As a protoss player I find gateway/warp gates kind of frustrating from a balance perspective.
On one hand gateway units suck and won’t every be on par with the basic units of other races, but on the other hand they have to suck because of the incredible strength of warp gates.
So I’ve been wondering, if you could pick a gateway unit and change it to be produced in either Robo or Stargate or an entirely new production building instead of gateways, what would you pick?
You can choose to close the warp gate then it will be like making units out of any other facility or just not research warp gate. I don’t know why you would want that, but you don’t need to make a new building or move them.
Personally I’d change the robo around so you can build it right after a gateway (before cyber core), maybe change the cost around a bit and make it so that you can produce Stalkers from it immediately but Immortals and Warp prisms still need a cyber core. (Adepts of course would still need a cyber core as well)
@BigBubba I don’t think you understood the post very well. I meant, if you could change the protoss race as a whole. Reasons being - Protoss gateway units must be weak from a balance perspective bc of warp gates, if stalkers or adepts would be produced from another building then they could be stronger.
“Lackluster” Lets see…
Protoss:
Zealot: DPS per mineral of Marine + massive HP pool and one of fastest units in the game, blocking enemy army.
Stalker: Best early game T1 harras unit. Meh vs Zerg as theres nothing to easily harras.
Adept: Nieche use, but can be very powerful thanks to its +light bonus dmg and ability to teleport past any early game defense.
Sentry: Only T1 caster, can hard counter any Zerg ling/roach army, great vs marines thanks to its -2 dmg/hit spell, free scouting.
Zerg:
Ling: Great unit, MASSIVE DPS, HP/mineral of zealot but unable to instantly close the gap.
Roach: Slow ranged zealot with armored tag that costs gas.
Hydra: OK DPS, OK HP, pretty fast. Nothing special, altrough pretty good over all.
Bane: Kills itself. GREAT in ZvP, lackluster in ZvP if any micro on P part takes place.
Terran:
Marine: The best T1
Marauder: low dps vs anything not armored, can take dmg < Reason they are used anywhere where Ultras, mass stalker or collosi are not.
Reaper: One time scout. Thats it. Worst unit in the game hands down.
So: Protoss:
Zealot: Great tank
Adept: Situational
Stalker: Situational
Sentry: Best caster
Zerg:
Ling: Great unit
Roach: Worse Zealot
Hydra: OK.
Terran:
Marine: Best T1
Marauder: Situational
Reaper: Worst T1
I would say they’re also just a harass unit. Very bad at straight up fights but incredible at killing workers. You’d never really use them as your main army comp
True. They’re very powerful casts but again, they’re not very good alone. That’s kind of my point here.
Gateway units have to suck by themselves bc otherwise they’d be OP due to warp gates.
If you put a purely gateway army on an open field against a purely baracks or T1 zerg army, the protoss will inevitably lose out, because you have to rely on terrain or T2 units or shield batteries or other situational things to defeat other races basic units.
Protoss units are gimmicky because they have to be gimmicky.
But if there were more options for protoss early on that don’t also have the OPness that is warp gates attached to it then that could fix some of the balance problems and disparities between early-mid-late game and between player skill levels.
Blizzard acknowledged that this nerf cycle for protoss has not been because Protoss is too good at pro levels, it’s because they’re frustrating to play against, especially on lower skill levels.
This is pretty much the biggest thing about balancing Gateway units. Zealots are useful throughout the game, but Adepts and Stalkers do have these all-ins and builds that are very useable in the current meta. These weird spikes in power make all the gateway units strong in specific categories. I know Protoss players don’t like that Stalkers and Adepts transition horribly, but there needs to be weakness somewhere in a build.
May I introduce you to this marvellous new technology. It’s called the stimpack.
Um, not exactly harass as much as early preasure, and that’s only because for an early game it’s cost/build time ratio is incredibly high, so despite sucking for the cost, it’s not bad because it’s so much so fast.
Against Zerg it doesn’t work because ling speed hits so early and because speed roaches > speedlings > chargelots > blink stalkers. So the stalkers can’t early power their way to not sucking. If there was “little to harass”, you wouldn’t see adepts and oracles most early game PvZ would you?
did you know that 10 GLAIVED adepts clumped in a ball will die to equal cost of speedlings? Adepts are meh against light, in spite of more than double damage against it. Adepts are just reapers with a midgame upgrade that makes them better worker killers. Give reapers a worker killing upgrade and you’ll see them in the same rare 2 base worker slaughter all-in-ish play too.
Pretty much any unit in the game can be used for an all-in if you want. That’s not really an argument as to why adepts or stalkers should suck this badly.
One zealot has a dps of 18.6 by default.
One marine has a dps of 9.8 by default, 14.7 with stimpack.
Zealots ofc cost as much as 2 marines so technically 2 marines have higher dps even without stim (19.6). Two stimmed marines do 29.4 dps. That is 63% more damage than a zealot does.
That guy is wrong on so many levels…
Thank you. Very important distinction between unit roles. You could technically poke at marines and maybe get value bc you outrange them and have shields that regen but that still isn’t technically harass.
Using adepts as a main army force is kinda like using reapers or banshees or dts or sentries as a main army force. They’re not meant for that. They’re a niche unit used for very specific roles. They can defend themselves against lings, with glaives they can kinda take on a couple roaches even or a queen if necessary, but you don’t use them to kill army units, you use them to kill workers. And I am entirely fine with that. Personally I wouldn’t really change adepts they’re okay where they are.
I would say stalkers and perhaps even sentries could be swapped over to Robo, they’re mechanical so it’s not intrusive on the flavor in fact it would make Gateways all bio if you swap both over and robos all mech, which seems rather fitting.
It would also allow stalkers to be a somewhat stronger combat unit since you can’t just reinforce with them anywhere on the map. It would also mean warp gates are weak to air, since you cannot warp in anything that shoots up once sentries and stalkers are moved over from gateways. That could be interesting, create one flyer and you can shut down warp prisms entirely.
Of course blink is still a concern, you don’t want to make stalkers too good even if a robo is required for them, bc blink is really powerful, but you could make them a bit more useful on straight engagements.
So you know the price of range. Congratulations.
Do you know what attack surfaces are? Do I need to go into detail on why you’re stupid about this, or can you look it up for yourself?
Hint - it’s why wall offs work, and why not all units scale linearly.
Oh yes, please by all means go into detail about this.
How do zealots have better attack surfaces comparatively to friggin marines that have ranged attacks? The argument of the person above was all about DPS. Claiming zealots have the DPS of a marine. Which they objectively don’t. They have pisspoor dps comparatively even if you don’t factor in upgrades.
And attack surfaces just underline MY point. When massed, marines get a straight up DPS boost whilst zealots have a drop-off point bc they can’t all attack at once…
SO PLEASE! Tell me why I am wrong about marines having a much better dps than zealots.
But I think you completely misunderstood what I was saying in that comment. Perhaps you didn’t read it properly…
Welcome to Necromancer School. You get an ‘A’.
: P
Honestly I didn’t come back for this thread, but I saw a response calling me ‘stupid’ for what seems like a misunderstanding so kinda felt I had to respond to it…
I know the feeling man.
You’ve won the internet for today. Congratulations!