I would like to address my main concerns about the current state of LotV for all races including input from other high level players. I would also like to comment the good things I hope stays with the release.
I am not going to repeat this for each point I make so bear with me; everything I say here is as objective/non-biased as possible and I am arguing mostly for the case of protoss changes for further testing. To the best of my ability I will try to argue why these changes are good for everyone - be it the casual or professional player.
I will address each situation and/or unit(s) seperately.
**Ravager spell damage to buildings.**
I think the ravager already fills out multiple roles. It is able to kill overlords, defend versus liberators, snipe forcefields and add in a reasonable amount of dps for its´ cost. Personally I believe the unit in various allin situations is a bit too strong, but even if it is not, the damage forces protoss players to go for gateway oriented openers without early walls plus terran lacking the same ability to wall off as well ala HotS style.
I think it is reasonable to completely remove or nerf the ravager spell damage to structures to 10 or maybe 20.
**The Adept**
The adept is undoubtedly the strongest unit in the protoss arsenal right now. Period. And it gets even stronger with the next patch with a damage buff. Most high level players agree that something needs to be done.
How does the adept serve a good purpose:
- It allows protoss players to compensate with the hard-time-expanding by having a strong anti-light unit (vs mainly marines and zerglings) to establish a strong early/midgame.
- It allows for some map control and scouting, and the strength of the unit may even allow protoss player to kill walling as it is simply that strong plus, of course, the fact that ravagers and drops are counter strategies to walls (drops being moved to lair ignored here.)
- The adept transitions badly from mid to lategame, typically if both players in a PVZT matchup proceed to 3-3 and lategame. Chargelots, even without buff, definitely trades better than adepts in almost any situation.
Now the bad things:
- In PvP, the adept is simply so strong that you almost can not avoid opening it and harass with it. Regardless of how your opposing protoss player opens, denying harass is next to impossible. Even throughout the midgame, their ranged attack versus zealots makes them a counter to even the buffed chargelots. It is not uncommon to see games in pvp that essentially consists of only mass adept versus mass adept in the early and middle stages of the game. While PvP otherwise excels well with great interaction in the mid/lategame, the fact that you can not properly wall off against adepts unless you do pylon cancel strategies feels gimmicky.
- Adept versus adept interactions are TERRIBLE. Imagine this situation. You have 30 adepts, and your enemy is attacking with 30 adepts. It is a two-versus-two base situation. He attacks your natural and starts shading to your main. You immediately react to shade to your main as well while trading. At the very last second your opponent cancels his shades. Congratulations defendor, you now have less than a millisecond plus whatever lag you have to cancel as well or you will lose your entire mineral line and the game. This is baaaaaad people. baaaaaaaad.
This is one of many examples showing why the shades are bad and why I think it is not too moronic of an idea to completely remove the adepts´ ability to teleport while leaving the shade alone.
- TvP: Prisms and generally versus terran, the very offensive adept is difficult to deal with for terran. However, once you get to 3-3, the adept becomes extremely weak. Luckily for protoss, this does not really happen.
- ZVP: Adepts are impossible to avoid opening in this matchup since you mostly have to do damage to compete with zerg. Forgeexpands are dead due to the strength of the ravager and lack of production. Anyway adepts are strongest at harassing in this matchup by far so why not open them.
Further addressing the problem:
In PVP and PVZ, adepts are waaaay too spotlighted. I feel while adepts might be a bit too strong in both matchups, I think it is indeniable that the weaknesses of other protoss units are overlooked. The voidray and carrier has suffered a lot with chronoboost removal (and now nerf) but even with the chronoboost, voidrays and immortals are not even trading at their cores better than adepts in almost every early and midgame situation. This can include the carrier as well. At this stage it is impossible to nerf the adept without risking these other units being too weak. When you buff these other weak units, like the void ray, you risk proxy stargates being too strong. The middle road here should be "neutral" buffs. Voidrays and immortals should get a movement speed buff, for example, but I will get back to that in a bit.
To me, there are two ways the adept should change for further testing.
1. Remove the teleport the shade ability and instead buff the shade and make the adept a scouting/core protoss unit, especially now that sentries are played much less.
