Temple Siege v1.6 (Topic)

I was thinking of a way to balance Mech out a bit... at least to the point where he could actually be killed.

Add a warm-up spell to each of the transformations, preferably the longest transformation time for turning into bike mode. This allows mech to take hits before transforming and running away. I find it cheap from both sides, that when a mech is trapped and almost killed by spell units, he could just transform to become unstuck, and instantly zoom away on bike mode. He is nearly impossible to kill in the hands of any competent player. Maybe he'd also need a pre-spell effect that slows down mech for his l4, as it is very powerful and strikes anywhere with bike mode, or perhaps a different l4 for each mode would be nice.

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Quote from FlashBeer

When I was talking about the vortex spell, I meant for it to only move the sucked up spawns and summons to the box, that way the psion would get move kills. After the spell was over, all units remaining in the box would be removed, so the psion wouldn't feed to easily with l3.

For Archer, I was think that the camps are still widely unused, and becomes almost worthless in the late game due to highly powerful heroes. I was thinking of a few options for it...

Since you can't upgrade a sunken colony's attack the building will be replaced. Whenever your build a creep colony, it automatically gives it to the allied computer. All of the creep colonies will be given back to you, and one-by-one the colonies will be given back to the comp, centering a location on each colony and creating a muttalisk hero above it to attack once. Basically, a location cycles through each creep colony so that a muttalisk shoots above each one, repeatedly. This would allow for a colony with upgrades. Also, spore colonies could be stronger versions of it as well (For use in later game, but costs high in mana) Hatcheries could fire guardians. Of course there would need to be a colony cap so that there isn't too much lag time between muttalisks spawning. Alternatively, you could center lurkers instead of muttalisks.

A completely different spell would be a fire-based spell. (matches with the burning arrows and fire stuff)
l3 - Blazing Inferno - Creates 8 lurkers around your Archer, with one mine (or burrowed-unit) under your archer. The lurkers attack the burrowed unit under you (while you ally all enemy heroes for a second so lurkers definitely hit the burrowed unit). A few science vessels are constantly killed above the Archer to detect the burrowed unit, as well as simulate fire effects. Enemies within the nearby location are "Burning" - they are slightly slowed down (about half as slow as the usually slowing spells), they initially lose 50 mana, and mana gain is slowed for 8-10 seconds (fire effects for burning).

The lurkers of this spell differ from lurkers of mutant's lurkers because,
These lurkers attack instantly rather than a warm-up effect.
Mutant has a lot more lurkers than 8. (forgot how many)
Archer's lurks attack toward the archer and therefore have less range, and less lurks hitting the enemy.

I chose this particular style of mana drain and slowing because, slowly draining mana would allow the target to cast spells before their mana was drained, but I didn't want too much mana drained initially like volt's l3. The slight mana drain and slowing, as well as lurk dmg, should make the target want to run, while the slowing part allows the archer to follow the enemy and continually launch arrows at him/her.
If this happens, archer companions could be weakened and moved to l2.

or, after the archer levels to l3, a multilisk is automatically created over each sunken, and when the archer reaches l4, a guardian is added instead of a mutilisk. this would strengthen the defenses as the archer levels up spells and air. weakening hydras and moving them to l2 would require their placement in the spawn lineup to be changed.

Quote from DrakeClawfang

I hate jackasses like that. Be thankful cheating pricks like him are rare. Stopping that sort of thing should be easy though.

stopping it from happening is as easy as adding a big no fly zone or super turrets to the area. but in game we have nothing that could reach the vessels except for psion's arbiter, which he didn't get for a while and it only did 10 damage, hardly a clean solution

Quote from FlashBeer

I was thinking of a way to balance Mech out a bit... at least to the point where he could actually be killed.

Add a warm-up spell to each of the transformations, preferably the longest transformation time for turning into bike mode. This allows mech to take hits before transforming and running away. I find it cheap from both sides, that when a mech is trapped and almost killed by spell units, he could just transform to become unstuck, and instantly zoom away on bike mode. He is nearly impossible to kill in the hands of any competent player. Maybe he'd also need a pre-spell effect that slows down mech for his l4, as it is very powerful and strikes anywhere with bike mode, or perhaps a different l4 for each mode would be nice.

well, you could also just change the bike form from jim raynor to regular vulture, taking away the speed upgrade so the bike can't getaway as fast. individual l4's sound good, and the delay definitely sounds good. i mean if ling has a big "IM LURKERING YOUR ASS", why doesn't mech? huh.

though i think summoner is still more op than mech by far despite the tweaks.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 15 2009, 7:08 am by ladyalanah.

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Quote from FlashBeer

I was thinking of a way to balance Mech out a bit... at least to the point where he could actually be killed.

