Change the way EMP works

[Decoy]

TL;DR

Indirectly nerf EMP by giving it a grenade-like mechanic where it explodes after a set amount of time instead of being an instant explosion. It would reward Protoss players for their perception and allow them to mitigate the amount of damage the EMP does to their army by giving them a very brief window of opportunity to move their units away from wherever the EMP landed.


The general consensus right now is that EMP is overpowered against Protoss. I do agree with that statement, however I don't think the issue is as severe as most people think.

The problem is the division of skill level between the "Pro" gamer and the average casual gamer. As it currently stands, a skilled Protoss player could simply feedback the Ghost before they have time to use EMP. The problem, however, is that the casual gamer would have a very hard time employing this counter-tactic in the heat of battle. On the other hand, using a Ghost's EMP is much easier to do.

As a result, in the eyes of a low-level Protoss player, Ghosts end up seeming incredibly powerful - However, in the eyes of a skilled player who is fast enough to use Feedback against Ghosts, EMP is not as big of a problem as it is for a lower level player.

So this brings a slight dilemma... do we balance the game according to the casual crowd or the pros?


EMP Mechanic Change

There's been a lot of talk about possible ways to give EMP a slight nerf. Some people suggesting to make EMP a researched ability, while others suggested to give Ghost Academies a Factory prerequisite.

However, I think one possible solution is to just change the way EMP works by giving it a slight delay before exploding. To clarify, just think of it as throwing a grenade; it doesn't explode at impact - it explodes after a set amount of time.

Anywhere between 1-2 seconds of delay before the EMP goes off will allow even a low-level player to use his (bad) micromanagement skills to try to move his units away from the EMP blast. In most cases, what would probably happen is that the EMP will go off a moment after the Protoss units start moving away - and while the Protoss player may have saved a couple units a hit from the EMP blast, most of his units will still end up taking a hit.

The more skilled the player is, the more units he will be able to move away from the EMP blast before it goes off.

The hard part, of course, is to find the right delay time. Give it too long of a delay and the EMP will be worthless.

[Darthveda]

It could just be a flat shield reduction rather than whammo - all shields gone.

[Swiftaust]

EMP is -100 shield.

It already is a flat reduction, it's just that most units don't have more than 100 shield.

[Ktvindicare]

Consensus

1. (agreement in the judgment or opinion reached by a group as a whole) "the lack of consensus reflected differences in theoretical positions"; "those rights and obligations are based on an unstated consensus"

2.General agreement, characterized by the absence of sustained opposition to substantial issues by any important part of the concerned interests and by a process that involves seeking to take into account the views of all parties concerned and to reconcile any conflicting arguments


We don't have a consensus that EMP is overpowered against Protoss. It's as strong as it's SUPPOSED to be against Protoss.

[Jim]

The general consensus right now is that EMP is overpowered against Protoss. I do agree with that statement, however I don't think the issue is as severe as most people think.

The problem is the division of skill level between the "Pro" gamer and the average casual gamer. As it currently stands, a skilled Protoss player could simply feedback the Ghost before they have time to use EMP. The problem, however, is that the casual gamer would have a very hard time employing this counter-tactic in the heat of battle. On the other hand, using a Ghost's EMP is much easier to do.

As a result, in the eyes of a low-level Protoss player, Ghosts end up seeming incredibly powerful - However, in the eyes of a skilled player who is fast enough to use Feedback against Ghosts, EMP is not as big of a problem as it is for a lower level player.

So this brings a slight dilemma... do we balance the game according to the casual crowd or the pros?



EMP Mechanic Change

There's been a lot of talk about possible ways to give EMP a slight nerf. Some people suggesting to make EMP a researched ability, while others suggested to give Ghost Academies a Factory prerequisite.

However, I think one possible solution is to just change the way EMP works by giving it a slight delay before exploding. To clarify, just think of it as throwing a grenade; it doesn't explode at impact - it explodes after a set amount of time.

Anywhere between 1-2 seconds of delay before the EMP goes off will allow even a low-level player to use his (bad) micromanagement skills to try to move his units away from the EMP blast. In most cases, what would probably happen is that the EMP will go off a moment after the Protoss units start moving away - and while the Protoss player may have saved a couple units a hit from the EMP blast, most of his units will still end up taking a hit.

The more skilled the player is, the more units he will be able to move away from the EMP blast before it goes off.

The hard part, of course, is to find the right delay time. Give it too long of a delay and the EMP will be worthless.
Feedback would be a lot easier to use against Ghosts if they looked like sentries.

[Decoy]

Yeah, it really is difficult to spot out ghosts in a blob of marines and marauders. Perhaps feedback range should be increased, or emp range decreased to give the toss player a bit more time to spot out the ghosts.

[Queuequeue]

I will keep this short and to the point..


Feed back range = 9, EMP = 6. If he keeps his ghosts in the back to avoid feedback, storm his army as he won't be able to stop you. If he moves ghosts to the front in order to EMP, feedback, insta-dead ghost.

