Why protoss always underperforms on pro level?

On November 30 2024 04:11 CHEONSOYUN wrote:
it is definitely a character issue.

On November 30 2024 09:09 TT1 wrote:


winner

On November 30 2024 09:17 WombaT wrote:
Peak Bisu wasn’t a million miles away.

That said I think it’s quite a big factor that no Toss player has managed to be god tier in both inter-faction matchups, and mirror as well.

I’m not sure why that is, perhaps different matchups reward different skill sets and mentalities to such a degree that a singular player can’t excel at them all?

It’s not purely the faction. I mean in latter-day Kespa if we took Bisu’s PvZ and made a composite player with say, Jangbi’s PvT that player is pretty bloody formidable. So it’s not purely playing Protoss that’s a bottleneck.

Or in post-Kespa mash up Bisu’s PvZ with Snow’s PvT and Rain’s PvP and that’s a fucking ridiculous player.

For whatever reason no Toss player has really managed to be that well-rounded, but the hypothetical potential is there.

Z and T have probably had more players who are genuinely formidable in all matchups. Why that is I guess someone more knowledgeable can give some theories

On November 30 2024 18:06 mtcn77 wrote:
I think the recent Hiya vs Invasion game demonstrates in a PvT game what you should do as a protoss to gain a lead.
The fundamental hierarchy of the game time revolves around rushes and it goes from zerg to terran to protoss - protoss being the slowest. Rushes are fundamentally how you force the opponent into spending resources for defence late and out of time. Normally you should not be able to get a lead on another race with protoss by rushing to corner the opponent into an early end game since you are the slowest race, but this game shows how it can be done in mid game since you are also the strongest race. By stripping terrans of valuable midgame resources and also a successful drop, a protoss can generate a game breaking worker count advantage forcing the terran into a dilemma. Terran is left with his standing army and nothing more late game due to the worker count mismatch. What turns out is an aggressive push not backed by further reinforcements. Protoss weathers this and can prolong the response and therefore wins.
As explained, you need that much control in the game to win as a protoss. The game mechanics punish protoss for being slow and therefore victory comes late even with a seismic gap lead in development.

On December 01 2024 00:24 prosatan wrote:


Please put a link to the game if you can, mtcn77...

On December 01 2024 05:09 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:


Snow Always find a way to no win tho. Since season 14 i was expecting Snow to reach ASL finals. I was left speechless When Royal eliminated him in season 16 after having a 80+ winrate or some shit that guy TMNT posted. The maps never been so good for protoss these days. And the funny part is that those maps are in someway helping Soulkey to become a Bonjwa smh. I truly fear for the next season MP. Afreeca will try for sure to put a hold to SK streak.

On December 01 2024 13:37 G5 wrote:
I think historically Protoss has had the least stable build orders in the game and is the easiest race to take advantage of if you play whatever the current text-book standard is for the meta. Because of this, there is inherently more variance in build orders for Protoss players than other races and Protoss players inherently take more risks than Zergs and Terrans from within the meta game because of how the race is designed.

Although taking these risks can yield decent win rates in overall games, it's a hard thing to place bets on different build orders and be correct against the best players in the world enough times to win an ASL.

The top Zerg players have also denied the best Protoss players from potential titles many times. Due to the match up design, it's almost impossible to be ahead of Zerg in whatever the current meta is. Zerg is typically setting the meta and Protoss is trying to come up with solutions to whatever the current meta is of Zerg.

Once you get past the mechanics and execution of Starcraft, it mostly just comes down to decision making which usually involves understanding the current meta and what the probability is of what the opponent is doing or going to do and what is the risk assessment involved with what your response is going to be. Protoss players' decision making involves higher amounts of risk imo. Which again, makes it hard to run through an entire tournament like ASL and come out on top.

On November 30 2024 04:47 TMNT wrote:
Although it's nearly impossible to have a map that balances all 3 matchups, it's very easy to have matchup-specific maps, and it affects nothing with regards to the integrity of tournaments.

