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This article has nothing to do with win rates . It is just directly pointing out some flaws in the races that the other races don’t have. I only point out one flaw per volume. I am not saying that one race is perfect. Also I will not be addressing human factors in the game. In other words I will take out the human aspect of the game (i.e., required skill or amp, human error), and just try to focus on situational instances.
Detection
For those of you who forget, Terran has 4 methods of detection (Scan, Turrets, Ravens, EMP [minus burrowed units]), Zerg has 3 (Spore Crawler, Overseer, Fungal Growth), and Protoss has 2 (Photon Cannons, Observers). For those of you who might say that Psionic Storm does damage to cloaked units, yes, but all Splash Damage of any form does damaged to cloaked units.
This issue's with Protoss detection.
The largest issue with Protoss detection is by its tech path. To properly illustrate the issue, let us use the situation of rushed Cloak Banshees are attacking your base. Let assume both situations that you have either skipped building your primary upgrade building, and when you already have the building built.
The race with the easiest fix for this problem is Terran by far. Move your SCVs until you have energy for a SCAN, while you wait, if you decided to skip the Engineering Bay, the SCAN will buy you time to hold off the Banshee aggression, and saying no obvious mistakes are made, you may have taken some damage, you will be fine considering the resources he put into getting such a fast Cloak Banshee. The situation is even easier when the Engineering Bay has already been build. SCAN to delay the Banshee, and build turrets. You have no reason to build a Raven or Ghost to take care of this pressure and little damage will occur.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fJciT.png)
Now as Zerg, I’m not going to lie; it’s kind of a pain. So maybe you will not even be thinking of having a lair up and running yet, and for some reason you don’t even have an Evolution Chamber. You have to save as much as you can at this point. Pull everything, and get that Evolution Chamber now! Luckily you can hide a few spore crawlers and have them move into place. Your queens will easily be able to hold off the few Banshees after you get vision by moving your Spore into place. You will take loses most likely, whether you do or do not have the Evolution Chamber. That is, unless you get lucky and when you send an Overlord into the opponent’s base you managed to spot the Tech Lab on the Starport, if that happens, you will be fine.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ta2tc.png)
So why I think it’s such an issue with Protoss? Again, trying to take the worse situation, you don’t have a forge, and no higher tech (like the zerg not having his Lair). Really in this situation, you are taking more damage than any of the other races. To effectively hold this off without going Robo, you need to already have pylons near your mineral line. You need to pull your probes, get enough Stalkers to deal with Banshees, because there is no way a few Sentries will be effective enough. You need to plop down some cannons, though he will focus them down as you build them, saying that this Terran knows what he is doing. He will be able to get enough kills that can put the Protoss so far behind; it might as well be GG. Saying he just keeps coming at you with Banshees, chances are you won’t be able to efficiently save probes, get stalkers and cannons up to defend. Even saying you already have your forge, to build pylons around your mineral line, and cannon it up, is still unlikely due to Banshee DPS. To cost effectively deal with Banshees as Protoss, you need an observer. Therefore thats the reason why this is the largest issue for Protoss among them all, Protoss is forced down the Robo Tech path, creating situations where the race is more constrained, and limiting strategies.
I can assume that most of you will say, that’s how it’s always been, and how it should stay. I don’t necessarily disagree, but it brings in the situation of unbalanced outcomes, because 95% of toss go Robo already in PvT, but for those who don't it will be a looming issue. If all 3 races just entirely neglect getting detection, Protoss will be the worse off due to the damage that can be done.
Much Luv ♥ DJ Wilma.
(Seriously if you're going to reply with debatable responses, I'm happy with reply, but don't reply on circumstances not relevant to the situation at hand. And don't bother replying saying "Its balanced, you just suck" or something like that, I do believe that the game is more or less balanced, but what players have to do (being limited in certain match ups) is the only reason its "balanced". Basically we accept something we are forced to do, and do it, making it balanced in our minds as a whole, like Zergs feeling like they have to take a fast 3rd, its accepted, though its not really balanced).
 
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Or you can scout the gases being taken early, no expansion being taken or, poke the front.
If the opponent spends 200 gas on cloack it's not a big deal to slam down a robo which you will slam down sooner or later anyway.
Cloackshee builds are easily scouted and the mere possibility of cloackshees doesn't force you to go quick robo every game. It forces you to scout.
People who want to go straight templar can just poke and see if there's any cloackshee shenanigans incoming. And if there is, they can build a robo.
Summarized: Cloackshee attacks are so easily scouted that it doesn't force people who want to go templar to build a very early robo every game.
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Since we have 3 distinct races there will always be advantages and disadvantages to each race. We can spend all day saying "X>Y therefore we have balance issues" or we can accept that certain strategies need to be used to play safe. + Show Spoiler + T and P need to scout and play a certain way vs Z or a simple ling run-by will kill us. It may or may not be balanced, but that doesn't mean it takes away from the game - I'd say it adds to it. Same with detection differences.
Your main point is about PvT where T gets a fast banshee. Did you know that as a T player, almost every TvT I play involves me getting a relatively quick turret in my mineral line? Or that most TvP games involve getting a turret near my natural choke? I also see most Z players throwing down a few spore crawlers to be safe... It's almost unfair that P gets such early mobile detection!
+ Show Spoiler + I also don't understand the point of this blog considering Blizzard has already give P a second form of mobile detection in HotS
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Meh, the fact that Protoss gets punsihed harder in a case of 0 preparation is trivial when all 3 races can scout cloack banshees relatively easily and prepare accordingly. This discussion has been going on and off since beta, Protoss simply needs to go Robo if they can't rule out cloack banshees, fair schmair ^^
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I still cant get over how fungal counts as detection but psy storm doesn't. Rest of post is similarly nonsensical.