[Jpgreatone]

have to agree with the guy above me... one good protoss player I fought did this to me 7 times in 1 game... could barely get off 1 EMP

[Jim]

have to agree with the guy above me... one good protoss player I fought did this to me 7 times in 1 game... could barely get off 1 EMP
Or you could EMP the templar and take away all his energy.

[Jpgreatone]

Or you could EMP the templar and take away all his energy.

Feed back range = 9, EMP = 6

someones not paying attention

[Decoy]

As I've stated in the OP, there is no doubt that Feedback is a strong counter to ghosts.

The problem, however, lies where how difficult it is to find ghosts in a blob of marines in the heat of battle in order to feedback them in time before they get their EMPs off, espiecially to a lower skill level player (which makes up for the majority of the SC2 players).

Even with feedback's longer range, it is very difficult for a lower-skilled player to employ this counter. On the other hand, using EMP is VERY easy for even a newbie to use.

So to reiterate what I've already written in the OP, in a high level match between two equally skilled players, EMP isn't that much of a problem compared to a match between two lower skill level players, where EMP is much more dominant simply because it is much easier to use than Feedback.

[Smellycheese]

Another problem lies in that EMP comes into combat much sooner then Feedback does.

[Proletaria]

So forcing every toss that sees an academy to build twilight council - templar archives - research storm (otherwise, we're just keeping a bunch of HT around to feedback and die) is ok?

[zerg]

im not coming at this from a balance perspecitve (i havnt played enough to say what is, and isnt balanced)

But what if EMP were required to be bought (similar to a scarab), with 1 EMP carry limit per ghost

[Decoy]

So forcing every toss that sees an academy to build twilight council - templar archives - research storm (otherwise, we're just keeping a bunch of HT around to feedback and die) is ok?

As it currently stands, it really does seem like Protoss are forced to counter with HT, and it's just bad game design when you are forced to build a counter unit. While I'm sure some would disagree, there is no doubt that a terran army with 3-4 ghosts is incredibly powerful against Protoss right now.

Even nerfing the amount of shields EMP takes off wouldn't help too much because a terran player would just build an extra couple of ghosts to make up for the loss. Once the battle starts, ghosts will still end up taking out all the shields of protoss units and essentially turn the battle in his favor from the onset.


This is why I think EMP could be given a mechanic change instead of a nerf. As I wrote in the OP, giving EMP a grenade-like mechanic where it explodes after a set amount of time instead of being an instant explosion, would be an interesting way to "nerf" EMP. It would reward Protoss players for their perception and allow them to mitigate the amount of damage the EMP does to their army by giving them a very brief window of opportunity to move their units away from wherever the EMP landed.

The difficult part would be to find a fair detonation time that would reward Protoss players for their quick reaction skills, though at the same time not so long that they will have time to move away ALL their units and thus make EMP worthless.

[Nisco]

I actually like this idea.

Stalkers and (maybe) Zlots would be able to get out of it in time if they reacted quick enough, but Immortals and High Templars would probably take the full blast if aimed at them.

[Decoy]

I just think this would be an interesting change that would keep the EMP powerful but also give the Protoss player a chance to reduce the amount of units that get hit by the EMP.

At least it won't be like it is now, where 3-4 Ghosts = Entire Protoss army losing all their shields the moment the battle begins.

[East]

EMP is simply easier to use due to the fact that it is an AoE attack.

Feedback is not.

Making Feedback an AoE which diminishes unit mana by a certain amount, depending on the number of units with mana in the area would be a viable solution.

Let's say it takes away 100 mana. If there were 5 units with mana, each would lose 20.

[Mith]

If EMP needs a charge time, then so does Psi Storm.

[Xnub]

Another problem lies in that EMP comes into combat much sooner then Feedback does.

Cause terran is weak VS toss early game ..... Mid game is terrans playing field then late game is toss again

Without EMP terran fold VS toss like no other and right now with emp its a 50/50 shot of winning still.

EMP is Not overpowered just retards out there that think they should win by massing Colo and 2 other units

[Kurdaj]

If EMP needs a charge time, then so does Psi Storm.

So then EMP would have to be researched @ 200 min, 200 gas? I'll take that.

[Zrel]

I will keep this short and to the point..


Feed back range = 9, EMP = 6. If he keeps his ghosts in the back to avoid feedback, storm his army as he won't be able to stop you. If he moves ghosts to the front in order to EMP, feedback, insta-dead ghost.

So wrong, EMP range is at least 8. In addition, the explosion has a range of 2 I believe. You can fire that off into a toss army or even at the HTs before feedback will stop EMP.

EDIT: Here's an awesome picture that shows this.

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/38/not6.jpg

Thanks to Pertinacious.blue for doing the research. (http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=23767640348&sid=5000&pageNo=3) post #45

[Proletaria]

Cause terran is weak VS toss early game ..... Mid game is terrans playing field then late game is toss again

Without EMP terran fold VS toss like no other and right now with emp its a 50/50 shot of winning still.

EMP is Not overpowered just retards out there that think they should win by massing Colo and 2 other units

Except this is false on all counts.

