Proton Charge Idea -- drop probes' shields

I read an idea from Starcraft:Legacy suggesting that Probes drop their shields while under the effect of Proton Charge. I think this would be helpful in making the use of Proton Charge riskier, because having your Probes at half health would be a serious problem should your resource line be attacked. Also, it makes sense lore wise: probes have to drop their shields in order to receive the power boost.

Your thoughts?

 

Were they to implement this, then they'd have to weaken all of the other worker unit "buffs" for the other races, i.e. Drones hatched from spawned Larvae would have to have half the HP of normally produced Drones, and Mules would have to have half the HP of a SCV. As far as lore, it would make sense if the ability was native to the Probe. Instead, the Proton Charge is coming from an external source - the Obelisk.

 

Good job for pointing that our Kaaraa! I agree this doesn't fit with the lore of it either. Plus I think you just made this because you want to kill Protoss economies faster N00bonic.

 

technicly the drones have absolutly no way of mining faster then the other races (this has put the zerg very bihind in economy) and the spawn larvae hasn't seemed to help at all in any of the battle reports (witch are of corse staged but the zerg were always behind in econmy) plus for the terran it would only effect the mules. as for the shields of the probes you could just make it 30 HP and 10shields so they wouldnt be quite as weakend in the proton charge state. but maybe the proton charge would only be in effect until it expired or until attacked, so if you were raided the shields would come back online.

 

well in the beginning, shouldnt zerg mine faster period? (hatch 3 drones at a time). anyways, if ur talking about lore, how about the dark pylon unlocks "Proton Charge", an ability from the Nexus?

 

Good job Insanity you just HAD to prove everybody wrong. lol I'm joking but seriously I did forget that you hatch 3 drones almost at the very start. So taking that at face value you would have at the very least 3 drones out while the Toss or Terrans had just one probe or SCV. This does not sound like much but two extra gatherers at the very beginning allows for a huge build up latter on as you have more opportunities. Lets face it already, Proton Charge dropping the probes shields is horrible idea and it doesn't work with the lore either. Case closed.

 

You don't hatch three Drones at the very start. You begin a game with only 50 minerals, so it's impossible.
It takes two or three Drones before the ability to morph several workers at the same time really starts to kick in, but this is counterbalanced by the fact that it takes a Drone to morph a structure - the "extra" Drones you pump out in the early game disappear quite quickly as you make more structures, resulting in no real mineral advantage.

 

Even then this dosen"t really fix the zerg's unit production and resource problem I say 2 drones to a egg with balance of course.

 

If you want to build a structure, just build more drones! and if you start an expansion, the ability to morph extra drones at a time is pretty handy

 

If the time comes that the Proton Charge is deemed "overpowered", then maybe a viable alternative would be to move this ability to the Nexus, have it unlocked by the Obelisk [or Dark Shrine] and while the move is in effect, the Nexus is unable to produce probes/motherships. If needbe, have the effect last 30 seconds with a 15 second cooldown after it finishes up [perhaps during this time the Nexus is still unable to produce probes/motherships]. Just a quick thought

 

But thats countered by the fact that most-all larva later are morphed into army units. Thats why zerg usually have less workers than other races in SC1 matches, since they must sacrific workers to build and are unable to produce more if they wish to produce a sizable army, which the other races dont have to worry about.

I'm also worried about the photon charge ability because all the player needs is 2-3 of them with decent micro and they can have a continuous 2x resource intake, which I doubt the Zerg's ability to produce extra larva comes close to countering that.

 

The reason the zerg fast expand is because that expansion IS there military operations. They build everything from there. The zerg benefite from an expansion more than the other races. For this reason they do not need those things.

 

extra larva -> more eggs -> bigger army
extra hatcheries -> more larva -> faster building time (building 3 at a time from each hatchery) -> bigger army
and zerg expand faster as well

 

protoss have never been my favorite for there overpowering units like the dark archon it may cost alot but md controlling is wrong i mean you can have 3 seperate forces 1 protoss 1 zerg and 1 terran all controled by 1person the potoss player all you need is to mnd controll 1 zerg drone and 1 terran scv andget building its way too easy. i hope they fixthat problem in starcraft 2.

 

How often have you seen that happen? I've done that for fun making me invincable and walking in and bringing a shutle to bring back the archon and my new prize. But I've never had that happen nor seen it happen. Besides I don't think that abilty is in SC2 (at least for the non-exsistent dark archon) and the Zerg have an ability like that but it only lasts around 20 seconds. And I'm not sure if you make a building with them then you get at building. It might just waste your minerals and give the enemy a scout in your base.

Anyway you probly have nothing to worriy about.

 

Actually Gardian_Defender I've sucessfully Mind Controlled an enemy worker plenty of times (and proud of it )

BKG, that is the most crap i have ever heard in a single paragraph. In the past 1 minute.
Now, protoss units are supposed to be overpowering. Quality, not quantity, the protoss motto. The Dark Archon's Mind Control ability had a huge cost, depleting all shields and 150 energy. The DA itself was costly, worth 250 min and 200 gas. Even then, you had to research Mind Control. It is actually pretty hard to Mind Control a drone and a scv, without the workers being obliterated by defenses. i.e., a lot of terrans keep some mines here and there. BOOM dead. Mind Control wasted. Dark Archon dead. -250 min - 200 gas. even if you do make a sucessful raid, it would take considerably more resources and time to build up another race's tech tree. I, for one, am gonna miss the Dark Archon.

 

Yea but if that happens you would keep that worker safe and do a small expantion were you would tech they race with your defences and units to protect your prize, but especialy if you get Terran you get a powerful race and a defensive race. So you could work on defence and mining with one race and mass army with the most control posible.

 

so you people seriously think that in a compelx middlegame or lategame it is worth investigating in a new race? only works if you are already winning COMPLETLY.

 

How many minerals does the probe gather when under the effect of charge?

 

Probes by themselves gather 5 minerals per trip, with the effect of Proton Charge, they gather 6 minerals per trip.