Concerns over Terran Raven/Nighthawk

Hi, i've noticed that the most recent Raven has undergone many revolutionising changes from the original Science Vessel. To be honest i'm quite happy with the current Raven's arsenal (especially the Hunter Seeker Missle) as demonstrated by the Battle Report 2, though i think it's still lacking in terms of abilities.

Battle Report 2 really did make the Hunter Seeker ability shine but the auto turret serves a more limited role (only 2-3 were deployed in the battle report). The old science vessel however, was effective against biological and was a great asset in defensive roles, allowing it to become a more effective support unit, rather than just throwing missiles at the enemy. So in my opinion, Blizzard should be reconsidering the auto turret option and maybe introduce another skill (a total of 3 spells) in which the Raven could use to maximise it's effectiveness. Eg. Since Lockdown has been removed, it can be equipped on Raven instead. This will provide it with greater flexibility as a support unit since it can then disable enemy vehicles, allowing your units to tear it apart. What do you think of my suggestion?

 

Novacute... looking at your last couple of threads I deduced this:

You are a terran fan
You want to make the terran invincible
You dont really know a lot about unit roles and game balance
You are new to the forums

That said, I think this idea is terrible. I mean, have you even looked at the HSM? It's such a good ability is ridiculous. A floating reaver, yeah sure, let's give him more destructive power.
Plus, Im not sure you fully understand what you can do with the turrets. For example you could place one near an observer tower and there you have it, an expendable unit that gives you tons and tons of vision. Or you could use them for choke points. Or base raids, combining em with the HSM. OR place them normally in battle to lure the enemies into attacking those worthless pieces of scrap metal while your real units are safe and sound firing from behind.

I dont think you could decide wether an ability is useful or not by watching only 1 use for it.

 

calm down, it's just a suggestion. And it would be lovely to have a floating reaver.. but it's not the case. Not even close. Anyway i don't want to empower the Raven, though it would be nice if it did have another ability like the lock down for example? I hope i'm not stepping over the boundary here.

 

Nova just a little suggestion for next time. Post all your ideas in one thread!

Some nice ideas though, but I fell they are unneeded, and i think Lombar got 4 very nice points! This is not another RTS where everyone has abbilities so it reminds of a WOW druid...

 

Actually, i thought it was more of a balancing factor since zerg/protoss spell casters usually have 3 spells right? so i thought it 'would' apply to Raven?

 

Hey, I think the suggestion is fine. Lombar and furrer are just of different minds. Seriously Lombar, giving the Raven Lockdown makes it imba? Really? As if you couldn't balance it, by tweaking energy cost and duration. Don't discuss balance but rather in what ways the new set of spells on a unit would be better and more fun in certain situations, etc.

 

Well, actually yes, I think giving him the lockdown wouldnt be really ballanced. Not only that, but if you add that 3rd ability into the unit, the way you use it will become a lot more difficult, not only hotkey-, but strategy-wise.
And if you tweak it by energy/cd it will almost certainly become unused, since you'll have to choice from an all destroying missile, a strategic turret, or stopping a unit for somewhat a minute.

 

lol, if lock down never is used, the energy cost has not been tweaked properly.

And all-destroying? Really? Lock down would do better vs Thors, Motherships and Carriers for sure. And properly microed units can avoid the HSM, while lock down as we know it is guaranteed to sooner or later hit home after it has been activated.

 

The lock down may seem useful for now. But it's not. If it was a terran vs zerg battle. It would be useless. Zerg have no machines of any kind. It is useful in stop robotic units. It was also barely used. I have played a lot of sc1 with other people. I don't see it used that much. I see carriers and bcs used a lot of the time. If we are to add another ability to the nighthawk. It would be best if was something a bit more defensive, and we know it would be used a lot.

All true. Most of all the new threads have been made by you. This has been said, but keep it all in one thread please. I have balanced a custom made w3 map before. It didn't take long. I spent more time creating the units and building than balancing. But of course now that I play it with other people, I find some balancing issues. The ideas you are putting in would majorly unbalance the game to the terran side. The protoss can easily unbalance the game if the right units and ability are in. A single protoss unit can unbalance the game if it was twicked just a little bit. Please learn that you should put downsides to these abilities. I know a great ability for the dark plyon, I even gave it a downside.

This would for sure unbalance the game. I did give a downside to it. To balance it, you would give a unit or building the ability to see into the void.

 

I like the raven just as it is. i dont think any of your suggestions are going to do it any better. they will possible unbalance the game further in the wrong direction.

 

The night hawk is fine. There is nothing wrong with it. The terran science vessel was slightly offensive too. It's got the Irradiate ability. That for sure is offensive. There is also the EMP Shockwave, which can also be defensive as well as offensive. Defensive Matrix is for sure defensive. The night hawk as the deplorable gun turrets which can be used for offensive as will as offensive. It also has the hunter seeker missile, which is offensive. The night hawk is the same as the science vessel. So stop trying to make every terran unit a almost invulnerable killing machine. They have weakness for a reason.

 

^ I agree. The raven is fine the way it is. But I don't think that lockdown being added would unbalence it. I agree so that it wasn't used much and yes it could very well be tweaked so that you can be usless or completly used al da time.

 

ya the raven is already a very powerful unit. the hunter seeker missiles are almost like the psi storm from the high templars. (idk if its the same area of effect or not tho, but it does the same amount of dmg more or less) it can make for good drone/scv/probe harassment aswell. bring in a raven by a mineral like and then unleash hunter seeker missles on the gatherers. when a raven is there they pretty much have 2 choices, run away or die. of course this can easily be prevented by simply putting some cannons/missile turrets there. but even that might not help if you send in back up as fodder for the hunter missles to succeed in destroying someones economy. or use that "defensive drone" thing to block missle/cannon atks (unless that ability was removed) and if someone DOESNT put defense by there mineral line then well there screwed...

the turrets can act as a less power but still somewhat effective gatherer harrass as well. drop a few turrets behind someones mineral lines and watch the probes/scvs/drones die one by one or run for there lives in fear as some back up comes to kill the turrets. either way it still stops the economy.

 

I still think the Raven was better with Spider mines and Targeting Drones added with the auto-turret they made the Raven a mobile drone platform and gave it a hands off approach to combat.

 

its more of a weapons platform now with all its deadly weapons =D

 

Ya it's more of a weapons platform. It's a flying ship where turrets and missiles are built to be launched from.

 

I agree Again. It's like a missile platform, and I can see why you might want the spider mines and targeting drones. It's kind of like how I really wanted the hydraisk to come back to teir one and the roach to be
Over back. Of course it was because of balence but I still got my wish.

 

The only reason I can think of why blizzard would get rid of spider mines and targeting drones on the Raven is because of balance. Most of what they take out is because of that. But hopefully they will at least put those abilities in the editor. I would love to be able to use them in the editor.

 

I think it's the same princable with the phinx over load witch was taken out. I guess it was way to potent against massed units like mutas (but who truly knows)

 

One of the recent interviews said that Overload was too strong when it was stackable, but too weak when it wasn't.