New Colossus Attack

The Colossus originally had a focused attack. Then they switched it to the spread attack. Then they weakened it severely. I have 2 questions:
1. If the Colossi's focused attack could have been balanced by decreasing the damage, why didn't they do that instead of switching in the spread?
2. If the Colossi's spread attack was so weak, why did they decrease its HP and Damage while increasing its cost?
Its questions like these that make me suspect the Colossus is more powerful than people give it credit for.

On the subject of units clumping, yes, they continue to form easily targetable clumps while attacking, even if they are ranged units. This can be clearly seen in the yellow vs. sonkie video. and the battle report video.

Also, the attack delay is not present in the current version of the Colossus, as far as I can tell. It is really fast, frankly.

Think about the Colossi's attack though. It does 16 damage, same as a Zealot, except instead of doing it to one unit at melee range, it does it to 6-12 units at 9 range. Sure its expensive and not especially tough, but that kind of power is still rather impressive.

Also, if enemies are closing in on the Colossus, you aren't using the Colossus properly. It should be on a ledge, a fair distance behind a meatshield, or running to a location where either is true. The way I see the Colossus working is as a pressure unit. Using its range, ledge climbing, and large shield bank, it can repeatedly harass enemy units at a distance, and when the actual battle comes, the enemy forces are weakened, and the Colossus will then continue to soften them up while Zealots and other meatshields keep the enemies at bay and finish them off.

 

If they are easy target in clumps, then why did not a single SCV die when they clumped together in the battle report? It got turned away before doing any serious damage to any units. A single zealot in sc1 was a better harasser.

 

Why did they add, then remove, Firebats? Could they not just be balanced? Why did they remove the Medic? Could it not just have been balanced?, if the normal Carrier is so balanced, and works so well as a unit, did they try giving it Escorts? Get the picture?

Because it had to be changed from the focused damage to the spread damage. The original Colossus damage was something in the region of a hundred and fifty, wasn't it? You can't just change an attack from direct damage to area of effect and not expect to have to change the damage dealt, especially if the original direct damage was already overpowered.

That's simply ridiculous. If two ranks of units are charging to attack each other, they're going to form a line in the centre. Even with improved pathing, this will still happen, because the pathing would be horrible if they didn't. Yes, they run in clumps, but they do not fight in clumps.

In the Yellow versus Sonkie video, you can clearly see that they form lines. Obviously ranged units and such don't need to when the Zerglings themselves are charging in to attack, nor do Stalkers when they're Blinking, but the bottom line is that they do form lines, meaning that the Colossus will only be effective when attacking a front from either the front or the back, and attacking from the back is just stupid. There's no more flanking from the sides, down from cliffs, or anything like that, for the same reason that people're raving about the micro possibilities for the new Colossus.

That is the current version of the Colossus, and it does have a delay, which is most likely present to prevent it being microed like Vultures, Mutalisks and Siege Tanks were in StarCraft1.

That's impressive? A Colossus that's able to be taken down by five lone Zerglings is impressive? A Colossus that's not about to kill a single SCV in an economic raid is impressive? And there's no way it would damage twelve units. It's like six, tops, and that's if it's lucky.

So you're saying that the Colossus requires a meatshield or ledge to take on five Zerglings? Do you realise that it takes the current Colossus three attacks to kill a Zergling, provided it's able to hit each time? What kind of a genius is going to just leave his or her Zerglings just standing there while a Colossus 's shooting at the from the top of a cliff? Besides, it's not just when they're charging them down, it's when they're fleeing, or just generally moving as well, as Eon pointed out with the economy raid.

 

1 did die, when the SCV was not moving. The Colossus was poorly microed, and it was chasing down that one SCV that was just outside its attack range, instead of attacking the SCV's closest to the Colossus.

I don't know if the Colossus was on Attack-Move, or was he on manual target. Because if it was the former, the programmers should take a look at the code and make attack-move target the closest possible enemy unit to the attacking unit, instead it took a pick and attacks the one SCV just outside the Colossus' range.


