Feedback needs to go.

[milo]

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.

[Blazur]

Replacement ability: Translocation

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

[Bisso]

and the gameplay element is pointless.

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

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.

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

[milo]

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.

everything in StarCraft is who shoots first

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

Removing abilities is ALWAYS a bad solution. ALWAYS

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

[arthas]

Replacement ability: Translocation

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

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...

[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.

Removing abilities is ALWAYS a bad solution. ALWAYS

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.

OR protect one of your own from death.

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.

[Caliban113]

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?

[whitefire]

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.

[whitefire]

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.

[Krikkitone]

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.