Protoss Stalker

How suprising. There was no Stalker thread, I advanced searched for those with doubts.

But as of recently the Stalker's damage stats have been changing.
Originally it was 20(+8)
Then it got changed to 8(+8)
And now its back to 20(+8)

First I had a problem with it having a base damage of just 8 but then it came to my attention the Immortal possibly had 20 damage as it would make since its a good counter for strong armored units. But now that conflicts with the Stalker as it has stronger damage.
To me it would make sense if the Immortal had the 20+ damage as it is a direct counter to strong armored units, whereas the Stalker is weaker, but faster, so wouldn't you think it would be better suited to tackle those faster light armored units? as its plain to see a Stalker would not beat a longer range stronger attack tank.

So before I make further comments I want to know:
What is the Protoss light armor bonus unit?
Offical conformation that the Roach is light/armored
And the Immortal's damage stats

 

Are you sure that the Stalker originally dealt twenty damage and that it was then changed to eight? I thought it was always eight until the most recent change that made it twenty with an unknown bonus.

Stalkers are good as Anti-Armoured units. They are ambushers and you don't often see ambushers ambushing lots of fast, weak units. They go for priority targets and take them out as quickly as possible. Immortals are just there to hold the line, not to deal as much damage as possible. They last for much longer than they otherwise would so the damage they're dealing becomes pretty significant and does not need a bonus.

I'm not aware that the Protoss have a unit with a bonus to Light targets, but they do have several effective counters. Zealots, Archons and Colossi are all very effective at taking on Light targets, the Archon and Colossus due to the damage of their area of effect attack.

The Roach is an Armoured unit. The sources are here, here and here.

The Immortal deals nine damage with each gun, meaning it deals eighteen damage, with a normal attack rate. This is fine when up against such powerful units as they can easily survive the battle so they do not need a particularly powerful attack.

 

It would be nice if Stalkers got more than one bonus, so they'd be as useful as Hydralisks in Sc1. But then again Zerg were cheap and that was their only GtA attacker so I guess Protoss doesn't need somethinglike that.
Although I was thinking, on the Immortal, we all see how it turned before it goes straight. That drastically reduces micro possibility in a similar way to the Dragoon, as the Dragoon didn't have to turn or anything meaning it was well microble. Hopefully they script the Immortal similar to the Goliath on how it rotated the torso to fire at a target, but this time lets hope the Immortal can still locomote forward while facing backward allowing it to be dancable.
When you compare these things to Sc1 there was an obvious lack of transition animations meaning lots of units instantly turned and such, but with Sc2 being 3D and having improved animations/scripts this stops them from being microble. A big example being the Mutalisk.
Now it wouldn't be a problem for the Stalker, since it does better damage which suffices for it not being able to dance as well as a Dragoon could.

But now that its 20+ for the Stalker, doesn't it make the Stalker better than a Zealot as it has range, can teleport, and has a bonus vs armor.
So it can take out targets better than the Zealot. The only difference it seems would be the price and the fact Zealot can hold the lines, but so can Immortals.
Just seems conflicting... Someone ease my pain :[

 

More than one bonus? Do you mean a bonus against Armoured targets and a bonus against Light targets? What would be the point of that? If something has a base damage of ten, a bonus against Armoured of ten and a bonus against Light of five, it might as well be written as it having a base damage of fifteen and a bonus against Armoured of five. The increased base attack basically is the bonus against Light targets.

No matter what happens with the pathing, it will end up being balanced for each unit. Some units should be dancable but others definitely shouldn't. The Immortal isn't supposed to be one of the danceable units, it's just supposed to sit there and take the damage. The Stalker's the one that should be danceable as it does more damage to most targets, is more fragile, can Blink, etc. In other words it's a much more maneuverable unit to begin with, unlike the Immortal which is just supposed to sit there.

