I do get stim finished between 4 and 5’ I think, depending on the build ; but that timing can be vastly delayed in case of adverse cheese. I have already played against flux vanes builds though, but with current version I was able to defend with marines without too much trouble.
The thing is if at that time the voidrays were 5.11 speed and not 4.65, i would’ve stimmed for nothing, as I would never have been able to catch thems with my marines, stimmed or not. So it’s not a matter of timing, it’s a matter of counters not being efficient anymore. Cyclones wouldn’t either. Mines are not sufficient by themselves.
Vikings, though requiring either mines or turrets against battery proxies in early game ; would be able to fight acceptably at equal supplies in lategame. But, equal supplies would now mean that the vikings army would be more expensive. Since the voidrays would now be 200/150 (vs 300/150 or two vikings), at equal value the voidrays would win, even without prismatic alignment.
Of course, you could require of the terran a fully fledged lategame composition in order to counter just one unit. Seems legit. Why would the terrans ask for one of their units alone to counter one other unit ?
The only case that might “break” is Hellions versus Banelings. Hellbats don’t matter because they can never kill Banelings without taking damage, and they still require 2 hits until +3.
Everything else that you listed either cancels itself out (Banelings) or arguably needs to be stronger against Banelings anyway (Colossus/Adepts).
StarCraft’s balance has always been heavily influenced by maps. Obviously a change to the map pool is going to affect balance.
Anyway, keep the context of my post and the posts that I was responding to in mind. To summarize that discussion:
Lethe: Why not address the lack of Protoss DPS against Banelings (explicitly brought up Colossus) instead of nerfing the base damage.
Miro’s response: Making the Baneling a light unit would directly fix that problem.
Lethe’s response: Absolutely not, that would break Hellions, Adepts, Colossus, and Banelings.
My response: Only the Hellion case would actually be broken (in that hypothetical). I guess more accurately, only the Hellion case “could” be broken if that change was adopted instead of the base damage nerfs.
To clarify that position further:
The Colossus’s increased effectiveness is the intended result.
The Adept’s increased performance against Banelings can also be considered an intended result. There isn’t much harm in it anyway based on the Adept’s tendency to waste shots and the control needed to snipe Banelings.
Ghosts and Phoenixes would similarly require a lot of control to snipe Banelings, and they are fringe cases that wouldn’t matter much.
Hellbats aren’t relevant because they cannot kill Banelings without taking damage, and they would still take 2 hits in most cases until +3 weapons.
The Void Ray is countered in low numbers by Vikings, Cyclones, Marines for Terran; Mutalisks, Queens, and Hydralisks for Zerg, and Phoenix, Archon, High-templar for Protoss in cost efficiency trades.
The Void Ray is supposed to be a Surgical Strike style of Unit. I believe this means that there is a threat if a player all-ins that Void Rays will ruin your base and production, or do it while you aren’t looking like Nydus and Medivacs.
The cost efficiency of the Void Ray is supposed to be good for the high gas cost when in an army comp as well.
Decreasing the mineral cost of Void Ray’s make them a debatable choice when dealing with Roach all-ins. However, Hydralisks are the Counter efficiency choice against Void Ray’s and Immortals. As for Terran, Cyclones with minor scouting can easily shut down any attempts at Void Ray strikes.
The Speed increase and Build time reductions make them more viable instead of Phoenix or Robo production, but what it actually lacks is something else.
Currently the Damage is 6, (10 armored and 16 armored Charged) at 0.36 attack speed. I propose that it be changed to 5, (10 armored), Charged 5+5, 10+5 armored) at 0.25 attack speed.
Charging shouldn’t only have a benefit against a specific type of Unit.
The real buff in reality is that its’ attack speed is more akin to what a beam weapon would have along with -1 damage. 16.7 dps vs 20.
This bonus would also contribute to Void Rays being a possibility while charged (44dps with +1 ship weapons) for Worker kills, while still being 1 short with only +1, as well as being slower while charged.
What a damage buff overall would change is they would be less massively countered, but still countered by Marines, Phoenix, Hydralisk, Queens. However, they would have to stand their ground in a straight up fight because of the slowing effects and Units such as Queens and Cyclones would still dominate them.
Now back to their purpose as a strike unit… Zerg has Queens that still make Void Ray’s irrelevant as a back-stab unit, Terran will most likely have marines and Cyclones, and Toss will just make Phoenix. Void Ray’s have counters in more forms than most units, but they don’t really fulfill their role.
With these changes, the cost or build time buff might not be needed.
With the numbers that you suggested, Void Rays would counter almost everything. That is a massive DPS boost against armored and non-armored targets alike whether the Void Rays are charged or not.
I can dig all the changes except further buffing Voids that much. I’m deeply concerned. Not only it will affect PvT (which is already Protoss favored) with proxy strategies and Cannon Rush (as Void is by far the most usual follow up) but will also change the Void - Viking interaction in a bad way as Vikings will not be able to micro away from Prismatic Alignment anymore.