On December 03 2024 04:36 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Seems to me pro level isn’t imbalanced.

For some reason it looks like it’s harder to absolutely dominate everything and everyone as a Protoss. The closest we have had was Bisu.

Hard to say why. The winrate at pro level are pretty damn close to 50% in all matchups.

On December 03 2024 11:27 Kyle8 wrote:
because zerg always has options of hydra busts & protoss can't really scout it at all, so the entire early game is a freaking minefield where protoss can lose & zerg really cant

On December 02 2024 18:45 iopq wrote:


I don't know why people keep saying this, a lot of current maps are very close to 50% balance in all matchups, like Radeon

your favorite Protoss player didn't lose because Radeon has 51% ZvP win rate or whatever, he lost because Soulkey is just so much better than everyone else right now

On December 04 2024 15:48 Bonyth wrote:
Yes, yes, it just so happens that the biggest offline chokers are protoss players. Pure luck, nothing else.
We can also assume that map creators have bad intentions for protoss, since the balance can be solved with maps, but protoss underperforms, right?
There is over 40% of unique protoss players on ladder, however only less than 30% protosses on S rank. With such big protoss population you could expect to see the most protoss winners / bonjwas, however reality is different.

Since I am a protoss player, my vision could be fogged though.

On December 05 2024 01:16 FlaShFTW wrote:
I really believe that 3p maps are some of the best and most balanced maps. I'm also ok with more 2p maps being pushed more (just make the rush distance long enough where gas steal in PvT isn't automatic please lol).

On December 04 2024 02:15 WGT-Baal wrote:


There will never be (and should never be) a balance patch. Maps are enough.

Assuming there is, who decides? Who tests it? Do you want to end up like sc2 with patches every other day? And P is broken there too. No easy amswer to such basic questions means no patch can be made.

I d rather blizzard/Microsoft worka on delivering what was promised, maybe a remaster 2.0 for the anniversary is in the works like war3 reforged just got.

Overall I agree with eon, losing jangbi, kal (much possibly) and having snow struggle a bit offline, combined with soulkey peaking makes it look dire. Overall P a bit lower in matchup balance too but realistically we haven't had a lot of good P since the 6 dragon era.

On December 05 2024 01:16 FlaShFTW wrote:
I really believe that 3p maps are some of the best and most balanced maps. I'm also ok with more 2p maps being pushed more (just make the rush distance long enough where gas steal in PvT isn't automatic please lol).

On December 05 2024 05:07 kidcrash wrote:


So my question is, if maps are enough, how much longer do we have to wait for map makers to figure it out? I won't deny that the evolution of maps has created progress but have we reached the end of that progress? Is there a ceiling to the amount of balance a map pool can achieve?

As far as the patch discussion goes, anything even remotely close to what SC2 is experiencing would be unacceptable. I would like to see one small subtle change and that's it. With a long hard discussion and analysis of that change before it was implemented. I could throw out a couple suggestions but I don't think anyone wants to see this devolve into a theory crafting thread. It's just sad to see protoss underperform for so long

On December 05 2024 19:54 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote:


map makers intentionally like to introduce unbalanced maps to "see players adapt and play differently." map makers and asl/ssl staff have too much power in that sense. pros dont like these maps. pros like the standard balanced maps. monty was immediately removed from proleagues and sponsor matches after ssl. They keep less liked maps like minstel and kick back in because they are likely to still be in next season.

On December 05 2024 21:32 Biff The Understudy wrote:

I don’t think pros liking maps is the only metric we should go by. Monty has created absolutely amazing games, with unorthodox strategies, and unexpected twists. If SC is to survive it really has to be fun to watch.

On December 05 2024 21:58 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote:


except protoss winrate on monty was worse than zerg's on troy. such maps ruin the competitive integrity by being way too unbalanced. and you only get a really good game on them once every 20+ games. on more standard maps you get better games much more often.