Marauders ensure than no protoss army in t1 is effective. They simply kite the zealots and stalkers around indefinetly. There is no charge/blink in t1, and rarely is the tech produced in t2 because by that point, the units die too fast (from emp and 3m) for it to matter.

Colossai are hard-countered by equal resources in vikings *units you can spam with a reactor'd starport* and they don't even need the expensive tech and upgrades to be used. No EMP required. If you think it's impossible to win against colossaid without EMP, you're doing something terribly wrong.

High Templar and Colossai are both DEEP t3 units that require EXPENSIVE tech and EXPENSIVE upgrades to produce. It only makes sense that terran have to go through the same expensive late techign to get their joint-counter (EMP). I'm fine with colossai being waxed by vikings, but the fact that ANY attempt to counter terran is shut down by emp at t2 is just silly. There is no defense of the current state of EMP that holds water. It just doesn't make sense to have such a game-breaking debuff avalible at t2 with no research beyond the building itself.

Imagine for a moment if High Templar could be constructed at the Twilight council and came with Psi Storm as default. I think you Terran chaps would consider that a tad early to be spamming storms. The same holds true with EMP.

[Munashiimaru]

I've seen quite a few replays of high level PvT and while Emp helps terran even the playing field well microed storm to avoid losing energy to emp obilerates terran; they balance each other out pretty much.

[Proletaria]

I've seen quite a few replays of high level PvT and while Emp helps terran even the playing field well microed storm to avoid losing energy to emp obilerates terran; they balance each other out pretty much.

Care to share one of those replays with us?

[Munashiimaru]

Care to share one of those replays with us?

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

It's commented by HDStarcraft; that's the first of 5 youtube videos should beable to find the rest from there it's a very long game; there's other ones I've seen around too.

[Lofty]

Consensus

1. (agreement in the judgment or opinion reached by a group as a whole) "the lack of consensus reflected differences in theoretical positions"; "those rights and obligations are based on an unstated consensus"

2.General agreement, characterized by the absence of sustained opposition to substantial issues by any important part of the concerned interests and by a process that involves seeking to take into account the views of all parties concerned and to reconcile any conflicting arguments


We don't have a consensus that EMP is overpowered against Protoss. It's as strong as it's SUPPOSED to be against Protoss.

qft

[Sonofsamus]

Ghosts can be brought out fairly early given that you may build an academy after a barracks is built for the low price of 150min/50gas. Ghosts themselves are 100/200. Perhaps it should just be necessary to build a factory before building a ghost academy, you need a factory anyway to build nukes. Making the factory necessary would put the tech on par with the protoss' high templar if I'm not mistaken. (gateway-twilight council-archives) vs (Barracks-factory-academy). I'm a little hesitant though because emp doesn't actually do any dmg, it just drops shields/removes energy. Unlike Psi storm which kills. Protoss shields regenerate faster than in sc1. What I would suggest as a tactic is to keep your templar apart of you main force, and after being on the receiving end of an EMP, feint back, and Psi storm the Terran army as it pursues. Make sure you have sentries to provide the AoE shield, and prioritize armor upgrades to be relatively less dependent on shields. I would say using feedback on a ghost would be as comparable to sniping a templar.

[Mith]

So then EMP would have to be researched @ 200 min, 200 gas? I'll take that.

Only if it were capable of killing units instead of just draining energy and 100 shield.

[Chasm]

Cause terran is weak VS toss early game

can you please elaborate on how terran is weak vs toss early?

[Mith]

can you please elaborate on how terran is weak vs toss early?


One zealot kills two Marines. Sentries block incoming damage while M&M take damage to push Stim.


It takes M&M supported by Medivacs *and* Ghosts to properly go head to head with what the Protoss have in superior ground devastation in the mid game with Collossi and Immortals.

[Nick]

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

It's commented by HDStarcraft; that's the first of 5 youtube videos should beable to find the rest from there it's a very long game; there's other ones I've seen around too.

nice game :D

[Nick]

EMP is simply easier to use due to the fact that it is an AoE attack.

Feedback is not.

Making Feedback an AoE which diminishes unit mana by a certain amount, depending on the number of units with mana in the area would be a viable solution.

Let's say it takes away 100 mana. If there were 5 units with mana, each would lose 20.

that's like comparing psi storm to snipe. sure, a couple of snipes could kill a high templar, but a couple of nicely cast psi storms could kill a whole group of infantry. plus, psi storm is an aoe!

[Decoy]

EMP is simply easier to use due to the fact that it is an AoE attack.

Feedback is not.


This is something I wrote about in the original post. EMP is a much more newbie friendly ability because it is so easy to use compared to feedback. However, that does NOT mean feedback is a bad ability. I have seen high level Protoss players use it amazingly well to essentially make enemy ghosts completely worthless.

[Hydragyrum]

EMP was in the original SC as well (only on Science Vessels)... they haven't really changed anything since then, so I'm not sure what the problem with it now is. EMP in the original SC nuked all shields and all energy, even on buildings, so if they changed it to a flat reduction then that means they even went ahead and nerfed it.

Also, protoss have zero reason to complain about cloaked units, since they should be able to get observers at about the same time as Terrans get ghosts.