Feedback needs to go.

Despite its power, Feedback was not used much in Brood War beyond late-game PvZ to snipe defilers. The reason for this is that it was on the Dark Archon, which is a pricey and mostly useless unit in professional play. This is not the case with SC2: it's on the High Templar, which are common in every matchup.

Feedback costs 50 energy, and has a range of 9. The following units can be Feedbacked, and those highlighted red can be one-shot this way:

Sentry
High Templar
Phoenix
Mothership

Ghost
Thor
Medivac
Raven
Banshee
Battlecruiser

Queen
Infestor


Let me restate this: For 50 energy, and at a range of 9, you can one-shot 9 different units in the game. Those you don't kill, you've damaged and crippled for the next few minutes of the game.

I've said before that one of my bigger problems with Feedback on the HT is that it directly counters Terran's HT counter, Ghosts. (not to mention HT's cost 50/150 compared to Ghost's 100/200) Battles are decided on who shoots who first. This is not good gameplay. Did I mention Feedback has a longer range than EMP?

If EMP is too much for Protoss to deal with, then get rid of that too.

Replacement ability: Translocation

Target any two units in succession to instantly swap positions. The creative possibilities are endless.

and the gameplay element is pointless.

Nah, I think Feedback is, yes very powerful, but not overpowered.

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Let me restate this: For 50 energy, and at a range of 9, you can one-shot 9 different units in the game. Those you don't kill, you've damaged and crippled for the next few minutes of the game.

I've said before that one of my bigger problems with Feedback on the HT is that it directly counters Terran's HT counter, Ghosts. (not to mention HT's cost 50/150 compared to Ghost's 100/200) Battles are decided on who shoots who first. This is not good gameplay. Did I mention Feedback has a longer range than EMP?

If EMP is too much for Protoss to deal with, then get rid of that too.

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first. Feedback instant kills units (u missed Overseer) that are full of energy. Which basicly, never happens. Yes, it still drains out the energy pool of that unit, thus, removing them partialy or completly from the game for a good amount of time, but in counterpart, HT don't have any direct dmg, can't cloak, are VERY weak against about everything. It makes up for it, and yes, it's who shoots first, but... everything in StarCraft is who shoots first so it's not a valid argument.

And removing Feedback AND EMP isn't a solution, or you will end up with Marines against Marines, then Bigger marines against Bigger Marines, THEN, biggest marines vs biggest marines.

A real solution could be to increase the mana cost to 75 and put feedback on research, or have a cooldown in addition of the cost, so u can't spam feedback in an army of casters (well, not as easily as u can right now). Removing abilities is ALWAYS a bad solution. ALWAYS

Feedback kills when you've got the same amount of energy as HP. Sentry - 80, HT - 80, Infestor - 90, Ghost - 100, Banshee - 130. Raven - 140 (HSM costs 125). These are not unreasonable amounts of energy to have on your caster. And if a Terran players goes mech, they have no way of spending their Medivac's energy. Meching Terrans therefor cannot use drops effectively against a Protoss player with Feedback. Terrans are already less mobile than the other 2 races.

Making Feedback costlier, or with a research or cooldown, doesn't solve the problem so much as give the High Templar a watered down ability. HT's already have Psi Storm, they don't need another damage spell. We don't want watered down old abilities, we want cool new ones.

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Originally Posted by Bisso

everything in StarCraft is who shoots first

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This is not true. Starcraft is about action and reaction, micro and macro. With EMP vs Feedback, there is no reaction.

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Removing abilities is ALWAYS a bad solution. ALWAYS

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When they're recycled, broken, boring, or just plain bad, they need to go. Blizzard can do better.

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Originally Posted by Blazur

Replacement ability: Translocation

Target any two units in succession to instantly swap positions. The creative possibilities are endless.

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Sounds very familiar...Chrono Swap? - RA3...,I'm really dissapointed in blizzard,just as they were doing good in starcraft TWO with unique abilties all of a sudden they returned to OLD stuff...that's so dull...The prime example being the Mothership,I mean what was wrong with Wormhole Transit? or Planet Craker? Time bomb? All of these were both interesting and unique...and in the end what??? 'Time Freeze',mass recall and cloacking field -welcome to brood war....The previous ability Phase Shift i believe it was...Holded unlimited tactical applications...You could both remove a key enemy from play OR protect one of your own from death...usefull and of course unique...Feedback goes,Phase shift returns....too bad the chances of that happening are zero,because some people simply can't move forward...

The problem with Wormhole Transit was pretty obvious...

The problems with Planet Cracker I think are pretty self-evident as well.