2. Make units able to block the shade so you can do regular structure+unit wallins.
I personally go for option 2 first.
Other players like morrow suggests that the adept should be less tanky and do more dps. While I like this idea, the dps buff should not be more than it still two-shots workers. I would like to see a damage change from maybe 23-10 to 20-14 similar to the roach so that it also deals better in all-around engagements as well. Perhaps do this alongside a health nerf.
**The Sentry**
This unit was all and everything for protoss in WoL and HotS. In LotV it is a DEAD unit.
With the very low attack speeds or damage (adept immortal disruptor storm) for most protoss units, sentries are essentially dead in pvp for other than scouting when really heavily relying on gas.
For PVZ you obviously do not waste 100 gas into sentries.
For PVT you obviously neither waste a 100 gas into sentries.
What is the best way to address this problem and test it further?
I think the sentry should have a cost reduction to 50 minerals and 50 gas while MAYBE removing an existing spell and replace it with an AOE detection spell (hots revelation or sentry ward type) to help oracle openers versus for example 1 base ghost allin in PVT or when you somehow need to defend vs dts or lurkers in PVZ. This can help protoss not babysitting one oracle for an entire game. There are other solutions to the oracle detection problem of course.
Too much detection? consider removing detection from oracles and give it to sentries instead. Keep revelation, of course, just no detection.
The other thing with the sentry is to simply just reduce it´s cost to make it playable. 25 gas vs 100 gas on earlygame production is a nobrainer here. (adept vs sentry.)
**The Voidray and Immortal**
The voidray as it is right now is a slightly underpowered and weak unit to use. While it functions in certain anti-blink and transitionary situations in pvp as well as anti-armor unit in pvz, it simply does not really serve a "viable" purpose anymore, especially with the introduction of the viper 90 dmg aoe spell and of course the difficulty in taking expansions with them.
Do not get me wrong, the voidray is a strong unit, but the flexibility of it disallows it to be played. This is why:
- In allin situations the unit is gimmicky and countered by a variety of units and situations. Plus, with nerfed chronoboost, "non-fast production" like gateways and barracks counter them harder now.
- It loses a lot of dps having to dodge ravager and widowmine shots etc.
- It is relatively hard to produce compared to queens/ravagers etc.
So while I think the unit has great stats, I think it could use a movementspeed buff that does not hurt too much. It will reduce the turtlingeffect of it and make it more hit-and-run able etc and of course help defend multiple locations and bases. Most importantly, great micro is introduced to the voidray.
I feel the voidray has a lot of potential for skillful play and also entertaining play without buffing it too much directly. I am not asking for a phoenix-level movementspeed but a small 33% would be good.
The immortal does also need a movementspeed buff. In PvP there are not really any armored units to shoot but does still feel like a necessary unit to make. In PvT it helps versus marauders and widowmines (shield) but is otherwise relatively weak. in PvZ it is basically replaced by disruptors.
I think the immortal could use a mobility buff so it benefits more from targetfire micro and kiting.
**The Carrier**
- I am going to talk about the skytoss path and not the 5k/5k ground into carrier transition as that is a whole other subject. This is the straightforward early/midgame carrier opening I would like to address.
The carrier went from being a strong unit to a quite "trashy win-or-lose-hard" unit with the removal of chrono boost. But there are even greater problems with it. While it is buffed per-se, this buff has also introduced greater cost. Here is why.
Since the release interceptors have become a necessary way to play carriers (having to defend way more expansions than in hots etc.) in straight up fights, these are the consequences:
- Liberators in small numbers, usually 4-5, 2 shots most interceptors very fast alongside other dps.
- in PvP it is very difficult to go for without risking dying beforehand. Archons and storms are also great interceptor killers.
- for PVZ, vipers + spores and otherwise holdposition anti-air micro kills interceptors fast as well.
So why is it so bad?
You do not have minerals.
You have to expand all the time when you get to the carrier stage and, expecting to defend it all, it is simply too hard. Even with the risk of teching them and getting the critical carrier count.
I would like to see interceptors be free. The carrier already loses DPS for losing interceptors and I do not feel it should cost minerals to lose interceptors as well. I feel this should come with a nerf, probably 1 damage from interceptors themselves or reduced attack speed.