Add a warm-up spell to each of the transformations, preferably the longest transformation time for turning into bike mode. This allows mech to take hits before transforming and running away. I find it cheap from both sides, that when a mech is trapped and almost killed by spell units, he could just transform to become unstuck, and instantly zoom away on bike mode. He is nearly impossible to kill in the hands of any competent player. Maybe he'd also need a pre-spell effect that slows down mech for his l4, as it is very powerful and strikes anywhere with bike mode, or perhaps a different l4 for each mode would be nice.

I agree, the Mech can transform both to effectively heal himself and escape spells, a spell lag would help that. For the L4, on its own it's suitably strong for a Level 4 spell, but because the Bike is so fast it's near-impossible to escape.

For the Archer, here's an idea - What if the only Colony Defenses he could make were Spore Colonies, and when they were create they automatically came with a Guardian hovering over them? This would reduce the Archer's gas usage by not needing him to build two defensive structures (though who does?), letting a single defense hit both air and ground, and letting his Colonies upgrade their attack (the air units in the game are rare, the Spore colonies don't need ups). And as a bonus, if it was needed you could easily use one Guardian for the defenses and the other Guardian for the Level 4. The longer range and higher power would make the Archer defenses a lot more useful.

I like this idea a lot.

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>be faceless void >mfw I have no face

Why doesn't every spell?[have a prespell effect]

And it would be lulzy if every time a mech transformed it had a bunch of sprites of its different forms flash over it and it played that oldschool Transformers noise, and Optimus Primes voice said 'Roll out!'

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 15 2009, 7:11 am by zany_001. Reason: Phalanx of Light is win.

Red classic.

"In short, their absurdities are so extreme that it is painful even to quote them."

Quote from name:zany_001

Why doesn't every spell?[have a prespell effect]

And it would be lulzy if every time a mech transformed it had a bunch of sprites of its different forms flash over it and it played that oldschool Transformers noise, and Optimus Primes voice said 'Roll out!'

Funny, but lame and cheesy after a while.

As for every spell having a pre-effect, some need the pre-spell effect to create a lag between the cast and the spell taking effect, to balance it out. All spells though, AFAIK, have some sort of visual effect of some kind, but not all of them lag the spell's casting.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 15 2009, 7:22 am by DrakeClawfang.

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>be faceless void >mfw I have no face

I don't think changing to bike is OP enough to need that. Lvl4 though, that could do with one.

Red classic.

"In short, their absurdities are so extreme that it is painful even to quote them."

i like the idea of a flashy transformation, some exploding obs and a comsat scan eye candy. the bike transformation isn't just a spell breaker, but the bike mode itself is speed + power + micro + rapes small units, of which there are lots. its a medium unit too, making it resistant to ghosts, hydras and goons. hydra and goon being two units that could typically give mech mode problems.

problem with a guardian over each spore is that guardians can snipe cannons

i recently found out that when a dm turns her orb into broodlings, the spell also kills any enemy medics that are directly adjacent to the orb, i would venture that it also kills enemy summons like lings in that case.

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Quote from ladyalanah

i like the idea of a flashy transformation, some exploding obs and a comsat scan eye candy.

problem with a guardian over each spore is that guardians can snipe cannons.

The Bunkers and Ghosts built by the SCV can do that too. But while the Archer's Guardians will do more damage, there's also the need for Creep, which makes it harder to do so, and the Guardian fires much slower than Ghosts so Spawn can kill the Spore Colonies faster than they can the Bunkers with Ghosts.

And, another stupid idea of mine. For the Mech, someone mentioned making his Level 4 different for each form. What about this.

Change the Mech's Level 3 spell to "Weapons Barrage", which summons a couple Wraiths, Tanks and Goliaths to attack. It would be like a weaker version of the Mech's original Level 4.

The new Level 4 would be "Weapon Booster", which acts as an upgraded version of the Spells for the three Mech forms:

- The Level 1 spell spawns 2 Tanks. While a Goliath, the Level 4 spell spawns 8 Tanks and a few Goliath Golems (the current Level 3 spell buffed)
- The Level 2 spell spawns six waves of 2 Wraiths. While in Bike Mode, the Level 4 spell would spawn six waves of two Battlecruisers (since the BCs are larger, when they'd spawn they would be more spread out than the Wraiths to cover a larger area of fire, and would do more damage)
- And the Level 4 spell for the Tank would be identical to the current Level 4 spell, a barrage of Wraiths and ending with an army of Wraiths, Goliaths, Vultures and Tanks.

This would give the Mech a lot more incentive to shift forms and use its Tank Mode. The Mech would still have the Weapons Barrage spell as it is known now, but it would only be usable in Tank Form. And in essence, the Mech would have a entirely second set of attack spells to use based on its form. I think this also solves the main problem that, once the Mech has Level 4, its other attack spells are obsolete and so there's no reason to use any form other than Bike.

