Gateway units lose to equal costs of Zerg and T units
(...)
You obviously haven't been paying attention lately.
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On April 05 2011 02:31 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
you're wrong;
the HTs made it so that not only could the Protoss make a deathball, but also reinforce easily, defend against harass, and have great map control
a deathball is a deathball -- it is a long delayed attack meant to crush your opponent, and the removal of amulet only fits that because if you wait, HTs can get enough energy for storm
before, the Protoss could defend against harass and all that and etc like you said while also having a deathball... which was too good
at least, this is what I feel
oh also about the gateway units and not being able to trade armies efficiently -- which is true, if your plan is for a deathball right from the start, then you can use a more lategame oriented build, aka early expansion and that can put you ahead in econ
I don't think you understand the OP. He is saying that just sitting in your base making a deathball is boring, but is pretty much the only way to play these days (more so in PvZ than PvT) which is boring. And that with HT's it would promote more variance of play that involved harassment and small unit battles. Rather than one big a move which would either win or lose the game.
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EPT