Temporal Rift, though, I thought was really awesome. Much more selectively useful than Vortex, but still a strong ability IMO.

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Removing abilities is ALWAYS a bad solution. ALWAYS

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No it isn't... the ghost would still have snipe for dealing with High Templar. Though I think EMP needs some changes anyway... dunno if it's quite so powerful that it needs to be removed.

Though in Feedback's case if they removed it they'd almost definitely have to replace it with something. Ghost has got a lot of options outside of EMP, the High Templar not so much.

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OR protect one of your own from death.

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No you couldn't.

I agree the ability was more useful than people were giving it credit for, but you could not protect one of your own units with it. It wouldn't let you cast it on your own units.

I don't know, this sounds similar to the EMP/Snipe dilemma from the other thread.

Unless some HTs happen across a juicy Mothership or small group of BCs- In many siuations, I think Psi-storm will likely win out as the spell of choice - maybe give 'massive' units immunity to it. (?) Also, isn't the Thor's special ability on a cooldown? Does it actually have energy?

I actually thought that 'Phase Shift' was an interesting ability for the HT - an odd twist on WC3 'Banish'- maybe they can give that another try - it fills the 'one-hit' purpose in a way, and allows you to temporarily remove the more threatening units from a group and fight them later without their support

Well, if P gets Feedback, and T gets Snipe - what will Z get?

two attack spells do seem a bit redundant but feed back is infinatly more useful in sc2 than in bw. its easyer to get. you dont have to waist two dark templar to get it and alot more units have energy. Casters are suposed to counter one another thats how its always been. the reason why feedback has a range of 9 is because of how badly emp screws over a toss force because not many toss units have over 100 shields and it drains all energy making sentrys and ht totally useless. With out feed back the protoss wouldnt be able to counter Emp. you also have to keep in mind that ghosts are very hard to spot in an M&M ball. Also you will do more damage to an M3 if you feed back a couple of the medivacs before you let the storms fly. that way your storms will do more damage and you might kill the medivac in the prosses.

Zerg gets neural parasite. the ability to take any ground unit is very good. (Im not sure how np works since blizz changed it. I unfortunatly dont have the beta but have been following it very closely so if some one could explain how the new Np works it would be greatly appriciated.) think of this senario. your roaches are moving into a toss base while burrowed and you brought along and infestor or two. you pop up to kill some probes or pylons and some immortal show up and start blasting your roaches you np the immortals and use their bonuse vs armor to quickly take out a load of pylons or even a tech building.

Well the simple TvP solution seems to be give Snipe a range of 9, and have it do better damage for a higher cost.

so you get a solid 'who shoots first' with neither side having better range.

Then Give HT Phase Shift back as a Third ability (They're Protoss they should have 3 actual Spells on a spell caster.)

Zerg should probably get some ability on the Overseer (perhaps the Caster detection the Ghost Had in early builds... but require energy cost)
[as well as a return of Spore Cloud]


Mothership should definitely drop the 'Recall' for two other spells that would be interesting.

Ghost is a counter to HP? No offence, but this statement is stupid.
Ghost is mainly a counter to Immortals. And everything that has energy and shields.(

2 Ghosts can snipe a HT before feedback goes off with shift queing (range of 10 versus range of 9).

EMP has the effective range of 9 as well due to AOE.

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Well the simple TvP solution seems to be give Snipe a range of 9, and have it do better damage for a higher cost.

so you get a solid 'who shoots first' with neither side having better range.

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With EMP, I cant see any real reason to waste energy on snipe in a Protoss matchup - Queens, Infestors and maybe a couple of other select Zerg units on the other hand....Queens alone could mean huge economic frustration for a Zerg player.

.

I think some of you are missing my point - it's not the relative power of High Templar vs Ghosts that's the problem, it's that they're clear counters to each other. Giving Feedback to HT's is like Blizzard deciding that Immortals do too well against Siege Tanks, so they give Tanks a special anti-Immortal gun. It doesn't make sense. Immortals are supposed to do well against Tanks, just as Ghosts are supposed to do well against Templar.

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Originally Posted by Kknewkles

Ghost is a counter to HP? No offence, but this statement is stupid.
Ghost is mainly a counter to Immortals. And everything that has energy and shields.(

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What? Ghosts have Snipe, EMP, +dmg to Light, and Cloak to get them in position. Everything about them is anti-Templar/Toss.

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Ghost is a counter to HP? No offence, but this statement is stupid.

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If you mean HT... no it isn't. Ghost is clearly intended as an anti-caster unit.

Even though I agree EMP is a bit too effective against Protoss as it is.