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i mean I guess you can say that if a terran is two raxing a toss the toss can just micro their stalkers and not lose anything, while the zerg has to cut drones, pull drones, make lings, micro lings.
Basically, your complaint is: Assymetrical race design. And the problem you are pointing out was indeed a problem before they introduced a lessened observer cost and build time maybe i forgot.
The thing is, even if races are less or more favored at different points in the game, they are never guranteed to lose. I actually think because of the skillcap you neglected(which I think factors a lot into dealing with banshees, you should never be caught off guard like that), the game will be inherently balanced to a very very very large extent. Queens got 4 range which let zerg get T3 faster and more bases faster and have more creep spread. And yet, with no buffs to terran, the game has become balanced again.
Besides, toss are forced to forge FE in PvZ.
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Canada5377 Posts
On October 07 2012 23:52 Atreides wrote:
I still cant get over how fungal counts as detection but psy storm doesn't. Rest of post is similarly nonsensical.
Cloaked units, while fungaled, are actually revealed and other units can shoot them while the fungal's on. Psi Storm doesnt.
That said, I dont agree with anything I just read. Yes if you see Terran opening gas and refuse to accept the possibility of Cloak Banshee, you might die. Are we seriously suggesting this is a problem? If Dark Templar (the more potent threat without detection) show up to a Zerg without Lair or Evo Chamber, or to a Terran without E-Bay and <10 scan energy, that player absolutely dies. Why are these all comparable situations? Because in each case, the player made no acknowledgment of the possibility of an invisible unit and was instantly killed.
The second point (I think) was that you didn't like being forced to go Robo against a one-base Terran. For one, I think that's a dumb complaint. Secondly, its not quite true anyway. It's a dumb complaint because you can't do whatever you want in any situation you want, and that's not a problem. You cant scout a one base terran with gas and not build a robo any more than Terran can scout a lot of early Chrono Boost building up and not build any bunkers. Secondly, non-robo openings have absolutely beaten cloak banshees if you feel like actually exercising some skill. Specifically, I've Void Ray all-ins manage to win and even non-all-in Phoenixes forcing the Banshee to cloak right away.
tl;dr Don't make greedy assumptions that people won't make invisible units and then come whining to the forums when they do.
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I think you're partially right. I do think quasi-forcing the protoss into robo isn't really wanted and that's one of the reason why the oracle (correct me if i'm wrong, don't follow hots too good atm) has a detection spell.
On the other hand, i don't think it's really a big problem, in the sense that it does not break the game.
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On October 08 2012 01:37 Yorbon wrote:
I think you're partially right. I do think quasi-forcing the protoss into robo isn't really wanted and that's one of the reason why the oracle (correct me if i'm wrong, don't follow hots too good atm) has a detection spell.
On the other hand, i don't think it's really a big problem, in the sense that it does not break the game.
I have to say, your the first person to actually understand what I meant by the post. I understand you have to go robo if you scout a gas, or two gas. I was just using an extreme example of surprise cloack banshee. I know you just scout it and its controlled, but then the toss is forced to go down a tech path when no other race if forced into that situation.
And for those of you who actually read the entire post, I said that the game is basically fully balanced, and the just the fact that a protoss is forced into a tech path for the basic mechanic of mobile detection isn't the most balanced thing. I mean it doesn't make the game unfair, you still have plenty of time to get it, but its a mechanic that almost doesnt make sense.
All races have a tier 1 anti-air unit. All races can only get air past tier 1. All races have a defence building that has detection. All races have effective spells that are balanced (if you guys start bitching about that, I'll write an article detailing how they are all balanced to a degree). All races have some mechanic related to their main building that gives them economic boosts. But Protoss are the only race that have to go down a tech path to get mobile detection.
I know this would be kind of ridiculous, and really wouldn't fit how the games works, but equivalent change to make it more balance, would be to have it come out of the cybernetics core only after WG is complete. I know this is a ridiculous idea, and I personally would never want it implemented, but it would make it on par with the other races, not forcing the tech path.
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What league are you in? Why should we listen to you?
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On October 08 2012 02:50 Weird wrote:
What league are you in? Why should we listen to you?
My league is irrelevant, as I am more or less removing the human side of this. I am just setting it down to the game mechanics. I'm not saying anything that involves the skill of the player, in a defined situation like this, skill becomes irrelevant if the players are eqaully matched.
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It's rough to have to spend 225/175 to not die to cloak attacks and get the option of obs, immortals and warp prisms, right?...
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On October 07 2012 22:41 Saechiis wrote:
Meh, the fact that Protoss gets punsihed harder in a case of 0 preparation is trivial when all 3 races can scout cloack banshees relatively easily and prepare accordingly. This discussion has been going on and off since beta, Protoss simply needs to go Robo if they can't rule out cloack banshees, fair schmair ^^
This will be my last post in this thread, since internet arguments are silly in general. This guy has summed up things very nicely, but you don't respond to his post, or the other 4 or 5 that disagreed with you. You did reply to the one guy who thinks you are "partially right", and I find that very amusing. I also feel that your skill in this game is important because the better you are the more wisdom/understanding you will have. Why should people take your posts on balance seriously? This is a real question, I ask what league you are in because it's a general indicator of how much you've played and how much you understand the game. I am not a high level player, I do not make sweeping statements about game balance however. See how this works?
Pros like Nony can make threads like yours, you should not.
I also see that you've made a new post with a completely subjective and somewhat ridiculous chart which again is trying to make something that's asymmetrical (starcraft) into something symmetrical (warcraft 2?).
A good day to you sir.
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Canada5377 Posts
Ah so the problem is that the races arent all the same? Perhaps consider Checkers instead?
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.theuen.com/images/banshee.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://72.29.78.157/~afterhou/omwproductions/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/banshee-harass.png)
