EPTI'm DinoMight. You might have seen me post around here. A lot. I love playing and watching StarCraft and I care about the game a lot. I'm a Master Protoss in HotS but have been playing LotV for a while now as the release date approaches. I’ve been very dissatisfied with the direction Blizzard has taken with the game, especially with respect to Protoss design.
This is probably something that's been said a lot lately but I'm going to repeat it in the hopes of reaching as many people as possible.
Blizzard. Please nerf the Adept. Hard.
Why? It's quite simple. The Adept's incredible early game strength overshadows how terrible the Protoss race has become with all the changes since HotS. All the changes have either weakened units or made them substantially harder to use. At the same time, the economy shift inherently rewards Terran and Zerg’s reliance on massing cheap units. The end result is a race that requires more work to achieve less vs. opponents that are better suited to handle incoming threats.
This will mostly focus on PvT as that's the matchup that is the most glaringly flawed, but I will also address PvZ. PvP is obviously irrelevant here, from a balance perspective. Still, the adept is a nuisance in that matchup for reasons only Protoss players will care about.
Let's look at how Protoss has changed from HotS to LotV:
-Economy change: more minerals earlier with the same research and build times means that races with cheap, massable units will have an obvious relative advantage vs those that rely on tech and upgrades. The econ change alone is a massive nerf to Protoss because it relies on slow building, expensive units and technologies.
-Colossus: this unit had its damage reduced by 20%. It temporarily had its range reduced to 8 from 9 before Blizzard realized nobody was using it and reverted the change.
-Immortal nerf: unless you've got perfect barrier micro, Hardened Shields' removal is a pretty big nerf to this unit and makes a lot of units stronger against it. Marauders, Thors, Liberators, Tanks, Ultras. The only effective way to make use of Barrier (aka not have a single marine shot set it off) is to have it set manually and to actively place your Immortals at the front of your army. When barrier runs out you’ll want to pick them up and drop them at the back, preferably using a warp prism. More on that in a second.
-Disruptor: to help counter these nerfs (and because “the community” thought Protoss should require more micro) Protoss got the Disruptor. This unit requires the same exact tech as Colossus, doesn’t build significantly faster and mostly just gets in the way of your Colossus production. It’s not easily massable and you can’t have more than a few out by the time Terran comes knocking at your door with bio. The biggest flaw this unit has, in my opinion, is the cooldown on the ability. The cooldown IS REALLY FUCKING LONG. We’re talking upwards of 40 seconds here. Typically battles are long over before a disruptor gets to shoot a second time. The problem with such high damage/cooldown on this unit is that at the time the shot is fired, nothing else in the game matters more than dodging the disruptor shot. Literally nothing. Terrans will always use exactly 100% of their APM to dodge these shots. And if they do so successfully, which is pretty easy at a high level, there will be exactly zero splash damage left for the duration of the battle.
Once the disruptor fires its shot, it becomes a useless ball of Protoss, eating up supply until it recharges. A disruptor on a 40+ second cooldown is as useful as your own balls once its ability has been used. Not only that but it becomes a giant target for the Terran. With no real splash until the next shot the Terran is more than willing to dive your disruptors. Which means you need to pick them up in your Warp Prism (which is presumably full of Immortals at this time). This goes back to my earlier point… not every unit Protoss has can be reliant on Warp Prism micro at the same time.
Disruptors also can’t shoot across cliffs or move up/down them. And they do friendly fire. Against Terran drops in your mineral line they’re EXTREMELY awkward.
Also, this is probably a glitch left over from when the disruptor itself became invincible, but the delay on picking it up has not gone away. Meaning that after the disruptor shoots its “balls” you can’t actually pick it up in a Warp Prism immediately. It just sits there being a useless ball for a second or two.
-Warpgate nerf: Gateway timing attacks got a huge nerf from the economy system, which increased the relative amount of shit the defender would have by the time Warpgate was complete. In addition, it now takes longer to warp a unit in at a proxy pylon than it does to get your license renewed at the DMV. Your options are to build a proxy Gateway, which is pretty damn stupid, or to build a Warp Prism, which requires a Robo. Which takes time and 100 minerals to build. Gateway timings were one of the things that you could use to keep a greedy player honest. They've essentially been phased out of the game.
Timing attacks aside, the 16 second increase on warpins is absurd. Is it logical that a defensive warpin should take 14 seconds longer to happen because your pylon is 1 hex away from your Nexus? Do Protoss players really need to keep track of which Pylons are touching a Warpgate or Nexus when they’re spamming all the abilities on every unit and trying not to die to multi-prong harass? Just think of how much stuff a Medivac full of units can destroy in 14 seconds.
