Raven is both worst spellcaster and most expensive spellcaster in the game.
And on top of that it can only be made by Starport on techlab - infrastructure you normally don’t want to have in either of match-ups.
At the current moment only 1 to 3 Ravens per game are built in TvT, 0-1 in TvP and 0 in TvZ.
Compare it to other casters in game: Vipers, Infestors, HT, Sentries, Ghosts.
Other then early-mid game pushes in TvT and TvP the spells that Raven have are simply too weak to justify their use.
Look for example at anti-armor missile: conceptually its a good spell, but in real game not so much (outside of TvT).
Chargelots charge into your army before AAM hits them, so your army gets the debuff. We saw this even in Maru games.
High tech units under IM simply retreat back - together with the rest of the army - and return 8 seconds later.
Tempests kill Ravens before they even get in range to use IM.
In TvZ its even worse since majority of damage when it matters is done by burst damage units - tanks, WM, Libs, Ghost snipe shots.
In TvT Vikings will zone Ravens out when Viking number is large enough.
Raven can disable every key units in the protoss arsenal prior to HT
Terran : We nEeD sOmE lOvE wOrSt SpELlCaStER mOsT exPeNsIVE
Also terran : 'member when raven was able to destroy armies in 0.5sc ? Yeah I miss this time. Finally a balanced game
Yeah, I see where you got an idea that this spell scales well.
PS. As pretty much everybody said many times Raven IS overpowered in early game in TvT - that’s why people ALWAYS build 1-3 Ravens in TvT - but stops being effective in midgame, because its expensive, takes production time of infrastructure that is better be spend elsewhere, is zoned out by Vikings (or by Thors of mech player) and simply is not good enough to be used.
In TvP its even worse because it works only in mid game push against certain builds. People sometimes make ONE Raven for this reason, but usually don’t.
Oh, people also usually build ONE Raven when they suspect that DTs are incoming, but that’s it.
What part of this is too hard for average Protoss whiner to understand?
But what else can we say to people who don’t read anything and post some nonsense that is not backed neither by games replays, nor even by opinion of somebody who is actually good?
Given there are plans on increasing the cost of Interference Matrix from 50 to 75 and its duration from 7 to 11 seconds, what if the ability also immobilised the unit, akin to Lockdown?
I worry a little because mass Raven still exists (I’m a user of it) and any straight buff to it may cause it to return. I tend to use Interference Matrix in an attempt to catch Battlecruisers, disable a Thor or, more rarely, counter an enemy nuke (casting it on the Ghost that’s directing the nuclear missile will cause it to be lost), but the nice thing about increasing its cost is that it loses its effectiveness when Ravens are massed, while having one or two to support a more conventional army means you could actually choose to kill the unit instead of watching it retreat only to return a moment later.
As overpowered as anti gravity? Like saying ‘Phoenix can take muh siege tank and disable it’… it’s not Lockdown still.
They dont wanna do it since they are nerfing IM for the energy reason. But im against their nerf, it kills the unit partially (yet another time Raven ability gets nerfed then why Raven so bad)
You never sugested reducing the gas of it, and I’m ok with the MS price and I think it should be expensive, the only problem I have with it is being vulnerable to spells witch is not a matter of price. Your Raven in the other hand is getting a vulnerability reducing buff so stop complaining.
Also Raves can wreck mineral lines and can put dps into a fight, so no to that:
Ravens are fine. They are support casters, and they are actually very good at what they do. About the only thing they need is a gas cost reduction, because they ARE overly expensive.