On December 05 2024 02:26 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote:

3 player maps tend to favor protoss shuttle focused play or arb play with T base usually exposed from more sides compared to a 4 player or 2 player map with usually 2-3 exposed sides. Rush distance also tends to be good. Apocalypse played into this well and probably is the best 3 player map. I want to say Neo Sylphid is as good but stats imply it isnt. Perfect map set for me would be Radeon, Retro, Vermeer/polypoid, Eclipse, Neo Dark Origin, Apocalypse, Dominator. Hope we dont get a gimmick map next season.

On December 08 2024 00:46 iopq wrote:


People always sleeping on Tempest. Very difficult (but not impossible) to 973 on that map, harder to m&m bust because of uphill shots

People literally complained to me that it makes it too easy for the Zerg to take four bases. Just take your own bases as Protoss!

On December 08 2024 00:46 iopq wrote:


People always sleeping on Tempest. Very difficult (but not impossible) to 973 on that map, harder to m&m bust because of uphill shots

People literally complained to me that it makes it too easy for the Zerg to take four bases. Just take your own bases as Protoss!

On December 09 2024 08:43 TMNT wrote:
Dewalt is only a foreign player in name though. Him and the Chinese players.

On December 09 2024 05:04 Kraekkling wrote:
We’ve had many map pools that favored Terran. We’ve also had quite a few that were good for Zerg. On average, though, maps clearly put Protoss at a disadvantage.

In general, when making maps, it’s easy to end up with a balance of T > Z > P >= T. However, it’s difficult to predict how the balance will play out for any given map.

I know ASL map makers struggle to get maps sufficiently tested. It’s not feasible for them to have pro players play enough games to properly evaluate balance. Moreover, whenever a change is introduced during testing, the old data sample essentially becomes obsolete. Additionally, most of the testing is done by players in the 2000-2200 MMR range, but balance at that level is obviously different compared to 2600 MMR.

As a result, much of the map balancing relies less on statistics and more on player feedback and vibes. This inevitably leads to biased evaluations.

Finally, there’s significant pressure on map makers to churn out around six new maps several times a year. These maps are expected to be balanced, fun to play, distinct from other maps, and somehow both experimental and not experimental-depending on who you ask. These are inherently contradictory expectations, especially given the limitations of the map-making tools.

I think the current approach of introducing mostly new maps every season could use an update. Out of 7 maps in the pool, do we really need 5 new ones? Why not select 4 “old and reliable” maps from the past ten years, add 2 new ones, and include one experimental map (whether new or old)? Or something similar...

On December 13 2024 00:16 iloveav wrote:
Id say you would have to be at the top of the protoss players to have an answer that would be close to accurate.
Hard to do math with not knowing variables or equations.

On December 13 2024 10:46 RowdierBob wrote:
I don’t get why Protosses haven’t tried much to evolve PvZ since basically the cair first Bisu build was created so long ago.

In particular I’ve never really seen Ps even experiment with DAs outside of trying to catch a muta switch.

Mind control in theory is the most OP spell in the game. I get it’s hard to use but if you can snag a worker from another race it’s near impossible for the other player to win. And you could even use it to snag some lurkers from a Zerg to shred lings in the late game and mitigate the power of lings and swarm.

There’s still a lot of untapped potential I reckon in Protoss but the players seems pretty stuck in their ways.

I mean I get I’m a spud who can’t understand the game on their level but it seems crazy to me that a spell casting unit with so much potential has been sidelined forever by protosses.

On December 13 2024 10:46 RowdierBob wrote:
Mind control in theory is the most OP spell in the game. I get it’s hard to use but if you can snag a worker from another race it’s near impossible for the other player to win. And you could even use it to snag some lurkers from a Zerg to shred lings in the late game and mitigate the power of lings and swarm.

On December 13 2024 03:53 TMNT wrote:

Here's what a Protoss at the very very top has to say about it:

https://youtu.be/uOYHO-VL6rM

"as soon as Hydra Den is built, it's already 7:3 for Zerg"

On December 14 2024 04:19 kidcrash wrote:
It makes me sad that the community is so anti-patch and insists on waiting till the end of time for map makers to figure it out. Something as simple as making cannons and pylons into behaving like medium units while they warp in, so that explosive damage from hydras is blunted could be enough. You would still have units that have normal damage to defend versus a cannon rush. But the reality is this will never be fixed and protoss will underperform until the end of time unless we normalize maps like sparkle I suppose.

