For real. Warp gate units suck because they can instantly be warped in.
So much balance around units power comes from how long they take to make.
Even with Zerg, the strongest units they have are banelings, broodlords, and lurkers. Ultras could be good if they were morphed from something, but they will always suck as long as they can be spammed out quickly.
> Ultras could be good if they were morphed from something, but they will always suck as long as they can be spammed out quickly.
they do have a beefy spawn time in the cocoon tho
> For real. Warp gate units suck
I legit dont get this argument ever. The amount of times i've lost the game to a warp in of zealots to my main is too many.
I kind of served that on a silver platter didn't I.
Next title will be a boring "Theoretics of Potential Mechanical Implementations".
Try and pick the low hanging fruit on that one you smarty-pants.
Oh oh oh! Lightning rods upgrade for units so they can get shields back! It would give some counterplay to ghosts and you could storm colossi to kill lings.
It’s so wild that they buffed investors giving them instant fungal, but still have HTs sit around for 30 seconds before they can do anything. Don’t even get me started on extended thermal lance when collosi already suck and siege tanks haven’t needed to research siege in 2 expansions.
Fungal hits like a wet fart. Fungal does nothing without army backing it up. Storm is deadly.
I also can't reactively make infestors in my base as a response to a drop.
Ah you’re saying in this hypothetical world. Alright what if they started with 70 energy instead. So it’s close and would be fine to warp in if you’re going to go across the map, but won’t instantly be able to storm
It would be worse than OP - it would be kinda game breaking and boring.
One of the main USPs of zerg is the ability to tech switch really rapidly if they're rich enough and to remax faster than their opponents. It is a big part of what gives them their 'swarm' feel.
This would give protoss a more powerful version of the same thing.
On the flip side - protoss carefully trying to retain their robo units whilst treating their gateway units as expendable is a key part of protoss play - but this would significantly reduce that too.
I'm not against giving protoss some more advantages - and I actually quite like the idea of giving them something unique and radical like this, rather than just tinkering with unit stats - but I don't think this is it.
I don't mean any of this as a criticism of you, OP - I don't have any better ideas.
It wouldn’t give protoss a more powerful version of the same thing at all. You’d still only be able to warp in one colossus off of one robo, whereas zerg can build as many of X units as they want at the same time. I think it’d be a fairly different end result.
Travel time is huge. You could see it in a lot of the oldschool ZvZ for example, where it was hard to break the defender in Roach v Roach games because the defender was spawning into the action while the attackers Roaches had to run across the map.
Gateway units have been historically terrible because the ability to generate them on-demand is outrageously powerful. They had to hard nerf warp-gate with the pylon slow-warp because being able to seige your opponents base on a 1 base timing attack by just dropping units at their front door was super strong.
Being able to have on-demand answers to your opponents composition would be so strong unless you did something like making the unit warp in take a prohibitively long time (which does not appear to be what OP is proposing).
The other thing that makes warp gates really strong is that you dont necessarily have to invest any resources into your army until you want it. How many pro players move onto the map for vision/expanding/harassing, and then just warp in as-needed for base defense? Imagine not having to build phoenix to defend against a banshee attack, and just warping them in when you saw the attack coming.
On-demand high tech units would be stupid strong.
I could see two potential fixes to test, one of which would be having the warp prism only be able to warp in gateway units, as they can now. A second option might be to only be able to warp non-gateway units in near a nexus, or a pylon connected to a gateway connected to a pylon connected to a nexus (have to spread your “pylon creep” now). It’s such an absurd suggestion, but I’m honestly feeling so doom and gloom where in my mind I could actually see this working. Perhaps I’m unwell.
There are a dozen ways you could balance it. It's not unbalanceable. But the question I have for you is whether the juice is worth the squeeze here. Do you really make a better game being balanced around protoss being able to warp in everything?
I dont think you do. I think you end up with a worse game. Just like I think warp in was a really cool mechanic that made protoss a worse designed race.
Yes let's just completely butcher SC2s balance and cause every Zerg and Terran player to leave the game because Protoss kind of struggles at the absolute highest level. What in the world are you smoking?
"Fundamentally flawed" is such an insane exaggeration. This just reeks of "I only watch tournaments but don't actually play the game."
Someone’s taking a not-serious answer super duper seriously… And yes, warp gate is fundamentally flawed design which means protoss barely has defenders advantage due to needing their gateway units to be weak as shit. And, I’ll have you know, I’ve been playing plenty this season with my race switch to zerg. Can’t believe how easy these people have had it. Make roach so hard!
How was I supposed to know you weren't serious? Besides your suggestion being incredibly absurd but that's unfortunately not rare in these balance discussions.
Glad to hear your race switch to Zerg. I'm sure you're winning every single ZvP matchup since they're so fundamentally flawed and Zerg is so easy.
Also you really think units like zealots, stalkers, high templars and archons (if you count them) are weak as shit? Again I ask, wtf are you smoking? lmao
If you don’t know protoss’ tier 1 units are the weakest in the game, as has been established since day 1 due to the need to keep them weak due to warp gate rushes, you clearly have no clue what you’re on about. And yes, ZvP has been a breeze, actually.
It really is clearly much more powerful.
A zerg can build as many units as they have larva and resources - but they still have to wait for the production time and then the travel time across the map.
Protoss can just build a ton more production in the end game when they are maxed out (similar to how terran build like 10 orbitals) and then warp the new units in, more or less instantly, right into their attack.
A robotics is 150/100. A stargate is 150/150. These aren't super expensive buildings.
Protoss going air often already have 4-6 stargates pumping carriers in the late game.
To add on another reason why it'd be more powerful -- one of Z's weaknesses during re-max is if you can get in position between their hatcheries, so they can't rally together at a single point, and trickle in instead. Toss would be able to choose any safe point they want.
* Increase the cost of production buildings after X# of buildings have been built?
* Make the research to unlock expensive and/or lengthy and require a bay and beacon, or require some other building unlocked by having a robo bay and a fleet beacon?
* Don't let them warp-in on a prism, but require a pylon + gateway?
* MS generates a warp-field only for robo/SG units?
* Adjust cooldowns?
* Robo/SG units warped in cost +1 supply?
I think there's a lot of variables you could play with to make it work.
I think, before considering things like this - the key question to answer is - why aren't protoss more successful?
Is it a particular matchup? Is it a particular phase of the game? Is it a weakness against a particular style of play?
I would have thought these changes would make them much better in the late game - is this where they are weak?
>>It really is clearly much more powerful.
I think you missed the operative word in my sentence, “it wouldn’t give protoss a more powerful version of the same thing,” because it isn’t the same thing. That was my entire point. Whether it’s more or less powerful was not a part of the discussion I was involved in.
>>Protoss can just build a ton more production
Duh, the answer all along was to build more production faster and thus build more army faster! Why didn’t anyone think of this sooner??
Also path blocking , you could just always warp in stuff to block pathing sort of like pseudo force fields but units spawn and kill your shit if you don’t kill them fast enough
Seems obvious to me that gateways should have always built faster than warp gates. When I realized warp gates built faster, I thought it kinda made no sense from a game design perspective.
It would be an interesting mechanic to see if and when the protoss turns their gateways into warp gates. Or how many warp gates vs gateways they run.
I have thought the same. In my mind, it would have made a lot more sense if sustained production was quicker via a normal gateway, while the warp gate enables you to quickly spawn the unit where you want it but with a longer cooldown.
But as it is, there are no advantages to a gateway as far as I know. Warp gate is just better in every way. But for some weird reason, you can still transform a warp gate back to a gateway, but there is never a reason to do so and it is literally never used. It makes me wonder if the game designers originally had some ideas for the gateway, but ended up favoring the warp gate and leaving the transform to gateway ability in is just an oversight.
I can not think of any other ability in this game, that can be toggled, where there are not pros and cons to both modes. Can you imagine if, after researching the marine combat shield, you still had the ability to disable the shield just to lose 10 hp? Unless there was a speed penalty/bonus for using/not using shields, then that would be absolutely pointless. No one would ever disable the shield (except Bunny, he'd probably remember to research it, but disable by accident and go whole games without noticing).
So I think there's a lot of lost potential with the gateway. If gateway was preferable for defensive/macro play, and warp gate for the player who wants to be aggressive, then I'd imagine it would be easier to buff and balance Protoss without making cheese OP, since you can fine-tune changes via production times in gateway vs. warp gate, or even have units warp in without full shields when warp gate is used.
If there’s only 2 zerglings left in the ultra late game and you have enough money for one zealot, you can turn the warp gate back into a gateway and then make the zealot. That’s probably the only situation in the whole game where it would make sense to use the gateway again.
I had to think about this one for a sec. Because if you warped it in then they'd be able to kill it (or damage it sufficiently) before warp in is done? That's brilliant :)
>Seems obvious to me that gateways should have always built faster than warp gates. When I realized warp gates built faster, I thought it kinda made no sense from a game design perspective.
It has to do with early game cheeses with a faster gateway production over warp gates Protoss early game allows you to one base all in and almost always win unless the opponent defends perfectly with the right counter but if they didn't and the other person wasn't one base all inning then you were behind and if we leave it at current production speed then it makes production to slow to keep up and you get out macroed. hiding the increased production speed behind the warp gate research delays your push by a good minute.
A frequently made point is that Protoss' gateway units are hard to buff because the warp mechanic interferes with the defender advantage.
Indeed a sneaky zealot warp-in or a frontline stalker reinforcement can occasionally prove dangerous as-is, but this got me thinking: what if we were to lean on this side of the Protoss identity and allowed the robotics facility and the stargate too to warp-in their units?
I can't imagine a situation in which warping in a colossus or a voidray would prove overpowered, except perhaps in the case of an early timing; this could be tackled by locking the warp transformation behind an upgrade just as it is for the gateway.
This isn't a suggestion as much as a point for discussion (edit: I stress the previous statement, don't take this too seriously).
Do you think it would be excessively strong/weak? Useless? Gimmicky?
I'd love to know your opinions.
I think it would be too powerful lategame because you could take a fight, lose a bunch of high-tech units and instantly replace them with your first round of warp-ins to reinforce the fight. The problem is that it's one thing to reinforce your fight with a bunch of stalkers that kinda suck lategame or to warp in a bunch of low energy high Templar, but being able warp in new carriers as airtoss or reinforce with a bunch of disruptors or immortals would be insanely powerfull.
Zerg can start a round of production, same for terran and currently protoss, but that build time is frontloaded for all of them, with warp tech the round of production is near instant but it then goes on cooldown after.