What do you think? I've also got another idea for a new hero, but I'll keep it to one half-baked idea at a time.

I'll toss out a name though - The General.

Post has been edited 7 time(s), last time on Aug 15 2009, 10:05 am by DrakeClawfang.

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the current weapons barrage spell, even if the number of units was reduced, still does tons of damage, with the main reason being mechs usually don't do split upgrades since their most powerful spell uses their main attack. and even with the wraiths, 90% of the damage still comes from the goliaths vultures and tanks.

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Quote from ladyalanah

the current weapons barrage spell, even if the number of units was reduced, still does tons of damage, with the main reason being mechs usually don't do split upgrades since their most powerful spell uses their main attack. and even with the wraiths, 90% of the damage still comes from the goliaths vultures and tanks.

I think that's the idea, that it does tons of damage. But making it exclusive to the Tank form would make it harder to use.

And the current barrage only uses Tanks and Wraiths, previous incarnations used Vultures and Goliaths, but I don't think it does anymore.

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what i mean is it will still do tons of damage so few people will feel inclined to up air. so air needs to be a bigger part of the true final to justify its use

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Quote from ladyalanah

what i mean is it will still do tons of damage so few people will feel inclined to up air. so air needs to be a bigger part of the true final to justify its use

What version are you playing? As is, Air is a huge part of the Final - two waves of like, a dozen Wraiths, and eight Tanks.

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Though all forms should have transformation warm-ups, I think Mech mode should have the shortest warm-up due to it being the main form.
To further distinguish forms, I think Tank mode should always be slowed via burrowed units, but have the highest hp, armor, and attack. It would be a slow, but powerful form (also immune to slowing spells because he is already slow). Mech form would be the all-around form, Bike the fastest, and Tank- the base-crushing juggernaut.

L4 for bike mode should be spaced out, like the l2B, so he can't ambush as easily.

Siege mode for Tank mode should have more armor to take on spawns, but perhaps less hp. It could also periodically spawn wraiths over it as a close-range defense.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 15 2009, 9:51 pm by FlashBeer.

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i play mostly 1.4 since i don't see a lot of 1.5 games on the list, but i've always found that the air doesn't do as much damage as the ground. plus the only other use of air is on bike mode, so ground ups are still more useful for general purpose attacking. the reason air is used often in archers is because the explosive damage of hydra isn't as effective as mutas on smaller units and l1 is easily spammed, then theres l4, which makes zerg air viable for archer. for the mech, ground is effective on everything because goliath does straight damage and l1, l3 are long range splash and powerful. plus it makes up a big part of the damage in l4, so air is really just an afterthought. i think introducing bc's and integrating more aerial aspects would give more incentive to up air.

adding wraiths to l3 and maybe bc's on l4 would accomplish this. weakening the damage on bike mode would also help balance damage output since bike micro is rape.

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Quote from ladyalanah

i play mostly 1.4 since i don't see a lot of 1.5 games on the list, but i've always found that the air doesn't do as much damage as the ground. plus the only other use of air is on bike mode, so ground ups are still more useful for general purpose attacking. the reason air is used often in archers is because the explosive damage of hydra isn't as effective as mutas on smaller units and l1 is easily spammed, then theres l4, which makes zerg air viable for archer. for the mech, ground is effective on everything because goliath does straight damage and l1, l3 are long range splash and powerful. plus it makes up a big part of the damage in l4, so air is really just an afterthought. i think introducing bc's and integrating more aerial aspects would give more incentive to up air.

adding wraiths to l3 and maybe bc's on l4 would accomplish this. weakening the damage on bike mode would also help balance damage output since bike micro is rape.

See, there's the flaw in your logic, what you describe is partially already in place. In 1.5, the Mech's L4 operates sort of like the Archer's L4, but with Wraiths instead of Mutalisks - two waves of Wraiths spawn and attack, then eight Tanks spawn. And the Rail Gun uses Air upgrades as well. So, IMO, the Mech is like the Archer in that its spells rely on air upgrades and the Hero itself uses ground upgrades.

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the archers air is much more viable than the mechs air. archer's l4 is exclusively air, so the hero's ground upgrades do not apply. in the case of mech, the wraiths do not nearly have the utility of mutas, and they only do slightly more damage which is nullified by the fact that mutas splash, are spammable, and the archers l4 is exclusively air. this gives the archer a lot of incentive to up air. where the mech is only like an archer in that he has air, but the air is not useful or prominant enough that it would be a good idea to invest heavily in air. for mech, ground still makes up an overwhelming majority of his damage output. the wraiths currently in place are as such, just there to tone down the sheer power of the mech, but do not offer enough incentive to really invest much. none of the mechs spells actually require air to be strong. bike mode itself it extremely fast with a strong attack tht is effective against a lot of heros and all of the lower spawns, mech has the same damage output as bike with tank bombing, the tank spawns more tanks, and the l4 also spawns tanks. so for the mech, theres really no reason to get air unless you plan on spamming bike l2 and don't mind taking away from mechs incredible ground game.

i'm not saying turn the mech into an archer, i'm juts saying the air that the mech has at the moment isn't particularly useful compared to his ground game.