On December 13 2024 10:46 RowdierBob wrote:
I don’t get why Protosses haven’t tried much to evolve PvZ since basically the cair first Bisu build was created so long ago.

In particular I’ve never really seen Ps even experiment with DAs outside of trying to catch a muta switch.

Mind control in theory is the most OP spell in the game. I get it’s hard to use but if you can snag a worker from another race it’s near impossible for the other player to win. And you could even use it to snag some lurkers from a Zerg to shred lings in the late game and mitigate the power of lings and swarm.

There’s still a lot of untapped potential I reckon in Protoss but the players seems pretty stuck in their ways.

I mean I get I’m a spud who can’t understand the game on their level but it seems crazy to me that a spell casting unit with so much potential has been sidelined forever by protosses.

On December 14 2024 18:12 HolySmokes wrote:


It's cool to see that even after 20 years, this is a topic still worth talking about. I see Best do DA from time to time; funny enough, I rarely see Bisu do it. Protoss seems to do it when they are already ahead as a safeguard against mutas sniping your HT as you push with your deathball. I've always wondered if there was some synergy with Corsairs, I think there must be, since Bisu established that corsairs are essential in the matchup. I've always thought DT and detection abuse was something underrated in the early game. Zerg has to commit a lot to keep steady detection around Corsairs, perhaps DA mind control could be used to turn a key unit at a particular moment (like an overlord that would reveal your DT), and maelstrom to stop fleets of muta/scourge from killing your Corsairs. The contrast between biological and mech in maelstrom was always an interesting mechanic I never saw abused. Or freezing Hydra in certain moments. Maelstrom could be used in defense against Zerg if they ever tried to attack your cannons. It would be even more effective than storm, as the hydras would not dodge and be shredded up by your cannons.

On December 14 2024 23:35 TMNT wrote:

It seems like you don't play the game or watch it much. Mind control is a no-go at any competitive level. It's a meme spell you only use to toy with opponents much worse than you. Maelstrom is useful for sure, but you can only afford it later in the game, most likely when Protoss is at 130+ supply, so no it's not for catching Scourge or stopping Hydra bust. Its most useful function is to catch a group of Mutas when Zerg tries to Muta switch to snipe HTs in the mid game. Pros know that and will build DA if they can afford, like Bisu vs Hero on Deja Vu in the last ASL. When you see they don't use maelstrom, most of the times it's just because they can't afford it in that moment.

On December 14 2024 05:24 M2 wrote:

It doesnt even have to be something that changes game rules. A simple 125/125 cannon will probably be of tremendous help, but as you say, the issue is not the particular change, but the community stance against a change

I talk about the DA a lot because I've had a lot of success in PvZ doing FE DA into Sair / DT play. If you tech quickly to maelstrom, skipping sair for the moment, and turtle a bit behind cannons with 2 DA, you are safe and have options vs muta and hydra

On December 15 2024 23:40 HolySmokes wrote:


Damn man, feel like you totally missed the point of my post. I have played the game, was pretty competent I dare say, beat a lot of people I'd meet. You talk about the pros a lot, obviously the meta is important and I do like to keep up with the scene. The pros validate theory, but theory makes pros, it goes both ways. Pros show if something is viable, but viability in BW also depends on execution, which depends on the players. This is self-evident in the fact how players come along with new strats and change the game. Boxer, Oov, Savior, Bisu, for example. And honestly I think DA has a lot of potential in that regard. I talk about the DA a lot because I've had a lot of success in PvZ doing FE DA into Sair / DT play. If you tech quickly to maelstrom, skipping sair for the moment, and turtle a bit behind cannons with 2 DA, you are safe and have options vs muta and hydra. Then you can get Sair to continue scouting and develop air supremacy and add DT to the mix to make plays, and there's all kinds of stuff you can do. But obviously I wasn't a pro or anything, and if you could show me games where pros have tried this and failed, I'd love to see them.