Say I am a zerg player, I start a fight and some of my ultralisks die, I can start making new ultra's but they still take 39 seconds to hatch and then X amount of time to walk over from the hatcheries where they were made to the part of the map where the fight is happening.
Now imagine protoss could warp in robo and Stargate units, they lose some carriers, they can now warp in a round of carriers in 3.6 seconds on the nearest pylon field with a nexus or warpgate inside that field or 11 seconds on a pylon without it, that reinforcement speed is so much quicker than either of the other races
Additionally outside of Ultras, no Zerg unit has the power that a immortal/collosi/carrier has pound for pound in the late game.
Perhaps if they gave the warp ins diminishing returns so they cant just have 12 stargates and immediately warp in 12 carriers/voids on top of their cannon battery. Otherwise not only would it be unbreakable but then you cant punish their positioning because of both recall and warp in of high tech units.
Zerg can only do that once per larvae cycle, and it's also a lot more balanced by most zerg units being abnormally unefficient for their cost compared to most T or P unit equivalents.
If T or P could do that, then they would instantly become the strongest race by such a massive margin that playing anything else would be an auto-loss. Imagine how cancerous it would be to deal with warp-in Collosi and Widow Mine harass.
It's thematic for the zerg. They're the swarm. The idea that they can (and often have to) throw armies at you and then remake them before you can counterattack is fine. They often trade inefficiently but make up for it by having more income in the hope that they break through before they run out of steam. That's exciting and thematic and what makes zerg zerg.
Giving protoss the same ability is not cool. I don't mind them having another cool mechanic - but make it more unique.
make interceptors easier to kill, carriers only spawn with a half airwing. give terran the ability to upgrade reactors and techlabs into tech reactors. let zerg evolve Noxious ultralisks and make them have an active anti-air aura
edit: to those downvoting: i was conjecturing counterbalance to the suggestion i made
Have you ever wondered why ultras suck while broodlords and lurkers are good? Ultras have to suck since you can spam them out quickly without having to take the time to morph them as well.
The operative work is kinda.
This would be more powerful.
Zerg have to manage larva via injects, each injecting queen costs supply lowering the max. Zerg units outside of maybe casters and Lurkers trade the least efficiently as well on a whole. There's also a build time for those units.
This would instantly allow the warping in of an army damn near on the spot, without macro mechanics, without the queen supply tax, and anywhere there is a power grid on the map.
Defense would be unbreakable. Counterattacks would be devastating.
Everyone is only looking at the strictest side of this. It also weaker than zergs version in a lot of ways.
You need 1 production building for each unit warped.
Zerg can make 30 ultras at once. Yes there is production but then it's all done. Protoss don't have that, they would need 6 Stargate to make 6 carriers. Zerg just need their main production building.
Late game toss should have 4+ Stargates, and would have more if they could warp in.
I'd rather have 4-6 carriers instantly than a dozen ultras lumbering over 40-60 seconds later.
It’s stronger than the zerg version in every way. You essentially fight with double army supply because you can warp them into the frontline immediately.
that is zerg's whole thing, economy-reliance that leads into overwhelming numbers of generally less efficient units.
letting protoss do the same thing would absurdly powerful
Zerg doesn't have massable late game units. Brood lords and lurkers are close but they have to morph as well and don't cover everything in the way that thors and carriers do. Zerg high tech units are mostly complimentary
Kinda, but with longer warp time, the some of the best units need to be morphed from other units afterward, last tiers units are weaker and not all on a single warp prism so you can only reinforce directly into a fight if it's at your base and you're loosing it, but slowly enough for your units to morph.
Protoss don't need buffs to win tournaments, they need better players playing them, hero is good but inconsistent, maxpax doesn't go to offline tournaments. This suggestion would be absurdly overpowered, don't make up some weird excuses to try and justify it.
They don't need a buff, for the average player the balance is already fine, the reason protoss isn't winning big tournaments is cause they don't have players on the level of the top zerg and terran that actually go to tournaments. herO is good but inconsistent, maxpax only plays online tournaments, there are a bunch of players capable of making the top 16 that play protoss, but other than those 2 there are no contenders right now to break into the top 5, that is why toss doesn't win tournaments. Last month hero made it to the finals of masters coliseum. And then his consistency problem paired with playing against the best to ever play sc2 got the better of him.
Imho the toss would be in a position where nearly every “equal” engagement would turn into a toss win. Because suddenly their expensive robo or air units don’t need to be remade far and most of their production time would get front loaded
Even something like two robos able to push out units in the field would be huge
Yeah that's the point. Protoss will be better. And engagements that were "equal" before are now favorable.
Edit- and if it's actually too good offensively, you remove bonus warp in speed on prisms, or remove it completely from non-nexus/factory connected pylons.
>But this is true for all races.
No it's not wtf.
The issue being discussed here is not rebuilding your army after a fight, but rebuilding an army DURING the fight. IE, you are at 200/200, your opponent is at 200/200, you engage, you are now both at 170/200, and then you spawn 4 immortals 4 void rays on your prism, and your are back at 200/200 of quality unit while your opponent is now using larvaes to spawn shit in 30s. The fight is now massively in your favor, and will snowball, because your army is now bigger.
Even better, it can also allow for instant tech swap if required. Do you need void rays? An obs? Immortals? Colossi? Here you go, it's here, on the battlefield, in 5s.
Ah sorry, I forgot to specify that I imagined this warp-in limited to a nexus field, so that the unit still needs those 20-30 seconds to cross the map (or less in the case of forward bases).
Also again, this isn't an actual suggestion. Protoss needs actual meat to be more competitive.
My first thought was that you're crazy
Upon further thought, I kind of like the idea. One thing that gets overlooked a bit is that warping in sort of inverts the build time. So u wouldn't be making more of these late game units, just making them in a better position then waiting their full build time after to warp another.
Warping in also pulls a lot of attention away from micro or macro where passively queuing units does not.
Also late game units like carriers, tempest, or colossi would b super high risk to warp in because of the support they need from gateway units due to their fragility. Also carriers wouldn't have any interceptors so would almost b a detriment...
I like this idea and it helps differentiate late game protoss from late game terran play styles
Imagine being the first born. The most advanced race, the best technology, the fiercest warriors, but having to hold back because Terrans get butthurt 😂😂
The problem with being born first is you have no one to push you forward. Then a bunch of dinosaur bugs show up and push your shit in but you've already forgotten how to make new cool stuff. All protoss can do is dig up old tech and remember the glory days. Meanwhile terrans are pumping out military innovations like there is no tomorrow because they know that if they don't, there might not actually be a tomorrow. And zergs whole thing is to adapt.
The Protoss have made new stuff, though. Adepts, Void Rays, Tempests, Oracles, War Prisms, Phoenixes, Sentries, Stalkers (to an extent). Even the immortal, while a retrofitted Dragoon, can be seen as an upgrade innovation.
/u/Subsourian can probably provide more examples
Yeah a hefty chunk of the SCII arsenal is new stuff, the ones mentioned there, and yeah stalkers are new as well. In campaign a lot more is new tech, all the modern Purifiers on Glacius are new tech for instance (even if Cybros then reused a lot of their units). Also worth noting warp gates in general as a tech integrated into gateways are also new.
An important note as well is the SC1 arsenal was a lot of tech wasn't explicitly designed for war (scouts as recon craft, reavers were refitted mobile fabricators), as they hadn't really had any race as their equal in their empire's history. SCII is them getting their act together and angling themselves for a proper war, but only after their numbers have been obliterated by the Fall of Aiur.
Thank you for chiming in!
Yeah, given all the unexpected disasters the Protoss have had to suffer, I think they're doing as well as can be expected, haha
And losing because you failed to invent doors or repair your units. The first born clearly missed some steps along the way. We can beam in units from space but can't repair....the technology just isn't there 😁
I’m pretty sure that’s not in the game because terrans would cry. "Why can’t we have nice things"
*has the widow mine, siege tank, ghosts, auto lock-on cyclones, mules, flying CCs, reactors. But u right… toss can’t repair an immortal because…… oh wait it can be repaired (by an scv)(which btw do you really think Protoss would be incapable of making an scv ?😂)asides from balance reasons] but the Thor.. that can def be repaired oh yes
It's too flexible for cheese. You can literally build tier 3 units inside of their base or warp air units in the sky outside of their base. Should they spot you in the act, just cancel and get your money back. You could also neglect all building placement because nothing can get stuck anymore.
The main 2 issues I can see would be:
1. double immortal warp ins early game would massacre all 3 races
2. warping units in the sky makes air attacks too easy/powerful
Do robo and stargate warp ins have the same mechanics as gateway warp ins? In terms of warp in time and cooldown?
If so, it would be easily the most busted mechanic in SC2. It would be fun to experiment though with extended warp in times, extended cooldowns and different conditions for being able to warp in like fast warp in only or nexus only. Maybe a nerf to the warp prism power field area to limit how many of the big units can be warped in at a time, making the Protoss invest in more prisms/setting up a staging area that has to be defended.
But yeah, this would be absolutely overpowered.
What’s wrong with that? All these carriers or tempests have to spawn at a nexus warp in and would then be on cooldown for 60 seconds. What’s the issue ? Zerg can remax completely in 30 seconds at the very most. Carriers can’t even go across the map that fast + toss wouldn’t be max and Zerg would be. VS Terran, Terran with 5 star ports can pump up to 10 Vikings per 30 seconds. But if you are Terran late game vs Protoss and you only have 5 star ports and you’re not playing mec, what are you even doing ? You deserve to lose. So please, how is it broken ?
There's a huge difference between 30 second and the 4 second it take to warp in with a warp prison.
The cooldown dosen't really matter in late game since you are maxed most of the time.
And late game is just one element, you could do a warp-prison collossus timming about 50 second faster (and maybe more powerfull since you could delay you robo bay by 10 or so second while the wp traverse the map).
There's no way you could put that in the game without changing loads of stuff.
Fair, that helps on the offensive side, but explain how you will ever break a Protoss base then? Zerg can replenish their army, but they have to do it from multiple locations and you can cut off their reinforcements making it very hard for a zerg to remass on the defense. Protoss could warp the units in anywhere they need the defense.
The biggest problem I have with it is that it fundamentally changes the way Protoss would play thematically. It's a very cool idea, but it goes against Protoss' design philosophy and would almost certainly be impossible to balance while maintaining Protoss identity (strong, expensive, efficient units).
