EPTThat said, I would like to say that currently PvT is very close to balanced and that although Gateway units don't have anywhere near the utility of Bio, It's a manner of finding the exact Gateway unit compositions vs X builds in order to the "right" amount of gateway units while being able to tech to units with more utility.
Gateway vs Barracks
- I complain about gateway units often because there are very many situations where a 2/3rds or more less costly tier 1 army defeats a protoss tier 1 army. This leads to situations where even if a Protoss is ahead if he finds himself in such a situation he will lose regardless. This is undoubtedly frustrating. One of the most notable examples of this is NASL S1 finals between MC and Puma on Shattered temple where MC is 40 supply ahead 170-130 of Puma, Puma then suicides 2 medivac full of MM in order to kill charge. Charge is cancelled and then Puma despite a very large army deficit is able to annihilate MC and win the game because all of MC's Sentries/HT were EMP'd and zealots have a movespeed of 2.25 while stim marines have a movespeed of 3.37 thus Puma was able to achieve an insane level of cost efficiency and win the game.
Since this time Rax build time has been increased to match that of the gateway, Charge although not completely fixed (it is still possible to not be hit by charging lot before charge runs out) is much stronger than previously. EMP radius has been nerfed to that of Psi storm 1.5. These changes seem to effect mid to late more than simple Rax/Gateway.
Here is where I go into the Realm of "Situation Theory". Although Technically base stat wise Rax is superior. The key to being a great Protoss player is to avoid the known situations where Rax is superior, and exploit the situations where gateway is superior. Blizzard has given the Protoss player 3 seperate mechanics to create this cost efficient situations, and is it on the Onus of you the Protoss player to find and exploit these "hidden gems"
The best way to locate these is to know "when" gateway units can be cost efficient. The easiest discovery is when 2 marines or 1 marauder is Immobile, it cannot defeat 1 zealot. When mobile, a Marauder with CC can comfortably beat 2 zealots and 2 marines can comfortably beat 1 zealot. Therefore it stands to reason that situations where Bio is mobile are not desirable and therefore should be avoided. The Mechanic Gateway units have in order to achieve this state is Forcefield, therefore One should always be aware how many forcefields are required to create this immobile state, and to avoid positions where you are lacking in the energy required to have the number necessary.
The second mechanic Protoss has to increase efficiency is Gaurdian Shield. This decreases damage from ranged units by 2 in the AoE. 2 little known effects of the spell that you should know is that firstly, when one of your units IE (zealot) is in Melee range of a ranged unit (Roach/Marine etc) GS buff does not apply. The good news is this is usually a small percentage of total range fire that isnt applied to. the bad news is that it still sux ranged units turn into melee one (xD). Secondly the Radius of GS is only 4. while the Attack range of the Sentry is 5, Thus in order for the GS effect you MUST move your sentry closer to your zealot line. Attack moving will rarely give you the effect that you paid for with 75 energy.
The third mechanic has to do with Warp In, because you can literally Warp In units as is needed to create your desired situations IE Zealots to be hit by Marauders, Sentry if you need more ff to make them Immobile etc.
To put this into real numbers
1 zealot vs 2 mobile marines - Marines win with no damage taken
1 zealot vs 2 immobile marines - Zealot wins with 72/100 total hp left
1 zealot vs 2 immobile marines under the effect of GS - Zealot wins with 87/100 total hp left
This has many ramifications that have already been widely explored by most top level players. Namely MC's GSL runs were largely based on this type of play using a large amount of gateway units in combination, full wall forcefields to apply "immobile", Gaurdian shield to further increase positive efficiency and bang Terran player is busted. However both Terran/Zerg have methods to heavily decrease the efficiency of these gateway timings Namely 400 HP repairable bunkers and Spinecrawlers. That is why we rarely see Mass gateway timings at higher level play but the same principles my be used in a defensive manner in order to tech to more cost efficient units like the Colossus.
I originally wanted to type much more but Sc2 is such a complex game that even with this blatant summary I havent even begun to touch on the game as a whole. That said I would also like to give away a little secret i've been holding on to for a long time.
Colossus - This unit has gotten a bad rap for being attack move, no skill required terribad unit that ruined the game. However that is not quite the case as is believed. Here are the currently accepted short comings of the Colossus
- Line Splash is easy to manipulate by your opponent moving single units forward to absorb all the Line and thus decreasing Colossus DPS immensely
- Colossus is Too Expensive to harass
- Colossus does not respond well to higher skill levels like other units such as Ghosts/Marines.
Firstly, Line splash manipulation adds more skill to the game and does not necessarily make the Colossus underpowered. Unlike is believed The colossus should be Micro'd and responds well to micro. When your opponent moves units forward/backward to avoid Line splash, it is your responsibility to manually select a Target thwarting your opponents attempt altogether. Mind altering i know.
Secondly The colossus is indeed very expensive to be used in a Harassing why, however sometimes it is worth the risk to Cliff walk and take a few workers out of a mineral line. Secondly with the new WP buff dropping a colossus with WP has alot less risk involved.
Thirdly the secret i've been sitting on for quite a while is the way the Line splash mechanic works. In general the colossus is limited to 5 Small units OR 3 Medium/Large units. However The fun happens when I say that the Depth of the Splash beam is somewhat influenced by the Size of the unit it is targeting. This means that in Attack move mode, your colossus will only attack the front 5 marines increasing Colossus dps by x5. However, If there is a Larger unit mixed in with the Marines IE a Marauder, and you Manually FF the Marauder, Your Beam Depth becomes widened to include 2 Rows of marines rather than 1 row. This can effectively Double your Splash DPS under the right Circumstances allowing you to hit 10 units at a time.
Another method to dramatically increase Colossus DPS is to FF "in" units that is to force Many units into less space than is required in total by the unit. This allows you to circumvent the normal 5/3 Maximum as well because even if the Line splash can only hit 3 Marauders wide/deep, If 7 marauders are in 3 marauder's Area because of Forcefield, Then all 7 Marauders will be hit at the same time.
Perfect is smart, Perfect is gosu but Pokebunny is the better Sc2 player overall cause his Zerg is stronger Afk. Also David Kim plz don't nerf me.
