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I've heard a lot of complaints from tosses regarding oracles and their mineral shield harassment (in addition to being so fragile). It seems it is easy to kill off the mineral shields for a higher level player, and just a couple of marines or a viking sitting near the mineral line will slaughter the oracle quickly (I've seen this in pro-replays).
I propose resource syphon as a replacement for mineral shields. The effect would be similar to the zerg viper sucking on buildings, but instead it targets a single mineral patch. As it sucks, it not only gives minerals to the toss player, but it makes it so the opponent can't target that patch with a worker himself. That worker will still go off and mine on another patch, but this will be less efficient for a saturated field.
The range on the syphon should be long enough so that the oracle can sit off the edge of the cliff or map and pretty much only be targetable by an air unit.
One thing this addresses is complaints that removing mineral shields is simply too easy, making oracle harassment not worth it for the high cost paid out (you can't just attack the syphoning energy and "remove" it like with mineral shields - you have to drive away or kill the oracle).
It isn't easy to find a balance that most players agree on for mineral shields. Make them too strong or last too long, and targeted players complain. Make them too weak, or put a short timer on them, and the oracle user complains. Nobody agrees on what is fair. However, fairness might be more universally agreed upon with the resource syphon mechanic. For one thing, it doesn't deny all mining, it just denies mining from a single patch per oracle being used. This makes the targeted player feel better. And it isn't something so ridiculously weak that the targeted player's workers can easily mitigate most of the economic damage being done in relatively short order - this makes the oracle user feel better.
There is also a thematic element to this. Dustin Browder stated that the tempests are something that a targeted player doesn't have to address "right now" as he's being attacked, but he'll have to address being shot at within the next few minutes, because the thing is gonna sit there plinking away at him until he does something. This is how resource syphon could be viewed as well. Okay, you stole a mineral patch from me. Fine, I can still mine with one less patch, and although you are annoying me, it's not an emergency situation at this point in time. But it's something I'll probably have to deal with within the next few minutes.
Another feature to make this more attractive to toss players than mineral shield is that if syphon harass is totally shut down, the oracle can still go off somewhere and suck down on some open (uncontested) mineral patch to try to pay for itself. Naturally the toss player wouldn't just spam oracles to "expand" so to speak, as it would be far more efficient to build a base and probes. But it is a way to "recycle" the oracle, much the way a templar can be turned into an archon once it has no more energy or once storms are not viable for whatever reason.
Optional: Allow the syphon to work on gas too.
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I forgot how much I missed these threads :D
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i thought of this like a month ago. but then i dismissed it because i realized that:
1) if it's going to be effective, the oracle will basically become a protoss mule, which means we'll just see ridiculous timing attacks and protoss will never risk losing them on the enemy, instead opting to park 5 of them on some far expansion.
2) if you don't make the mining rate close to that of a mule, no protoss is ever going to build it. wouldn't have enough payoff, wouldn't do enough damage.
i suppose you could make it so the minerals it draws away just disappear, so you can piss off the enemy when they see their 3rd has been partially mined out, but i doubt we'll ever have to worry about that. blizz isn't that creative.
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On September 09 2012 03:23 TheDraken wrote:
i thought of this like a month ago. but then i dismissed it because i realized that:
1) if it's going to be effective, the oracle will basically become a protoss mule
Well, a mule that also interferes with the mining of the enemy.
2) if you don't make the mining rate close to that of a mule, no protoss is ever going to build it, since it costs so damn much
I think the point of the unit is less "mine minerals" and more "harass the enemy." Also, the question should less be "does this new incarnation of the oracle suck?" and more "does it suck less than the current version?"
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I would honestly just go find a gold mineral patch and have it sit there collecting minerals all game. I don't remember if mules mine normally on gold minerals or if that was just suggested but i wouldnt want to risk going to their base to mine with them. And making it impossible to mine off of one patch at a time doesnt seem much like harassment though. it does seem like a long term harrassment but it will not help you right away. That will basically just help them mine out fast where the entomb right now will actually make their early rushes delayed some which is what i would want against terrans more than anything.
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nah, all oracle needs is cloak again to make it scary. Having cloak at stargate is pretty damn strong, so I don't know why they don't just bring that back, mommaship can go burn in hell for all i care, the oracle costs too much for being such a crap unit.
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What if instead of targeting the mineral fields the 'Entomb' spell could be casted only at enemy's main buildings (Nexus, CC, Hatch).
It would create a X hp distortion on the affected building that would relay all (or a percentage amount) of resources gathered to the owner of the oracle player instead.
The distortion would not be automatically attacked by enemy units and damaging it would also damage the building itself.
To balance the ability, the Oracle would need to channel the spell for a few seconds before the 'relay distortion' is created.
Wouldn't this be better?
Edit: how does "Warp Relay" sound for the ability name?
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On September 09 2012 04:08 emc wrote:
nah, all oracle needs is cloak again to make it scary.
Sure, I'm all for cloak coming back. I was against them removing it from the get-go. But that doesn't mean we also can't have better mineral harassment than this crap mineral shields ability. Where's the unstated rule that says only one ability can be good on a unit, and the rest have to be crap abilities?
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EPT