Stalkers may have better range and damage, and have Blink and bonuses versus Armoured targets, but it would be too expensive to hold the line. Their cost to health ratio should be fairly high which is another reason why they're given Blink, so escape oncoming fire. Zealots should have a higher health to cost ratio, meaning that, along with Charge, they're ideal for holding the front line. They should be there to stop smaller units from getting to the Immortals, which are taking the heavy fire from the more powerful units.

In my opinion Stalkers should have their base attack reduced but be given a bigger bonus. This will mean that they're less effective against Zealots, Zerglings and Marines, but they'll be more effective at quickly taking down other Stalkers, Roaches and Marauders, as well as Siege Tanks, Colossi and Ultralisks. They're supposed to be ambushers, lurking and stalking from the shadows, quickly pounce out, deal a whole lot of damage to priority targets and then vanish back to the shadows. Obviously it won't be as poetic in-game, but that's the general idea behind the unit. It can easily Blink up cliffs or across rivers to get to the well positions Siege Tanks and long legged Colossi, take them down relatively quickly and escape before too many reinforcements can arrive.

 

But see Stalkers won't be dancable since they have to turn to fire and that turning isn't instant. Of course it won't be hard to change that, but its just something to note. The Stalker is highly microable but it isn't dancable yet as a Hydralisk or Marine was.

You are right on the Immortal thing but I would like it to be slightly dancable as it makes sense with its design.

I don't like your deduction views, simply because it adds the obvious factor. I'd hate for Starcraft to essentially become chess since x unit is only good vs y unit but x unit defnitly isn't allowed to engage z unit.
Look at Sc1, you'd say Zerglings are not supposed to fight Zealots which is partly right but they still had a chance with numbers since they were fast, microble, and cheap which allowed dynamics since it could be used against something which is much stronger. Naturally Zerglings were very good counter vs Dragoons since Dragoons would waste a lot of slow firing damage on the numberous fast hitting Zerglings. Yet with skill Dragoons could beat Zerglings and it could go either way. But on paper Zerglings should win right?
For Sc2 to be sucessful they need dynamics, so ruling out possibilities for many units is a no no IMO.
On paper you'd think Vultures can't touch Dragoons, yet with skill you can make Vultures kill many Dragoons. This wouldn't be possible if lets say, there was the rule that the Vultures' attack does 0 damage ruling out any margin for skill > physics(?).
Of course each unit is supposed to fill a certain criteria, but I'd hate for it to be so limited that the only choice vs Tanks would be Immortals or something as that limits dynamics and forces a player to defense and quickly tech to Immortals if siege tanks got the better of him. I hope you understand what I'm saying as it would be easy to get mislead.

 

The Stalkers may be danceable, it's turret-like weapon does not have direction like the Immortal, so it may be able to fire as it's turning. Immortals on the other hand have to be facing because their weaponry sticks right out in front.

I never said that the Stalker should have its base damage reduced by so much that it's useless against Light units, I just said it should be reduced to make it less effective, but not useless, against smaller units and more effective, but not overly so, against larger units.

 

No its the Stalker which is less danacble since it has to turn which cuts of time from attacking, just watch any video with Stalkers. A unit which is dancable is one which responds instantly to your clicks thus allowing 105% control.

 

I'm aware of that. The way I see it is that the Stalker may end up being more danceable because it has one directionless weapon, just like the Dragoon did. The Immortal has two weapons that both have direction meaning it has to face its target no matter what. The Stalker's weapon looks as though they could backwards but the Immortal's cannot. In my opinion they should not introduce instant turning to any unit, but that's not to say each one should take a while to turn, just a short fraction of a second type duration but a duration nonetheless, because it would look completely odd in a 3D environment, unlike a 2D environment where units were most basically forced to turn instantly.

 

wow this is a two man thread i see ^_^

i hav no problems wid its current status but i think that stalkers would have been better if there was some sort of skill like "stalk" itself coz from the way it looks its skill has a two in one purpose for blinking in or running away, maybe im just a bit over thinking of it but thats just an opinion though.. stalker/blinker maybe a name change is better lol

 

The two in one ability is a good idea for a Stalker. It easily allows for ambushes and surprise attack, which is what Stalkers do, you'll never see someone stalking someone else and then face them in an open fight, but it also allows to it escape quickly and to places that its opponent cannot follow, which is another crucial point because Stalkers do not and should not have the durability to last in an open fight. Blink is a unique ability and it doesn't fit any unit better than the Stalker. If it's given Cloak or 'Stalk' then it would be too generic. There are enough units that can Cloak already but none that can Blink. Both the name and the ability suits perfectly.

