Hardened Shields for Everyone.

What if the protoss had the option to pay 100 minerals per unit and receive a permanent upgrade to give any protoss unit the equivalent of the immortals hardened shield? This could allow the player to choose whether to spam zealots or create a handful of 'immortal' zealots. It would be especially beneficial for breaking based defenses, and would all of course upgrade our capital ships ASAP. Perhaps they could just get rid of the Immortal and use this idea, allowing you to create immortal Stalkers, Carrier's etc.

This would be similar to Sci V's Defense Matrix except costlier and permanent (and ineffective against low attk)

I also look at the Protoss shields as a major characteristic of the race and hope there are more additions to shield mechanics like new upgrades, shield batteries, sharing shields etc. In Sons of War there is a unit called the Phalanx which acts as a mobile Shield Battery)
http://www.sonsofwar.pyrom.net/index2.html

If you hate this Idea than come up with some other Protoss shield ideas you think would be interesting for the game.

Ex. What if units are originally built without shields and must research Shield upgrade to give units Shield?

 

Immortals would no longer be unique. Depending on which is cheaper (random protoss unit+upgrade or immortal) ratio'd by how much damage each of the two units deal, everybody would just choose one and the other would be completely ignored.

 

Then why would we have immortals? Might as well just get Immortal Stalkers!

 

I don't like either idea....The Hardened Shields for all would (A) Make the Immortal a pointless waste of minerals and (B) Completely neuter the Seige Tank which is essntially the backbone of the Terran assualt and defense.

 

I agree with Fenix. If you look at professional PvT matches, siege tanks are the most used mech for terran since they can pound dragoons and zealots while still staying behind the front line of marines and vultures.

Giving every unit the ability to buy a shield would erase any advantage of the siege tank and severely lower terran's ability to defend and attack protoss.

Also, as stated, the immortal would also be useless because if other units could buy a shield, they would be stronger and make the immortal obsolete.

 

no one will use terran vs toss ever again bcoz siege tank is useless

 

everyone would be forced to use all the spammable units, protoss vs zerglings, protoss vs marines doesn't sound like such a fun game...

 

I am actually proposing to scrap the Immortal ( yeah yeah stop crying) and instead implement this hardened shield idea. I am not advocating it, just wondering.

Iit shouldn't be too imba because it comes at a price which is balanceable, i mean why pay 100 minerals to make a super zealot when you could just make two zealots, especially when zerglings and marines would still do full damage to the super zealot.

I also imagine the unit going through a transform much like mutalisks-> guardians or templar ->Archons thus you can decide to upgrade individual units on the battlefield or in transit.

You would have to decide which units to invest in and when.

I realize this would fundamentally change Protoss gameplay, which we should be very careful before doing, but I am curious about other ideas to give the Protoss shields something more.

 

As alrighty stated, and I will state again. The Immortal wouldn't have a point, and that would give protoss players a super big advange. Its like having 50 motherships. Its a cheap why for begineers to cream the pros. Then everyone would just go protoss.

 

sorry but thats a horrible idea, just horrible. No one would go against any who played 'toss, it would take the fun out of the game by turning every 'toss unit into a walking invincible death machine.

 

If we scrapped Immortals and had Hardened Shields for EVERYONE, then there still would be absolutely no point in Sieges. I love the 'Toss in Starcraft, and if they were overpowered like that, I definitely would switch back to Terran.

 

With all Protoss units having Hardened Shields, basically every unit that did any noteworthy amount of damage would be stunted. Suddenly Ultralisks, Archons, Siege Tanks, Banelings, and Nukes would be only as harmful as a Photon Cannon. This is a kind of change that would require you to completely scratch all of StarCraft II gameplay, and start over. No thank you.

 

Not to mention that the Protoss units would have to be nerfed to compensate for the shields. For example a Colossus couldn't be upgraded with Hardened Shields without a massive loss of damage or health, especially with their Null Circuit upgrade. So not only would all the Ultralisks, Siege Tanks, Banelings and Nukes be against the Protoss because they can upgrade anything with Hardened Shields, but the Protoss would have to be completely redesigned as well.

