Tempest
Both Tempest Attacks’ Random Attack Delay Maximum decreased from 0.125 → 0.0625
Both Tempest Attacks’ Damage Point (frontswing) decreased from 0.167 → 0.1
Both Tempest Attacks’ Backswing increased from 0.5 → 2
Both Tempest Attacks’ Weapon Acquire Prioritization changed from “Distance” to “Angle”
Tempest Turn Rate increased from 720 to 1440
Tempest Deceleration set to 1 (maintain momentum).
Tempest Separation Radius decreased from 1.25 to 0.75 (necessary to prevent SC2 from prioritizing tempest collision over maintaining deceleration momentum).
Tempest Build Time increased from 43s to 46s
Brief GIF of how the Tempest looks with general control and kiting:
i.gyazo DOT com/68ae8c583b10f93692d24358c847c9a4.mp4
Brief GIF of how the Tempest looks while chasing (without micro):
i.gyazo DOT com/a86d2794358774d52ccab951ab6a8d06.mp4
There’s a lot of talk of a balance/ design patch coming now that the tournament has concluded and I felt like this would be a good time to throw up a suggestion.
There’s a lot of talk about unmicroable units right now like the Carrier, Brood Lord, Void Ray etc, espeically those units preventing top tier Protoss players from differentiating themselves from the bottom of the ladder. Lategame compositions in general are often slow and unresponsive, disincentivizing players from interrupting a unit’s attack move and sacrificing DPS to try and micro them. While we’re un-buffing the Void Ray, I was hoping we could make some minor changes to the way Tempests behave to raise the skill ceiling of Skytoss a little bit. Unlike the Void Ray or the Carrier which are hard to raise the skill ceiling for, the Tempest is an unnecessarily clunky unit. Proposed changes:
Decreasing the time it takes for a Tempest to charge up (frontswing) before firing, decreasing the randomness of the delay before it fires, and increasing the turn rate will let players reliably and quickly switch a Tempest’s existing command to target important units. Additionally, the Tempest will now receive deceleration allowing it to briefly continue moving away from an enemy while still attacking it to encourage kiting. Furthermore, the Tempest will now automatically target enemies that require it to turn its weapon the least. To balance these changes, particularly the reduction in time before firing and increased momentum while chasing, the time it takes for the Tempest to begin moving after firing a shot (without micro) has been substantially increased to weaken the Tempest’s ability to idly fire at retreating units. Build time has been nominally increased to slow down Tempest rushes.
Comments and concerns welcome!
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Hi Probe, how do you predict a change like this will interract with an already difficult proxy void into tempest cheese that is seen sometimes against terran? And how does changing the prioritization between distance and angle change things for the tempest?
That aside, I actually like this change. More skill expression at the higest level isn’t a bad thing, in my opinion, and I do think the tempest is a criminally underutilized unit.
Lastly, I would request that we see a comparison of what it looks like currently in addition to these modifications you have made.
This suggestion sorts of works under the assumption that we will in fact be receiving the community-approved de-buff of the void ray. I’m pretty sure that slightly increasing build time for the Tempest, especially in combination with a de-buff of the void ray, can account for the increased danger the Tempest presents in the early game to Terran without meaningfully affecting the time it takes to get Tempests out in the lategame.
Because air units do not fully collide with eachother, instead stacking and clumping up, it tends to be that when one air unit is retreating and a group of air units is chasing it that the closest chasing unit to the retreating unit is in fact the one with the largest angle between it where the retreating unit’s weapon is facing (because it’s exactly behind the unit it’s chasing). What this means is that when a group of tempests are kiting, not only does the protoss player have to wait the longest time possible since they have to turn the tempest the whole 180 degrees, but it feels bad as the chasing player since without micro from the protoss player the Tempests will still all fire on the same closest chasing unit to them, instantly killing it. This change would reduce the time it takes to turn, making the tempest feel more responsive, but it would also slightly spread out the damage if the protoss player is not target firing, allowing the chasing player to pull back their damaged units.
I’d like to make a video showcasing the difference more intricately but no promises lol. I might just upload a copy of the document I’m using to the arcade so people can play around with the unit themselves.
EDIT: Something of note that I briefly considered but haven’t tested: we could also nerf the scan range which iirc would mean the tempest’s maximum range when a-moved is smaller than its maximum range when targeting a unit.
Ooh, thats another really good suggestion that benefits players who target fire but weakens the tempest’s otherwise very long anti-air range.
Alternatively, you could potentially reduce the vision range of the tempest. If I recall its fairly sizable, around 12 or 13, which isn’t much smaller than its maximum air range. I think this has possible other balance connotations, but it does mean that you’re more reliant on having good vision control for the unit’s maximum range and damage output.
That said, I like the suggestion of nerfing the unit’s scan range.
In theory with the voidray nerfs this would even things out a fair bit, but require more skill expression from the toss to make it more effective. How do you think it would effect the units relationship with the corruptor? As it is, with even upgrades I think the corruptor is a strong counter to pretty much all protoss air units, PA Voidray aside. There is also the niche tempest rush in PvZ to consider as well, does the damage point changes effect the air only attack or both air and ground? I’m not to familiar with the editor.
Well, there was a nice period there after Katowice that the one Blizzard intern could have used to patch SC2, looks like this is just what the game is now. Sad.
Eh… who knows if/when they will implement one. I still hold hope they will. In the meantime, it’s still reasonably fun to theorycraft.