 

yup no probs bout that but
obviously u havent been stalked by sum1 i see.. lolz

coz stalkers dont do ambushes.. im just clarifying that what youre saying is right but what youve written is somewhat contradictory to just what you are explaining..

you said that it easily allows for ambushes and surprise attack coz thats what they do and then you say something like never being able to endure an open fight.. hmm well you've gotta point but not totally.... come on its the protoss and theyre not fragile from the basic zealot onwards most of them are xtra healthier compared to other races so thats gotta give us something right??

 

@Itza. How could it be directionless if it has to turn then face the targeted units to fire?
As you can see from this video they are directional:
[youtube]RjnxGelg2hM[/youtube]

Also don't you find it weird that if they blink half the maximum distance it would still have the same amount of cooldown time as opposed to blinking full distance.
Wouldn't it be more useful if they had something where if they blink half distance it would have half that cool down, or let it blink as many times as it can until it reaches the equivilant distance to maximum.

 

I never said the Stalker was directionless, I said the weapon looks as though it could easily be directionless. It's not like the Immortal that has its guns sticking in one direction, it's got the open turret on top. Just like how the Dragoon could fire in any direction without turning, the Stalker would be able to fire backwards as it's turning around, practically resulting in it being able to fire in any direction.

I don't think it's odd that no matter how far you Blink it's the same cooldown. It still uses all that energy to completely phase out of existence and phase back again. The energy required for the actual moving once it's phased out would be insignificant. It's just like how no matter what planet you're on and no matter how far you are from Aiur or Shakuras, it still takes the same amount of resources to warp in. The range it travels is just like having a weapon with a certain range. It takes the same amount of energy to fire each shot and can't shoot over more than a certain distance.

 

IMO it would look quite poor if the Stalker shot backwards, also the Stalker's face is at the front so, yea.
Since the Immortal can rotate its torso it would just make sense and look better if it shot backwards. Its slow thats the hinderance, but with skill you could increase its usefulness.

But yea you're right with the blink thing.

 

I never said the Stalker should shoot backwards, I said that because its weapon does not have direction, it would be able to shoot while it's turning to face its target so that it's a faster and less cumbersome unit, which is what it's supposed to be. As the Stalker turns around to face its next target it begins to fire. It won't just be sitting there firing backwards or anything so it won't look poor and it doesn't matter where its face is.

With the Immortal it all depends on how the torso is attached to the body. We haven't been shown a clear picture of it yet and the concept art of it shows that the torso is securely fixed to its legs meaning that it wouldn't be able to twist and shoot. However the in-game models are not always direct replicas of the concept art so there is still a chance that it would be able to do such things, however it still wouldn't be able to instantly shoot as it there would still be a slight delay as the torso is turning, as instantly changing from one direction to another would destroy a lot of the realism of StarCraft2, especially for the larger units.

 

In the videos with Immortals they can shot in any direction while the legs are still. But when ordered to attack or move I think everything faces that direction.

 

That's a bit odd seeing as their legs aren't manufactured to only move in a specific direction, unlike things like the Viking, so logically they should act like the Dragoon or Colossus. Perhaps it's to keep the players intent on keeping them marching forwards and not off to the sides. They're designed to be on the front line so they don't really need the ability to start wandering off in other directions.

 

maybe the dark templars engineers werent able to figure out the dragoons structure so its kind of a lil less obsulete compared to the dragoons model lolz.. unless compared to the blinking feet anyway. ^_^

 

nah, the stalker was made the for a speedy type feel.

 

Here's the thing guys... It's called a Stalker because it stalks light armored units with its blink ability.