I'm a high ranked Terran master on Europe within Grandmaster MMR and generally playing a very macro-heavy style.

I started to play StarCraft 2 in the beta and quit after 2 weeks since it was horrible - everyone who have played the beta knows what I'm talking about. One year later I decided to pick up SC2 since I hoped that the design became a bit more balanced.

My race of choice in the beginning was Protoss since I played the predator race in Broodwar and I'm a fan of Bisu.

The sexy god of StarCraft

Protoss was horrible. PvP was cheesy, PvT was incredible hard to master against early bio all-ins and PvZ was an all-in hell as well. So I decided to switch since I didn't like the static system of Protoss and the race was especially underpowered on short distance maps. Furthermore, I played a very timing-based style which involved a lot of pushes and pokes, rarely resulting in a deathball scenario.

It took me months of very hard daily training to reach the niveau with Terran and the development of a rigorous improvement system. Currently, I'm a bit tired of perfecting my play and therefore will do an experiment for fun and induced by the current situation in TvP.
To be honest, I want to go pro and I don't think my current ability to play with Terran is enough to reach this level. I will use the same account since I don't want to buy an extra one. Unfortunately, this will require a bit of losing since I'm currently ranked first in my master division. However, I hope to learn the following from this experiment:

How good will my skill translate to Protoss as a high master Terran?
What new ideas and perspectives will I gain?

I'd like to document my effort to have a systematic approach and maximize the learning effect. So please bear with me starting from zero:

The beginning: bronze scrub 4 eva

However, I always make sure that I have a basic gameplan which I won't derivate from:

PvP: MC's defensive 3 gate in PvP
PvT: MC's 1 gate FE
PvZ: 15 Nexus

I will post interesting replays and insights as I progress through the leagues. May Aiur be with you my brethren.

Session 1 (#2 Silver): Lol, I don't know what I'm doing.

Statistics:
Win/Loss: 9/1, the guy claimed that he was a diamond player. He rofl-stomped me with mass burrowed roaches...

Avg. EAPM: 74, so bad... (160 with Terran)
Avg. Game Length: 10 minutes
PvT: 4:0 (Purotoss so imba)
PvP: 3:0 (Everyone tried to cheese me)
PvZ: 2:1 (Zerg imba)

Conclusion
-Players are friendlier in lower leagues. It's kind of refreshing to play against people who doesn't have any pressure.
-Early game is okay but I don't know what to build in mid/late in PvZ. Current strat is "FFE into some kind of random deathball".

Session 2 (#1 Platin): How did I get here?

Statistics:
Win/Loss: 36/7, I need to learn something about PvZ and PvP
Avg. EAPM: 104, better than before
Avg. Game Length: 11 minutes
PvT: 9:0 (cake everywhere)
PvP: 12:4 (lots of cheese)
PvZ: 15:3 (chedar, gouda, everything in here)

Conclusion
-Building warp prism every game
-Harassing with Zaelots every game
-See me chilling in my base, deathballing up

Session 3 (#6 Diamond): This isn't right

Statistics:
Win/Loss: 8/3
Avg. EAPM: 113
Avg. Game Length: 11 minutes
PvT: 1:1 (Loss game from a supply block during a 1-1-1 my fault)
PvP: 3:1 (Cheesy stuff)
PvZ: 4:1 (+1 Zealot and +2 Blink and Immortals = too strong)

Conclusion:
-I tend to think that Protoss is extremely easy to play at these low levels...
-It doesn't feel good anymore to win with.

My general opinion:
~~I won't describe Protoss as easy to play anymore, but the effort required for my enemies to keep up is higher.~~ Protoss is extremely easy to play and you don't need the same amount of learning as you have with Zerg or Terran. I get lazier, there's no inherent need to improve as extreme as it is with Terran. Though I can't adequatly describe the situation yet since I need stronger enemies to reach a 50/50 win-/lossrate. I tried to find a decent streamer but, to be honest, every Protoss currently streaming is unbelievably bad compared to the Terran or Zerg players.

I feel that the skills from Terran to Protoss transfers too good. It shouldn't be possible in an ideal StarCraft to switch that easily between races. To put it in harsh words, I feel like Protoss is a lite version of Terran which basically requires the same kind of skills only in a more simplistic form. I think Blizzard didn't invest time into the design of Protoss and therefore some things tend to be broken - in a positive and negative kind of way, e.g. Mothership Vortex (good) vs no early harrasment potential (bad).

