I know that this ability was from StarCraft: Brood War era as Corsair’s spell. It only affected ground units so it was seen to be used against Lurkers from time to time, but still rarely cuz it was from the high-tech.
So I do wonder if we iterated this ability a bit more and gave it to Tempest, would this break all the match-ups especially PvZ.
The concept is below here
Disruption Web
Enemy ground, air units and structures under the Disruption Web cannot attack.
Energy Cost: 125
Radius: 2
Duration: 6
Cast range: 8
Researched from: Fleet Beacon
Cost: 100 mineral / 100 gas / 57 research time
This idea is from the fact that Skytoss currently is pretty niche especially against Zerg. This ability would be given to Tempest to work as the support role instead of being solely anti-massive unit. Tempest will also have energy bar to be able to use this spell too which maintains its weakness against Terran’s Ghost’s EMP Shockwave and HT’s Feedback.
With only 8 cast range, it would be hard to use this ability against Terran but it would be better to use against Zerg mass-air units especially Corruptors since they need to get in range of the Skytoss units. Once it is used, it will force an enemy’s Corruptors to move away or taking damage for free. This spell could be used to ward away Vikings from certain range too, but the energy consumption is still high. This spell may or may not synergize well with HT’s Psi Storm but I think it’s better to have some ability to use as defensive spell.
I receive all the opinions you will make. Though I just want to see Stargate’s units became less of niche units and be more useful for PvZ mainly.
The Tempest is an underwhelming unit. It is only good if you already have a strong army. The job of the tempest is to zone out your opponent by dealing constant long range albeit WEAK damage. The hope is it draws your opponent into your already good army.
The fact that people are proposing giving it a SPELL of all things shows it has issues. The tempest is slow, low health, high supply and worst of all, its dps. Just IMAGINE if people proposed an actually good endgame unit like brood lords need a spell- brood lords fungal and PSIstorm
Potentially, especially because OP proposed it would work on AIR units too. The only caveat is- when is the last time you saw tempests and thought “oh no he’s got tempests!”. It would be really dumb in multiplayer because either the fight is won because the web is op or lost because the tempests themselves kinda suck.
so called designers of SC2 with lack of creativity decided to spread abilities to other units
Science Vessel EMP was moved to Ghosts
Disruption Web was moved to Vipers
Arbiter’s Stasis Field(weakened version) was moved to Oracles
Dark Archon’s Maelstrom was improved and moved to Infestors(later turned into slow after intensified Terran Whine)
Dark Archon’s Mind Control(weakened version) was moved to Infestors.
Dark Archon’s Feedback was moved to High Templar
Losing all of his abilities there was no reason to implement Dark Archon into the game
I just feel like Tempest is becoming the most niche unit in the Protoss’s arsenal. I don’t really like Tempest as a unit right now cuz they take too much of the supply and not worth the investment. The reason for it to work against air cuz Skytoss might be the late-game composition, but it isn’t a really good composition on the high level (maybe on lower league). So I expect something more from this unit instead of being a dead-weight of supply for the most of situation.
I think a fleet beacon upgrade for disruption web for the phoenix would be good, that’s all Protoss would have needed before the infested terran nerf (disrupt the spore forest).
Although I standby the fact that colossus also should have been resistant to abduct (only moved half way) so they could kill infested terrans.
Anyway, there was better ways to fix the game than microbial shroud (and removal of infested terrans), and disruption web would have been one of them.
Shroud is great in team games though. 3-3-3 carriers less than 2 dps to thors under shroud and guardian shield in 3v3 (TPZ).
Fungal was never based off Maelstrom. It was a combination of Plague and Ensnare where the attack speed reduction was removed and the slow was increased to 100%. That version was broken (even moreso after Blinding Cloud was introduced), so the slow was eventually reduced to 50%.
Fungal currently has a radius 50% larger than Ensnare (for 2.25 times the area); so it is still stronger than its predecessor by practically every metric.
“Maelstrom” was reintroduced as “Mind Blast” with added damage in the WOL campaign. It is an example of an ability that cannot be balanced in multiplayer because its effect makes the game too one-sided. Plenty of other abilities from Brood War had the same issue; and that is why most in SC2 that correspond to Brood War abilities (Vortex for Stasis Field, IM for Lockdown, Blinding Cloud for Disruption Web, etc) were weakened compared to their counterparts.
No it could not. A few Maelstroms can disable an entire army, which is broken regardless of the existence of spells like Restoration. Hard cc effects were mostly removed from SC2 for this very reason. Spells like that were fine in Brood War only because the combination of devastating splash/spells and the engine’s strict UI limitations helped prevent them from ever becoming a one-sided problem.
Furthermore, it would take a very large number of restoration casts to remove Maelstrom. Even if the player did have Medics or Medivacs that were missed by those initial Maelstroms he/she would still lose the battle long before restoring the stunned units.