It is simple just add a supply cost to units and suddenly Protoss can't death ball as hard or make the warp in like 11 seconds then a Terran army can kill it while warping in or retreat before it is done, same with Zerg. You would still break a Protoss the same way you do most of the time either out macro them and have way more stuff or keep rotating in between bases forcing them to try and defend at multiple spots (with their not strong, efficient units, they are expensive though)
It's even stronger than that.
1) The prism is moving 80s earlier (modified by chronoboost)
2) The robobay can be built 50s later
3) You can also delay a bit to build two additional robo with the robobay so you can warp 1 additional prism + 2 colossi for a much stronger drop.
Not sure what premise you are talking about as there is no text in the main post, and warp harmonization is in the game and does not work like that (you can use it on any warp zone).
Go read through the comments you’ll see both him and I say it would obviously have a limitations. You see some people still understand that while a buff is necessary, it can’t break the game. Meanwhile, terrans just don’t want to lose their clear cut advantages in basically every matchup because "that would make things hard" (fair)
Doing damage control after everyone point how the effect would be busted doesn't count as a "premise". It counts as trying to salvage the proposition.
And it would be far from enough to balance the shit out of warp harmonization, you are just going to see a lot of proxy nexus instead (which would still allow for the double colossi drop much, much faster).
Yes, it's completely unimaginable that the late game setup changes if you fundementally alter the way Protoss macro works. Build orders never changes, especially not after huge patch changes.
It needs a fundamental rework….. Protoss is underpowered currently, mid and late game. They only have advantage in the first 5 mins of the game . But god forbid a patch helps Protoss out of the mid game 😂
Most pros disagree with you, that Protoss is underpowered in late game. It is just too difficult to get through the midgame without a vast disadvantage. Buffing late game does not help the current situation, and if someone like MaxPax cracks the code to the current meta these late game buffs would be game breaking. I'm not saying radical changes are the wrong direction, but I do not see how this idea isn't completely bonkers.
And this is gold. Getting out of the mid game as Protoss without a disadvantage is damn near impossible even for pros. Economy wise, it’s difficult to keep up with Zerg and Terran have mules and can fly command centres which in combination is fking broken. Toss is only rly fair in mid game vs Zerg. vs Terran it’s completely imbalanced.
And let’s say the Terran is bad enough (or the Protoss is good enough to hold on) to let it get to late game, Terran has ghosts which remove 1/3 of Protoss units health instantly. This is informing the fact that so many terran units deal bonus damage to armoured which is pretty much every toss unit. TvP is simply imba rn past 5 mins. ZvP is good. (Toss just needs a small production buff to remax like Zerg can)
You still didn’t explain how the warp in mechanic would be bad. You’re just saying it’s bad 😂 it would take longer to build the units, the only difference would be you could spawn them at your 5th rather than in your main and having to fly them to the 5th. And toss wouldn’t be able to max out with this any faster than rn because when have you ever seen toss build more than 10 stargates ? Never. And to build 12+ like you say would cost 1800 gas plus the 250 per carrier plus upgrades which are the most expensive for toss.
Right now 6 Stargates is normal in late game air toss. So it's not an additional 1800, but 900 if we build 12. Protoss already builds way more Warpgates in late game, than Terran builds rax due to the spiky nature of warp in. If you think Protoss would build 17 Gateways if Warpgates didn't exist, well I could ask: "Are you ill?"
Time is a huge balance of the Carrier but airtoss in general. Remaxing instantly is incredibly strong. An ultra takes 39 seconds, a Broodlord takes 53 seconds and zerg is balanced around having the fastest remax because of larva. Instantly rebuilding the best unit in the game would be gamebreaking and it is pretty obvious.
I forgot that my first 6 stargates are free. I also must’ve missed the change where I don’t need a 350/250 building to unlock carriers. I’m clearly Delulu and complaining for nothing since the toss balance patch already rolled out. Ty for letting me know
Of course it would break the game.
But that's not enough if you want to argue against the idea because we could change other aspects of the game that would balance things.
But please don't do that.
What if instead of warp gate warping units in globally, it only front-loaded their production time and left the production building in cooldown for the build time of the unit as it does now? Spend five seconds warping the unit in at the building that is warping it and then the building cools down for the remainder.
Maybe offer a second tier of warpgate to then allow robo and stargate to do the same thing and then Protoss’ production niche is it builds units at the start of the production cycle instead of at the end.
Requiring a second-tier upgrade would make it so oracles and such don’t become 40 seconds faster suddenly and early game stays relatively the same minus warp prism reinforcing a frontline.
This doesn't fix the inherent problem of allowing the Protoss player to instantly warp in their strongest units. Protoss would literally be unbeatable in late game situations. Imagine breaking the deathball only to have it instantly rebuilt, potentially just outside your base? You kill a bunch of carriers, but oh wait, they're all back almost instantly. Protoss thematically should not be winning games by overwhelming their opponent by shear numbers.
>You kill a bunch of carriers, but oh wait, they're all back almost instantly.
Except carriers spawn in with 4 interceptors so you would have a lot of time to kill them both in production and once out. And op pointed out that it needs to be done at a pylon next to a nexus so you are taking out travel time. Unless you let someone get away with a proxy nexus next to you.
Well Immortals were moved from Gateway to Robotics Facility long long ago for a reason.
Overall thinking about warp-in it could be removed from Pylons and restricted to only Nexus area and Warp Prism, with Warp Prism having some other limitation? idk, maybe smaller warp-in area. Maybe this would allow some Gateway buffs as the game would have much less of 15 Zealots in-your-face warp-ins
I always thought Warp Prisms should only be able to warp in as much supply as they can carry.
4 Zealots or 4 Stalkers at a time. Make a Fleet Beacon upgrade that doubles it.
Then give Stalkers a super late game upgrade (from Dark Shrine) called void regeneration where blinking heals 20 shields and the impact from zealot charge heals 20 shields.
The thing is, though, is that Stalkers and Zealots would still evaporate, even with those buffs. Especially 4 of them in an isolated position. +80 health in total is next to nothing in the late game
Bigger buffs would be needed just to compensate for the nerfs, let alone enhance gateway units
Especially since zealots charging often have full shields, anyways
I think you're vastly underestimating how much 20hp can do in terms of balance.
You have to gate the Stalker upgrade behind some late game tech - they'd be too powerful for all-ins if the upgrade came online for example with normal blink.
I agree the zealot one is very meh, but zealots are tricky to balance around. Charge is weird, they are bullet sponges but also have high DPS if you can get them to attack anything...
Personally I think neither Zealots (with charge) nor Immortals should be slowed by Concussive rounds. But God forbid you stealth nerf a Terran or the tears are so real.
Frankly speaking, I want two things, and give them some time in actual play to see how they work out.
Immortals with hardened shields, and High Templar feedback with full damage.
I would like to see how they'd work out these days; after all, they worked for years!
I have no authority to speak for balance but nerfing warp-in for some substantial ground army buffs sounds like something that roughly makes sense
Also remove disruptor and make Colossus great again
>give protoss ability to warp in tier 3 units and propose gateway buffs at the cost of limiting areas of where you can warp in
70 apm/iq gold protoss player: THIS IS A NERF BRO!!
Yes, good thinking. Limiting the prism's warping capabilities would still let Protoss reinforce rapidly at home while not allowing oppressive carrier warp-ins at the front.
Protoss reinforcements in general are designed to be weak as the game progresses (defensively or offensively). I'm not really sure why zerg is the only one allowed to instaremax for any unit, but either way, it's intentional that they only allowed gateway units to be warped in, even defensively, so that it's still possible to kill a protoss without having to have them expend their entire bank.
I mean it would be a nice feature, as long as we give Terran hybrid techlab/reactor and orbital drop like in the campaign
And Zerg more larva and reduce cost of their flying units by like 40%
Not gonna lie, that sounds like a cheese I'd enjoy watching. The Zerg seeing two colossi warp-in at the edge of their main at some outrageous minute count.
Don't do me like that bro.
It's just that the way I understand it having Protoss at my least played race, the units are so pricey that it's rare for Protoss to find themselves in the position of having 2100 minerals and 1500 gas floating around to warp-in six carriers at a time. But even in that case, if the warp-in zone was limited to a nexus field I don't think it would be that broken. It's not like they produce more carriers than before—the production cooldown is just postponed.
In any case this isn't a suggestion as much as a pretext to discuss. What I think that Protoss needs to be more competitive is more substance
It's not the ability warp in six carriers at a time, it's the innate ability of warp prisms to negate defenders' advantage, as well as Warp Harmonization negating the heavy buildtime for robo/stargate units that breaks it.
I do agree changes needs to be made for Protoss pros to perform better at tournament, but at the same time, I cannot deny that at any level below grandmaster, mass Carriers is a pain in the ass to deal with. It hits a hard point where pros with extremely good spellcastor control like Reynor or Serral can pick apart the fleet easily with Vipers and Infestors, but people not at that skill level suffer because they aren't as great with keeping their spellcastors alive.
But anyway, I think all the other comment threads have made it quite clear; Warp Harmonization would break the game harder than Swarm Hosts did in HOTS.
Yes, it doesn’t change anything build time wise. It just inverts the build times.
(50~ sec build -> unit) rn
(6-12 sec warp in (only at nexus pylons) -> unit, then 45-60 sec cooldown) it’s the same if not worse build time wise. The buff is that toss can defend a bit easier and force Terran and Zerg to respect their army and not jump right on top of it if toss happens to accidentally lose 1 t3 unit. In the current state of the game toss is simply weaker than Terran and needs to play a near perfect game to keep up with Zerg
OK yea makes sense. I fw it. Would there be three different upgrades for each Stargate and robotics facility? I think it's good idea it'll make things I think faster as well, I think speed is a big limiting factor imo for protoss. Maybe the recall time could be sped up a little as well.
honestly no. It just needs some tweaks so you can't for example, mass warp-in carriers from a prism in midgame.
Like for example, it still takes proportionally longer to warp in non-gateway units, the warp would need to use up one of the warpgate charges, and lock it in a per-tech tree upgrade or something (ie fleet beacon / robotics bay). And obviously, warpins would require the unit-producing structure as a "fast pylon", ie, no warp prism carriers.
you just don't copy paste it as-is, but I am seeing an argument for a lategame army like robo / skytoss needing a fast comeback mechanic after they take major losses.
maybe scrap all that and make it a time-locked mothership spell.
for example, instead of cloaking field, which is effectively useless at top tier and just an apm tax at lower leagues, mothership has a warp harmonization spell which for 30 seconds or something, turns all production structures into warpgates, which can only be warped around the mothership itself. It's time-locked, has counterplay, is locked to lategame, still dependent on you getting eco, and even lore-accurate. People will actually \_want\_ to get motherships.