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Originally Posted by Aldrius

The problem with Wormhole Transit was pretty obvious...

The problems with Planet Cracker I think are pretty self-evident as well.

Temporal Rift, though, I thought was really awesome. Much more selectively useful than Vortex, but still a strong ability IMO.



No it isn't... the ghost would still have snipe for dealing with High Templar. Though I think EMP needs some changes anyway... dunno if it's quite so powerful that it needs to be removed.

Though in Feedback's case if they removed it they'd almost definitely have to replace it with something. Ghost has got a lot of options outside of EMP, the High Templar not so much.



No you couldn't.

I agree the ability was more useful than people were giving it credit for, but you could not protect one of your own units with it. It wouldn't let you cast it on your own units.

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Well what prevents them from making Phase Shit affect friendly units? pretty much like almost every other ability in SC2??? And what was wrong with Wormhole transit again? is it so OP to save your unit that you have invested so much in? And Planet Cracker needed you to be ABOVE your enemy to unleash pretty exposed to enemy fire,and it can be easlity avoided cuz the MS is slow anyway...And at least they were both unique and interesting...

You guys just got the real problem behind HT, and ghost, these casters are pretty much anti-casters, and so, they just keep killing themselves. Still, i like the fact that someone who just plays better will surely take advantage of this.

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Originally Posted by arthas

Well what prevents them from making Phase Shit affect friendly units?

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Nothing, but it didn't.

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And what was wrong with Wormhole transit again? is it so OP to save your unit that you have invested so much in?

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Yes. And being able to go pretty much anywhere on the map like that was really strong. Not saying they couldn't figure out ways to balance it, but it was really cheap to be able to fly in, cause all kinds of damage and then just teleport away in the blink of an eye.

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And Planet Cracker needed you to be ABOVE your enemy to unleash pretty exposed to enemy fire,and it can be easlity avoided cuz the MS is slow anyway...And at least they were both unique and interesting...

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Exactly. It's way too do-or-die a spell. Plus it's just another generic AoE attack...

Your right, I don't like the overlap, but Protoss is gimp enough as it is.

Oooooh, didn't know Feedback had range 9 :p. That's longer than the cast range for Psi Storm, I believe :p.

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Originally Posted by Aldrius

Nothing, but it didn't.



Yes. And being able to go pretty much anywhere on the map like that was really strong. Not saying they couldn't figure out ways to balance it, but it was really cheap to be able to fly in, cause all kinds of damage and then just teleport away in the blink of an eye.



Exactly. It's way too do-or-die a spell. Plus it's just another generic AoE attack...

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i think that's the reason they removed it,yet it was still an interesting ability and nobody though to make it function like a normal ability so it could be cast on allies,oh well...there is still time...

Anywhere on map except that you need a building.....And i doubt a single mothership can stop 6 hydras or 12 marines,the very reason was to not get focused easily,And besides when the MS is gone there is no more Vortex,CF,etc...Maybe with a 3 sec cast time could have been better,dunno...The idea behind this was protect your buildings vs lone attackers and escape certain death...At least it was better then Recall..

DPS per second,directly below unit,good vs slow enemies and buildings-I wouldn't call it 'another generic AoE'-it was specified to be good vs certain targets not just zap away everything in a instant in the area...,At least you had a choice between a risky AoE and two disabling abilities,now what do you got? Only a Vortex...yawn...

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Anywhere on map except that you need a building

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That's not that hard a requirement... I mean Protoss players use proxy pylons all of the time.

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.....And i doubt a single mothership can stop 6 hydras or 12 marines

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With Temporal Rift she could. Easily.

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Maybe with a 3 sec cast time could have been better,dunno...

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I think that was the answer really. They certainly did not design the spell to let the Mothership just teleport away and survive at the last second...

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The idea behind this was protect your buildings vs lone attackers and escape certain death...

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The idea was more that you only get one of these units, so they might as well make it ridiculously mobile. Same principle behind the Queen's deep tunnel ability.

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At least it was better then Recall..

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Definitely. Recall is kinda pointless on the Mothership... I'd much rather have a speed-upgraded warp prism.

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Originally Posted by Kknewkles

Ghost is a counter to HP? No offence, but this statement is stupid.
Ghost is mainly a counter to Immortals. And everything that has energy and shields.(

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casters counter casters. its not that stupid of a statement. Thats how its always been in Sc and I doubt SC2 will be any different. Marines are the counter to Immortals. eight marines with stimp will chew through an immortal far faster than any ghost could. casters are support units thats why that cost so much. ghosts give a tactical advantage but they dont counter anything but other casters.