-Psi

 

The colossus was waiting until it could get a shot into the clump of units instead of shooting at them as they run away and only hitting one at a time, the SCVs clumped, there was nowhere to run and still the colossus only killed one worker, because of the situation not in spite of.

 

As of currently, the colossus isn't the reaver equivalent at worker harassment. Even with the occasional dud, the reaver could still easily get a few workers before having to leave. The colossus cant seem to figure out how to kill them before having to leave.

Sure the reaver needed a shuttle, but the shuttle is faster than the colossus, allowing faster attack and retreat.

 

Still, they had reasons for changing it. Their consistent refusal to change back, means that like the Firebats, they had trouble getting it to balance,

You are mistaken. When the Colossus first had the Spread Attack, it costed 300 Minerals and 150 Vespene, had 150 Shields and 300 HP, and it did 20 damage a shot, NOT 150. They then increased its Vespene cost by 50, decreased its HP by 100, and its damage by 4. I ask you, if the Colossi's spread attack was so sucky already, then why did they feel the need to weaken the Colossus further?

Not what the videos show.

Sorry, but saying that does not make it true. I've watched the videos, and in combat, while units do form lines, those lines remain clumpy enough for the Colossus to easily attack them. Frankly, the Colossus is best off attacking from the front anyways, because that means it has a bunch of meatshields to hide behind.

Would a single siege tank in tank mode driven into the enemy base alone be expected to kill many SCVs? I think not. Would a single siege tank in tank mode be able to survive 5 zerglings? Doubtful. Once again, those people were clearly using the Colossus wrong. The Colossus should work either in groups, with fodder, or with both, as well as taking advantage of terrain, all of which are things that Siege Tanks do.

More importantly, they failed to give the Colossi the Extended Thermal Lances upgrade, which is equivalent to failing to get the Siege Mode upgrade for Siege Tanks. Extended Thermal Lances not only gives +3 range, but also increases the area of which it deals damage. Keep in mind that even without the upgrade, the Colossi's heat ray hits things that aren't visibly being touched by it, to give you an idea of how big the AOE is. So yes, it can hit 6-12 units easily.

I'd personally favor sending the Colossus in with a few Nullifiers. The Nullifiers force field the SCVs in, then Hallucinate a bunch of copies of Colossi to confuse the opponent.

The Siege tank also requires a meatshield of a ledge to take on Zerglings. Also, pitting either a Colossus or a Siege Tank against 5 Zerglings is a waste, you pit them against dense concentrations of Zerglings, like say, 50 of them. Also keep in mind that the Colossus hits 2-3 times in the time it takes for the Siege Tank to hit once. So long as it keeps hitting that clump, it will out damage the Siege Tank.

Also, yes, the Zerglings will move, but where can they go? You have 9 range. If they go up to the cliff, you just walk down it and keep shooting them. If they stay near the bottom of the cliff, they will get slaughtered, even by 1 or 2 unsupported Colossi. Of course, just as the Zerglings will have support the Colossi will as well. Even with a few Nullifiers and Zealots, its easy to block Zerglings off long enough for the Colossus/Colossi to shred them.

 

They were experimenting with new ideas for the firebat such as making it a stronger mech like unit from the factory, it didn't take very much time before they decided to replace it with something new -the marauder. At that stage nothing about zerg had been announced and the protoss units the firebat counters hadn't changed much, other than the shields mechanic changing. We have had nothing to suggest it couldn't be balanced.

I think he means the original colossus' sweeping
attack did 150 damage a cycle.

I think we are watching different videos.

The whole attacking from the front thing is another problem with the broader mechanics of the colossus as itzahexgore outlined earlier.

Is a siege tank able to climb cliffs? Does a siege tank have these mechanics that are meant to make it an effective raider? Atleast a siege tank would kill a few zerglings even if it died. Whats the point in having a colossus with 'raider' properties if it must be supported to be in the least bit effective?

