How about a makeover for the colossus?

Thanks for explaining and making that clear, I was not only aiming at its power, that became the main topic in this discussion after someone posted the latest damage rates. I am talking about giving it an entirely new role. Raiding or harassing is not wat a true war machine should do, especially if it is powerfull like the colossus. It needs to be an assault or at least a support unit in my opinion.

 

Hmm well what about the extra damage vs larger units scenario?
And what about the Colossus vs Ultralisk?
Its still gonna get trashed (assuming there are no cliffs)

I would like to see the colossus do constant damage, and maybe ignore armor since it would ruin tthe constant damage idea. (constantly 1 damage with a rate of 45 damage per sec), +5 damage/2sec per upg
for the vs larger units, maybe +5 per 2 sec vs medium, +10 per2sec vs large, and +15 per 2 sec vs massive or sumthin
maybe make the AoE change too, like 2 AoE for units in range 6-9, 1 for units being hit in range 2-5, 0 (directly adjacent) for units hit in range 0-1

Caution: Its just an idea, not thought out at all

And maybe for the ultra -> 17x2 +6 per hit vs massive, +2 per hit per upgrade, 2 base armor, bring back armor upgrade (+2 armor)

w/e

T.T dont judge me!

 

That's a quite good concept, but you seem to forget just how fast the colossus is. It can easily outrun one or more Ultralisks and recharge their shields while doing that.

 

AFAIK the colossus is a direct counter to everything small and light. As such, it shouldn't have any kind of bonus against massive units. In fact, massive units should counter it with ease barring the speed advantage of the colossus.

For no apparent reason something cropped up in my mind ...
Would it be possible to give the colossus 2 types of armour to cushion ground and air attacks? That way its legs could be made more vulnerable by having 0 armour and its thorax could have something like 2 so while it could still be hit by AA it would be slightly more resistant. That way with it being very weak against ground attacks (when taking into account its armour to psi use, costs, and tech ratio) it could have a devastating attack while keeping the unit fairly balanced. This devastating attack could be the praised original attack: two shafts focused on one point, constant voidrayesque damage (but without the increase over time), and minimal AOE. Now here's the catch: if it kills a unit, it has an attack cooldown of ~5 seconds. However, if it doesn't kill, it can fire indefinitely... hence the unit would (with insane micromanagement by constantly changing targets to avoid making a kill) become devastating and would live up to its character of being a banned warmachine.
This attack could be implemented and balanced by costs and damage output if the 2 armour types cannot be done.

 

That's the way it should be. The two unis have very different roles.

Do you see this as compatible with AoE damage?

Huh?

Don't see the point of this. Also, massive ground units are pretty rare, while buildings are common.

 

@Kuvasz
I see your point with the armor and it makes sense, since the Protoss would assume they were far superior to their enemies when creating the Collosus. They would have assumed ground units posed no threat to them, but in case they did encounter air units, they would be able to resist them untill a carrier came along to help out. But I think the attack idea is a bit weird. What exactly would a giant ray of superheated metal be aware of the fact that it just killed something? Or do the Protoss in the ships controlling them have a sick sense of humour and make the enemy think they are going to stop after each kill? :s

 

I think they are controlled by AI having only an emergency override thing just in case... but I can't remember its lore too well. The reason for stopping? To mourn, of course. But seriously, lore can explain anything (as we might see in one of the coming batches ) so this could be explained as well if it really needed to be. I haven't thought about the lore side of it, but gameplay wise it would certainly be a very nice and unique feature. Perhaps the lore could be along the lines of how the void ray works, the two using similar technology or something.

 

I will always be a lore junky if it comes to stories behind units. Well, only if the rest of the story is any good, and both sc and sc:bw were great.

But how do you plan to apply that kind of crazy micro when controlling a mixed group of units? It would be quite a challange, but it still seems weird. The void ray needs to be stationary to focus the energy, but the colossus uses a sweeping beam, so it would be not a really good explanation. I think a cooldown is still the best solution, even if it kills nothing.

 

Double post, bla bla, evil. My topic, this is a eureka moment, it needs a new post.

WHAT IF: -drums please-
The thermal lances would work like lightsabers from star wars, do not call me nuts yet, this makes perfect sense.
The ray would be activated, but it uses sensors and stuff to stop the beam before touching the ground, and the power loops back in. When it spots an enemy, it will send the beam to intersect with the unit to hit it with the energybeam. This makes it loose power, and it eventually needs to charge again for about 10 seconds, so it will be easy to harm. This solves the armor issue, removes the aoe damage that people use as an excuse for nerfing the beam power and it makes it deadly again, without it becoming extremely powerfull and not needing other units to back it up.

 

Void rays follow their targets and maintain the beam, they don't need to be stationary.

 

But they need to stay in one place to build up power. The colossus can move all it wants and do the same high amount of damage all the time.

 

I'm pretty sure they can move and maintain the full power beam. They'd suck otherwise.

Never mind pretty sure, look up Q&A #47. It's been confirmed.

 

Awesome. Actual movement or just turning in place makes a huge diffrerence, but just turning is great as well. Otherwise they would only be cost effective against buildings. Can anyone confirm how strong the colossus is vs buildings? I remember only attacks on units from the video footage of the latest build I saw. -probably from Blizzcon, not sure-

 

At one point (when it was horribly overpowered) the colossus could kill a phase/photon cannon in 7 seconds.

At BlizzCon 2008 it sucked vs buildings.

Now it's powerful, and will probably be good vs buildings unless they lower the base damage and give it a bonus vs light units (or something like that).

 

Seven seconds is actually a mighty long time for the Colossus to simply be sitting there, attacking a Photon Cannon. The Cannon would be able to dish out about a hundred and forty damage on its own in that time.

On top of that, it would probably be able to take out a Photon Cannon in roughly the same time with its current attack.

 

That is just underpwowered, although you could also see it as drastic balancing. The colossus only do little damage against everything, but a pretty good bonus vs all small units and medium and higher a decent bonus if they are organic. That way armoured units, which it was not designed to do battle with, can sort of counter it. -If toss only has colossi with no support, like when cliff walking.- Zerg still have corruptors that can attack it -same tier iirc- and otherwise mutalisks and guardians. Possibly even burrowed banelings. -There, no reason to say: OMG! OP against zerg, your idea suuuckzz!-

 

Zerglings for the same amount of resources would take it down in less than 3...

 

- give a new role ( for me ) :

I can't explain a lot, but I want this unit to be stronger, more resistant than what we watched on the 1st battle report. Its shield and armor are weak. That's one point

My second point is that I see this unit like a big support for the classic units. It will be like the Thor, but less efficient; less powerful. The mothership should be as powerful as the Thor (if it is decided like this)

For me, now the Colossus is not as useful as we can see. It is like the battlecruiser of Starcraft 1. I am not talking about the new battlecruiser which is more efficient than before with what we have seen about this unit.

 

about the same time?
a colossus does 45dmg/2 sec
a photon cannon has 250 hp+sp
250/45 = 5 + remainer 25 -> 6
6x2 = 12
12 seconds
in that case, a cannon would do 240 damage
unless thew colossus' range is upgraded

 

I simply approximated the attack rate differently. Seeing as its final attack rate is unlikely to be an exact integer, with an attack every second, as opposed to every two seconds, it will down the Cannon in approximately five seconds. And again, seeing as its actual attack rate will most likely be between one and two seconds, that approximates to the current Colossus being able to down the Cannon is roughly the same time as the old Colossus.