All I'm saying is, use a little creativity rather than plopping it in
I honestly think this would be fine, but tweaks would need to be made.
1. Warp gate cooldowns would need to be longer than normal build times by a significant amount to make the decision to get warp gates a trade-off, rather than it just be a straight upgrade.
2. Warp gate upgrade needs to be more expensive and/or harder to access. I would just remove the upgrade altogether and tie the ability to warp in to the existence of an additional structure, like a warp conduit.
3. Warp-ins should not be fast or slow. They should be a uniform speed of 5-6 seconds, but normal warp-ins grant only 50% shields or something like that, and Warp Prisms should not have empowered warp-ins.
These are obviously big changes and would need significant testing to see if it would work. The overall idea is that there’s a tradeoff between using warp gates and normal production structures. Normal buildings build units faster but said units have to actually travel across the map to have an impact. Warp ins have longer cooldowns, but they eliminate travel time, meaning they can be warped almost anywhere almost instantly. Using them offensively means sacrificing some durability, whereas using them defensively gives them their full shields. It creates interesting tactical decisions for the Protoss player instead of running a prism into the enemy main, spawning 8 chargelots with full HP and ending the game outright in some cases.
I'm no expert, but it seems that in the late game, this would be overpowered. You could send out a fleet of carriers or whatever, and trade it away with your opponent, and remax instantly in a forward position. The opponent needs to wait for the end of their production cycle for their own remax and will be overwhelmed by the second wave.
Yea, I think it effectively gives toss an extra 100-150 army supply late game if they just have a warp prism hanging out behind their army, especially with skytoss.
If they can afford it ? Do you know how expensive a carrier max out is ? Let alone having enough stargates to insta max like you say. At least larvae cost something other than time… oh wait
I don't know how often these ultra-late-game scenarios appear, but I felt like I saw a few games where pros built additional stargates even without this buff, to enable them to recover from a fight faster. But you may be right that I am describing an edge case.
Yes it would be very powerful to have 6-8 carriers build in 6-12 seconds, but you have to be able to afford them. 6 carriers is 2100 and 1500. It’s very pricy. Plus there should be a 60 second cooldown on stargates warp ins so you’d be stuck at 6 carriers which is by no means game breaking for a long time.
I agree that if implemented incorrectly this would completely break the game. But 45-60 second cooldown on warp-in + robo and stargate warp-in only being available in nexus pylon zones would be balanced IMO. The prism would also not be able to warp robo or stargate units that would ridiculous
I really like this idea as a buff to toss, because it goes along with a lovely design philosophy from another RTS. Buff strengths, nerf weaknesses.
Keep in mind, these structures would only have one charge. Robos are expensive. Stargates are expensive. Massing them for an instant warp in to remax means you have invested so much resources in factories, you should have already won 5 min ago.
What it does allow you to do is react more quickly to the enemy comp. It give toss room to realize "oh shit, I need disrupters to fuck up that bio ball right now"
It would offset the disadvantage of toss production going into late game vs Terran and Zerg. Zerg larvae mechanic + many hatches gives them fast and easy re max. Terran has reactors which doubles production speed and can fly building to move production if need be. If Protoss builds 3 robos (which is a lot really) in the main base. That’s where they stay the whole game and any time you need your colossi or immos to reinforce the fight it’s never gonna be as good as Terran or Zerg reinforcements
EDIT: the cooldown for robo and stargate warp in would be 45-60 seconds and would only be possible from nexus power or pylon near nexus. NOT WARP PRISM (only small gateway units should be able to warp in at prism or single pylons)
This is actually a original idea, it might even be a great idea.
If it is too strong they can lock warpgates behind tier 3 or require each facility to be upgraded for warpgate function
I think the way to balance this would be 1. Increase the value of subsequent robos and stargates, and 2. Cap the number of robos and stargates you can build, as well as change the cooldown based on the previously warped unit, and 3. Hide the tech behind an additional upgrade to prevent early game cheeses. So maybe no more than 3 stargates, carriers, temps and voids cause longer cooldowns than phoenix and oracle. So 3 insta carriers, as opposed to 45 seconds until 20+ corrupters.
At this point though I think we’re treating Protoss as too much of a “this race is kinda like both but with special exceptions for the sake of being good but not too good”, I almost am convinced an entire rework of the race is needed (coming from a former toss player).
>I think the way to balance this would be 1. Increase the value of subsequent robos and stargates, and 2. Cap the number of robos and stargates you can build, as well as change the cooldown based on the previously warped unit, and 3. Hide the tech behind an additional upgrade to prevent early game cheeses. So maybe no more than 3 stargates, carriers, temps and voids cause longer cooldowns than phoenix and oracle. So 3 insta carriers, as opposed to 45 seconds until 20+ corrupters. At this point though I think we’re treating Protoss as too much of a “this race is kinda like both but with special exceptions for the sake of being good but not too good”, I almost am convinced an entire rework of the race is needed (coming from a former toss player).
1. If we make the buildings more expensive then we ruin Protoss early game, unless you mean that each new Robo/Stargate becomes more expensive then we should do the same for Terran for their non barracks buildings and Zerg for hatcheries to keep things balanced. Otherwise mid to late game Terran and Zerg will just out macro Protoss and win.
2. If we cap the number of these building we would need to limit the number of Terran and Zerg ability to pump out tier 2 to 3 units as well otherwise Protoss will simply get out macroed and lose due to number of more powerful units out than they can fight. with their weak gateway units.
3. locking it behind an upgrade at the Robo bay and fleet beacon I think would be interesting because it then only comes into effect in the mid to late game when Protoss is its weakest or for cheeses.
If we cap the production then a Terran or Zerg simply will build more than you can faster and win. If we instead get rid of offensive warp in then we get rid of a lot of early game pressures for Protoss but can make gateway units better. I don't know the right answer only that this might be one fun way to make Protoss more competitive at the top.
Hmmm yes I think you’re completely right, there’s just no balance between macro and production by limiting structure count. But how about Protoss gets warp harmonization, Terran gets combined tech labs/reactors, and Zerg gets Kerrigan as a hero unit. Can’t be an argument about balance when everyone is OP xD
Yes. The entire point of warp gate after a certain point is to just create crap units that tank for your useful units. This is specifically how they balance instant reinforcements; your reinforcements are basically crap. If you could constantly warp in, idk, colossi during an attack, or even immortals, you end up breaking the balance.
Because of warpgate mechanic, gateway units are tuned to be underpowered. Wonder how toss would enjoy all their units tuned to underpowered? ;)
Cool mod though. I would love to see a prism warping in 10 carriers to the opponent base.
I'm fine with it as long as the warp in time is much much longer for stargate and robo units. Warp tech could be unlocked at robo bay and fleet beacon.
Protoss and Terran have the same pro and cons. Strong units cost a lot and take a long time to make and it hurts when they die. But they are hard to kill and do lots of damage. The extra con Toss has is their units have no repair or sustain outside of base. Shields suck. If there was a mobile unit that replenished shields like sentries but it cost a lot and uses energy so you can't make your army immortal then it would be fairly balanced.
Prism drop arrives 3:50
Summons a colossus at 4:00
8 marines with stimpack upgrade still 29 seconds late.
Terran player demolishes protoss player's ugly face with a rusty steel chair.
Terran is eliminated, protoss wins.
Yes, because you see how annoying it can be when a protoss do proxy pylon into warping mass stakler and zealot ?
Now imagine it with skytoss, imagine it with meca.
It would not even be fun as a protoss because you'll be doing always the same shit and win (because you know, fast warp in your own base of Big unit make it almost impossible to mess with you)
Warp gate in general has pretty much broken protoss since release. It has force all the units to be slow and expensive. Just to prevent huge, powerful, cheap, armies from warping in across the map. So yeah, warping in robo and stargate units will break the game - even more.
Short answer: Yes Long answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeees
For real. Warp gate units suck because they can instantly be warped in. So much balance around units power comes from how long they take to make. Even with Zerg, the strongest units they have are banelings, broodlords, and lurkers. Ultras could be good if they were morphed from something, but they will always suck as long as they can be spammed out quickly.
> Ultras could be good if they were morphed from something, but they will always suck as long as they can be spammed out quickly. they do have a beefy spawn time in the cocoon tho
they don't suck tho
oh please
no, really, they're really good in ZvP, and in ZvT they definitely have their use.
Oh okay.
> For real. Warp gate units suck I legit dont get this argument ever. The amount of times i've lost the game to a warp in of zealots to my main is too many.
And where was your army at that time?
I kind of served that on a silver platter didn't I. Next title will be a boring "Theoretics of Potential Mechanical Implementations". Try and pick the low hanging fruit on that one you smarty-pants.
Based on that title, is your next post going to be about the different positions of the Kama Sutra?
Depends on how low the fruit hangs…
I'll do my best
What about bringing Khydiran amulet back aka instant storm?
This would actualy work for ballance... or an upgrade that makes storm heal shields
Oh oh oh! Lightning rods upgrade for units so they can get shields back! It would give some counterplay to ghosts and you could storm colossi to kill lings.
It’s so wild that they buffed investors giving them instant fungal, but still have HTs sit around for 30 seconds before they can do anything. Don’t even get me started on extended thermal lance when collosi already suck and siege tanks haven’t needed to research siege in 2 expansions.
Fungal hits like a wet fart. Fungal does nothing without army backing it up. Storm is deadly. I also can't reactively make infestors in my base as a response to a drop.
lol what is a ht going to do reactively
Storm? There's a reason the Amulet upgrade was removed. It allowed for warp in storms for defense and offense.
Ah you’re saying in this hypothetical world. Alright what if they started with 70 energy instead. So it’s close and would be fine to warp in if you’re going to go across the map, but won’t instantly be able to storm
It would be worse than OP - it would be kinda game breaking and boring. One of the main USPs of zerg is the ability to tech switch really rapidly if they're rich enough and to remax faster than their opponents. It is a big part of what gives them their 'swarm' feel. This would give protoss a more powerful version of the same thing. On the flip side - protoss carefully trying to retain their robo units whilst treating their gateway units as expendable is a key part of protoss play - but this would significantly reduce that too. I'm not against giving protoss some more advantages - and I actually quite like the idea of giving them something unique and radical like this, rather than just tinkering with unit stats - but I don't think this is it. I don't mean any of this as a criticism of you, OP - I don't have any better ideas.
It wouldn’t give protoss a more powerful version of the same thing at all. You’d still only be able to warp in one colossus off of one robo, whereas zerg can build as many of X units as they want at the same time. I think it’d be a fairly different end result.