Im pretty sure the reason why feed back was put in is for toss to counter EMP. Because for every strategy there is a counter strategy and for every unit there is a counter unit. In this case the two units counter eachother and when that happens the side with the better micro or positioning wins.

Then Replace it with "energy stealing", so you can still disable enemy casters, and recharge your HTs, instead of turning them always into Archons. Doesn't not needs to be 1:1, if that's too powerful.

I always believed that EMP is too powerful, also, but i'm not playing the beta, so it's difficult to tell for sure.

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Originally Posted by whitefire

Im pretty sure the reason why feed back was put in is for toss to counter EMP. Because for every strategy there is a counter strategy and for every unit there is a counter unit. In this case the two units counter eachother and when that happens the side with the better micro or positioning wins.

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This is bad RTS design.

First nerf EMP, then look at feedback.

or give feedback to archons?

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Originally Posted by milo

This is bad RTS design.

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heaven forbid a strategy game requires some skill and isnt as cut and dry as unit A beats unit B. Whats bad RTS design is a race having a glaring weakness to a unit combo or strategy and not having a way to counter it. yes feedback isnt a new ability and they probably could have done better like a mana syphon that drains energy from target unit and repleneshes the Ht's energy that would be more effective in my opinion. I also think that Ghosts should be teir 2 instead of teir 1.5 have the factory be a requirment for a ghost academy so people can just get a bunch of ghosts and kill off any early toss attacks. Im not sure how Emp should be nerfed if at all. Eventually a counter strategy will be developed. It might be benificial to get the armor upgrades the moment you scout the ghosts. that should increase the survivability of your units.

Feedback is not that useful here. With smart casting, any energy unit will hardly have enough energy to deal considerable damage. Why waste energy on feedback that wont kill a unit, while you can use the energy to deal 80 damage to a bucnh of enemy units...

The only units that could have full energy that I can think about is the Battlecruiser, and the thor... but even then, this units have a lot more Hitpoints to deal with.

I say scrap this. We need a new ability

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Originally Posted by Caliban113

Well, if P gets Feedback, and T gets Snipe - what will Z get?

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Spawn brooding! lol~...jk

Anyway I thought Phase Shift was a pretty useful skill, I wonder why did blizz remove it although it's clear that Feedback is much more powerful than Phase Shift. And storm is much more efficient to cast than Feedback since there's always an army walking around.

*sry double post, remove this one*

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Originally Posted by SoFool

I thought Phase Shift was a pretty useful skill, I wonder why did blizz remove it although it's clear that Feedback is much more powerful than Phase Shift. And storm is much more efficient to cast than Feedback since there's always an army walking around.

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Because it couldn't be cast on allies,and cuz some idiot though they should stick to old stuff(sc1) :X

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Originally Posted by arthas

Because it couldn't be cast on allies,and cuz some idiot though they should stick to old stuff(sc1) :X

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Nobody really used it... and I doubt that it would have been all that much more useful if it could be cast on allies.

But mostly I think it was for countering ghosts with EMP. More than anything.

But anyway, I think phase shift would have found some use against colossi and immortals and ultralisks and thors and things storm just isn't all that great against.

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Originally Posted by whitefire

heaven forbid a strategy game requires some skill and isnt as cut and dry as unit A beats unit B. Whats bad RTS design is a race having a glaring weakness to a unit combo or strategy and not having a way to counter it.

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StarCraft is never 'as cut and dry as unit A beats unit B' when there are opportunities to micro. And I don't know why you people keep bringing up 'skill' when Ghosts and HT face off - it's the equivalent of trying to micro a marine against another marine that have 1 hp each. All you can do is click and hope your AI acts first.

And you're not understanding why it's bad RTS design either. If A counters B, and B counters A, this kills gameplay. It doesn't promote unit diversity and forces the metagame to stagnate, because when you lose your A to some B, the only strategy is to get more A. This is especially true in the case of Ghost v HT because these units also do well against everything else the opposing race can throw at you. If the Toss player doesn't feedback Ghosts, everything they ever build will be EMP'd. If the Terran player doesn't EMP Templar, everything they ever build will be Stormed/Feedbacked. This will never change. Can you see why this is a very bad thing?

The solution here isn't to nerf Feedback, or buff Snipe. The correct way to fix this is to move Protoss' Ghost counter onto some other unit, that way when Terrans get Ghosts to counter your Templar, you get the Ghost counter, which then forces the T to adapt his strategy to this new unit. Gameplay diversifies and moves on from there.