Restoration would also remain limited to a single faction; so it could not be expected to balance out any problematic ability.
It is an actual ability and it’s effect is already very strong (50% reduction before armor, so the effect of armor is also doubled). The main reason why Microbial Shroud isn’t used often is that it is niche:
Hydralisks in particular are usually threatened by splash more than the opposing air army; so you would either need to kill or disable the splash damage units first or you would be better off using Abducts to pull individual unit for the Hydralisks to pick off. In the event that you do only have Hydralisks against enemy air, you usually won’t need the extra protection from Microbial Shroud to win the battle.
Microbial Shroud can protect ground units from harassment by an enemy air army that you aren’t directly engaging (Carriers, Tempests, etc); but you never want to be in that situation in the first place.
Microbial Shroud can be used to support a rush through Liberator zones or under an enemy air army. Again, this is a niche case because players usually don’t want to risk that scenario if they can avoid it.
unless you emp maelstrom caster before they stun you,similar to storm
zerg can just fungal and keep the casters at bay,or burrow mind control them and stun the enemy with them
and microbial shroud is way too niche,that is a problem
but whatever,this is going off topic.
even my first post was off topic
No, that is not at all sufficient to balance out the ability:
Zerg and Protoss have no counter-play to Maelstrom.
EMP cannot be relied upon or expected to prevent every Maelstrom cast.
The combinations of Maelstrom and Storm, and Maelstrom and Disruptors are outright broken with no counter-play in 1v1. Combinations such as Maelstrom + Parasitic Bomb in team-games can be even worse.
You cannot claim that an ability is balanced when the only “balancing” factor it has is that the opponent did not use it. Abilities (like 250mm Strikes) which rely on that condition to be balanced are not balanced at all.
Maybe there were “broken” spells in BW, but they were able to balance themselves as long as all three races had them.
Plague was also terrible in the amount of damage it caused.
there is also disruptor issue which is similar to this,if your opponent does not use his mouse after nova was launched,he loses a lot of troops
if you are also not paying attention,fungal corrosive bile can be more deadly than maelstrom + psionic storm
if you are not careful you can also get your HTs emp’d or sniped by cloaked ghosts
If you mismicro versus group of Mutalisks,your phoenixes explode
it is all about paying attention
emp is not the only counter to whoever casts Maelstrom
you can use cloaked ghosts to snipe them,your enemy will eventually make a mistake and make it possible
Zerg can abduct and immediately annihilate the caster
Yes, the existence of very powerful splash and spells in each faction was necessary to balance out the powerful spells and splash of the other factions.
But another factor was that every unit in a selection group would always cast the ordered spell. This severely limits the effectiveness of casters in practice by forcing the player to select individual casters to avoid wasting casts.
Most spells in WarCraft III and StarCraft II are set to only cast 1 spell per click (either by first in list with energy and off cooldown, or by distance). This feature alone would probably require a number of spells to be nerfed if it were implemented in Brood War.
None of these abilities are comparable to Maelstrom. Maelstrom is instant-cast, provides no visual indicator before it hits, and prevents any action for its duration. There is no reasonable counter play to this ability like there is for every other spell and unit that you brought up:
Disruptors give the opponent a reasonable amount of time to see the shot coming and to dodge it. The shot can also be prevented entirely by killing or disabling the Disruptor before it expires.
Fungal gives the opponent a reasonable amount of time to see the shot and dodge based on distance. It no longer prevents movement, so the player can reduce damage from subsequent Fungals by splitting and retreating.
Corrosive Bile provides a visible indicator of its target and takes a long time to land; so everything apart from a sieged Tank has enough time to dodge.
Psionic Storm’s damage can be significantly reduced by moving out of it after it starts.
EMP does not kill units, and it can sometimes be mitigated after the fact by immediately retreating or picking up the affected units in a Warp Prism… It’s effect is nowhere near as devastating as a Maelstrom, and neither is the affect of any of the previously mentioned abilities apart from the Disruptor’s shot (which can still be dodged or prevented unlike Maelstrom).
The only “counter” to Maelstrom is to disable or kill the caster before it has any chance to cast the ability. This is an unreasonable requirement for the powerful effect that Maelstrom has.
Every other spell in the game is significantly weaker than Maelstrom and has counter-play apart from killing/disabling the caster first. Maelstrom does not. It would be an outright broken ability in StarCraft II.
Steady-targeting has no effect on Dark Archons, and it would take 2 shots to kill them even if it did. Furthermore, the Dark Archon can interrupt or cancel it with Maelstrom.
Maelstrom also outranges Abduct and it is instant-cast; putting Zerg at a complete disadvantage in that scenario.
To put it mildly, Protoss with Maelstrom could only lose if they make several major mistakes and the opponent makes none (as any mistake by the opponent would be punished significantly harder with stuns).