Things that SC2 needs to improve tactical play rather than unit composition

[VVheat]

I disagree to everything the OP said.

The current system is very tactical, in that it encourages scouting, and acquiring vision. An Observer or SCAN, will allow you to snipe enemy casters before battle.

The delayed effects suggested will only turn SC2 closer to Street Fighter 4, and be much less tactical.

[Jdawsman]

I disagree to everything the OP said.

The current system is very tactical, in that it encourages scouting, and acquiring vision. An Observer or SCAN, will allow you to snipe enemy casters before battle.

The delayed effects suggested will only turn SC2 closer to Street Fighter 4, and be much less tactical.

I don't think it will be any closer to street fighter 4 than it already was...

[MulletBen]

Your solution is to turn every spell into a seeker missile, then speed up the seeker missile?

...

[mikill]

I don't think these ideas are necessary, I think Blizzard's got it close. Personnally I think some of the spells should use less energy instead of changing them, like 125 for a seeker missle! Come on!

[Wankey]

I'm guessing you read that TL article before you posted this?

Yes I did.

I disagree to everything the OP said.

The current system is very tactical, in that it encourages scouting, and acquiring vision. An Observer or SCAN, will allow you to snipe enemy casters before battle.

The delayed effects suggested will only turn SC2 closer to Street Fighter 4, and be much less tactical.

You missed the point completely. Scouting and vision doesn't mean it's tactical. It's playing playing chess, you're only allowed to see the enemy for a brief moment.

SC1 wasn't about building winning, it was about maneuvering on the battlefield. Sadly, of all the pro games I've seen of SC1 right now, very little battlefield tactical movement can be seen. It's all just big balls dancing with each other (excuse the pun)

[TheRabidDeer]

SC2 is slowly devolving to who ever has the best combination unit ball wins.

There are less and less of tactical gameplay in terms of big fights, just 2 balls going up against each other. If your ball contains a ghost, Protoss balls better contain high templars to feedback.

The game feels that rather than increasing tactical battles, it aims to shut down the opposing team. For instance, force field absolutely shuts down melee units, while Psi Storm is nearly undodgeable with the autocasting, there's also no way to dodge emp blast. In SC1, psi storm was very easily dodged, and it took true skill to blanket an area with psi storm.

What I feel SC2 needs to improve reactionary tactical play is the following:

Psi Storm:
Have it hit the area a second later, have the high templar "paint" the ground with lets say a glowing emblem with a storm incoming. Good players will notice this and try to move out of the way.

EMP blast:
Introduce at least a bit of projectile lag to the EMP blast. It's currently instant and completely destroys protoss way of waging war considering it gets rid of shields AND mana. Maybe have a .5 second of laser sighting, them boom EMP blast.

Fungal growth:
Have it take longer to splash onto units, and instead of instantly stopping units, slowly slow them to a stop, ie, start from 25% slow, to 75% slow in a matter of seconds.

Force Field:
Make the force fields setup slower. That is, they have a setup time. The cast time is still the same, you can easily spam 50 force fields but it takes 1 second to set up (some sort of animation showing it?) It at least gives melee units a fighting chance to see that you're getting force fields. And with the knowledge that force fields have a 1 second setup, you'll probably be casting them earlier to block ramps and such.

Raven:
The Seeker drone needs to be faster. This is one area where they had the right thinking but it isn't effective at all. Just speed it up a lot, and remove the jump at the end. Just make it a castable floating spider mine, also make it so that there is setup time as well (ie same as spider mine)

Any other ideas? Currently, I feel there are way too many spells in the game that are just twitchy, and insta cast with insta effects. Instead of improving gameplay (ie, lets say plague vs the infestor skill. Plague removes HP slowly off your units, but doesn't kill them, forcing you to withdraw. The infestor skill sticks them into place, while often times killing the unit. That to me completely destroys the gameplay since there are absolutely no reactionary tactics to deal with you units being stuck in place.)

I disagree with pretty much everything in this post.

BW storm wasnt easy to dodge, its just that units didnt clump as much. Also, at this point in time for SC2, the battles are much larger than in BW because people arent as aggressive so they wait to do anything until like 180 food.