While the carrier per supply and stats per supply is a very strong unit when amassed, I am still convinced as a unit in a realistic, high-level game is not capable of perfoming what it should cost-efficiently. Now I am openminded here, but unless you want the carrier to be this type of unit that mostly only appears when being transitioned to in later stages of games with banks, I think something should be done to make it less expensive and less reliant on heavy interceptor damage.
I am not asking for carrier buffs that makes them stronger than they are now, I am asking for a way to make them perform less when in situations where interceptors do not die, and perform more in situations where they die. How? Less interceptor cost, less damage/attackspeed or similar changes. The carrier is heavily relying on upgrades due to the double-attacked 5x8 interceptor damage, so nerfing damage is problematic, but something to compensate for the interceptor cost would be good.
This is my main argument about the carrier.
- Carriers joining a fight without losing interceptors (fights without hold position, fights with amove, carrier targetfiring etc. will never lose and will do way too much.
- Carriers joining a fight losing interceptors (spores, fungal, liberators, archons, storm, hold position micro) will often lose and does too little.
Of course the carrier is not only designed to do headsup army fights (It can do harass and to an extend defend bases) but point remains.
**The Stasis Trap**
I already addressed my concerns with oracle detection. Now statis trap
With the trap remaining neutral while made during a fight, so if a protoss player with 3-4 oracles places statis traps during fights and they are not manually targetfired (which for obvious reasons can be extremely difficult and annoying to do) you suddenly lose 50% or more of your army for 21 seconds.
Now the spell itself serves a fundamentally good purpose, the main issue is what blizzard called "all-or-nothing" except it is literally all or nothing. Either you win, or nothing really bad happens.
- The fact that it is a trap is the first problem. I already have problems with widowmines, but at least they have a delay so you can react (and not instantly lose an oracle as long as you pay attention) as well as a laser. The stasis trap has no such warning and you just have to either see them ot target fire them during fights, not to mention the random "runins" to stasis traps when microing around, for example a bio army in TVP going from the 3rd to the nat and suddenly everything is frozen.
Now, you can argue that you should just kite or micro against the stasis traps, but I think it is reasonable to suggest that this spell has a gimmicky function that needs a change. Perhaps remove the trap aspect and make it a regular aoe with nerfed effect, then move detection from revelation to sentries?
**The Colossus**
Range back to 9. Great. This unit should be made in the very later stages of maxed out TVP, preferebly something optional but still a nice addition. Now it is a unit that does not provide much entertainment and ... skil... when played, but it does require some knowledge of positioning and could help free PvP up a bit. I would like to see it outrange lurkers as well. Disruptors help against those though.
**The Lurker**
I am not too sure what I feel about the lurker. It seems like it is a mandatory but relatively great unit to have as zerg, a bit like the siege tank. The only thing I dislike right now is that it ouranges all protoss units and kinda counters them, but the new disruptor seems to be a way to deal with them other than through air units which, btw, are hard to number up as mentioned. The consequence, really, is that army movement becomes stale and a prism+disruptor flies around with maybe an oracle to kill lurkers without zerg having much to do about it other than dodge it and prevent damage untill vipers are out.
**The Disruptor**
I think the disruptor serves the micro purpose it shall but with the increased strength of warp prisms it is in almost all matchups hard to deal with it when the projectile is invulnerable. Evenwhen the disruptor is stuck, most players are busy dodging the projectile and getting enough units to deal with it in time without risking making a bad trade (because you actually have to kill it). I propose two changes:
1. Increase the projectile timer by 2. This is both a buff and nerf. Increased range, but also means the disruptor is stuck for longer.
2. The disruptor will cancel the projectile and trigger cooldown if picked up by the warp prism. (Or by manual cancel similar to like when it dies.)
I think option 1. is necessary, option 2 is not.
Another thing to note about disruptors is that blizzard noted they wanted it to be less of an all-or-nothing unit. I think that is what it still is. It has a reasonable AOE with large damage and a huge cooldown. This seems like a lot of damage or no damage to me while being expensive. Maybe consider reducing cooldown as well with less damage? Of course, reduced cooldown and damage still means one-shot workers which is not liked as well either I should say.
