Why Stalkers will become a Protoss crutch

In the original Starcraft Terrans had siege tanks and Zerg had mutalisks but there wasn't a Protoss unit that stood out as best-in-army. Stalkers look to be best-in-game.

Simple micro I and other players do is to move a unit taking fire to the back of a group, cycling the healthiest to the front, so the full group's firepower is consistently brought to bear. When the stalkers' blink ability was revealed I realized (depending on delay time) it would make them the favored unit of Protoss players and maybe best-in-game. Cycling other units, even flying ones unrestricted by topogrophy or aerial bodies, is limited by movement speed. Blinks' immediacy means a group of stalkers suffer much less from battle-attrition than any other unit.

Of course there're more powerful units and numbers or base defenses could eventually wear down stalkers' assault but in conditions of equal economy, production, ect. spamming stalkers seems only threatened by cloaking.

If stalkers have a weak attack then they become tanks in a MMORPG sense which's the opposite of their lore description: light skirmishing units. Then again, weren't mutas supposedly scouts? I suppose cheap masses of hit-and-run attackers will outperform the few, slow, and powerful units.

The nearest equivalent in another race are roaches. Originally they healed even faster while burrowed and microing them to burrow the near-death made them even harder to kill than stalkers. Atleast protoss are on a clock before their shields regeneration click in but early-build roaches let players heal them in-battle. Roaches have been nerfed though leaving stalkers the unit nearest attrition-proof.

Siege tanks' and psionic storms' area-attacks will make good counters but what'll the zerg hit masses w/?

 

New evidence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4j7gzuN0Js

 

Lurkers.
What can a stalker do agains a lurk?

NOTHING

And let's not even talk about Guardians.

 

In terms of equal production, you simply need to use the appropriate units and a similar amount of micro. A Stalker can't Blink away if you are focus-firing individual units- they'd take damage too fast for the player to keep up. A player can't micro their Stalkers back as fast as a few Siege Tanks can dump damage onto the group. A player can't Blink Zerglings or Zealots (with Charge) out of the way for long before they're taken down.

Your average air unit is pretty fast- they can pull out of a fight about as fast as a Stalker can, if you catch it in time. You basically never see that happen though, because it takes incredible effort to pinpoint and pull out, a unit, in the time it takes for it to start taking fire, and dying.

The cooldown on Blink is far too long for a Stalker army to leapfrog back indefinitely. They were pretty nasty when they were revealed, but could still be taken down by a relatively small number of Zerglings. As of now, they've made the cooldown even longer. Leapfrogging Stalkers are slower than running Stalkers, and there are several units that move faster than running Stalkers. Blink can only buy each unit a few extra seconds, and before long, you've cycled through all of them.

They're only invincible in the situations where other units would be invincible: when the player has many more units than their opponent, or far superior micro.

The video you linked was definitely such a situation. It was mostly the Protoss player frolicking around in undefended bases, while the Zerg player did the same (with the Mutalisks). That video would have looked basically the same if the Stalkers weren't using Blink at all.

 

In the first battle report blink isn't used once so I infer it must be researched now. Which'd make it a measlier ability, the sort meant to give a weaker unit mileage. Nevermind.

 

There should never be a best over all unit. Ever. There should be some that are more suited to more situations then others, but not one were it will win you the game, just by making them.

Cycling will help, in almost all battle situations. Real Life battles have been won because of it, an ancient Roman-England battle. Where the soldiers up front would go to the back of their line to rest up a bit. They had the numbers to do this. Though they were way out numbered, they won easily. Point being, cycling will help, and can win, but you have to have the numbers for it to work, if there are just a few stalkers, cycling will only buy you a minute or two. The Romans won that one, cause they had enough soldiers to let the ones recooperate before being front man again. I doubt you'll ever have enough Stalkers to pull this sort of munuever as well as they did. If you got the numbers for this to work, then you've already won anyway.

 

roaches got a nerf? i have no memory of that.

their healing ability was 15 hp/s...is it lower now?

stalkers arent the best unit, they can be countered by a whole mess of things, but when used right they can spread a deadly whither of firepower on the enemy.

-Zerks

 

I wouldn't say they can be countered by a whole mess of things just yet.

Protoss is my favourite race, but it's not hard to notice how powerful stalkers are. Of course, I believe metzen or some other blizzard employees claimed Stalkers can be countered by zerglings, but I doubt it.

Why? Stalkers are cheap, they're basically the new dragoons, and their blink ability is far too useful. Sure countering Stalkers with Zerglings may have a similar effect as countering dragoons with zerglings. However, Stalkers have blink, which can be used offensively and defensively.

There are already so many scenarios where mass zerglings won't stop a force of Stalkers. If you have a choke point, or a cliff/mountain. Stalkers can easily blink to that location, attacking zerglings from a higher ground. The zerglings will either have to fight from the choke point, which is a bad idea, or they can't attack the stalkers at all due to the higher ground.

Stalkers will also have major effects on siege tanks. They can work as secondary zealot bombing, since they can blink right next to tanks. Not to mention, if Stalkers are combined with zealots, charging at a Terran base with siege tank defense. Obviously, the Zealots are the terran's first target. This gives time for Stalkers to get closer to the tanks, and blink right pass them, attacking the base instead.