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If people want vult fast, but not fast all the time...

Bike mode could always be slowed by burrowed units, then when he casts l2B...
Overdrive - the burrowed units are lifted for 12 seconds, and he spawns 12 waves of 1 wraith (rather than 6 waves of 2 wraiths.) This would make it cost 100 mana to run, rather than 50. However, I don't think many like a slower vult.

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Quote from FlashBeer

If people want vult fast, but not fast all the time...

Bike mode could always be slowed by burrowed units, then when he casts l2B...
Overdrive - the burrowed units are lifted for 12 seconds, and he spawns 12 waves of 1 wraith (rather than 6 waves of 2 wraiths.) This would make it cost 100 mana to run, rather than 50. However, I don't think many like a slower vult.

No really likes a slow vulture... but i noticed a couple times (when i was a starcraft noob) that i never really noticed vulture speed was effective, at the time i thought it was fast enough lol now that i know more about starcraft its more noticable, but might be better if it is slowed down, (makes it easier to kill

) you'd just... need to plan what you'r doing more

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a lot of the things put up in the past page or two aren't really balance/new ideas in my eyes. you have to consider a couple things when you look at ts.

1. can the spell/hero/strategy be easily countered. Such as the mech bike mode and mech spells discussion. mech bike mode is easily killable, has a mad low hp. It also doesnt do a lot of damage until l4, and gets full damage from some attacks such as archer that makes him more erasily countered in some cases.

2. Does it really need to be changed. If you play a game and it harasses you, its not necissarily op. if you play a game and the single hero gets all the opposing team's hero killz and has a lot more exp, than it is probably op.

3. Is the suggestion coming from your experiences? If you play a game of ts and you're not very good, it's easy to think something is op, especially if you're not used to quick spell reactions and counters and such.

4. Would it really make much of a difference. Would reducing vult speed make a difference? kinda... basicaly it would just change the fastest hero from bike mech to mutant, and he would still have the viable option of running away from basically every other hero, just like he already does. and the transform cooldown, would just make it so a good mech would transform when he's at a slightly higher hp.

I think the mech right now is one of the few balanced heroes in the game, and he shouldnt be changed much. The most in need of change/ideas are probably the lm, the new heroes to 1.5, and the assault/engineer (as they have always had problems with balance/whatever, even in the m versions which didnt change them around.)

also, make sure you keep up to date with the versions... for example, the sci vessel spawn killing glitch was already found and fixed in the most recent build of the 1.5 versions, so you dont have to worry about it anymore.

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1- iirc vulture is actually a medium unit, which actually only takes 1/4 from archer attacks, thats why you never see siege tanks 1 shotting vultures in a regular game of sc despite the tank doing up to 85 damage with ups. Medium class is also 1/2 resistant to attacks from ghost and firebat. So then the vulture is actually resistant to more attacks than most other units despite low hp but i don't have a problem with that since vultures do have low hp. The low hp is the main drawback of the bike, but if you're careful you can use the speed to avoid getting hit in most situations, first is the ease of which the bike can kite around melee units, the most effective attacks i've seen against a bike have been lm reavers, ling l3, and psion. But lm's reavers murder almost all heros anyway, as does ling l3. But even so, bike mode only does 1 less damage to a ling compared to goliath and is much faster and can chase the ling down if hes out of mana and the lm is so slow that theres no reason a biker shouldn't ignore the lm and pick on the rest of the players.

2- sounds like a summoner. i hate summoners. but anyway, i don't just get harrassed by bikes, i find it pretty easy to harass with bike also. practically everytime a mech is present in game, he will get bike mode at the first opportunity because its so useful for hunting slow or light units, and with l4, the biker can get the most kills on his team. i don't measure op'ness simply based on the results, but by how hard it is to generate those results. bike mode makes it much easier to produce good results than if i was stuck in mech mode, and mech is a pretty good character imo even without using the bike.

3- i don't think i need to be a pro at ts to see how hard it can be to deal with even a half decent bike, and i've been playing tons of ts over the past couple weeks and the thing that always pops into my head when i see an enemy mech is; oh shit. bike.

4- i think the simplest change would be to lower the bikes damage and upgrades so it can't easily chase down weakened heros and kill them. this reduces the bikes role to harassing and escaping, where the majority of the mechs damage output will go back to goliath mode.

I kind of like the lm as he is, glass cannon mode.

which version fixes sci vessel? although i don't think it matters much since i join more ts than i host so if someone wants to host a gay version what am i gonna do?

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