EMP has a cast range of 10. Add the radius of 2 with enhanced shockwave and the total casting range is 12. Keep in mind the disruptor has a range of 12 and the siege tank has a range of 13.
Ghosts are very fast and can quickly get into ideal positions. They can also cloak. In combination with the range of 12, effectively it’s impossible to stop them from firing devastating EMPs. In addition, EMPs are undodgeable. Theoretically you can feedback ghosts but in practice it doesn’t work because feedback has a range of 10 whilst EMPs actual range is 12*. Its also pretty hard to see ghosts within the bio ball, as opposed to identifying other spellcasters (viper, infestor, templar all are large or glowing). Usually by the time the templar is in position to feedback, it’s already been blasted by an EMP. Again if you watch pro PVT games, you’ll never ever see a protoss player able to stop EMPs from firing. The best you can do is try to zone the terran army out (often with disruptors) whilst your army shields recover.
I would recommend simply reducing EMPs cast range to 7-8 to normalize the balance between HT and ghosts because right now its skewed way too much in favor of ghosts. An alternative is to reduce the mana damage an EMP does (perhaps it can only do 25 manage damage per EMP).
*Why doesn’t any of this logic apply to high templars? They are slow and have trouble getting into ideal positions, they have less HP than ghosts, they cost more overall, they are easy to spot and pick off, and their spell is dodgeable. Not to mention a single EMP can eliminate multiple high templar whilst you need multiple feedbacks to silence ghosts.
Last time I checked EMP doesn’t affect HT when they are in the Prism, so if all of your HT are getting EMP-ed all the time than this is your L2P issue.
The problem with EMP is not the Ghost/HT interaction, it’s the fact that EMP is extremely good against every. single. Protoss. unit. buildings included. It even counters cloack. It’s the most stupid spell that does everything in a huge undodgeable area of effect.
All this added to a unit that has so many qualities like Cloack, high speed, decent HP, low supply, decent dps, small hard to click model. Why Terran don’t go Ghosts in every single game is beyond me.
There are four issues with HT in a prism on this issue:
it doesn’t actually prevent EMP from blanketing the protoss army. Yes the HT are in the prism and are protected from the EMP but if they are in the prism, then they cannot feedback the ghosts. This post is about the issue that its impossible to actually stop or counter EMPs from going off. Either you eat a ton of EMPs by keeping your templar in a prism or you try and feedback them knowing you’re outranged and out AOE-ed in terms of these two units trying to counter each other. Not to mention its just plain hard to click perfectly on that tiny little unit.
You can only put 4 HT in a prism. Terrans have more than 4 ghosts often and protoss as well. You may see 6 or 7 ghosts with the army. 4 HT isn’t really enough to actually do anything in big fight because that’s not a lot of storms.
The prism is the number 1 target in any battle across all 3 races. Even if the terran is not trying, vikings will auto-prioritize the prism over colossus or anything else because its an aerial unit. In pro games often you see all 4 HT dies as the prism gets targeted instantly by vikings.
It actually takes a good amount of time to unload a prism. I think its like 3-4 seconds to get all 4 units out. Imagine trying to micro ghost EMPs by using a drop ship. Fly the drop ship in, drop the ghosts 1 at a time, then each fires its EMP after being dropped. It’s not very palatable. It’s the same on the other side. However protoss has to do that out of necessity because HT are the second slowest ground unit in the game.
I’m not saying 4 HT in a prism isn’t viable for protecting HT but I wouldn’t even call it a bandaid to the situation.
Remember this is a non-dodgeable spell that is fired by a fast cloaked unit from up to 12 range (keep in mind most units have a sight range of 9-11). The last non-dodgeable spell that is fired by a fast cloaked unit in the game recently got range nerfed (neural) for the same reason: there was no real counterplay and the unit using it was basically using it risk free. The proof is simply in the pudding. I don’t think you’ll find a single pro game in 2020 where a protoss player was able to successfully feedback a ghost and stop the spell (I watch a ton of pro games. It just doesn’t happen).
I would definitely be in favor of the EMP range being something more reasonable like 8, so that with the radius it would be a total of 10.
In addition I would be favor of making the ghost unit model a bit bigger, perhaps the size of the marauder.
You are true about everything you said,but should Blizzard change it? No, why? Because once protoss gets 5 or more disruptors, he can spam disruptor novas and trade against terran army regardless of being emped or not. There is just no good counters to disruptors and splits will not make you trade better against protoss, because at that point its playing dodge ball except only protoss has balls
Isn’t it because only Disruptor has a decent chance to fight the Terran army compare to the rest of the Protoss unit roster?