However, I think these can balance out as long as blink can not be quickly researched, but if I'm correct it takes a twilight council to research blink and if I'm correct it takes cybernetics core to build a twilight council, which means blink can be researched relatively quickly.

 

Blink needs to come early since stalkers are weaker than dragoons without.

Blink has quite a large cooldown by combat standards, yes you could blink up a ramp but you would only be saving yourself a few seconds, yes they can go up ramps instantly, would you prefer the work you had to do in starcraft to get one up?

Blink, from what we've seen, has a small range, trying to blink past siege tanks with zealot bombs wouldn't be much different than walking dragoons under zealot's tanking in starcraft.

 

Frankly, saying that Stalkers are going to be the crutch for the Protoss is like saying Marines are going to be the crutch for the Terrans. For all 3 sides, the most basic 3 units are going to be the primary units in the early game, important units in middle game, and still potentially useful in the late game. Since most games of Starcraft end shortly after the middle game starts, that makes them basically THE units that Starcraft will revolve around.

For example, while the Stalker has Blink, the Marauder has a slow effect that can prevent enemies from closing the distance OR retreating, while the Roach has its regen and burrow.

 

Blink doesn't work if you do not have vision of high ground, so you cannot use them to scout like Reapers could. A cooldown of 8 seconds is short, but that's roughly twice the time you need to physically walk your Stalker to a nearby location. I wouldn't exclude the scenario where Zerglings have researched speed upgrade, they can close in to a group of Stalkers fast in open terrain and ramps alike.

They aren't exactly overpowering, but dang they are exceedingly versatile. Marauder is a powerhouse, dealing huge damage per round, and their concussion missiles' slow effect allows the Marauders themselves to catch up to retreating enemies. The Roach's regeneration is a great advantage against the general tier 1 infantry, and it's Organic Carapace upgrade makes it even formidable against later tier units.


-Psi

 

From everything I've gathered so far it seems Stalker's will definitely be the bread and butter Protoss unit. I really hope they have buffed up the Phoenix though, as it seems Toss is quite prone to air without practically massing them.

I personally can't wait to blink the hell out of em'.

 

Seems like the stalker will replace the Dragoon's place as a early ranged anti-ground unit, whereas the immortal will be used mainly for breaking sieges and heavy defence since they are costly to use randomly.

 

Stalker: 125 Minerals, 50 Vespene, for 40 Shields, 100 HP, and deals 10 damage, +4 vs armored
Immortal: 250 Minerals, 100 Vespene, for 80 Shields, 270 HP, and deals 20 damage, +10 vs same
Stalkers get Blink and can hit air, while Immortals get Hardened Shields

I suspect that in large scale ground combat, Immortals will be more effective. Stalkers are too fragile and will get popped way too easily by things with AOE attacks and high volumes of concentrated fire.

However, Stalkers are going to be omnipresent until the Phoenix is made into a proper air superiority unit.

 

The reason we are seeing the stalker take over in the videos is because we haven't see all of Starcrafts units hit it off. We haven't seen all the units in action yet so i wouldent presume this just yet

The Stalker is prone to alot of little dudes and heavier fire but having that blink ability makes it interesting.

 

I would have to agree with Bthammer45 on this one. I think the stalker will be a very versatile unit throught the entire duration of a game but I don't think it is gonna be some kind of "best protoss unit" fall back on if your in a tight spot kind of unit. Starcraft 2 seems like its gonna be a very strategic counter type of game where not just 1 unit is gonna obvioulsy out shine others. There is also a decent cool down to the blink ability it seems so you will have to use it wisely, it's not like they are gonna be blinking all over the battlefield constantly, they are gonna have some down time and they look very open to heavy fire type of attacks such as marauders or siege tanks. Similar to that latest battlecast from the Starcraft 2 team the Terran player was handly those stalkers pretty well with marauders.

 

In the battle report blink was not even researched. Although i agree.

In the original protoss announcement video the cooldown was 7 seconds, it is more than twice that now and they were easily overran and surrounded by zerglings.

 

The immortal seems like its going to be even more interesting but players seem to be holding off on them.

 

Well Immortals are for more specific situations, like countering heavy artillery.

 

Actually, the Immortal is probably superior to Stalkers in formal ground combat period. Lets compare it to 2 Stalkers:

HP: 270 vs. 100+100, Immortal better
Shields: 80 vs. 40+40, Immortal better
Damage vs. Ground: 20+10 vs. Armored, 10*2+4 vs. Armored, Immortal Better
Damage vs. Air: No Air Attack, 10*2+4, Stalker Better
Abilities: Reinforced Shields vs. Blink, Immortal better in general combat, Stalker in raids

Conclusion: Overall, the Immortal is better in combat which has any of the following features:
1. Predominantly ground warfare
2. Enemy has AOE attacks
3. Enemy has high Damage attacks
4. Enemy can destroy units rapidly before it is possible to respond

Given that all of these features occur in a large ground battle, the Immortal will be better. However, Stalker is better at raiding and is pretty much the main GtA unit for the Protoss.