StarCraft: Mid Tiers Upgrade

[Assaltwaffle]

I made a calc about the energy needed for the High Templar to vaporize targets in the way they do. My results yielded Large Building level results.

This would upgrade the HT and the mid tiers that scale to it, such as the Roach and Hydralisk. What do you guys think?

 

[DerpCity]

I always thought of the High Templar as a high tier because of its raw damage output compared to the other units and its described power. As a result, I'm not sure its prudent for the Roach and Hydra to scale to it, especially when the High Templar is also a glass cannon.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

Lore wise the Hydra and Roach are near equals, and Hydras can break the HTs shield, thus scale. They are glass cannons in game for balance purposes.

 

[DerpCity]

Where does a Hydralisk specifically break a High Templar's shield? To my knowledge, all units can break the high templar's shield, not just the Hydralisk. I'd ask why the shielding even scales to its AP, but the Plasma Shields are a mix of technology and psionics, so a powerful psionic should have a stronger shield.

Except robotic units, who have shields because reasons.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

Being able to break someone's armor when the armor has direct feats in durability absolutely translates to AP. That is pretty much a standard of scaling (hurting someone with a certain durability means that one who harmed them as at least the AP to match).

 

[DerpCity]

I know how scaling works, sorry if I implied I didn't. You didn't really answer my question, though. When does a Hydralisk break a High Templar's shield outside of gameplay? I don't think we've really seen a High Templar in a fight outside of that.

In hindsight, the second part of my post was kind of redundant, as it was me answering my own question, but I'll explain it. The "Why does the shielding even scale to its AP?" was meant as "Why does the High Templar's shield scale to its own AP?" The answer is because its a mix of technology and psionics, so a more powerful psionic should have a stronger shield.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

Hydras break HTs shield in the same video in which I am upgrading them on. Also, if their shields scale with their psionic power (I know that is correct, I am not trying to deny it), that would indicate that their shields are able to take as much as or more punishment than their attacks can give, thus directly scaling their AP to their durability.

 

[DerpCity]

Oh. I support the upgrade if your calculation gets accepted, then.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

Yeah, hopefully someone from the Calc team will look at it. I already posted it in the Calc evaluations page.

 

[DerpCity]

Looks like Antvasima gave the okay for the results of the blog to be applied. So Archons, Ultralisks, Thors and Colossi would be upgraded to Large Building+, and most other units would be raised to Large Building Level, correct? Or should we wait for more input before scaling other units?

 

[Assaltwaffle]

Probably "At least Large Building level+" for the massive units you listed (at least is warranted since this was a brand new and inexperienced Archon, he could have vaporized more off-screen since the beam keeps going, and Zerglings likely take more energy to vaporize than a human). Large Building scales to the Hydralisk for right now. Other mid-tiers will scale to it when we add their profiles (I.e. Roach, Lurker, Immortal).

 

[Antvasima]

Since the calculatoon was accepted by a calc group member, you can start to scale accordingly, yes.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

Thanks for the all-clear. I will begin edits at home.

 

[DerpCity]

I have already upgraded the Archon, Ultralisk, Colossus and Thor, but I am unsure if I was supposed to add the + to the Tier: section, so I omitted it since the Guts page didn't have it.

Something to note, but singular Zealots can kill Roaches, as shown in the Cold Symmetry short story, where a zealot kills a roach with only one functioning psi blade, albeit while underground with the roach. Should they scale?

 

[Assaltwaffle]

I would believe so. Even though it was with a psi blade (which bypass durability) being to wrestle with and survive against a Roach while underground indicates that they are around the same level physically.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I approve of these upgrades as well.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

Pretty big uh-oh in our descriptions.

The Archon and Ultra's reasoning is now circular. The Archon's durability is described as coming from tanking an Ulra, yet the Ultra' AP comes from breaking the Archon's shield.

We need to fix this asap. We need to state that as a Protoss psionic, the Archon's shield scales to its AP. Same with the HT. There is no need to state that it can take hits from other units since their shields work in this fashion.

If they have feats of their own, avoid scaling. That will help prevent any confusion moving forward.

 

[DerpCity]

Whoops. I noticed that myself and still forgot to change it. I applied a quick fix to the Archon and High Templar's page for their durability section, but it isn't the most glorious of descriptions.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

Thanks for the fix. Sounding meh is better than circular scaling. I will read over them and edit once I get back from the campus.

 

[Antvasima]

The + sign should preferably only be used if there is a calculation placing a feat in the upper half of a tier.

 

[DerpCity]

I understand, and according to Darkanine the Archon's feat qualifies for the +. However, the only other page I've seen that has the + doesn't put it in the Tier: header, that page being the Guts page, where his tier as the Black Swordsman is "At least 8-C", but his Attack Potency is "At least Building level+". Is it supposed to go in the Tier heading as well?

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Oh yeah, as @Antvasima said, Large building level would be 2-6.5 tonnes of TNT with Large building level+ being 6.5 to 11 tonnes of TNT.

 

[DerpCity]

@DarkDragon The archon's feat yielded ~8.5 tons, my current issue is with how I list that on the page.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

As a side note the Colossus' reasoning is a bit off. They are comparable to the Archon and other Massive units, and that should be their reasoning. Burning lower tiers without a Calc is pretty iffy as reasoning.