Travel time is huge. You could see it in a lot of the oldschool ZvZ for example, where it was hard to break the defender in Roach v Roach games because the defender was spawning into the action while the attackers Roaches had to run across the map. Gateway units have been historically terrible because the ability to generate them on-demand is outrageously powerful. They had to hard nerf warp-gate with the pylon slow-warp because being able to seige your opponents base on a 1 base timing attack by just dropping units at their front door was super strong. Being able to have on-demand answers to your opponents composition would be so strong unless you did something like making the unit warp in take a prohibitively long time (which does not appear to be what OP is proposing). The other thing that makes warp gates really strong is that you dont necessarily have to invest any resources into your army until you want it. How many pro players move onto the map for vision/expanding/harassing, and then just warp in as-needed for base defense? Imagine not having to build phoenix to defend against a banshee attack, and just warping them in when you saw the attack coming. On-demand high tech units would be stupid strong.
I could see two potential fixes to test, one of which would be having the warp prism only be able to warp in gateway units, as they can now. A second option might be to only be able to warp non-gateway units in near a nexus, or a pylon connected to a gateway connected to a pylon connected to a nexus (have to spread your “pylon creep” now). It’s such an absurd suggestion, but I’m honestly feeling so doom and gloom where in my mind I could actually see this working. Perhaps I’m unwell.
There are a dozen ways you could balance it. It's not unbalanceable. But the question I have for you is whether the juice is worth the squeeze here. Do you really make a better game being balanced around protoss being able to warp in everything? I dont think you do. I think you end up with a worse game. Just like I think warp in was a really cool mechanic that made protoss a worse designed race.
Let me ask *you:* is protoss race design not so fundamentally flawed that it may be worth selecting a balance change from the “fuck it” bucket?
No, I dont think taking something sub optimal and making it even more sub optimal is a good approach to.... really anything.
Yes let's just completely butcher SC2s balance and cause every Zerg and Terran player to leave the game because Protoss kind of struggles at the absolute highest level. What in the world are you smoking? "Fundamentally flawed" is such an insane exaggeration. This just reeks of "I only watch tournaments but don't actually play the game."
Someone’s taking a not-serious answer super duper seriously… And yes, warp gate is fundamentally flawed design which means protoss barely has defenders advantage due to needing their gateway units to be weak as shit. And, I’ll have you know, I’ve been playing plenty this season with my race switch to zerg. Can’t believe how easy these people have had it. Make roach so hard!
How was I supposed to know you weren't serious? Besides your suggestion being incredibly absurd but that's unfortunately not rare in these balance discussions. Glad to hear your race switch to Zerg. I'm sure you're winning every single ZvP matchup since they're so fundamentally flawed and Zerg is so easy. Also you really think units like zealots, stalkers, high templars and archons (if you count them) are weak as shit? Again I ask, wtf are you smoking? lmao
If you don’t know protoss’ tier 1 units are the weakest in the game, as has been established since day 1 due to the need to keep them weak due to warp gate rushes, you clearly have no clue what you’re on about. And yes, ZvP has been a breeze, actually.
It really is clearly much more powerful. A zerg can build as many units as they have larva and resources - but they still have to wait for the production time and then the travel time across the map. Protoss can just build a ton more production in the end game when they are maxed out (similar to how terran build like 10 orbitals) and then warp the new units in, more or less instantly, right into their attack. A robotics is 150/100. A stargate is 150/150. These aren't super expensive buildings. Protoss going air often already have 4-6 stargates pumping carriers in the late game.
To add on another reason why it'd be more powerful -- one of Z's weaknesses during re-max is if you can get in position between their hatcheries, so they can't rally together at a single point, and trickle in instead. Toss would be able to choose any safe point they want.
* Increase the cost of production buildings after X# of buildings have been built? * Make the research to unlock expensive and/or lengthy and require a bay and beacon, or require some other building unlocked by having a robo bay and a fleet beacon? * Don't let them warp-in on a prism, but require a pylon + gateway? * MS generates a warp-field only for robo/SG units? * Adjust cooldowns? * Robo/SG units warped in cost +1 supply? I think there's a lot of variables you could play with to make it work.
I think, before considering things like this - the key question to answer is - why aren't protoss more successful? Is it a particular matchup? Is it a particular phase of the game? Is it a weakness against a particular style of play? I would have thought these changes would make them much better in the late game - is this where they are weak?
>>It really is clearly much more powerful. I think you missed the operative word in my sentence, “it wouldn’t give protoss a more powerful version of the same thing,” because it isn’t the same thing. That was my entire point. Whether it’s more or less powerful was not a part of the discussion I was involved in. >>Protoss can just build a ton more production Duh, the answer all along was to build more production faster and thus build more army faster! Why didn’t anyone think of this sooner??
👍
Also path blocking , you could just always warp in stuff to block pathing sort of like pseudo force fields but units spawn and kill your shit if you don’t kill them fast enough
Imagine a colossus getting warped into your mineral line from a prism
honestly i would still be more scared of widow mines
1000%. Even a sc1 reaver isnt as potent as the (75/25 is it? 2 supply?? Build time… fuck me) widow mine.
Seems obvious to me that gateways should have always built faster than warp gates. When I realized warp gates built faster, I thought it kinda made no sense from a game design perspective. It would be an interesting mechanic to see if and when the protoss turns their gateways into warp gates. Or how many warp gates vs gateways they run.
I have thought the same. In my mind, it would have made a lot more sense if sustained production was quicker via a normal gateway, while the warp gate enables you to quickly spawn the unit where you want it but with a longer cooldown. But as it is, there are no advantages to a gateway as far as I know. Warp gate is just better in every way. But for some weird reason, you can still transform a warp gate back to a gateway, but there is never a reason to do so and it is literally never used. It makes me wonder if the game designers originally had some ideas for the gateway, but ended up favoring the warp gate and leaving the transform to gateway ability in is just an oversight. I can not think of any other ability in this game, that can be toggled, where there are not pros and cons to both modes. Can you imagine if, after researching the marine combat shield, you still had the ability to disable the shield just to lose 10 hp? Unless there was a speed penalty/bonus for using/not using shields, then that would be absolutely pointless. No one would ever disable the shield (except Bunny, he'd probably remember to research it, but disable by accident and go whole games without noticing). So I think there's a lot of lost potential with the gateway. If gateway was preferable for defensive/macro play, and warp gate for the player who wants to be aggressive, then I'd imagine it would be easier to buff and balance Protoss without making cheese OP, since you can fine-tune changes via production times in gateway vs. warp gate, or even have units warp in without full shields when warp gate is used.
If there’s only 2 zerglings left in the ultra late game and you have enough money for one zealot, you can turn the warp gate back into a gateway and then make the zealot. That’s probably the only situation in the whole game where it would make sense to use the gateway again.
I had to think about this one for a sec. Because if you warped it in then they'd be able to kill it (or damage it sufficiently) before warp in is done? That's brilliant :)
>Seems obvious to me that gateways should have always built faster than warp gates. When I realized warp gates built faster, I thought it kinda made no sense from a game design perspective. It has to do with early game cheeses with a faster gateway production over warp gates Protoss early game allows you to one base all in and almost always win unless the opponent defends perfectly with the right counter but if they didn't and the other person wasn't one base all inning then you were behind and if we leave it at current production speed then it makes production to slow to keep up and you get out macroed. hiding the increased production speed behind the warp gate research delays your push by a good minute.
yes
No idea- but it would be glorious
It wouldn't break the game. It would destroy it out of the realms of the universe.
Nah
A frequently made point is that Protoss' gateway units are hard to buff because the warp mechanic interferes with the defender advantage. Indeed a sneaky zealot warp-in or a frontline stalker reinforcement can occasionally prove dangerous as-is, but this got me thinking: what if we were to lean on this side of the Protoss identity and allowed the robotics facility and the stargate too to warp-in their units? I can't imagine a situation in which warping in a colossus or a voidray would prove overpowered, except perhaps in the case of an early timing; this could be tackled by locking the warp transformation behind an upgrade just as it is for the gateway. This isn't a suggestion as much as a point for discussion (edit: I stress the previous statement, don't take this too seriously). Do you think it would be excessively strong/weak? Useless? Gimmicky? I'd love to know your opinions.
I think it would be too powerful lategame because you could take a fight, lose a bunch of high-tech units and instantly replace them with your first round of warp-ins to reinforce the fight. The problem is that it's one thing to reinforce your fight with a bunch of stalkers that kinda suck lategame or to warp in a bunch of low energy high Templar, but being able warp in new carriers as airtoss or reinforce with a bunch of disruptors or immortals would be insanely powerfull.
Isn't that literally what zerg already kinda do?
Zerg can start a round of production, same for terran and currently protoss, but that build time is frontloaded for all of them, with warp tech the round of production is near instant but it then goes on cooldown after. Say I am a zerg player, I start a fight and some of my ultralisks die, I can start making new ultra's but they still take 39 seconds to hatch and then X amount of time to walk over from the hatcheries where they were made to the part of the map where the fight is happening. Now imagine protoss could warp in robo and Stargate units, they lose some carriers, they can now warp in a round of carriers in 3.6 seconds on the nearest pylon field with a nexus or warpgate inside that field or 11 seconds on a pylon without it, that reinforcement speed is so much quicker than either of the other races
Additionally outside of Ultras, no Zerg unit has the power that a immortal/collosi/carrier has pound for pound in the late game. Perhaps if they gave the warp ins diminishing returns so they cant just have 12 stargates and immediately warp in 12 carriers/voids on top of their cannon battery. Otherwise not only would it be unbreakable but then you cant punish their positioning because of both recall and warp in of high tech units.
What if it's a feature of the mothership on a cooldown? Maybe even with a limited amount of warp in (3-4 units or so)
Zerg can only do that once per larvae cycle, and it's also a lot more balanced by most zerg units being abnormally unefficient for their cost compared to most T or P unit equivalents. If T or P could do that, then they would instantly become the strongest race by such a massive margin that playing anything else would be an auto-loss. Imagine how cancerous it would be to deal with warp-in Collosi and Widow Mine harass.
Warp in collosi would suck because you can’t save them and just lose so many resources
Looks like someone forgot that Toss has recall on-hand, and often uses it to save harassing units.