We haven't had the amount of units that fit, best case scenario into the thermal lances linear area of effect, so i could present a completely different conclusion to the amount of units it hits. I seriously doubt 12 for anything but zerglings.

Nullifiers can not climb cliffs so you have to use a transport to make a cliff climber an effective raider anyway?

but distributing the damage dilutes the effectiveness, well you are killing those 6 zerglings at once you have those 6 zerglings dealing damage. I would rather have 10 zerglings with full hitpoints in my base than 50 with 1 hitpoint each.

zerglings can easily out pace colossi and with the colossus' cliff climbing you would expect to run into situations like these where the colossus doesn't have nullifier support.

 

The Firebat was not removed because it wasn't able to be balanced, it was replaced with a better idea. Obviously they wouldn't give the Terran Firebats and Marauders, so they had to choose between them. What makes you think the Firebat wasn't about to be balanced?

And there's nothing saying that the Colossus could not be balanced either. Its attack is, in essence, comparable to that of any other single-target, direct-damage attacker in that it attacks a unit, kills it, and targets another. If a Marine's shooting down a bunch of Zerglings, and takes one out, what's it going to do? Target another, of course. That's practically all the Colossus does, though in a hybridised way, so there's nothing to say it cannot be balanced. Things like the Black Hole ability are obviously impossible to balanced, as are other things, like being able to jump down, but not up, cliffs and such, but there's no reason to say an attack like the old Colossus' couldn't be.

The original Colossus did not instantly deal a hundred and fifty damage. It dealt that over about six seconds, or thereabouts, so when it was changed to an area of effect attack it obviously wouldn't have dealt a hundred and fifty damage to each unit in the area. Overall, twenty or so damage seems to fit, which is why would have needed to be reduced.

Apart from that, it's also probably due to the fact it's somewhat like the Carrier, and is a critical mass unit. To put it another way, a single Carrier is in no way worth three hundred and fifty minerals and two fifty gas gas. However, twelve Carriers are worth far more than four thousand, two hundred minerals, and three thousand gas.

On top of that, it's a very micro-intensive unit, which means it has to be balanced from the peak of its micro potential, not from its average potential, because it it was balanced from its average potential, then it would be overpowered when used at the peak of its ability. If that's the case, then it confirms that it would be useless for flanking, as it goes completely against its directional attack, which is the reason why it needs to be microed.

Watch them again, and think about it. You can't have a bunch of melee fighters fighting in a clump. They have to spread out across a line, so that they're all in range. We've seen this countless times in countless videos, and on top of that, if they did fight in clumps, then the Colossus wouldn't need to be microed, when they've bragged about the new attack from all the microing opportunities it sets up, with attacking from the right angle and all that jazz, just like they did with the Hellion, when it was first discussed.

So how are the melee fighters supposed to fight, if not in lines? And how, then, can you justify what Blizzard and others who have played the game have said about the micro of the Hellion and Colossus? If they fought in clumps then their attacks would make no difference, but they're always talking about the micro and the direction of the attack.

Seriously, imagine a Hellion standing safely behind an assault front, and firing towards it. How many units would you expect it to hit? Now imagine it standing off to the side of the assault front, and firing across it. How many units would you expect it to hit now? It's the opposite with the Colossus, as its attack is perpendicular to that of the Hellion. It would not be able to effectively attack an assault front from the flank, which wastes its hiking ability. Where the old Colossus could make good use of it, the new Colossus cannot, and simply needs to attack front behind the rest of the army, in which can it does not even need the ability to hike, because it's simply following units that can't.

Oh, and your forgetting that the idea behind flanking an assault like this is that there's a cliff, or other obstacle, present, which allows the Colossus to be able to flank the assault where other units would not be able to, but also means that it would be able to attack from a higher, or lower, tier, and thus be adequately protected.

Is the Siege Tank designed to be used for raiding? I think not. Is the Siege Tank designed to take on lots of small units? Doubtful.