Considering that PvT is considered heavily P favored right now, even with EMP as is, I'm not sure EMP even needs to be nerfed. Time will tell.

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StarCraft is never 'as cut and dry as unit A beats unit B' when there are opportunities to micro. And I don't know why you people keep bringing up 'skill' when Ghosts and HT face off - it's the equivalent of trying to micro a marine against another marine that have 1 hp each. All you can do is click and hope your AI acts first.

And you're not understanding why it's bad RTS design either. If A counters B, and B counters A, this kills gameplay. It doesn't promote unit diversity and forces the metagame to stagnate, because when you lose your A to some B, the only strategy is to get more A. This is especially true in the case of Ghost v HT because these units also do well against everything else the opposing race can throw at you. If the Toss player doesn't feedback Ghosts, everything they ever build will be EMP'd. If the Terran player doesn't EMP Templar, everything they ever build will be Stormed/Feedbacked. This will never change. Can you see why this is a very bad thing?

The solution here isn't to nerf Feedback, or buff Snipe. The correct way to fix this is to move Protoss' Ghost counter onto some other unit, that way when Terrans get Ghosts to counter your Templar, you get the Ghost counter, which then forces the T to adapt his strategy to this new unit. Gameplay diversifies and moves on from there.

Considering that PvT is considered heavily P favored right now, even with EMP as is, I'm not sure EMP even needs to be nerfed. Time will tell.

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First of all, there is skill required in a Ghost vs. HT matchup because EMP and Storm are AoE abilities, which means they can be avoided. However, snipe is a targetted ability (meaning you choose a unit instead of an area), which means unavoidable. I've not seen feedback used yet, so I can't say for certain, but it seems from this and its predecessor thread that feedback is also targetted, and likely inavoidable as well. (someone please confirm :) )

This is a "who shoots first" matchup between these abilities if we have no other units available. However, since these units are far too fragile to leave alone (even a lone ghost/HT sent to nuke or harass still likely has a medivac that just dropped it off) and are rarely used in such fashion. The key is to know your secondary counters. Colossi w/ range upgrade grants a range of 9, supposedly, so with an observer or two, Protoss now has a secondary counter. We could also count air units that have greater speed than the ghost (again with detection). Broodlord with an Overseer for Zerg would be their secondary counter. Terran won't need detection against HT, so two words: Siege Tanks. For TvT, build some sensor towers/turrets and keep your units sufficiently behind your turrets (whichever has detection). Please don't claim there is no counter before employing some imagination, mankind's greatest skill.

I put an emphasis on the 'who shoots who first' part because if either party loses their casters, their chances of winning the skirmish plummet.

Feedback is targetted and unavoidable.

You're right about the secondary counters too, which is why Terrans are losing to Protoss so much right now. Even if they get an EMP or two off, they're still melted by Collossi. Siege Tanks cannot compare, and Vikings can't hold the ground well enough after a Collossus snipe attempt.

I just don't want two units being primary counters to each other.

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Originally Posted by milo

I put an emphasis on the 'who shoots who first' part because if either party loses their casters, their chances of winning the skirmish plummet.

Feedback is targetted and unavoidable.

You're right about the secondary counters too, which is why Terrans are losing to Protoss so much right now. Even if they get an EMP or two off, they're still melted by Collossi. Siege Tanks cannot compare, and Vikings can't hold the ground well enough after a Collossus snipe attempt.

I just don't want two units being primary counters to each other.

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Siege Tanks have to be microwed,But that's extremly tricky,1.You must avoid immortals with shields,2 You must not target the zealots charging your infantry 3, You must not Focus a single unit with ALL of your tanks when trying to micro cuz too much DPS is lost that way....etc..

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Originally Posted by arthas

3, You must not Focus a single unit with ALL of your tanks when trying to micro cuz too much DPS is lost that way

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Actually, with the new SC2 hitscanning, there is zero DPS lost this way. AI refuses to overkill in this game. Check this thread:

http://sclegacy.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2823




But we're getting away from the main topic. It may seem like I've got blinders on here but I feel the counters dynamic is essential to the success of an RTS. You cannot have two units, especially those as powerful as Ghosts and High Templar, hard countering each other and have a healthy metagame. I can forsee the current Ghost vs HT as breaking the entire PvT matchup.

Actually range of feedback seems wrong... it maybe says 9, but in game it is much muhc shorter than EMP. In PvT, the 1 counter against emp and it is underpowered as shit to the point that you cant feedbacka ghost before emp even if you had OBS in fron tof ur army nd spotted the Ghost and queued emp on each ghost from every HT...

Imba EMP yes, Imab Feedback... no.