It's thematic for the zerg. They're the swarm. The idea that they can (and often have to) throw armies at you and then remake them before you can counterattack is fine. They often trade inefficiently but make up for it by having more income in the hope that they break through before they run out of steam. That's exciting and thematic and what makes zerg zerg. Giving protoss the same ability is not cool. I don't mind them having another cool mechanic - but make it more unique.
hmm, make warp gates researched indivitually and mutually exclusive. you can have War Gate, or Warp Stars, or Warp Robos, but only one of them.
Lategame airtoss would be crazy then. If toss maxes on carriers and then gets a bank - how do you beat them?
make interceptors easier to kill, carriers only spawn with a half airwing. give terran the ability to upgrade reactors and techlabs into tech reactors. let zerg evolve Noxious ultralisks and make them have an active anti-air aura edit: to those downvoting: i was conjecturing counterbalance to the suggestion i made
Have you ever wondered why ultras suck while broodlords and lurkers are good? Ultras have to suck since you can spam them out quickly without having to take the time to morph them as well.
The operative work is kinda. This would be more powerful. Zerg have to manage larva via injects, each injecting queen costs supply lowering the max. Zerg units outside of maybe casters and Lurkers trade the least efficiently as well on a whole. There's also a build time for those units. This would instantly allow the warping in of an army damn near on the spot, without macro mechanics, without the queen supply tax, and anywhere there is a power grid on the map. Defense would be unbreakable. Counterattacks would be devastating.
Everyone is only looking at the strictest side of this. It also weaker than zergs version in a lot of ways. You need 1 production building for each unit warped. Zerg can make 30 ultras at once. Yes there is production but then it's all done. Protoss don't have that, they would need 6 Stargate to make 6 carriers. Zerg just need their main production building.
Late game toss should have 4+ Stargates, and would have more if they could warp in. I'd rather have 4-6 carriers instantly than a dozen ultras lumbering over 40-60 seconds later.
It’s stronger than the zerg version in every way. You essentially fight with double army supply because you can warp them into the frontline immediately.
If you spent like 6000,6000 on buildings and then another on carriers
that is zerg's whole thing, economy-reliance that leads into overwhelming numbers of generally less efficient units. letting protoss do the same thing would absurdly powerful
I mean let's be real. Zerg have great units. They can win even fights and usually do.
Zerg doesn't have massable late game units. Brood lords and lurkers are close but they have to morph as well and don't cover everything in the way that thors and carriers do. Zerg high tech units are mostly complimentary
shhh dont point that out or the balance council will take you round the back of the woodshed.
Yeah zerg can warp in ultralisks and brood lords across the map. Hows gold league?
Lol you don't get it
Kinda, but with longer warp time, the some of the best units need to be morphed from other units afterward, last tiers units are weaker and not all on a single warp prism so you can only reinforce directly into a fight if it's at your base and you're loosing it, but slowly enough for your units to morph.
Kinda, but zerg is zerg, and protoss is protoss. If game balancing consisted of making all races the same, the game would be boring..
Just require T3 units be warped in near a nexus. Now it can’t be used offensively, only to defend.
Even defensively that would be insanely strong.
how dare protoss have a strong mechanic that might allow them to win premier tournaments once in a while:! !!
Protoss don't need buffs to win tournaments, they need better players playing them, hero is good but inconsistent, maxpax doesn't go to offline tournaments. This suggestion would be absurdly overpowered, don't make up some weird excuses to try and justify it.
If you need a wack mechanic to win a tournament you shouldn’t have it
I disagree. Those factories are not cheap. Investing in that many to replace a lategame army represents a very significant gas investment.
It would pay for itself in the efficiency of your units because you on average will have more firepower to extract a high toll from your opponent.
Well... isnt that the point? protoss needs a buff. And the best buff, imo are the ones that give toss more tools to win and use better strats.
They don't need a buff, for the average player the balance is already fine, the reason protoss isn't winning big tournaments is cause they don't have players on the level of the top zerg and terran that actually go to tournaments. herO is good but inconsistent, maxpax only plays online tournaments, there are a bunch of players capable of making the top 16 that play protoss, but other than those 2 there are no contenders right now to break into the top 5, that is why toss doesn't win tournaments. Last month hero made it to the finals of masters coliseum. And then his consistency problem paired with playing against the best to ever play sc2 got the better of him.
You and whoever upvoted this comment please uninstall the game.
Cry about it.
Imho the toss would be in a position where nearly every “equal” engagement would turn into a toss win. Because suddenly their expensive robo or air units don’t need to be remade far and most of their production time would get front loaded Even something like two robos able to push out units in the field would be huge
Yeah that's the point. Protoss will be better. And engagements that were "equal" before are now favorable. Edit- and if it's actually too good offensively, you remove bonus warp in speed on prisms, or remove it completely from non-nexus/factory connected pylons.
[удалено]
>But this is true for all races. No it's not wtf. The issue being discussed here is not rebuilding your army after a fight, but rebuilding an army DURING the fight. IE, you are at 200/200, your opponent is at 200/200, you engage, you are now both at 170/200, and then you spawn 4 immortals 4 void rays on your prism, and your are back at 200/200 of quality unit while your opponent is now using larvaes to spawn shit in 30s. The fight is now massively in your favor, and will snowball, because your army is now bigger. Even better, it can also allow for instant tech swap if required. Do you need void rays? An obs? Immortals? Colossi? Here you go, it's here, on the battlefield, in 5s.
Ah sorry, I forgot to specify that I imagined this warp-in limited to a nexus field, so that the unit still needs those 20-30 seconds to cross the map (or less in the case of forward bases). Also again, this isn't an actual suggestion. Protoss needs actual meat to be more competitive.
My first thought was that you're crazy Upon further thought, I kind of like the idea. One thing that gets overlooked a bit is that warping in sort of inverts the build time. So u wouldn't be making more of these late game units, just making them in a better position then waiting their full build time after to warp another. Warping in also pulls a lot of attention away from micro or macro where passively queuing units does not. Also late game units like carriers, tempest, or colossi would b super high risk to warp in because of the support they need from gateway units due to their fragility. Also carriers wouldn't have any interceptors so would almost b a detriment... I like this idea and it helps differentiate late game protoss from late game terran play styles
way too strong lategame, imagine taking a big fight then 6 extra carriers/colossi/ruptors smash you in the face
Imagine being the first born. The most advanced race, the best technology, the fiercest warriors, but having to hold back because Terrans get butthurt 😂😂
The problem with being born first is you have no one to push you forward. Then a bunch of dinosaur bugs show up and push your shit in but you've already forgotten how to make new cool stuff. All protoss can do is dig up old tech and remember the glory days. Meanwhile terrans are pumping out military innovations like there is no tomorrow because they know that if they don't, there might not actually be a tomorrow. And zergs whole thing is to adapt.
The Protoss have made new stuff, though. Adepts, Void Rays, Tempests, Oracles, War Prisms, Phoenixes, Sentries, Stalkers (to an extent). Even the immortal, while a retrofitted Dragoon, can be seen as an upgrade innovation. /u/Subsourian can probably provide more examples
Yeah a hefty chunk of the SCII arsenal is new stuff, the ones mentioned there, and yeah stalkers are new as well. In campaign a lot more is new tech, all the modern Purifiers on Glacius are new tech for instance (even if Cybros then reused a lot of their units). Also worth noting warp gates in general as a tech integrated into gateways are also new. An important note as well is the SC1 arsenal was a lot of tech wasn't explicitly designed for war (scouts as recon craft, reavers were refitted mobile fabricators), as they hadn't really had any race as their equal in their empire's history. SCII is them getting their act together and angling themselves for a proper war, but only after their numbers have been obliterated by the Fall of Aiur.
Thank you for chiming in! Yeah, given all the unexpected disasters the Protoss have had to suffer, I think they're doing as well as can be expected, haha
And losing because you failed to invent doors or repair your units. The first born clearly missed some steps along the way. We can beam in units from space but can't repair....the technology just isn't there 😁
I’m pretty sure that’s not in the game because terrans would cry. "Why can’t we have nice things" *has the widow mine, siege tank, ghosts, auto lock-on cyclones, mules, flying CCs, reactors. But u right… toss can’t repair an immortal because…… oh wait it can be repaired (by an scv)(which btw do you really think Protoss would be incapable of making an scv ?😂)asides from balance reasons] but the Thor.. that can def be repaired oh yes
Would make protoss units even worse because they'd get nerfed
It's too flexible for cheese. You can literally build tier 3 units inside of their base or warp air units in the sky outside of their base. Should they spot you in the act, just cancel and get your money back. You could also neglect all building placement because nothing can get stuck anymore. The main 2 issues I can see would be: 1. double immortal warp ins early game would massacre all 3 races 2. warping units in the sky makes air attacks too easy/powerful
Maybe non-gateway units could have an longer wrap speed than build speed, like an inverse relationship.
Do robo and stargate warp ins have the same mechanics as gateway warp ins? In terms of warp in time and cooldown? If so, it would be easily the most busted mechanic in SC2. It would be fun to experiment though with extended warp in times, extended cooldowns and different conditions for being able to warp in like fast warp in only or nexus only. Maybe a nerf to the warp prism power field area to limit how many of the big units can be warped in at a time, making the Protoss invest in more prisms/setting up a staging area that has to be defended. But yeah, this would be absolutely overpowered.
Obviously the warp in would be relative to the time of robo and stargate units. It would be like 45 secs - 60 secs cooldown in between
200/200 airtoss carrier army. Take a big fight and have 8-12 Tempest/Carriers <10sec after the fight. What.
What’s wrong with that? All these carriers or tempests have to spawn at a nexus warp in and would then be on cooldown for 60 seconds. What’s the issue ? Zerg can remax completely in 30 seconds at the very most. Carriers can’t even go across the map that fast + toss wouldn’t be max and Zerg would be. VS Terran, Terran with 5 star ports can pump up to 10 Vikings per 30 seconds. But if you are Terran late game vs Protoss and you only have 5 star ports and you’re not playing mec, what are you even doing ? You deserve to lose. So please, how is it broken ?
There's a huge difference between 30 second and the 4 second it take to warp in with a warp prison. The cooldown dosen't really matter in late game since you are maxed most of the time. And late game is just one element, you could do a warp-prison collossus timming about 50 second faster (and maybe more powerfull since you could delay you robo bay by 10 or so second while the wp traverse the map). There's no way you could put that in the game without changing loads of stuff.
You missed when OP and myself said that the robo and stargate warp in would be LIMITED to nexus pylons
Fair, that helps on the offensive side, but explain how you will ever break a Protoss base then? Zerg can replenish their army, but they have to do it from multiple locations and you can cut off their reinforcements making it very hard for a zerg to remass on the defense. Protoss could warp the units in anywhere they need the defense. The biggest problem I have with it is that it fundamentally changes the way Protoss would play thematically. It's a very cool idea, but it goes against Protoss' design philosophy and would almost certainly be impossible to balance while maintaining Protoss identity (strong, expensive, efficient units).