You're using an awful unit for comparison here. Firstly, the Siege Tank is in no way an economic raider, and secondly, it deals less than half its damage, not including armour, to small units, which not only limits its ability to kill Zerglings, but also limits its ability to kill SCV's, Drones and Probes. Instead of thinking of the most useless unit for the situation, try to think of one that sort of fits in with what's going on. Firstly, raiding's something that's more or less new to StarCraft2. That is, raiding without the use of a Shuttle, Overlord or Dropship is something that's more or less new. Secondly, you've got to choose a unit with a similar role. Not a Siege Tank. More accurately, another Area Of Effect, anti-swarm attacker. The units that best fit this are the Reaver and Archon. Now pit them up against five Zerglings. Who's going to come out on top?

Range hardly matters if you're consistently missing until you're in melee combat. And with Siege Mode, it completely changes the role of the unit, which Thermal Lances does not.

As for the Area Of Effect, even if the area is supposedly increased, with such a delay, whatever's charging it down will only take a portion of the damage, provided it hasn't already outrun the whole area.

And how do you suppose you'll get the Nullifiers through to the back of their base?

The Colossus should not require a meatshield to take on five Zerglings. That's ludicrous. It's designed to take them on. How can three hundred and fifty minerals, two hundred gas worth of Colossus not take on a hundred and twenty five minerals worth of what it's designed to counter?

Why would you assume they stay within range? They'd lure it out of course. They're run out of the Colossus' range (phew, it takes a genius to come up with some of these ideas!) forcing the Colossus to lose its high ground advantage if it wants to keep attacking. Also, as a little added bonus, the Zerglings will not die. Seriously, where are you assuming the Zerglings are? Trapped in a hole in the ground or something?

In fact, better yet, they could just be put on patrol. That way they'd hardly take any damage at all from the Colossus' attack, provided they take any at all.

And again, if you're relying on Nullifiers and Zealots, then the Colossus' ability to hike is being wasted yet again.

 

@Wodan46

"The Colossus originally had a focused attack. Then they switched it to the spread attack. Then they weakened it severely. I have 2 questions:
1. If the Colossi's focused attack could have been balanced by decreasing the damage, why didn't they do that instead of switching in the spread?
2. If the Colossi's spread attack was so weak, why did they decrease its HP and Damage while increasing its cost?"

1) The focused attack was underpowered. For its role and cost, the colossus should be able to strike more than one unit at a time.
2) The colossus, using the spread attack, was overpowered at the Zerg Rush and WWI 2008. Blizzard overreacted (IMO), nerfing it at BlizzCon 2008.

"It does 16 damage, same as a Zealot, except instead of doing it to one unit at melee range, it does it to 6-12 units at 9 range."

I believe it can only target 5 enemy units at max.

@Overmind

"I think he means the original colossus' sweeping
attack did 150 damage a cycle."

The original single-target colossus did 144 damage over its cycle ... to one unit. It probably never did over 100 damage and splash simultaneously, although I believe Karune once posted that, for a time, it had the original attack pattern with a bit of splash thrown in.

IMO, the damage needs to be increased some (so it can kill an SCV in two sweeps at most), and the AoE needs to become a "square" in front of it, so the beam would sweep in a figure-eight pattern, burning all units in an AoE; that way you can kill enemy units that aren't clumped in exactly the right way.

 

The Colossus really needs that focused attack back and it shouldent have any problems with organic light armored units at all what so ever.
Also being the fact that its able to attacked by anti air and ground while costing so much also serves it to be stronger and it should be able to hold its own for the most part without people haveing to worrie thats its going to die by 5 zergs now thats just stupid 2 zealots could take on 5 zerg no problem and its the first unit you could make.

 

Why would you want it to have the focused attack back? Despite the high damage figures that was pretty pathetic. It shouldn't take several seconds to kill one SCV.

At least now it takes several seconds to kill several SCVs.

