SC.org: Is Forcefield OP?

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One of the staff writers at our sister site, StarCraft.org, has written a very insightful article about the Protoss Sentry's Forcefield ability and its overuse at later stages of the game. Not so much a problem for Terran players, or Zerg who prefer the skies, the Forcefield's incredible effectiveness against masses of ground units has certainly become a common complaint among higher level players.

Make sure to give the full article a read and let us know what you think!

Source: StarCraft.org

 

Nice article, thanks JonX for posting it.
And I would like to quote a few parts from the article:

That is 3 possible counters to the Protoss Forcefield just from the article alone. And I'm sure players will discover more counters to the Force Field.

Maybe it needs a very slight nerf to be balanced again. But apart from that it's just a case of learn the hard counters and be creative and to can get past this. It's not meant to be easy to beat this. It's a challenge, and one most people will not always win, but over time the players will get better at it.

So to answer the question is the Force Field OP?
Yes but only very very slightly. On the whole I think it's ok from what I've read and heard from people in the beta.

[edit] marine freak does have a point though.
Blizzard does say "easy to do and easy to counter" is their mantra. And I think the force fields should stick by that too. So a nerf yes. Now much of a nerf, that's debatable

 

Its too easy to use and comparatively too hard to counter atm so i think it requires more than a very slight nerf. Either give it a cooldown between use so it costs alot more for this strat to work to this degree or as that person said make it unable to be placed on units.

However forcefield can also mess up the player who used it (Had marines trapped by it amongst zealots on one of those tiny tower islands so i picked them up with a dropship and dropped them on the other side of the forcefield so i could shoot the zealots and not be hurt XD)

 

Maybe, if it is placed atop units, the units inside the forcefield may move the way they were previously ordered, while blocking off units outside the forcefield.
This would nerf the forcefield, without making its blocking capabilities worse.

 

I think the best way is to have the unit that were in the vicinity of the forcefield to be pushed back or forward without the units going crazy. It should be allowed to split forces as that is what it is designed to do, create barriers. The only reasonable nerf without early game is the casting range of Forcefield, putting sentries in harms way in order to place them down, unlike right now, where they can toss one up in a a safe distance.

 

the suggestion made by the article is horrible. if you can't place the forcefield down on top of units, then it's completely useless as long as the enemy keeps their army in a nice ball. you'd only be able to use it prior to battle to... wall off the army for a bit, while they retreat, wait for the fields to drop, then advance again.

if you can't split up armies, why bother?

splitting up armies takes skill and speed. you need to lay down 5-6, sometimes more, within a second and do it accurately to properly split an army in the battlefield. if you can't split them up, then forcefields won't have any use other than to seal off a ramp to delay the enemy for 15 seconds.

 

Well supply depots don't split enemy forces, they just can't raise.

If I don't get to make units go nuts and cut them off then neither should they!

 

I'm positive I read a statement from Blizzard that you can raise the depot and it pushes units to the closest side. I guess they changed that since? I don't know why they'd do that.

 

Nope. Can't raise it when enemies are on it.

 

I think the supply depot thing should maybe change.

But I'm not so sure forcefields are "easy to do". I never play toss myself, but I've seen some really great use of forcefields which obviously required skill, and I've seen really high level players screw it up as well.

I think it takes a lot of good micro to do, and I'm not sure its all that easy to pull off effectively.

 

It doesn't really take much micro because of queued commands and auto-casting. They can just shift-click a wall across and it happens almost instantly.

 

the difference is that you're not supposed to build supply depots in the middle of a battlefield. they serve completely different, yet somewhat overlapping purposes. the entire POINT of forcefield is to split enemy forces, not just block them.

 

Actually, forcefield is meant to block, not split.

It just happens to move units when it's placed on top of them.

And are you saying that it's fair for a Terran player to be foiled by a single zergling standing on a supply depot to keep it from raising...?

 

Actually there's a bit of discussion flying around the internet atm about the OPness of force field from the perspective that 1 sentry can be sent out to the opponents base, and from there the sentry can keep a block on the opponent's ramp, preventing it from expanding etc.

 

yeah, why not? that's like saying it's unfair for seige tanks to outrange colossi. they're different units with different abilities made for different purposes. deal with it.

OP because it screws up the AI? maybe. that can be fixed.

OP because it does exactly what it was intended to do? NO. it was always intended to split up units. watch Battle Report 3.

 

Sentry block only works on certain maps, requires high apm and attention. It does have its' benefits, but the zerg will just tech to mutas, and harass you to death, thinking you're safe under the false pretense that you're safe. Terran has MANY options. Toss can just warp out. It's not that much of a problem in the higher levels.

 

I wonder how much a lone/early sentry could **** up your opponents mineral line with force field.

 

not much... for several reasons.

- you can't block off the entire mineral line with a single sentry... one FF will only add a slight travel distance for a single mineral patch.
- it's a 1.5 tier unit, your opponent will likely have either blocked off their choke or have a few tier 1 units to defend already.

 

Actually, with multiple sentries you can completely deny mining for the 15 seconds. Instead of attempting to go around the SCVs simply get stuck. Tested it earlier.

 

Since Stalkers get melted like butter by Mauraders, Sentries and Zealots are only reasonable counter I've found it most early circumstances. They may be OP in certain circumstances, but if they're nerfed, Mauraders damn sure better be as well.