Fungal growth change: Why? This is again entirely different from what is even SC-like. Maelstrom in BW for example was instant.

Force Field: Again, why? If you have melee units, and you see sentries you should be assuming a FF anyway. Abuse this fact. Use your eyes and your brain.

Raven: I am unsure about this one, since it can be a disturbingly powerful ability if it is too quick.

EMP: This one I am torn on. Yes, it is strong but I dont know if it is overpowering or not. I am leaning towards it being fine though. If I see ghosts, I know that an EMP is coming so I need to either kill the ghosts before it goes off or run away after it goes off to regen shields.

I also think that you are underestimating how much effect unit composition had in BW, or are being nostalgic to downplay its significance. You are also forgetting how much time it has had to get to where it is today. As more people get SC2 and more time is spent on it, the bar will rise and you will see less unit ball clustering.

[TheEconomist]

Storm impossible to dodge? Are you sure you didn't accidentialy click on your Brood War icon instead of StarCraft 2 when you played that game? I couldn't agree more with Gradius. Psi storm is not the Zerg (or bioball) killer it was in StarCraft. Since that was it's main use for that game, it's almost useless in StarCraft 2. Very, very, very, very, very rarely do I get psi storms even against Zerg. It's usually get to get a Collosus since they last longer and don't have annoying cooldowns.

[Skyze]

Dont agree with the Storm one because Storm is so incredibly weak in comparison to SC1.. Takes what, 2 and a half storms to kill a Marauder if he stands still?

The biggest issue in the game I find so far, is tanks smart firing.. You cant draw 2-3 units away to draw the tanks to fire at only them, making no splash damage... because the tanks will smart first only 1 on those units, then the rest of your tanks are still loaded to fire on the other units. Tanks need to be like SC1, where they fire to the first thing in range and potentially wasting tank fire, that is the risk you take for not microing your tanks..

Its just insane how terran already has the best attack-move unit in the game with marauders, AND have a huge range unit that smart fires and does insane damage.. AND turrets that can outrange void rays and vikings that could take out carriers in even numbers. Really needs a fix in this matchup.

Make forcefield slower and you basically kill PvZ and PvT also.. Protoss needs fast forcefields to hold off Baneling busts early.. without forcefield, ZvP would be the exact same as ZvZ is right now; who can get more banelings first to break off 1base. And PvT you need forcefield to stop the insanely overpowered marauders from kiting your zealots so easily with their slow.

[Norfindel]

Yes, i hate abilities that cannot be dodged, and deal terrible damage. It's stupid. "sorry, you can't do anything about this". It sucks.

I guess Psi Storm got like this, because of ridiculous ideas of some units moving at the speed of light, and because it got a horrible AoE nerf (among other nerfs), so it would be far too easy to dodge.

Also, the Protoss army is very slow. Trying to defend expansions that aren't really close is a nightmare. Unupgraded Zealots can be owned by any ranged unit with some micro, Sentries, Immortals, HTs and Colossi are slow, also. The Mothership is so slow it's useless, and the Carrier and Void Ray are also slow units.

Battles are too damn fast, and generally the winning army utterly defeats the losing army, even if they are of similar cost. Too much damage dealed by too many units. Some counters are so hard, that the game ends right there if the unit composition is better for one side. Protoss is usually a race to get Colossi, now that the Void Ray is so easy to counter.

To resume:
Zealot: way too slow without Charge
Immortal: slow, hard-counterable hard-counter.
Colossi: hard-counter, very position-dependant.
Void Ray: hard-counterable hard-counter.
Mothership: useless.
HT: very gas-expensive, with non-dodgeable but quite nerfed Psi Storm. Archon sucks.

Other races probably have their own share of problems, but i use Protoss, so i talk about that.

EDIT: guys, i dodged Psi Storm with my Zealots and Dragoons in BW. Zerg units would have trouble to do the same, because they die much faster. But in PvP, you could dodge quite a lot of damage by moving your units at the right moment.

[Pandonetho]

Forcefield is too one sided, I agree on that sentiment. It's all dependent on the skill of 1 player. The victim being subject to the Forcefields cannot do anything to prevent being completely shut down by a good Protoss player.