Also, it complete messes with unit counters. Using the Colossus as an example again, it's designed to counter small ground units, like Zerglings, Marines, etc, and be countered by powerful units, like the same Ultralisks, Siege Tanks, etc, and Air units. If it's given Hardened Shields, then it's forcing the other player to have to counter the Colossus with what it's good against until they have a sufficient number of weak Air units, like Mutalisks and Banshees, in which case a few Phoenixes with Hardened Shields can come in and wipe them out near instantly.

In short, players would practically be forced to attack Protoss with weak units, because anything they have could be equipped with Hardened Shields. This means that the Protoss player would only need to produce units that counter these weak units, and as a result would always have the advantage.

 

Yes but if this idea is gonna be used. I say INDIVIDUALY upgraded. Like a zealot would cost to individually upgrade 150. Also I don't like the idea for EVERY unit. How about a couple of other. I wouldn't really encourage this because the Immortals have this because they are the last of their kind. They are just Dragoons transformed.

This could work but iinstead of an immortal sheild how about something like different. (Just an Idea) How about Sheild Charge. I just got this from thinking about the phoenix ship. Like a CERTAIN unit has this ability but its a general upgrade and could help a lot.

Ex. (Just using the stalker as an example) The stalker is upgraded and has a special option. It running away but its being chased. So it uses the special ability/option which allows it to have its sheild on full power so it recharges faster (Like 5 persecond) and it's resistance is like 10. Atfer a certain amount of time than it's sheilds shuts down for 30secs?

After the 30 seconds it has to recharge from 0. (Normally recharging)

Keep in mind just a suggestion if this IMMORTAL SHEILD thing doesn't turn out.

 

Thanks Rex for the first useful commentary

Basically, Shields are cool and the Hardened shield for the Immortal is a cool new aspect of Protoss shields. I would like to see at least one more specialized shield upgrade, or new shield mechanic such as the Tempest's shield.

Come on people. Any ideas?

How bout:

a unit who's shield blinks offs when it attacks. Preferably a powerful siege unit with slow attack rate. Must have ability to order this unit to stop attacking for defensive mode.

Unit with a shield that can pulse out to push enemies away, simultaneously doing damage.

Upgrade 'Zealot' to new unit 'Apostle' with weak ranged attack and ability to add shield bonus to all units within range. So it would be common to send 1 or two Apostles with each group of Zealots.

New unit 'Pariah' that can sacrifice itself to become an enhanced Defense Matrix style shield around any unit.

New unit 'Martyr' with ability to automatically restore nearby units shields by sacrificing its own. Preferably make this unit have High Shield HP but low or even zero normal HP. Would be cool to have a group of zealots with this unit nearby. The 'Martyr' absorbs all damage directed at Zealots until the Martyr's Shields give out and it explodes, leaving the zealots vulnerable to attack.


Please give useful comments and criticism.

 

yea, like lets remove the new dragoon, and say that the sneaky devious 4 legged dark templar blinking unit is the new dragoon, right?

no.

immortals have their place in SC2. where zealots are the hands of the protoss, immortals are the spine: they support all. theyre a slow, but majestic and powerful unit with a role of its own. i for one, am strongly in support of keeping this unit in the game as its an important unit. id say if anything take stalkers out but they do have a place in SC2 to a fairly good extent.

 

i think the idea isnt great and i like the immortal.

it would make the game a spammable game (as previous people said).

-Zerks

 

I would only be okay with giving protoss a big advantage like this if you gave the terrans an awesome advantage too. like giving siege tanks the ability to upgrade individually to have EMP shells that wipe out all shields hardened or not. in fact the more I think about it the better it sounds. terrans will dominate toss!! mwahahahahha!!!

 

So what do you think of my Apostle and Martyr Ideas?^^^

 

in other words you want a "support wizard" type of protoss unit. its logical though the other races would need one.

and the mothership and high templar already help you in terms of support spells.

they are great ideas its just i wouldnt see blizzard putting it in.

though a game likw DoW would totally think about it.

-Zerks