My opinion on units (fun-based):

Most important unit ever, you can create terrain? CREATE TERRAIN? Chokes anyone? How imbalanced is that... blocking most Zerg units, trapping Terrans? Imba.

Fucking samurai with lasers. LAZERSWORDS. I really like them. Furthermore, they are immortal.

Super fast pylon? The only thing I'd add to the prism is the ability to regenerate shields in it's vicinity faster... kind of shield battery.

Meh, don't like them. Bad copies of dragoons.

I don't like their a-click in your face style... Protoss needs more subtlety.

micronesia

United States24768 Posts

March 19 2012 23:43 GMT

Why would you have a basic gameplan that you won't deviate from? If you are going to 15 nexus and you immediately scout an early pool, wouldn't you deviate?

CecilSunkure

United States2829 Posts

March 19 2012 23:45 GMT

On March 20 2012 08:43 micronesia wrote:
Why would you have a basic gameplan that you won't deviate from? If you are going to 15 nexus and you immediately scout an early pool, wouldn't you deviate?

He actually said derivate. He won't derive from a gameplan

I actually think he meant like, he won't go cheesing or do random things; he'll try to focus on a singular gameplan in a more broad sense.

Kipsate

Netherlands45349 Posts

March 19 2012 23:53 GMT

The real god of StarCraft

HwangjaeTerran

Finland5967 Posts

March 19 2012 23:57 GMT

Good luck, give me a shout-out once you win a big event.

cmen15

United States1519 Posts

March 20 2012 00:04 GMT

Thattt is a sick zealot pic lol !!!

MaV_gGSC

Canada1345 Posts

March 20 2012 00:08 GMT

+ Show Spoiler +

On March 20 2012 08:53 Kipsate wrote:

Show nested quote +

Well. Played. Sir.

eourcs

United States459 Posts

March 20 2012 00:10 GMT

You won't drop down much provided you have reasonably decent mechanics. I did the same thing as you in the beginning of the season and stabilized at around top 500-600 masters on NA with Protoss compared to top 100 masters with Terran; which is decent considering all I did was research 3 builds from the strategy forum and improvise the rest.

PvT was really easy to be honest, I pretty much knew exactly what my opponent was doing the whole time, and I found it really easy to just drag out a game until I have a deathball. I had some difficulties with knowing how to react properly to builds I knew were coming, and overall, I found Protoss units early-mid game rather unwieldy, not necessarily bad, but certainly different than Terran units.

PvZ was pretty simple too. I just did the 4 gate +1 zealot of FFE every game, and followed with either a third or a 7gate blink allin. I learned that forcefields and dt/zealot drops are pretty cool ^_^

PvP was probably the hardest matchup to get used to. I lost a bunch of games because my warpgate was 2 seconds late, or my sentry came out a second late. However, given our warpgate timings were even, I usually won with better micro. I didn't really know how to play after an expansion, so I would usually lose because I don't know the proper times to cut units/cut probes/get forges/get additional gates.

Pulimuli

Sweden2766 Posts

March 20 2012 00:49 GMT

Since you're a GM terran you should be around mid-masters at least with protoss as long as you know the builds and correct responses (which you kinda should considering you've played alot of TvP)

ticklishmusic

United States15977 Posts

March 20 2012 01:50 GMT

#10

Hey, why don't MY zealots have large cannons strapped to both arms?

I have never believed that switching races is super hard. I think out of every 5 games I play, at least one is off race. Arguably, I had the most trouble with Zerg, because queen management was a whole new thing I had to take care of. At least I'm pretty friggin' good at zergling monobattles now.

RogerX

New Zealand3180 Posts

March 20 2012 02:45 GMT

#11

Half transformer zealot.

Azzur

Australia6260 Posts

March 20 2012 04:17 GMT

#12

When someone says this, it means they won't deviate assuming standard play. Obviously, their play will change if cheese is scouted. If something like this has to be qualified every time, then most statements will be unnecessarily long.

micronesia

United States24768 Posts

March 20 2012 09:36 GMT

#13

On March 20 2012 13:17 Azzur wrote:

Show nested quote +

I haven't heard this before, 'plan I won't deviate from' meaning 'I'll stick to this as long as the opponent doesn't do something very forcing'.

Not saying I disagree with the OPs decision to do this, though.