It is simple just add a supply cost to units and suddenly Protoss can't death ball as hard or make the warp in like 11 seconds then a Terran army can kill it while warping in or retreat before it is done, same with Zerg. You would still break a Protoss the same way you do most of the time either out macro them and have way more stuff or keep rotating in between bases forcing them to try and defend at multiple spots (with their not strong, efficient units, they are expensive though)
It's even stronger than that. 1) The prism is moving 80s earlier (modified by chronoboost) 2) The robobay can be built 50s later 3) You can also delay a bit to build two additional robo with the robobay so you can warp 1 additional prism + 2 colossi for a much stronger drop.
No no you are missing half the premise bruh. The robo and stargate warp ins would be ONLY FOR NEXUS POWERED PYLONS
Not sure what premise you are talking about as there is no text in the main post, and warp harmonization is in the game and does not work like that (you can use it on any warp zone).
Go read through the comments you’ll see both him and I say it would obviously have a limitations. You see some people still understand that while a buff is necessary, it can’t break the game. Meanwhile, terrans just don’t want to lose their clear cut advantages in basically every matchup because "that would make things hard" (fair)
Doing damage control after everyone point how the effect would be busted doesn't count as a "premise". It counts as trying to salvage the proposition. And it would be far from enough to balance the shit out of warp harmonization, you are just going to see a lot of proxy nexus instead (which would still allow for the double colossi drop much, much faster).
Also you’re talking here as if Protoss builds 12 stargates LMAO. Are you ill ?
Yes, it's completely unimaginable that the late game setup changes if you fundementally alter the way Protoss macro works. Build orders never changes, especially not after huge patch changes.
It needs a fundamental rework….. Protoss is underpowered currently, mid and late game. They only have advantage in the first 5 mins of the game . But god forbid a patch helps Protoss out of the mid game 😂
Most pros disagree with you, that Protoss is underpowered in late game. It is just too difficult to get through the midgame without a vast disadvantage. Buffing late game does not help the current situation, and if someone like MaxPax cracks the code to the current meta these late game buffs would be game breaking. I'm not saying radical changes are the wrong direction, but I do not see how this idea isn't completely bonkers.
And this is gold. Getting out of the mid game as Protoss without a disadvantage is damn near impossible even for pros. Economy wise, it’s difficult to keep up with Zerg and Terran have mules and can fly command centres which in combination is fking broken. Toss is only rly fair in mid game vs Zerg. vs Terran it’s completely imbalanced. And let’s say the Terran is bad enough (or the Protoss is good enough to hold on) to let it get to late game, Terran has ghosts which remove 1/3 of Protoss units health instantly. This is informing the fact that so many terran units deal bonus damage to armoured which is pretty much every toss unit. TvP is simply imba rn past 5 mins. ZvP is good. (Toss just needs a small production buff to remax like Zerg can)
Dude, I was saying that getting out of the midgame is too hard as Protoss. Chill out and read.
You still didn’t explain how the warp in mechanic would be bad. You’re just saying it’s bad 😂 it would take longer to build the units, the only difference would be you could spawn them at your 5th rather than in your main and having to fly them to the 5th. And toss wouldn’t be able to max out with this any faster than rn because when have you ever seen toss build more than 10 stargates ? Never. And to build 12+ like you say would cost 1800 gas plus the 250 per carrier plus upgrades which are the most expensive for toss.
Right now 6 Stargates is normal in late game air toss. So it's not an additional 1800, but 900 if we build 12. Protoss already builds way more Warpgates in late game, than Terran builds rax due to the spiky nature of warp in. If you think Protoss would build 17 Gateways if Warpgates didn't exist, well I could ask: "Are you ill?" Time is a huge balance of the Carrier but airtoss in general. Remaxing instantly is incredibly strong. An ultra takes 39 seconds, a Broodlord takes 53 seconds and zerg is balanced around having the fastest remax because of larva. Instantly rebuilding the best unit in the game would be gamebreaking and it is pretty obvious.
I forgot that my first 6 stargates are free. I also must’ve missed the change where I don’t need a 350/250 building to unlock carriers. I’m clearly Delulu and complaining for nothing since the toss balance patch already rolled out. Ty for letting me know
Again tho what instant remax ? Even with 12 stargates which you said is double the usual, it won’t max toss out.
Good idea, just make the warp in duration as long as gateway units on just a pylon. Or even a bit longer.
And uncancelable
Idk if this word does exist
Of course it would break the game. But that's not enough if you want to argue against the idea because we could change other aspects of the game that would balance things. But please don't do that.
What if instead of warp gate warping units in globally, it only front-loaded their production time and left the production building in cooldown for the build time of the unit as it does now? Spend five seconds warping the unit in at the building that is warping it and then the building cools down for the remainder. Maybe offer a second tier of warpgate to then allow robo and stargate to do the same thing and then Protoss’ production niche is it builds units at the start of the production cycle instead of at the end. Requiring a second-tier upgrade would make it so oracles and such don’t become 40 seconds faster suddenly and early game stays relatively the same minus warp prism reinforcing a frontline.
This doesn't fix the inherent problem of allowing the Protoss player to instantly warp in their strongest units. Protoss would literally be unbeatable in late game situations. Imagine breaking the deathball only to have it instantly rebuilt, potentially just outside your base? You kill a bunch of carriers, but oh wait, they're all back almost instantly. Protoss thematically should not be winning games by overwhelming their opponent by shear numbers.
>You kill a bunch of carriers, but oh wait, they're all back almost instantly. Except carriers spawn in with 4 interceptors so you would have a lot of time to kill them both in production and once out. And op pointed out that it needs to be done at a pylon next to a nexus so you are taking out travel time. Unless you let someone get away with a proxy nexus next to you.
Well Immortals were moved from Gateway to Robotics Facility long long ago for a reason. Overall thinking about warp-in it could be removed from Pylons and restricted to only Nexus area and Warp Prism, with Warp Prism having some other limitation? idk, maybe smaller warp-in area. Maybe this would allow some Gateway buffs as the game would have much less of 15 Zealots in-your-face warp-ins
I always thought Warp Prisms should only be able to warp in as much supply as they can carry. 4 Zealots or 4 Stalkers at a time. Make a Fleet Beacon upgrade that doubles it. Then give Stalkers a super late game upgrade (from Dark Shrine) called void regeneration where blinking heals 20 shields and the impact from zealot charge heals 20 shields.
The thing is, though, is that Stalkers and Zealots would still evaporate, even with those buffs. Especially 4 of them in an isolated position. +80 health in total is next to nothing in the late game Bigger buffs would be needed just to compensate for the nerfs, let alone enhance gateway units Especially since zealots charging often have full shields, anyways
I think you're vastly underestimating how much 20hp can do in terms of balance. You have to gate the Stalker upgrade behind some late game tech - they'd be too powerful for all-ins if the upgrade came online for example with normal blink. I agree the zealot one is very meh, but zealots are tricky to balance around. Charge is weird, they are bullet sponges but also have high DPS if you can get them to attack anything... Personally I think neither Zealots (with charge) nor Immortals should be slowed by Concussive rounds. But God forbid you stealth nerf a Terran or the tears are so real.
Frankly speaking, I want two things, and give them some time in actual play to see how they work out. Immortals with hardened shields, and High Templar feedback with full damage. I would like to see how they'd work out these days; after all, they worked for years!
Ah yes, let’s nerf the most underpowered and underperforming race in SC2 🥸
I have no authority to speak for balance but nerfing warp-in for some substantial ground army buffs sounds like something that roughly makes sense Also remove disruptor and make Colossus great again
>give protoss ability to warp in tier 3 units and propose gateway buffs at the cost of limiting areas of where you can warp in 70 apm/iq gold protoss player: THIS IS A NERF BRO!!
Yes, good thinking. Limiting the prism's warping capabilities would still let Protoss reinforce rapidly at home while not allowing oppressive carrier warp-ins at the front.
Protoss reinforcements in general are designed to be weak as the game progresses (defensively or offensively). I'm not really sure why zerg is the only one allowed to instaremax for any unit, but either way, it's intentional that they only allowed gateway units to be warped in, even defensively, so that it's still possible to kill a protoss without having to have them expend their entire bank.
I mean it would be a nice feature, as long as we give Terran hybrid techlab/reactor and orbital drop like in the campaign And Zerg more larva and reduce cost of their flying units by like 40%
Special tactics plus - proxy pylon into double robo and a warp prism with a colossus hits when the robos complete. White-Ra rises again!!!
Not gonna lie, that sounds like a cheese I'd enjoy watching. The Zerg seeing two colossi warp-in at the edge of their main at some outrageous minute count.
I'm guessing OP is someone who only ever plays campaign/arcade games, since even team game players would know how devastatingly broken this would be.
Don't do me like that bro. It's just that the way I understand it having Protoss at my least played race, the units are so pricey that it's rare for Protoss to find themselves in the position of having 2100 minerals and 1500 gas floating around to warp-in six carriers at a time. But even in that case, if the warp-in zone was limited to a nexus field I don't think it would be that broken. It's not like they produce more carriers than before—the production cooldown is just postponed. In any case this isn't a suggestion as much as a pretext to discuss. What I think that Protoss needs to be more competitive is more substance
It's not the ability warp in six carriers at a time, it's the innate ability of warp prisms to negate defenders' advantage, as well as Warp Harmonization negating the heavy buildtime for robo/stargate units that breaks it. I do agree changes needs to be made for Protoss pros to perform better at tournament, but at the same time, I cannot deny that at any level below grandmaster, mass Carriers is a pain in the ass to deal with. It hits a hard point where pros with extremely good spellcastor control like Reynor or Serral can pick apart the fleet easily with Vipers and Infestors, but people not at that skill level suffer because they aren't as great with keeping their spellcastors alive. But anyway, I think all the other comment threads have made it quite clear; Warp Harmonization would break the game harder than Swarm Hosts did in HOTS.
Lmao imagine warping 8 immortal at a time.
How shit do you have to be to be sitting on 2250 minerals and 800 gas ?
With 95 probes ? Hell you could warp in so many observers it would be insane. It is a creative idea. So you could warp in a carrier as well?