 

You obviously dident see it in action it hit a hydra and some other units with 6 yes 6 swipes and diden't take out one (cant remeber what video it was but it was one of the blizzcon 2008 ones).

 

I watched Sonkie vs Yellow and Battle Report 1.

Just because the current one is weak doesn't mean the focused attack was strong. You can watch that one in the original video; it took too long just to kill a zergling.

You need to distinguish between the faults in the shape of the attack and the faults in the damage.

 

The attack in the original video killed zerglings quickly enough in my opinion, it would quickly devastate a worker line.

It didn't need to because it rapidly killed a unit and went on to the next.

Like i just said, if it was attacking zerglings for example it would move on to the next target before its cycle is through so it killed 8-9 in its cycle.

 

As overmind's pretty much already said, the old attack was practically a pseudo-Area of Effect attack. Although it technically didn't strike more than one unit at a time, in a single attack, it damaged multiple units, provided they're there.

 

After watching the Sonkie vs Yellow video again for the 5th time or so...and "battle report"...
I'd have to agree with "ItzaHexGor"+"overmind"... that colossus (with it's sweeping beam and all)
seems to be a seriously ineffective unit.
At some point there were even multiple colossi present on the battlefield...yet it was pretty
disappointing to watch how - during many different moments in the game - they just couldn't deal any significant
damage or to be of any good use at all for the rest of the toss's army. especially considering it's cost and
it's being the legendary "engine of destruction...".

Haven't seen the old version engaged in the battle like this...
but remembering how it was before...think it would've made a hell of a lot more difference than it has now.

From the looks of how it's stats and the reasons behind it are pretty undecided/ unofficial,
think this thread will eventually end up in a draw until
we get some credible stats pro-current-old or con-current-old attack from
the blizzard-boys themselves.
Believe there must've been good reason for them to change it,
but for them to change into smtn like the current version,
is totally uninspiring and discouraging.

TY

 

I'm going to make this crystal clear.

Initially, the Colossus had a focused attack that seemed to do about 150 damage over 6 seconds, moving from unit to unit without wasting. I do not know what its other statistics were.

Eventually, that Colossus was replaced by a new one. This new one had the rectangular attack you hate so deeply, which deal 20 damage. It cost 300 Minerals, 150 Vespene, and had 300 HP, 150 Shields, along with an upgrade that gave it 100 additional Shields, and another upgrade that gave it +3 Range (to 9) and an enlarge AOE.

However, at some point, this Colossus was nerfed to 16 Damage, 200 Vespene, 200 HP, and no Shield Upgrade.

I ask you two questions yet again:

1. If the original Colossus was a functionally appropriate unit, then why did they balance it by changing the functionality of its attack, rather than its statistics?

2. If the new Colossus' attack was so functionally worthless and ineffective, then why did they not only balance it by changing its statistics, but actually nerfed the unit rather than improving it?

I agree that the Colossus doesn't really make sense, but I have been unable to answer those above questions without making the assumption that I know more about the game balance than the people who designed the game.

 

Ya i see a good point there what they could of done is kept its regular attack and had it so the damage would be placed kind of like the warp ray for smaller less armored foes such as

Attack 10x2 (8 to unarmored foes) with focus fire right now that aoe needs to be stronger or faster if its going to work atm if it did a constant spread switching back in forth between right and left it might work but right now it just sucks. :no:

IT already has the downfall of being able to be attack by ground and air so if i can't effectively take out smaller units easily then its worthless on my plate (i doesn't have to be able to completely annihilate small units in like 1 second). :wacko:

 

Because blizzard wanted to try something different, and failed.

The colossus is useful in the right circumstances. It has to be balanced according to those circumstances, needing those circumstances and being useless without them is a flaw in the unit.

Don't bring the 'blizzard knows best' argument up, that defeats the purpose of having a forum. You base your views off what you have seen and know about the unit.

exactly. when that little 'feature' of the colossus was announced everyone went on about the colossus being too weak because of it, now its non-existent as a mechanic when discussing balance.