Phase Shift doesn't work on your own units?

[n00bonicPlague]

High Templar aren't just here for pretty Storms anymore, now they can cast Fade on themselves or any other units. Faded units can't attack or take hits, but they can run. Saving Colossi this way is a must!

Now I have to make a correction regarding High Templar. Their second ability does NOT allow one to save their own units from death. It can only be cast on enemy troops, making it a great counter to Thors, Colossi, Ultralisks and other guys that Storm won't deal with.

That totally obliterates all sorts of possible strategies for the Protoss. IMO, if an ability can be cast on the enemy, there's no real reason it can't be cast on you. It's this kind of thing that lets pros make crazy gameplay. Winning because you use an ability in an unexpected or unanticipated way is awesome and a part of what makes games fun to watch and play.

How do you feel about this?

[Kimera757]

I don't think Phase Shift is abuseable if you cast it on your own guys. You can Phase one of your guys to protect them, but that's just as good as phasing one of your opponent's units.

I'm sure there are or were abilities that were abuseable if you could use them on your own guys, like the old soul hunter's power-up ability.

[FrozenArbiter]

Banish (the WC3 spell that is Phase Shifts progenitor) has been used for some extremely sexy saves of low hp units in recent WC3 games (particularly by RohJinWook, his Bloodmage use is fantastic vs Orc), so I hope they find a way to allow this in SC as well.

It can easily change as needed once we hit beta tho.

It does bring up an interesting question about the Phoenix anti-gravity ability tho. In WC3, Cyclone (iirc that's what the the equivalent ability is called... I've never really thought about it hehe) can't be cast on your own units which I always found to be a bit of a bummer.

[Pandonetho]

I think that's pretty lame, it should be able to be used on your own units.

[n00bonicPlague]

Stasis Field to save units from Nukes

Irradiate Science Vessels to wipe out Drones

etc...

[Josue]

Stasis Field to save units from Nukes

Irradiate Science Vessels to wipe out Drones

etc...

I remember I saw that in a "pimpest play" video it was so good that I tried it right away!
I don't know why they should limit it to be unable to cast your own units, but I guess they found that something very bad for balance could be done that way so they disabled it... I wish we knew the real reason.

[Krikkitone]

Well the only good reasons for restricting it to enemies is

1. There is No gameplay reason you would cast it on a friendly (ie Yamato cannon)
OR
2. casting on a friendly woud be abusable (soul hunter?)

I can see #2.... especially with Protoss... important unit X may die... save it, and it can recharge shields fairly easily.

It could be they simply wanted the ability to be better balanced for taking an enemy unit out of play, and the value of saving a friendly was much higher in most of the situations... it may go back in beta.

Or it could be that saving a friendly was almost never worth it so they put it in there to prevent the player from makng a stupid move... but I doubt that.

[ArcherofAiur]

[sarcasm] Yet another reason to choose phase shift over psi storm! [/sarcasm]

[Nicol Bolas]

I can see #2.... especially with Protoss... important unit X may die... save it, and it can recharge shields fairly easily.

It's not so much that. If Phase Out still allows the unit to move (and we have heard nothing either way on this), then you can essentially guarantee that a drop makes it to the location of interest by Phasing it out before it enters contested territory.

[Krikkitone]

It's not so much that. If Phase Out still allows the unit to move (and we have heard nothing either way on this), then you can essentially guarantee that a drop makes it to the location of interest by Phasing it out before it enters contested territory.

That could be it... getting into enemy territory would be very important.

If I remember it does allow the unit to move (possibly even increasing its movement..ie decreased size).. note, it is actually an old ability that has come back.. although perhaps in a different form.


The ability to move does seperate it from the Vortex/Stasis field pretty significantly though.


Perhaps some rule could be made regarding Transports in particular... (similar to the way a specific transport rule is probably needed with Neural Parasite)... although that gets to gimmicky.

Not doing it on your own unis may be better since that way they get to balance it with One use (stop unit X from doing something)