Targeting Phase Prisms....like target pylons in sc1?

I totally agree with you Remy about the Pylon issue.
I think Blizzard intended the Pylon thing in SC1 to be a weakness for the Protoss, in that, if you manage to take out some key Pylons, you can basically shut down the Protoss base. But Pylons were simply too tough to take down, that it really isn't worth the time to try and take them out.

I just hope that Blizzard understands this problem and is really nerfing the Pylon HP. Because IMO, Pylon's are suppose to distingush the Protoss's supply building between the other races. You can say, it is one of the Protoss's weakness to have the Pylon thingy. But yet, the problem is, it is impossible to take advantage of that weakness simply because they are too tough to take down. So hopefully, from the gameplay video, what I saw wasn't a mistake about the Pylon having weaken HP.

 

I think we're on the same page. I think most people are, or at least probably will be once they get around to think about it.

In RPGs(other cases out there too but this is the best example), it is ideal for warrior classes to tank the hits and soak the damage while other flimsier classes dish out the damage. On the contrary, to take out a group, it's usually best to target individuals other than the tank, because tanking classes were designed to soak damage better. It was kind of like that with SC1 plyons and cannons.

Pylons remsembled the warrior class in every way. Higher HP pool for high durability, and armor for damage reduction. While there was that little thing about being able shut down all cannons in plyon range in one move, pylons were just too good at soaking damage. Even with the pylon power factor, it kinda defeats the purpose when taking out each individual cannon(attacker or damage dealing classes in RPGs) was still more efficient.

After all, it's usually a bad idea to target the tanking warrior class first while taking hits from the real damage dealers the whole time. The pylon power was the only thing to turn that formula around, but only if it could be achieved fast enough to take less total damage than killing cannons individually. It wasn't the case in SC1.

 

Gosh i remember i tried to take a pylon one time with like 40 zergings against 5 photon cannons. the cannons won!
After that i always target cannons...

 

Pylons had 600 health total. They survived nukes and several yamatos. That is NEVER fun with Terran.

 

The 1 armor vs cannon's 0 armor is also a big factor, although not in the case of nukes and yamas.

Armor does come in to play with nukes but not really in the case of pylons. It is what allows BCs to survive direct nukes though.

Hmmm, I think I can already hear PowerkickasS coming this way to throw out his usual "Remy you got an official source for that?" Damn it...

 

Odds are pylons will definitely be nerfed in SCII because hence the Phase Prisms. Most likely they realized that the potential of an advantage of taking out key pylons devastated the protoss a little too much. Therefore to make up for the new advantage that the other two races gained over the protoss the phase prisms were brought in to provide a backup source of energy since to build a pylon it took awhile too. It would have such a large immediate effect if the pylons became weaker and not have a backup source except to build a new pylon that the phase prisms provide a cushion to that enemy strategy. A pro will no doubt never have his base run out of PSI to run the buildings. A noob can be exploited though so this just expands the horizons for more game play and versatile strategic planning.

 

I would disagree somewhat.  I actually think it's the other way around.

Someone at Blizzard came up with the cool ass port-a-pylon idea where you can use as backup power or allow instant building at remote locations.  Then they sat down and said the instant power for remote building is cool but why the hell would you need backup power?  So they soon realized that although an interesting part of Protoss design at early stages, it was a design flaw that pylons were made too resilient for such a strategic aspect to be taken advantage of in real games.  So, they would nerf the pylon.

I doubt the nerfing of the pylon gave rise to the phase prism, or we would've had a pylon nerfing patch somewhere before.  Whether a small nerf, or too much of a nerf that was brought back to normal immediately with a followup patch, we would've seen something.  I definitely think if pylons are nerfed, it will be to justify the existence of phase prisms and allow strategic elements associated with it.