Interestingly, the only scenario in which warping in units has been buffed is allins! Warp Prisms now warp units in in 2 seconds. In a 40 minute game where 4 Zealots are being warped in at your opponents’ undefended auxiliary base, it really doesn’t matter that the Zealots show up 3 seconds faster than they used to. It really doesn’t. But in the case of a 4 gate + warp prism all-in off 1 base, where marines are literally coming out of the barracks to defend as you’re warping units into their base, every second counts. This is the only scenario in which this warp-in buff matters. Blizzard have essentially nerfed Warpgate to end Warpgate allins, and then provided Protoss with a tool that is only stronger when they use it to all-in. How much sense does that make?
Enter the Adept, a very powerful early game unit that scales extremely poorly in the late game.
The Adept 2 shots workers and Marines. It has a shade ability that gives it extreme early game mobility – it can essentially be in 2 places at once, or *THREATEN 2 locations at once. The Terran player is forced to react to Adepts. They have to build a bunker every game, they have to wall their main, etc. Not doing one of those things is instant death to 2-3 Adepts. These units are so strong vs Marines, SCVs, and even Marauders that the only way to fight them is in bunkers, behind walls.
Enter the Warp Prism, with its ability to ferry in Adepts across walls and warp them in 3 seconds faster than it used to. The combination is game-breakingly strong and Terrans have to dedicate a ton of resources to stopping it. The same thing is true vs. Zerg. ZERG CANNOT WALL VS ADEPTS. Zerglings are not an answer. Queens don't have enough DPS. Roaches are basically the only answer. The only way that Protoss can reach this end game mass Carrier army that many Zergs have complained about is by doing incredible amounts of damage early with Adepts and then riding out the advantage over the course of the game. Lurkers are untouchable on the ground for the most part because of their range and insane DPS. There is a huge timing window for a healthy Zerg to swarm Protoss's third before he can make the sky transition *IF Zerg doesn't take early adept damage.
The strength of this all-in and the amount of preparation required to stop it is the ONLY thing keeping TvP remotely balanced, in my opinion. Statistically, that is. Even if the all-in does not flat out kill Terrans, Warp/prism disruptor play is so strong that it can set back the Terran enough to give the IMPRESSION that the game is balanced. And the mere threat of this all-in forces a reaction from Terran that can be taken advantage of by Protoss, whether it is by being too greedy or by abusing the meta and going proxy-oracle… a form of cheese that’s just as deadly but requires a different response.
I’m not a betting man, but I would wager that a test map where Adepts aren’t allowed inside Warp Prisms would show VERY different games than what we’re seeing currently in LotV. (can someone please make it, I don’t know how)
The strength of the Adept is completely masking how bad the Protoss race actually is in LotV. This is most obvious in PvT. 1 base Adept allins aside, the Terran arrives at your base with much more army than he used to in HotS (due to how the economy works) by the time his Medivacs are out. Meanwhile, you the Protoss player are still only able to get the same number of Disruptors/Colossi out, because tech build times haven't changed. Colossi now do 20% less damage and Disruptors can't really hit anything against a good player. So you're essentially trying to fight way more army with way less firepower. Unless you're able to harass early and significantly slow down the Terran's economy WHILE at the same time macroing up perfectly, it's a losing proposition.
So, a reasonable player who wants to win is left with one choice. ADEPT ALLIN!
Using the new Warp Prism, 4 gates, and some Adepts, I'm able to allin and obliterate pretty much every Terran I play on the ladder. Even when theyknow it's coming. Even when they build 10 bunkers and widow mines and never move out of their base. It's silly.
This build is obviously super strong. But there's only 2 things that can be reasonably nerfed here. The Adept and the Warp Prism.
The Warp Prism change is FUN. It promotes micro. It promotes multitasking. It allows players who are really skilled to differentiate themselves from the rest. Drop micro with Immortals and barrier or with Disruptors, Templar etc... that's fun to do and to watch.
Protoss in Legacy of the Void is a bad race. It's too gimmicky. It rewards micro "too much." What I mean by that is that in almost every scenario, microing your units is a better use of APM than going back to your base to macro. This promotes only one style of play... the micro style. There will be no Protoss Bombers. Only Protoss Marine Kings.
In addition to that, it's blatantly underpowered. Most of the units are too weak for their cost, immobile, and not really versatile. Winning with Carriers because you crippled their economy in the first 3 minutes by abusing Adepts won’t change that.
As it is, LotV is more like “Legacy of how Protoss used to be a playable race.”
Please, Blizzard, nerf the Adept. For the sake of Protoss.