I mean, if Protoss never build disruptor, do they have a chance vs equal skill Terran?
Stop crying, protoss is already super imbalanced against Terran. Emp is only upgrade, which gives Terran chance, if he survives and game goes into late game… YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT!!!
Disruptors only outrange Tanks in flat terrain, since the Disruption Nova actually has to travel to the area where it detonates, and does so as a ground unit.
Put the Tanks on a ledge, and they effectively outrange Disruptors.
I don’t think this would help HTs all that much tbh.
HT have a secondary problem of being extremely slow, making them less effective for the current style of constantly poking in late game PvT with a stalker/Disruptor/zealot army to keep the Terran pinned while harassing with DTs. HTs are great vs marines, but not vs marauder heavy armies, which are encouraged by the colossus + blink stalker early mid game, and they require constant attention.
Disruptors fill basically the same role as HTs, but are good vs marauders and ghosts, and are fast enough to keep up with the gateway units (making them easier to keep alive), and Disruptor balls take less time to recharge than the time it takes for an HT to recover its energy for storm. Yeah, they have a smaller radius and can be negated entirely if focused down or dodged before the ball explodes, but they kill what they hit outright, and the other advantages make them a better unit for the late game when in reasonable numbers. Not to mention that if the Terran has some vikings, it’s pretty easy for them to just shoot down the warp prism holding the HTs.
Frankly, I’d like to see colossus buffed vs non-light units and disruptors changed or replaced with something that fills a completely different role (like a robo anti-air unit for example), because the old colossus/HT + gateway army was better to watch, and probably less frustrating to play against than the current disruptor focused late game for Protoss.
Ghosts are extremely expensive, take a long time to produce, and despite the power of EMP, are not cost efficient vs regular army units from the protoss when used outside of a supporting role. Terran also has higher priority units/tech to invest gas into in the early-mid game between medivacs, upgrades, and tanks, so they need a strong eco before starting ghost production. If Terran went ghosts every game, they’d lose to early-mid game attacks from the Protoss more often.
I dont think anything even a hard range nerf is going to stop ghosts from emping a Protoss army, even ghosts unless caught pre fight usually get a storm or two off. Its just one of those spells where you just gotta split. Even with a smaller range, you would still go disruptors because they are better in every way.
First of all OP, the Disruptor range is 13.5 and not 12 as you said (slightly higher than the Siege Tank), you can go on the unit tester if you don’t trust my words.
Second of all, with the recent Feedback range buff the Ghost/High Templar relationship already came back to normal.
And third, Protoss is favored in PvT. If we nerf EMP range like you propose than Terran will have absolutely no proper response to Storm/Feedback.
+1 for all points. You took the words outa my keyboard, man. ^^
That’s because you look at things from the outside. From the inside, you prefer have to go first for a composition which counters the protoss’, particularly his splash. If you opened ghost first instead of liberators/tanks or vikings for example, your composition wouldn’t counter colossus or disruptor openers : you’d EMP the front part of the protoss army, who’d just have to back down 10s to get his shields restored. Your opener would be strong against storm first openers, which unless you’re TKL aren’t the go-to openers in the current meta.
Adding ghosts in lategame, on the contrary is a great choice as most protoss will get several forms of splash including storm and archons. And you will see that more than frequently in high level games.
Regarding lower level, well terrans bio players are conditioned to stim then to do positional micro (split/spread/kite/focus etc. ). And so having you army being two seconds unresponsive just because stim and EMP aren’t on the same tab is seen as a hassle. So many prefer to focus on the many other things you’d have to do as a terran during and before an engagement, and delay using casters more than they should. See that as a mix of QoL and L2P issue ; yet that behavior is also found on other races (a lot of Z behave similarly with Viper/infests vs mech for example ; and a lot of protoss just don’t wanna consider disruptors for similar reasons). The notable exception being storm, as having it on the main cast tab is in fact practical on the contrary.
As for the ghost being fast, I’d like to remind, just like Seizon did with disruptor range, that a ghost is 3.94 displacement speed, while a non blink stalker is 4.13. Compare that to 4.72 of stimmed bio or a chargelot’s base speed, the 6.58 of speedlings and it seems on the contrary quite average. Enough for you not to want to get too close of chargelots or disruptors at least.
Imagine leading a race by almost 4%, in the easiest match up in the game (PVT), being wrong multiple times (disruption web out ranges tanks), and then the hypocrite squad comes in a has no problem with this (in fact, is actually pathetic enough to support it), while calling out every Terran whiner they can see.