 

[DerpCity]

@Assaltwaffle Fixed.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

If 8.5 tonnes is the approximate number, then large bulding level+ will suffice. When At Least is used used before Large Building Level+, it means it's scaled to be significantly higher than someone or something that was that level, but the multitude is unknown. Meaning City block level or something is a possibility, but not something that can quite be assumed.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

@DarkDragonMefeus I am not sure if I follow. In my Calc the result was Large Building level+ for the Archon. That "At least" is present for three reasons.

1. The feat was performed by an inexperienced newborn Archon, and thus was probably not the maximum output an Archon can yield.

2. The Calc may have been higher, but the screen stopped panning to focus on the Ultralisk. The beam continues forward, clearly still containing energy, and may have vaporized even more Zerglings.

3. A Zergling is likely harder to vaporize than a human.

 

[DerpCity]

@DarkDragon The reason its put to At Least is because the feat was done casually by an incredibly inexperienced Archon. If that doesn't make the At Least warranted, I'll remove it from the pages. Also, does the + apply to the numerical tier, as in it would have "Tier: At least High 8-C+" on its page, or would it still be "Tier: At least High 8-C"? If its supposed to go there, the Guts page needs to be adjusted.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Assalt, but I'd like my question answered in case I need to edit the pages again.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Oh, sorry, I misread. I'm unsure if plus signs go on the tier, but I'm not the best person to ask. I just though someone was asking about when to put at least before an AP rating. Large Building Level+ does sound good for AP and durability. I'm unsure about if tier should be listed as High 8-C or High 8-C+.

Edit: I'm not entirely sure about the At Least part either, but it's generally a rare thing.

 

[DerpCity]

@DarkDragon Okay. Thanks for your input, anyhow.

Anyway, for the record, the following pages have been edited to Large Building level+.

The Archo (Did the feat), the Ultralisk (Scales from the Archon), Thor (StarCraft) (Scales from the Archon), the Colossus (StarCraft) (Scales from the Archon), and Dehaka (Scales from the Ultralisk). Kerrigan's original Queen of Blades form should scale, too, but I haven't done that yet.

The following pages have been edited to Large Building level.

The High Templar (Did the feat), the Hydralisk (Scales from the High Templar), the Zealot (Scales from Roaches, who are comparable to Hydralisks), and the Baneling (Scales from Zealots). Kerrigan's Ghost form should scale, based on the page's reasoning, and Nova Terra should probably scale for the same reason as Kerrigan.

I'm not sure which to scale the Sentry's force field to, but I currently editted it to Large Building level+

 

[Assaltwaffle]

Poor Marine and Zergling stuck in 8-C lol.

 

[Aparajita]

Problem. Some of the Protoss/Zerg/Terran units are scaling to the Marvel Sentry and not the Robotic Sentry.

 

[DerpCity]

@Assalt Actually, I just remembered, Warfield survived a hydralisk volley by blocking with his arm, and then prevented his death by grabbing the Hydralisk's claw and punching it dead in the face, knocking it out. Granted, that arm had to be replaced with a robotic one due to the Hydralisk's venom, but he still survived the ordeal as an ordinary marine.

And not only that, but the Baneling's short story, Broken Wide, says that 10 zerglings killed 15 marines in a group of 60 just by catching them by surprise.

Our low tiers might just become mid tiers yet.

@Aparajita I apologize for that. I saw and fixed that on the colossus's page already, but I'll check the other units.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

@Aparajita Rofl

Solar system SC2 mid tiers confirmed?!

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Oh yeah, I noticed another error. Kerrigan's durability on her first tag is only athlete level; shouldn't it be large building level? Even as a human ghost, I doubt her durability's inferior to Marines and Zerglings or better yet, her own physical AP.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

@DerpCity Can we count Warfield's survival as durability though? The spines totally shredded his arm. Granted, he did punch out a Hydralisk, but that may indicate the Hydra being a bit on the frail side (as reflected in game, though I don't want to use game mechanics to scale) of durability, while still holding AP. I mean Zeratul uses a Hydra's own mandible to impale it, so it would seem like their are a bit offensively bias.

Yeah, Zerglings definitely shred Marines if they aren't prepared, and they already scale to them at 8-C.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

Oh yeah, I noticed another error. Kerrigan's durability on her first tag is only athlete level; shouldn't it be large building level? Even as a human ghost, I doubt her durability's inferior to Marines and Zerglings or better yet, her own physical AP.

Kerrigan's ghost form should be comparable to Nova Terra, so yes, she should be 8-C durability in ghost since the Ghost operatives are able to physically manhandle and kill armored marines. This kind of inconsistency is bound to happen with numerous rapid upgrades to a large verse. Thank you to everyone helping to improve the StarCraft verse.

 

[DerpCity]

While it did total his arm, he still survived. If marines are that far lower than them, then that would have gone straight through him, and he still stopped the Hydralisk from cleaving him in half by grabbing its claw, thus showing that the marine's power armor is comparable to the Hydralisk.

 

[Assaltwaffle]

Fair enough. So the Marine very well may be at High 8-C. The Zergling would also scale to that since they can peel back their armor like paper. And as of yet the Zergling still dies to a freaking gust of wind because they can't seem to get any durability feats lol

 

[DerpCity]

Its unfortunate, I know. They're even less bulletproof than an overgrown worm. Like, seriously Blizzard?