 

Thats possible too looking at what you wrote since in a way the Phase Prisms replace the arbiter's porting ability. However, I don't think that they would change something to make a use for a new ability. The idea of the prism being able to provide power would've been easier to remove then to add in a new ability and make changes to something thats always been imo. People have been complaining about the difficulty in destroying a pylon for awhile too so that could've brought about the changes too. I think it would be easier to add in something new to adjust for something old rather than adding adjusting the old to give purpose for something new. But thats just my opinion

 

I think the pylon situation's been known for the longest time, yet Blizz didn't touch it.  They came up with the phase prism unit design but realized some of its aspects are made useless by default right from the start because of the design flaw in pylons.

I think if adjusting pylon was the main focus and Blizzard had it in mind to do so, it would've been done a long time ago.  It would've been nice to have made it a valid strategic element back then over the 9 or so years of SC running.  The adjustment could've been small as to not put Toss players in the pit.  But it has never been done, because they didn't want to or consciously decided not to, not because the idea just hit them now.  But with the new phase prism idea, it forces them to tweak the pylon to make phase prisms fully viable, at the same time it provided Blizzard an opportunity to touch on an old issue.

 

I'd target the Phase Prisms because they're also shuttles! And if they set up the psi field near your base, you could be facing a constant stream of reinforcements.

 

Correct me if im wrong but i beieve the thing about the new technology of the Protoss is that they've been given the ability to port their units anywhere there is PSI. So if there is a pylon in the vicinity of your base they can use that as a way to port troops to your base as well. The Phase Prisms don't act as a shuttle necessarily they just give a way of creating PSI in a location and thus utilizing that PSI the units can be ported in. Essentially the thing is that using these Prisms an immediate offensive position can be turned into a defensive position. Imagine having troops storm your base and when you realize its the prisms you go into to attack them but low and behold the prisms have also ported in probes which are building cannons in the vicinity of the PSI that they generate. Scary if you ask me.

 

Sorry, Peter, I wish it worked that way.
There are only certain units that can be Warp Gated into Psi, and these have a single queue from the Warp Gate.
What is understood from it is that only units produced at the Gateway (which is then upgraded to a Warp Gate) can be teleported anywhere.
I admit, it would be awesome if you could upgrade Gateways into Warp Gates and use then to teleport any already produced unit anywhere.

 

Aren't almost all toss units aside from aerial produced from a gateway.. i mean main units such as lots/immortals/DT/HT not support units like reavers/observers/etc.

If this is true then it still gives ground to the ability to rush units to an opponents base using a pylon. The probes wouldn't work unless u used the prism's transport ability i guess.


Edited out quotes. Please read the forum rules and refrain from quoting unnecessarily.

 

Right, but the key difference is that you can't just warp already produced units.
You must produce them out of the WG's build queue of one.
People believe that after you use the "one", it is replenished at a normal unit build rate.

 

Oh ok I see now, so only newly produced units from warpgate will be able to be transported via PSI. Whereas the Prism will already be able to carry units as a transport.

 

@ T-man : Do you have a confirmed source for that? Not meaning to bring you down, I'm just curious... because most people say that you can actually load up 1 unit in a warp gate and then warp it...

 

Heh, noone has confirmed sources for things yet
But from everything I have seen, including the gameplay video, this is what I'm 51% sure about.  In the gameplay vid, the player selects a control group of 16 WGs, and then warps in 16 zealots.  Other posters have inspected those pictures and have seen a "16" next to all of the units available for production, and this decreases by one every time the player clicks.
I'm sure a more helpful member will stop by and give you better answers, but this is what I believed, and I believed that it was the commonly accepted view on this forum.

As a side note:  I would personally love if you could "load" units, but it would seem impractical.  Loading units is a Phase Prism's job.


Edited out quotes. Please read the forum rules and refrain from quoting unnecessarily.

 

True... Either something like that, or something totally new no one probably expected : Insta-build in the psi, but with double the cost. It could be that, unless Blizz just used some super freaky speed-build cheat... Or something.

 

I've explained previously in other threads that warp-in isn't preload or recall because your resources for building those units are deducted when you warp them in.  It is basically instant remote rally for freshly built units.

I don't remember how much of this Blizzard has officially confirmed or what's the latest info on it, but that's what we've had for a pretty long time.  There is so far nothing to suggest otherwise I believe.

And Peter, the phase prism is a shuttle(unit transport) btw.