**The Liberator**
Now for PvT I do not have that many thoughts to share, seems like the unit is strong vs ground but relatively countered by phoenixes, which I think is great. I will argue for this later in "the good ands bads of PVT."
For ZVT however I hear a lot of negativity based around this unit. Since zerg can not tech anti-air that competes with the liberator range other than ravagers. Maybe nerf liberator range but faster transition?
Personally I might like to see an upgrade for the liberator that makes it able to shoot ground from the starport techlab or something similar. I feel that the liberator should be a supportive single-target-dps unit with similar attributes with the siege tank except that this unit now requires an upgrade. You may then buff at will, but I hear that it might be too strong in this matchup or at least feels gimmicky.
**The Zealot and Stalker**
I do not understand where the 30 damage to charge came from. The zealot was a fine unit in PVZ (since it kills spines etc and clears a path for potential adepts) and does the same versus cannons in PVP. The unit is necessary in lategame PVT as your main mineral dump as adepts scale terribly with upgrades.
I can understand why you want some kind of buff especially since TVP might be too difficult without it - personally at least I have trouble versus terran even when they have reduced efficiency going bio BUT I would still say that protoss is obviously favored.
I think the real unit that needs to be looked at here is the stalker. I feel this unit has been widely replaced by the phoenix in PVT because of the liberator ground dps threat as a macro unit, it also seems weaker versus zerg due to the lurker extra armor damage, and in PVP it is destroyed by the new chargelots and even when adepts gets their shield upgrade and if they are not, all your probes are dead. I hope we can change/buff stalkers without decreasin the fun in PvT that I will talk about soon.
The stalker "needs" a buff, preferebly a damage buff. However, other kinds of buffs are cool as well. I do not think it is as important that stalkers get a buff, but I think it may be a fine way to compensate for the possible nerfs to other units, like the adept. I say needs a buff since I think it is underused and slightly underperforming. Of course, stalkers still function well alongside disruptor/archon/zealot/adept and so on versus armored units like roaches.
We do see stalkers being played now and then but I think it is reasonable to test 11/15 rather than 10/14 as the core damage. Might even want to go as high as 12/16 with same upgrade scaling if some other nerfs go through.
**The Tempest and Skytoss**
I think it is a mistake to completely remove disintegration form tempests. Instead remove the part of the disintegrate spell that blocks repair and transfuse so that you can counter it with those instead. I am particularly concerned with PVZ here as corrupters and vipers do a lot of damage to skytoss now. With colossus buffs incoming I will not go too much into detail about the consequences of PVP and PVT but I think the tempest right now is the best very late game unit versus terran, especially vs mech. I think disintegration has some unique flair that was just a bit too strong with blocking off repair/transfuse.
*ark Templars**
This unit is not as often opened anymore, and I like that. Defending and scouting early dts feels gimmicky. However, give dark templars a movementspeed buff for better lategame utility. Especially since u probably make adepts instead which are... relatively less expensive per cost and dps.
**The goods and bads of changing macro mechanics (Upcoming patch)**
I am neither in favor or against the macro mechanics changes. I personally like to see as much skill possible in the game, but also the least amount of gimmickness and, yes, I feel inject/chronoboost/mules were kinda gimmicky and uninteresting, but inject was probably the least uninteresting. Here is why.
While terran and protoss has a lot of things to do - placing structures and supply buildings, consider production with techlab/reactor swaps and powered warpin pylons etc, zerg does not really have that much to be concerned with. You basically just click the "make overlord" button to make it without too many further clicks unless you want to spread overlords.
I agree with blizzard that Legacy is a fundamentally more stressful game than HotS and the +12 minute games in all matchups are super great to play and there is almost no turtling, but I will address this in my final thoughts in the last three categories.
However, the removal of macro mechanics had consequences.
- Terrible stargate production, hard to counter mutas and avoid making many gateway units as protoss
- Bio became "unplayable"
- Zerg became maybe too easy to macro/play, but I would rather say it became too "indifferentiating." I will address the consequences of this in the problems with ZvZ.