Blizzard also wants to push really hard the Void into a role that is already fulfilled by the Phoenix. Just focus the Void on being the counter to units such as Corruptor, Blizzard. Stop trying to make Voids the Hellions of the sky as Protoss already have a unit that does that and it is called Phoenix.
You are a terran player.
You are saying that Void Rays would counter almost everything.
Are you going to point out that a stimmed marine has 14.7 dps for 50 minerals and 1 supply? All while a Void Ray with Prismatic Alignment in my proposed buff has a dps of 40, is slowed, and costs 200(250)/150 with 4 supply?
Let me get this straight… 58.8 dps for 200 minerals of marines is less that one void ray at 40, even with a cheaper Void Ray, at 250, it would be 73.5 dps of marines for 40 of a Void Ray.
Are you going to point out that a Cyclone does 57 dps with lockon+upgrade against Void Rays?
For those Zerg players out there, two Queens for equal supply still kill one void, nothing has changed there.
Do people even realize why pro players don’t use Void Rays? An immortal is just better than a Void Ray in every way, the only reason someone would make a Void Ray is because Roaches can’t shoot up… That is it.
Marine Viking can delete Voids all day long. Voids don’t work as an army, they work as a unit that will kill your production, just like drops.
Also in regard to another person who claims 2 vikings are the only way to deal with Void Rays and that 2 vikings costs more… My suggestion is to create a single Thor and have marines around it, Void Rays and immortals will die to marines and Thors zone out Voids very easily. No Vikings Required, not to mention Tempest are also countered by Thors.
Another note: I would not care if the Forge was locked behind a Gateway if cannon rushing is your excuse for why you shouldn’t buff a Stargate Unit.
No they would break adepts as well and adept sentry styles would be more viable when adepts are already borderline broken vs zerg in the early game. There’s a reason defending glaivedepts requires double the apm than executing it. Even if you discount banelings vs banelings, it still has huge impact on mirror.
Colossus is the only unit that needs increased dps vs banelings, and even then this nerf is much larger impact than partial colossus revert.
Also hellions are already strong vs zerg, they don’t need a buff.
Balancing RTS units such as the ones of SC2 is not only a matter of cost, supply and DPS. You have a multitude of other factors such as being able to fly and thus abuse map terrain, range, training time and unit interactions. Void Rays will absolutely be too abusive and overlapping roles with the Phoenix.
they do not care about pvt. protoss builds natural and can still send 2 stalkers acros the map to harass. and if you dont have a bunker or maurders that everyone say is expensive you lose… The match is far from balance and far from fun…
Protoss can have 2 stalkers at your base before you get a tank out even if you rush a tank. so you have to bunker up. and if you play that defensive. toss will just get their 3rd and now you are further behind.
Toss can be on 3 bases and can defend all 3 bases and attack you while you are barely getting your natural down. but it is ok guys. we got cloaked mines back again.\
All I ask is for the match up to be even across the board. this concept that terran has to play from behind is rediculous. and needs to be fixed above all things. but I guess giving toss a better late game in PvZ is a bigger issue. despite PvT being 55% at the pro level and we can only imagine how high it is on the ladder. I mean they do have 40% GM
Just something to think about.
p.s the match up is so imbal. that I can have 7 barracks and build nothing but maruders and despite them being cheaper than stalkers. Protoss can still have more stalkers at any point in the match up.
toss turtles. builds death ball and then A moves across the map. so fun to play against.
seems like thats heavy overkill. considering they thought the previous insignificant baneling change was too much and walked it back, i could seem them doing the same here. (although they walked back the walk back, after seeing no difference in baneling usage v armored, because obviously.)
well… theres a very high chance this happens, 4 buffs, specially the speed buff can change the game a lot, pretty true but the 4 changes arent that much, they arent huge changes, so there might not be any changes as long as it doesnt affect anything much, just more void ray usage
You cant throw in Adepts and expect Them to do worker dmg. There will always be a Queen and even roaches. You have to manually worker kill in up to 3 bases while shading in and out while macroing up behind. If You react quickly and correctly You can deny the adepts from shading in too far. The top of the zerg Pros figured out all the Timings from the different Adept strats already and as You can see in Denver vs skillous when they swapped races its not as easy as it seems. Denver messed up and was too late while skillous exactly knew what he is up to and what to do. Easy hold easy win for him.
And its like the only viable Option for protoss to really do something early on. So this strat is so freaking obvious
Corruptor have less speed than Void rays with flux vanes with this buff. They used to be able to run from voidrays, now, they won’t be able to. Of course, that’s not counting the usage of prismatic alignment, but still quite some damage.
Though maybe my concern is dumb founded, considering void rays do cost 4 supply after all.
