they cost 125/50/2 for a dps of 9.7 or 13.4 against armored, that’s too strong blizzard.
I mean like, it’s not like Zerg has hydralisk which cost 100/50/2 with DOUBLE THE DPS with LESS TRAINING TIME.
Please give Protoss a decent aa blizzard, just take away blink, just give us a DECENT AA.
Kinda hard to compare stalkers to hydra. Stalkers come out way sooner and are generally more mobile.
Hydras are Light and Stalkers are Armored. (Not saying Armored is necessarily better, but Its a difference) Hydras are also smaller and far more fragile so they are more susceptible to AOE.
But then in return they have far more DPS and are in many situations more cost-effective.
This is coming from a Toss player btw. With that said, I agree it feels like a decent ground-to-air mobile unit is somehow missing. This becomes very clear when a flock of Mutas appear and Stalkers are left less mobile and with too little DPS to punish them even when they do catch them… and Stalkers can be overrun quite easily if outnumbered, unlike for example Marines who are insanely costefficient vs Mutas to make up for their lesser mobility.
Then there’s also Thors and Widow Mines… HTS/Archons are great on paper but are far too slow and too expensive to leave in each mineral line.
Whenever a Z manages to pop out a decent number of Mutas I feel severely limited. We do have Phoenix to counter this but they almost have to be in place before Mutas even appear or they just won’t build up fast enough.
We do have some options, Races are different after all. Myself since I struggle against Mutas tend to lean towards Stargate play so that I already have Phoenixes in play - with a good number on the map I can prevent Mutas from reaching critical mass, and knowing this most Z players don’t build them in the first place since the counter is already in place.
I think our Anti-Air in straight-up engagements is good enough between Storms, Archons and Stalkers TBH. Liberators en masse can be annoying though, but that’s really lategame. Low, early numbers are sufficiently dealt with by stalkers anyway.
Stalkers are a little bit more mobile than hydras but not much more mobile. Hydras on creep move at like 5+ speed or something.
I don’t think however the stalker needs to change much…I do agree that stalker dps vs light flying units is piss poor but it’s not nearly the biggest issue with the protoss army.
A +1 Range vs. Air and a bonus vs. Air would fix that. Maybe a second upgrade after Blink?
Stalkers are some of the most efficient units in the game. They are at roughly the same efficiency as the marine.
I have tried make the quantitative models of every units to consider the AA balance in Matlab. ( Skip the handle difference between players. )
And I felt I was trying to make a artificial intelligence brain.( Another decode with reverse direction of the real world. ) It’s not my major, it’s my schoolmate’s, I don’t know too much. They often make mistakes,too.
For example, your Siri or Cortana can’t hear you sometimes.
Their jobs always get worse, Microsoft abandoned the AI of mobile-phone. Then my classmate came back to China and opened a bakery. Happniess life, pretty sure.
I don’t want to think about adding units anyway, Blizzard will help you.
No RTS games is balanced, the balance depends on whether the player think it’s fun.
now talk about burst dmg combined with mobility of Stalker vs Hydra… for example taking down BC, Tanks, Tempest etc.
you really compare two different units
Does anyone other than me believe Eternity is a bot built for some undergraduate ai project?
No. My major is mathematical finance not artificial intelligence. But Mathematical Modeling is the similar in these two majors. Who care the balance… The game make me feel happy so I think it’s balanced. ( Campaigns and Co-op mission. )
And I’m master not undergraduate. I don’t want to become PHD( Permanent head damaged)
Blizzard owns the copyright. They have the authority to decide what to do.
Researching the balance of starcraft 2 is greatly inferior to research Korean Parenting Guide, if they want to make everyone feel happy.
Stalkers are a decent AA, plus they have blink. I have seen how people with blink micro maintain their fleet of stalkers while they chisel down at the opponent’s army slowly. However, I think what you may be getting wrong will be what you are trying to kill the air units with.
Stalkers deal extra damage to armoured units. So we are talking about:
However, there is such a thing called hard counter when it comes to the above units. Things like voids or broods can chew through stalkers when they are sufficient in numbers (or have the appropriate support) if you are not careful. So if you are trying to take out shees or mutas, it isn’t impossible but it is just not as efficient. You should be looking into something like nix for such cases.
In the end, remember that every race is intended to be played differently. You can’t take 1 unit from P and 1 unit from another race and claim that the numbers don’t add up. So a stalker might not deal as much damage but it is tankier (have shields) and can absorb storms as opposed to hydras that will probably fall to 1-2 storms. The races are all deliberately crafted differently so that there are variations in how people play.
Otherwise, they might as well just create 1 race for all to play.
But Blink is their best asset ! Hands down one of the best upgrades in the game with stim and metabolic boost. It’s what allows the stalker to be cost-efficient past the early game. Without blink stalkers would :
Stalkers might not have the DPS of the other races polyvalent infantry (although that’s debatable against heavily armored targets), but blink is what makes their mobility and micro potential skyrocket. And it’s also synergic with shield and their higher durability.
Yet, that potential depends on the hand which is using them. Learn to use blink at it’s fullest, you won’t be wanting to trade it against anything afterwards. You want to look like Parting dismantling Maru ? You’ve got work to do. 
If the Marine costed Gas (wich it should, because it counters Gas-heavy Air units).
I honestly can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not. Reading all these forum posts have only confused my brain more and more
Honestly? I can’t give you a clear answer as well, I’ve been playing too much PvP and my brain might be damaged by that match up.
I agree very much that stalker is very efficient in the early game, but at the mid game? Even with blink you won’t be able to escape lings, stop being abused by tanks or BC’s, and many more. Maneuverability is of course an important asset to have as a unit, but if it’s the only thing you have, why even bother.
Hmm, I don’t think it is intended to be a permanent 1 unit fix all solution. Stalkers need to have chargelots and sentries as support too (assuming if your blink stalker timing fails).
And I am actually confused by this statement. The only situation I can think about blink stalkers having issues with tanks mid game would be if you are attacking. The T needs to be able to defend with tanks (or bunkers) because they are not as mobile as blink stalkers. Otherwise the stalkers will just blink in, snipe what they want and blink out (rinse and repeat) and the T will have no way of countering this.
This I definitely agree. I have come across many players think that SC2 is a 1 unit 200 supply A-move kind of game. Granted it can win many lower tier players, it will never help you to improve. That is why Blizzard created the training system for people to learn different units. But I doubt most people ever played those haha.
It isn’t that bad haha. Just take note to make sure that when someone claims something is too strong / too weak, make sure that they justify based on the situation that they encounter. That’s where we can discuss and analyse whether there is another workaround to that problem. Those who just say that something that should be buffed or nerfed without concrete examples, I’d usually just ignore. A waste of brain juice for those.
It’s not just stalkers. It’s immortals, tempests, void rays, colossus, disruptors and even carriers outclass the marine in efficiency. I can’t wait for the Protoss nerfs.
It is not stalkers fault, that you suck as s. Nooblet! Got out of bronze yet ?
You can’t compare flat out two units and call for balance after it.
It’s all about timing and the options that the races have in their roster as a whole.
The only thing that you can conclude from this flat comparison, is that Hydras are scaling better in big direct fights and are therefore more friendly to mass than stalkers.
Doesn’t mean that toss can’t do anything against Hydras, and that doesn’t mean Stalkers don’t have any spot in PvZ either.
Very true, I take that back.
I just meant that stalkers interaction with tanks doesn’t change with the existence of blink.