The reintroduction of macro mechanics will fix most of the protoss and terran issues, hopefully. I just wish we could find a way to compensate the clicks from uninteresting macro mechanics with other mechanics and "not strategy and tactics." As the great philosopher Dr. Sortof said: if strategy and tactics really was the thing we wanted to "up" with the macro mechanics changes rather than having them all on display combined, we might as well give CSGO players aimbot and let them focus on teamplay and grenades. (exaggeration but point made.)
I think these mechanics have been compensted with constant expansions and more units/spells, but ZvZ suffers.
**The fundamental problems with zerg and ZVZ**
With less larva, ling bling has been less seen - a new larva is coming back with patch, great.
Currently, however, is roach wars.
The micro of the roach due to it´s "nature" I should say makes it very hard to "indifferentiate from other players´ roaches". This means that if you have Jaedong on one side and me playing zerg for 1.5 years on the other, he is playing much more skillfully and doing detailed stuff that gives him the advantage to win, but the advantage is so small when autoinject is autocast. So I might still win with much less skill implemented to my game.
The "beauty" of ZvZ was that you could screw up your opponents´ injects when roach versus roach interactions were rather boring and the outcomes were very even despite of mechanical performance. The WoL infestor has a unique ability to make comebacks with buffed fungal and infested terrans (this could be tested for LotV.) but without that, ZvZ will have problems differentiating the very good players from the best players.
Now, ZvZ in HotS also suffers a lot. The fact that zerg does not have constant worker production like the other races, "doing larva damage" is even worse in ZvZ when both players play with these productionmechanics. This can not be changed though, I think.
**The goods and bads of PvP compositions and engagements**
I have already addressed why adepts are problematic, but what I call the "adeptwars" are seen way too often for reasons specified under this units´ category.
Once you reach 4-5 bases or more, mass harass and great army management makes this matchup extremely fun to play. With weakened colossus, no more deathball clashes are necessary in my experience. However, most players tend to end the game while the matchup is gimmicky and random, particularly revoling around the use of adept, stasis trap and archon/charge allins.
The reintroduction of colossus may not be super interesting in this matchup, but I would like to see how possible adeptchanges would improve this matchup to force these interesting chargelot/adept harass lategames with some army interaction.
**The goods and bads of PvT compositions and engagements**
I mentioned that phoenixes appear to be the only counter to the liberator threat. I cannot emphasize how great this is for the gameplay. Even when chargelots are not buffed, the "ZVT"-style interaction between marines, marauders, widowmines and medivacs + immortal, zealot, adept and phoenixes is not only extremely fun, exciting and entertaining to play and watch, it is also very skill-requiring. I sincerely hope you do not buff i.e stalkers too much so that we lose this kind of interaction. This is some of the greatest gameplay in PvT if you ask me.
It is literally analogical with ZVT. Adept can force teamkill widowmine shots, zealots needs to be split, adepts needs to be split, phoenixes can pick up mines etc.
The only dislikes I have is the problem for protoss to identify various liberator/ghost allins to get proper detection at low risk. This is of course besides the fact that terran is weaker than protoss.
**The goods and bads of PvZ compositions and engagements**
I feel that PVZ suffers a bit with the whole adeptharass and ling/roach/ravager counter-attack earlygame. I would like to see more midgame oriented timings and stuff being used again like seen in HotS, but I can understand the reasons for wanting to remove the mothership core now. Recall does not seem like a thing. Perhaps I am wrong that these earlygame harass attempts are bad, so if we ignore that and let adept be the one-and-only opener for protoss, let us discuss the mid and lategame.
For midgame, zerg seem to be relatively strong. With lurker timings, ground and detection-lacking is a great enemy for the protoss. I mentioned the new disruptor deals well with the lurkers, but it seems rather stale. You can not really attack one another, and it is difficult to make more than two disruptors and control them at low risk. I argued for this and why I think disruptors should have a longerlasting projectile.
In the lategame, at this point, protoss might be favored, but it is close. With the removal of disintegration protoss might actually be weakest, but it all depends on the flow of the game at earlier stages of each individual game. I think it is reasonable to test the new patch with NOT removing tempest spell but only the ridicilous bonus that it blocks repair and transfuses.
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I do have thoughts about other units and aspects as well but I think these were my most important thoughts to share. Thanks!