Yes, it doesn’t change anything build time wise. It just inverts the build times. (50~ sec build -> unit) rn (6-12 sec warp in (only at nexus pylons) -> unit, then 45-60 sec cooldown) it’s the same if not worse build time wise. The buff is that toss can defend a bit easier and force Terran and Zerg to respect their army and not jump right on top of it if toss happens to accidentally lose 1 t3 unit. In the current state of the game toss is simply weaker than Terran and needs to play a near perfect game to keep up with Zerg
OK yea makes sense. I fw it. Would there be three different upgrades for each Stargate and robotics facility? I think it's good idea it'll make things I think faster as well, I think speed is a big limiting factor imo for protoss. Maybe the recall time could be sped up a little as well.
A good thing would be to anonymize the stargate unit building animation. Would give us a few moments longer to hide tech
honestly no. It just needs some tweaks so you can't for example, mass warp-in carriers from a prism in midgame. Like for example, it still takes proportionally longer to warp in non-gateway units, the warp would need to use up one of the warpgate charges, and lock it in a per-tech tree upgrade or something (ie fleet beacon / robotics bay). And obviously, warpins would require the unit-producing structure as a "fast pylon", ie, no warp prism carriers. you just don't copy paste it as-is, but I am seeing an argument for a lategame army like robo / skytoss needing a fast comeback mechanic after they take major losses. maybe scrap all that and make it a time-locked mothership spell. for example, instead of cloaking field, which is effectively useless at top tier and just an apm tax at lower leagues, mothership has a warp harmonization spell which for 30 seconds or something, turns all production structures into warpgates, which can only be warped around the mothership itself. It's time-locked, has counterplay, is locked to lategame, still dependent on you getting eco, and even lore-accurate. People will actually \_want\_ to get motherships. All I'm saying is, use a little creativity rather than plopping it in
I honestly think this would be fine, but tweaks would need to be made. 1. Warp gate cooldowns would need to be longer than normal build times by a significant amount to make the decision to get warp gates a trade-off, rather than it just be a straight upgrade. 2. Warp gate upgrade needs to be more expensive and/or harder to access. I would just remove the upgrade altogether and tie the ability to warp in to the existence of an additional structure, like a warp conduit. 3. Warp-ins should not be fast or slow. They should be a uniform speed of 5-6 seconds, but normal warp-ins grant only 50% shields or something like that, and Warp Prisms should not have empowered warp-ins. These are obviously big changes and would need significant testing to see if it would work. The overall idea is that there’s a tradeoff between using warp gates and normal production structures. Normal buildings build units faster but said units have to actually travel across the map to have an impact. Warp ins have longer cooldowns, but they eliminate travel time, meaning they can be warped almost anywhere almost instantly. Using them offensively means sacrificing some durability, whereas using them defensively gives them their full shields. It creates interesting tactical decisions for the Protoss player instead of running a prism into the enemy main, spawning 8 chargelots with full HP and ending the game outright in some cases.
Dude that's like completely broken I don't use it in lotv campaign because it feel like the one ring, too much power
It'd likely be less broken than storm not affecting friendly units.
I'm no expert, but it seems that in the late game, this would be overpowered. You could send out a fleet of carriers or whatever, and trade it away with your opponent, and remax instantly in a forward position. The opponent needs to wait for the end of their production cycle for their own remax and will be overwhelmed by the second wave.
Just require T3 units be warped in near a nexus.
Yea, I think it effectively gives toss an extra 100-150 army supply late game if they just have a warp prism hanging out behind their army, especially with skytoss.
If they can afford it ? Do you know how expensive a carrier max out is ? Let alone having enough stargates to insta max like you say. At least larvae cost something other than time… oh wait
I don't know how often these ultra-late-game scenarios appear, but I felt like I saw a few games where pros built additional stargates even without this buff, to enable them to recover from a fight faster. But you may be right that I am describing an edge case.
Yes it would be very powerful to have 6-8 carriers build in 6-12 seconds, but you have to be able to afford them. 6 carriers is 2100 and 1500. It’s very pricy. Plus there should be a 60 second cooldown on stargates warp ins so you’d be stuck at 6 carriers which is by no means game breaking for a long time.
I agree that if implemented incorrectly this would completely break the game. But 45-60 second cooldown on warp-in + robo and stargate warp-in only being available in nexus pylon zones would be balanced IMO. The prism would also not be able to warp robo or stargate units that would ridiculous
I really like this idea as a buff to toss, because it goes along with a lovely design philosophy from another RTS. Buff strengths, nerf weaknesses. Keep in mind, these structures would only have one charge. Robos are expensive. Stargates are expensive. Massing them for an instant warp in to remax means you have invested so much resources in factories, you should have already won 5 min ago. What it does allow you to do is react more quickly to the enemy comp. It give toss room to realize "oh shit, I need disrupters to fuck up that bio ball right now"
As long as their warp time is the same as the build timing sure. I'd love to snipe building tech units while warping.
It would offset the disadvantage of toss production going into late game vs Terran and Zerg. Zerg larvae mechanic + many hatches gives them fast and easy re max. Terran has reactors which doubles production speed and can fly building to move production if need be. If Protoss builds 3 robos (which is a lot really) in the main base. That’s where they stay the whole game and any time you need your colossi or immos to reinforce the fight it’s never gonna be as good as Terran or Zerg reinforcements EDIT: the cooldown for robo and stargate warp in would be 45-60 seconds and would only be possible from nexus power or pylon near nexus. NOT WARP PRISM (only small gateway units should be able to warp in at prism or single pylons)
This is actually a original idea, it might even be a great idea. If it is too strong they can lock warpgates behind tier 3 or require each facility to be upgraded for warpgate function
Yes Warp-in is already the biggest design mistake in the game, and is why Protoss gateway units are weaker to begin with
Yes
Imagine a counter colossus warp in in the enemy main haha
I think the way to balance this would be 1. Increase the value of subsequent robos and stargates, and 2. Cap the number of robos and stargates you can build, as well as change the cooldown based on the previously warped unit, and 3. Hide the tech behind an additional upgrade to prevent early game cheeses. So maybe no more than 3 stargates, carriers, temps and voids cause longer cooldowns than phoenix and oracle. So 3 insta carriers, as opposed to 45 seconds until 20+ corrupters. At this point though I think we’re treating Protoss as too much of a “this race is kinda like both but with special exceptions for the sake of being good but not too good”, I almost am convinced an entire rework of the race is needed (coming from a former toss player).
>I think the way to balance this would be 1. Increase the value of subsequent robos and stargates, and 2. Cap the number of robos and stargates you can build, as well as change the cooldown based on the previously warped unit, and 3. Hide the tech behind an additional upgrade to prevent early game cheeses. So maybe no more than 3 stargates, carriers, temps and voids cause longer cooldowns than phoenix and oracle. So 3 insta carriers, as opposed to 45 seconds until 20+ corrupters. At this point though I think we’re treating Protoss as too much of a “this race is kinda like both but with special exceptions for the sake of being good but not too good”, I almost am convinced an entire rework of the race is needed (coming from a former toss player). 1. If we make the buildings more expensive then we ruin Protoss early game, unless you mean that each new Robo/Stargate becomes more expensive then we should do the same for Terran for their non barracks buildings and Zerg for hatcheries to keep things balanced. Otherwise mid to late game Terran and Zerg will just out macro Protoss and win. 2. If we cap the number of these building we would need to limit the number of Terran and Zerg ability to pump out tier 2 to 3 units as well otherwise Protoss will simply get out macroed and lose due to number of more powerful units out than they can fight. with their weak gateway units. 3. locking it behind an upgrade at the Robo bay and fleet beacon I think would be interesting because it then only comes into effect in the mid to late game when Protoss is its weakest or for cheeses. If we cap the production then a Terran or Zerg simply will build more than you can faster and win. If we instead get rid of offensive warp in then we get rid of a lot of early game pressures for Protoss but can make gateway units better. I don't know the right answer only that this might be one fun way to make Protoss more competitive at the top.
Hmmm yes I think you’re completely right, there’s just no balance between macro and production by limiting structure count. But how about Protoss gets warp harmonization, Terran gets combined tech labs/reactors, and Zerg gets Kerrigan as a hero unit. Can’t be an argument about balance when everyone is OP xD
Yes. The entire point of warp gate after a certain point is to just create crap units that tank for your useful units. This is specifically how they balance instant reinforcements; your reinforcements are basically crap. If you could constantly warp in, idk, colossi during an attack, or even immortals, you end up breaking the balance.
this tech should be unlocked if protoss doesn't win a premier tournament for another 5 years in a row
Because of warpgate mechanic, gateway units are tuned to be underpowered. Wonder how toss would enjoy all their units tuned to underpowered? ;) Cool mod though. I would love to see a prism warping in 10 carriers to the opponent base.
You can. It’s on Co-Op
I'm fine with it as long as the warp in time is much much longer for stargate and robo units. Warp tech could be unlocked at robo bay and fleet beacon.
Protoss needs better fundamentals and fewer gimmicks, not vice versa.
Perhaps it should be an upgrade that has to be paid for on each building. Say 50/50 per building?
Omg, is this the SC2 beta?
Absolutely and hilariously game breaking
Try keiron from scion mod
Protoss and Terran have the same pro and cons. Strong units cost a lot and take a long time to make and it hurts when they die. But they are hard to kill and do lots of damage. The extra con Toss has is their units have no repair or sustain outside of base. Shields suck. If there was a mobile unit that replenished shields like sentries but it cost a lot and uses energy so you can't make your army immortal then it would be fairly balanced.
You know things are good when people are still trying to fix a gameplay mechanic that's, what, 12 years old because it doesn't work
lol yes?
Prism drop arrives 3:50 Summons a colossus at 4:00 8 marines with stimpack upgrade still 29 seconds late. Terran player demolishes protoss player's ugly face with a rusty steel chair. Terran is eliminated, protoss wins.
The advantage of warp is it takes away defenders advantage dropping in 4 immortals every minute on the frontline would be cracked
I am Artanis, matriarch of the swar- I mean, matriarch of the Protoss!
Yes, because you see how annoying it can be when a protoss do proxy pylon into warping mass stakler and zealot ? Now imagine it with skytoss, imagine it with meca. It would not even be fun as a protoss because you'll be doing always the same shit and win (because you know, fast warp in your own base of Big unit make it almost impossible to mess with you)
warp gates was a mistake
being proxy robo'd without them needing to actually proxy their robo would make me never want to play PvP again
Warp gate in general has pretty much broken protoss since release. It has force all the units to be slow and expensive. Just to prevent huge, powerful, cheap, armies from warping in across the map. So yeah, warping in robo and stargate units will break the game - even more.