Are the current Zealot actually broken?

I think there are situations where zealots are too strong, like when you’re attacking a Protoss and they warp 8 zealots in your main and decimate it. They require micro to beat in fights, which is fine when you’re doing a committed attack but when you’re being stretched to multitask they basically beat whatever you throw at them.

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no buffs to stalkers please or we’ll see more of the PvT with only gateway units.

What’s wrong with that?.

The problem is charge was a 200/200 upgrades researched on lategame to turn zealots into lategame units.
But as they have lower the price to 100/100, it’s now an upgrade finished on early-midgame, sometimes before roach speed. So it comes too early.

It will be similar if crackling would have be researched after lair tech and only cost 100/100.

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Actually I’d be fine with moving it to 200/200 in leiu of two seperate 100/100 upgrades. Lot of gas, same cost as storm and just as good…yeah, that would be more reasonable than the propositions by Blizzard especially with the new adept upgrade.

I think the goal was to spread out the buff over time rather than to actually increase the upgrade cost.

Charge at 100/100 at its current upgrade time is certainly not a problem. It is necessary for Zealots to compete with Stim and plenty of other Zerg and Terran units.

The on-charge damage makes Zealots a lot stronger though. It is possible that Blizzard considers the on-charge damage to be too strong when charge is first researched, and that assumption would be the reason to move on-charge damage into a separate upgrade (the actual cost of the upgrade doesn’t matter, just the research time). They will decide whether or not the change is necessary based on testing, and this change might not make it into the final set of changes.

Honestly, as much as I hate Charge Zealots, I think even the 200/200 nerf would be too big at this point, MAYBE 150/150. This coming balance patch says to me one thing and one thing only: “We at Blizzard want Zerg players to win, Terran to win almost never, and Protoss to be extinct.”

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Yeah…I think Zerg needs nerfed a tad, roaches, infestors, nydus. Terran buffed a tad, Protoss stay about even. Then just some changes though overall to keep things fresh…and yeah then further balancing can be done throughout next year of course as well.

Give each gateway unit a unique cooldown timer.

Does every GML Terran opinion count?

My point is, every GML/high ML Terran says that Chargelots are way too good. When Chargelots appear, they counter practically everything that Terran have at this point of the game and - worst of all - Chargelots don’t need any control, so while Terran player is fighting with Chargelots Protoss is free to do whatever he wants (and usually it is warp-in of more chargelots on terran main).

So in replays that I’ve seen game is either over before chargelots hits, or terran turtles on his base and macro toward good number of ranged libs.

Blizz ideology is to make players be more active during the game, so shortening time window when chargelots rule the game (by adding extra upgrade and making terran having ranged libs faster) falls in line with this.

Now, not so long ago I had a discussion with my friend who made a good point that without Charge upgrade, Zealots are complete trash and are useful only to kill proxy hatchery. So his idea is that they should have Charge by default. So, Zealots will have to be moved up on tech tree, to be unlocked by Templar Archives

Isn’t the issue clearly just zealot all-ins?

I mean that’s what’s being nerfed here…

Isn’t the elephant in the room just warp gate… again?

Not quite: the issue is just how good Chargelots are vs everything Terran that is not Liberator with Range Upgrade.

Alex007 suggested another change to them: Charge should be manually activated ability.

Not sure about making charge manually activated. Sounds like a buff considering it raises the micro potential with no substantial drawback (assuming it can still be cast for an entire group of zealots with one click). And also kiting marines/marauders are pretty good vs chargelots so I’m not sure where you’re coming from.

I can’t even imagine how charge as a manual abiltiy would work.

Their change that blizzard is saying, while it is a flat nerf, would return the zealot to full power after a second upgrade. So this suggests that this isn’t a random all around nerf (because “zealot strong”, as you’re more or less saying) but to stifle it’s full power until a little later.

In other words, it looks to just stop certain timings with them.

So my question is more trying to target if zealot is too strong during that timing. You’re actually saying “no”. Which is in line with how I feel about it, too.

This from the patch notes;
“We believe the power spike gained from researching the Charge upgrade could be a bit too high for its cost and comes a bit too early in the game, therefore crowding out other gateway options.”

I think the issue is that the other options suck. No?
Well, they’re more specific in what they do.
Basically, Stalker is mostly for special mobility and AA, and Adept is it’s own special mobility and worker harassment, no?

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No, it’s way stronger. So much more tanky. So much utility. Gives Protoss an awesome mineral dump (Prism + Zealots anybody?) with very little concentration.

As for the title, I wouldn’t say it’s broken, just very strong. I would only support the current nerf to the zealot if they brought back adept phoenix. Charge Zealot based compositions are so low in skill. Adept phoenix was super fun to watch.

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It IS too strong.
And its not me saying that. I’m simply parroting opinion of every GML/high ML Terran players, and some GML randoms.

However, main part of WHY Charge is so strong, is that it requires no micro from Protoss player.
For example, have you played co-op? In co-op Ghosts snipeshot is an autocast ability. Make ghosts shred into pieces everything biological while I’m busy microing other stuff.

Same with Zealots. You can a-click with them and focus on doing other stuff. You can warp-in them, and shift-click into mineral line and you don’t even need to look at them, while Terran needs to focus his attention on dealing with chargelots.

On the highest level of play (best of progamers) they have enough of both apm and multitask to deal with chargelots.
On lower level of play (including GML - and it gets worse the lower on the ladder we go) players can’t and that gives huge advantage to Protoss.

I watched many replays of how low Masters/high Diamond Terrans play TvP, and its either game ends before chargelots hits (effectively ends!), or terran turtles on his bases until he have large number of Liberators with Range and +2 air weapons upgrades finished.

Idea of making Charge manually activated is not mine, it belongs to Alex007 - GML Random player and caster (and also he is one of the announcers).

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It not a timing but for a hold. In most progames if a protoss finishes charge just before the 2 base terran all-in hits their fast third nexus they tend to win but, if the attack happens to hit before charge is done they tend to lose.
Their still trying to fix the TVP economy by making 2 base all-ining stronger to reset the economy back to the Tornado Blaster Cyclone days.

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Well balance testing against zerg with the current charge it seems pretty balanced but like, overall balance, like if in a perfectly macroed game of PvZ I have no idea, like if both players were to do like perfectly macroed timing attack builds that hit at the same time…who wins? Protoss can reinforce faster/better I think but a zerg timing will probably have more overall units while the protoss timing probably takes a few rounds of warp-ins really before the fight or the pressure/game is over…and of course that initial zerg ball could do too much damage that the Protoss army strength wont ever go past the zerg’s and the game could snowball…and P loses…

Please provide the link to Alex007 stream or any other player that shows the use of 10 - 20 Zealots with manual charge in the match.

Charge already gives zealots extra speed
Or do you suggest racecar zealots?