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Deathball A vs Deathball B is uninteresting. We also know that there are deathball-breakers like the baneling that force amazing marine-splits that look awesome and are very difficult to perform properly. I started to think about what other units break apart the deathball into interesting micro-battles and there are a handful of them. Blink stalkers kind of do it, mothership vortex kind of does, thors break up muta clumps, tanks break up deathballs, albeit only defensively, but the units that really force deathball breakups are banelings,high templar with storm, ghosts with EMP and nukes, infestors with fungal, and vipers with blinding cloud.
An EMP on a protoss deathball is instant and therefore unavoidable. Not terribly exciting. A nuke? Holy cow that thing is exciting as hell!!! So .much. anticipation! Oh man will he see it or get completely owned?
A big part of that nuke fun is the unknown. With the EMP scenario there isn't any chance for the protoss to avoid it. So lets brainstorm.
What if Psi Storm did the following:
-Spawns a single lightning bolt for 1 seconds marking where the storm was about to land (almost like a nuke.). That lightning bolt can be seen by all players.
-After that brief delay, the bolt explodes outward dealing 90 damage over 3 seconds.
-The radius has been increased to 3.
So what have we done here?
What we have now is a spell that breaks up armies more effectively by giving defenders a brief chance to get out of the way. The damage has been increased per tick and the radius has been greatly improved for ensure this unit can still be effective vs muta clumps, etc, and to ensure that players who do not micro away from this version of storm will pay the price. The casting delay also adds to the skill requirement of the offensive player. Now the player casting storm must be able to accurately predict where his opponent will be, or else he will get out-microed and deal very little to no damage.
Lets try a few more.
Ghost EMP shoots out a charge that lights up brightly as it powers up. After 1.5 seconds it bursts, sapping energy and shields from enemy targets in a 2.5 AoE.
Fungal Growth spawns a poisonous vine from the ground that roots all non-massive units in place after 1-second of growth time, dealing 40 damage over 4 seconds (+bonus vs armored) in a 2.5 AoE.
We like big AoEs like nukes. We like unit control. We like excitement and anticipation in battles. I believe that such a change will make battles MUCH more interesting and will represent one of many steps that can be taken to help eliminate deathball play.
Honestly at lower levels deathball seems ok, not everyone can have HuK's top 3 control  but demonstrating micro in large engagements should be a staple of high level play, not a cute option.
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I think too many nukes will ruin the fun though. Maybe for Psi Storm just have the spell last longer and deal a greater set amount of damage, but less actual DPS. That way it's still instantaneous but now defenders can still get out of the way for minimal damage.
The best spell to implement this on right now would be Vortex. It already has a delay but it's invisible - the only clue you have that one is imminent is that the Mothership moves towards the Zerg and slows down. If there was a glowing rift of some point before the actual Vortex (think about BW recall, the light before the army shows up) that would be great.
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You're absolutely right! I think a 3 or even a 4-5 second delay on vortex would make the Mothership WAY more interesting!! Protoss has a heavy emphasis on space-control what with sentry forcefield and warping in behind opponents. With a delay on vortex, it could be used to control choke points for 20+ seconds. Also I feel like vortex should deal 2-3 damage per second to enemy and allied units, but maybe that's just me
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Russian Federation216 Posts
Storm and EMP is OK
Deathballs is all about colossi and other autoattacking units with splash such as tanks, ultras
and if you nerf storm/emp - more people will play colossi/tanks and more people will do true a-click deathballs
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This isn't a matter of balance, it is a matter of control and interest. You can balance any ability, but will that abiloty be fun once it is balanced? Not necessarily. I'm saying that EMP and Storm, while balanced, are inherently uninteresting. If we balance them around an interesting new mechanic then we get a better Starcraft 2.
I firmly believe that what makes units like the Stalker interesting is that it is a weak unit that can do much better with control. Blink makes the Stalker very powerful, but the 10 second c/d is a weakness that can caused a bad blink to end REALLY badly. An instant cast EMP has no real weaknesses. Adding strengths and weaknesses to units and abilities adds depth.
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Do you really think AoE can solve the deathball problem? If you see a that a psi-storm is going to land on your deathball, ask yourself, what would you do? Take one half of the ball and move it to the right and then take the other half of your army and move it to the left? NO! The most natural reaction is to take all units and move them out of the way which keeps them in the ball. Making AoE dodgeable does exactly that, it makes the deathball dodge the threat, AS A WHOLE! It does not split up the ball, simple as that!
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Of course AoE is a solution to the deathball problem. The more tightly packed your ball of units, the more damage you would take from an AoE attack...that's just common knowledge.
You'll note the AoE is now larger. A 1-second delay is too short for a player to react and perfectly dodge a storm with such a large AoE. It's a matter of either taking high dmg without micro or taking low to moderate damage with micro.
As these AoEs become larger, players will naturally be forced to create wider arcs, perform more multi-pronged attacks, or die trying.
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I think this is actually not a bad idea.
But i think you have to tweak the numbers.
And I am unsure if it be to weak for Terran with EMP.
I would like to see Blizzard test it because it really might be the solution.
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I think its the best idea i've ever read in HOTS forums.
Seriously. I just love it.
Please blizzard read this !
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This solutions remind me of the Reaver's scarab. You see it coming and you're like SHIT SHIT SHIT MOVE MOVE MOVE
and then it explodes being a dud or totally annihilates your army. I like it!
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Could someone post it in HOTS forums on battle.net ?
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I really like your idea with EMP, but I believe that it would be better if the Ghost threw a semi-short ranged EMP grenade that can only be casted on units, and explodes after 1~2 seconds, with radius increased only slightly from what it is now (I think .5 range increase would make it more viable).
This adds the ability to counter-micro from EMP's as the unit could be singled out and move from army, even potentially EMPing the Ghost itself if attached to a fast unit (e.g.Oracle). It would be awesome to see in TvP's if let's say a pro were to attach EMP to a Stalker and the Toss player singles it out and blinks away.
And while it may be more difficult at the lower level to counter micro, it atleast gives the player a second to cast as many spells as possible. Hahaha.
Anyways, long time lurker, first post. Just thought I'd share my thoughts.
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EPT
