Hardened Shields for Everyone.

If we do any shield changes. I say, make a unit, like the mothership, the abiltiy to extend its shields. Creating a massive shield. As big as the time bomb. But a shield, instead of slowing down time. It would use its own shields.

Not completely. I mean the only way zerg wins, is by numbers. Everyone would most likely ban against the protoss, and send massive armies. I mean like a 100 guys from each player. With all the damage. The Colossus' shields wouldn't last long. Anyways if blizzard did do it. Then they would have to massively rebalance all the races. Giving terran the ion cannon they wanted back, the zerg a superweapon, and make the hardened shields upgrades cost a lot (somewhere like 5,000 minerals, and 2,500 gas).

 

Zerg may win by numbers, but they definitely have their fair share of units that deal out brute force. With the Colossus, it's a counter against massed ground units, so even though the Zerg may be about numbers, the Colossus is about countering said numbers. To counter Colossi, Zerg would be best to use Swarm Guardians, but until then, probably Hydralisks. Swarm Guardians can't be hit and are great damage dealers, but come late in the game. With Hardened Shields upgrades, their damage would be less than halved. Hydralisks are early units, they come before Colossi, and although they're fragile, they hit hard. However, again, with Hardened Shields, their damage output is reduced to about sixty percent. Mutalisks would also make a good counter, but Phoenixes would make short work of that.

Essentially, Hardened Shields force the opponent to counter with swarmed units. So if Protoss are given the ability to upgrade their anti-swarm units with Hardened Shields, the opponent is forced to attempt to counter it with what it's strong against. The more the Protoss are allowed to upgrade units with Hardened Shields, the more of a two unit army they'll become, which is not what StarCraft2 is about.

 

I think it would be cool if it was short lived though.

Were you activate it like cloaking a ghost. Only, have the base cost 100 energy, instead of 25, and have it drain two energy every second, instead of one.

 

Or perhaps have the first 20 - 50 HP be hardened Shields then the rest regular shields.

Or is that too complicated?

 

Thats too short lived. It wouldn't really help much. Might as well not have it.

 

Well anyways. Blizzard won't do it. If they do, do it, then the game will come out later, because of rebalancing.

 

Their not even finished with the balancing yet anyway.

If they are gonna do it, they should do it immediatly.

They prolly won't though.

 

It's decent as an idea, after all every last Protoss unit has a shield, but if it were implemented, the fact that it could be on any unit would be a bit iffy, as well as the fact that it would limit which counters are used. For example, Siege Tanks, even if the Colossus did only have twenty to fifty points of Hardened Shields, could potentially waste up to five shots, which as we all know have a huge delay, only to deal fifty points of damage, when they otherwise would have done anywhere between two and five hundred, so instead of being the ultimate Ground defence, having the advantage of having one of the longest attack ranges in the game and dealing massive damage, would instantly lose that advantage, and end up not only within the Colossus' short attack range, but potentially even unable to attack. Combined with the fact that Colossi can also be used to ambush by walking over cliffs, Terran's first line of defence would be useless.

Most importantly though, it would lessen the uniqueness of the Immortal. If the Immortal was removed for this to take place, then it would be ridding the Protoss army of a completely new and unique aspect, even taking the fact that it'd now be upgradeable into consideration.

 

Well, it would make the Immortal less unique, but, the immortal would still have full hardened shields.

Five shots? C'mon, most terran players have five or more tanks defending an area. And, all the tanks fire at the same target when it comes into range anyway. So as soon as the Colossus got in range, he'd still get blown to hell and back. The shield would help zealots get to the tanks, cause there is more then a few coming, the shields would save them from splash damage. You would need to rush the tanks with zealots, and flank them with the colossi.

If you were a protoss commander. Wouldn't you put hardened shields on every unit under your command?

 

If you were a Terran Commander, wouldn't you mount Crucio cannons on your Battlecruisers?

Of course you'd want to, but it would screw up the balance and change the direction of the gameplay.

EDIT: removed quote.

 

Uh gasmask, two things.

One, screw the terrans, no one cares about the humans.

Two, why'd you quote my post? It is right above yours.

Mount the cannons on your BC's, we're still gonna own you anyway.

 

Yay! People are understanding me now! Haha. And I'm more a Terran for skill/Zerg for fun player. Protoss are pretty cool, but I'd probably play them the least. They just look the coolest when it comes to stuff like this.

About the five shots, remember the Crucios are more powerful now, so there will be fewer of them. Also, early on, before the Terran have been able to get to Banshees and Vikings, Crucios would probably be the best unit for taking out Colossi, so even if the Hardened Shields just let them get close, it's immediately countered the Siege Tank's main advantage. Not to mention that that's the Immortals job, so would still be taking over their role and uniqueness, despite not having full Hardened Shields.

 

Some map maker is going to do this idea in a map. This would be useful on a cat vs mouse. Mice would so take over.

 

Is that a UMS map going around?

 

Not a good idea in my view. I beleive the only sheild upgrades should be for the Carrier and I will make a thread for that soon.

 

No, its a series of maps. You can get them by playing Starcraft: Brood War online. Just go to a Cat vs. Mouse game.

 

Oh ok, I see.

It is UMS though, I normally don't play those.