On December 18 2024 21:30 Soulforged wrote:
I'll give you one hypothetical scenario with some branches.

A zerg can hit you at 08:00 with good 24 hydras with speed+range+overlord speed, off of a standard 3 hatch lair -> spire -> 5h hydra off of 35 drone(1 per mineral patch + gas mining)
If you're going both sair and mael, you'll have to make something like 6 cannons vs it to win time to get to storm, because just mael and a few cannons are not going to deal with it.

If you open speedlot/sair into 4 HT off of forge FE, for example, and rush 2nd gas right after core, you can have 4 HTs and storm, if you cut sairs after 3.
This lets you put up some zealot pressure, and survive that kind of break attempt with just 3 cannons. Zerg might not even be able to snipe gate/forge.

Alternative approach is to delay HTs, get more zealots and more cannons, and use zealots to threaten counter attacks.
Both are viable, and both limit Zerg economy from greeding too much, while being able to hold well if Zerg decides to mass units.

A different alternative would be to open sair/DT, and pressure with DT + some few slow zealots + sairs, while getting faster HTs. This is likely what you could be doing when going mael, since some sort of pressure is almost always necessary. But doing this does require making 5-6 sairs, otherwise there's no real way to pressure with dt.

The problem with going mael is that it isn't as good as storm defensively. You can't get it reactively vs zerg pumping hydras - they may get only 12 hydras and drone after, they may get 24+, they usually approach that situation with larva saved anyway, 5-6 hatcheries make it very easy to randomly have extra 12 hydras.
So you need to get storm (or mael in your case) in advance. You cannot go sair/speedlots into mael - storm is barely in time for 8:00, extra 25 energy on mael is enough to be game ending.

So something has to be cut. Getting less than 3 sairs is quite risky if Z made a spire.
The only reasonable way to try to approach this situation is to go for sair/DT pressure and transition into mael, then you may have it on time. The problem is that you'll need more than 3 cannons, because mael is not as good as storm. Need something to do actual damage.
And the final problem is that it'd be risky to try to get natural cannons up reactively.
Speed hydra hatch(as in, from starting the egg) and cross the map faster than cannons build, and you're not guaranteed to instantly notice and count all the hydras with your sair.
Usually the extra time for reactionary cannons is won by threatening speedlot counterattacks, the gate/forge wall, and probe pulls.
If you go for sair/dt slow zealot pressure, you can't threaten much of a counter-attack, at least nothing that will divert significant part of their force. They're bringing the majority of the overlords with the hydra force, a DT/sair counter certainly can deal damage but it won't pull entire Z army. Slow zealots by that point likely either traded or went home already.

A sair/dt/slow zealot pressure opener generally gets storm well in advance(not trying to barely get it by 8 min like speedlot/sair does), so that doesn't have this problem. Having 3 cannons and 4 storms is enough to win a lot of time.
Having 3 cannons and 2 mael is not.
Making blind 6 cannons is not an option, Z could just get minimal hydra and drone.
Even making 6 blind cannons and having Z go for heavy hydra, would be a problem if instead of committing, zerg transitions into lurker contain. Mael doesn't break contains much. Banked energy HTs do(or reavers).

This build also wouldn't have speedlot map pressure to threaten backstabs vs attempted lurker contain.
Correct reaction vs 35 drone shshsh into no jump on cannons and lurker contain, is to have a counter-attack threatening zealot force to divert some unit, and bust attempt as hydras are morphing into eggs. No banked double storm per HT yet, but at least you have 4 storms, usually can break out before it is set up. If it is setup already, need banked storm or reavers, maybe with some hail mary drop in parallel.

P options are pretty constrained. There's some variety and tactics - this post covers some viable alternatives of dealing with the same kind of challenge, that also do not auto die to other possibilities - but radical deviations are hard to pull off.
Something reaver based is more likely than DA.

DA and additional(more than 1-2) sair production skip is commonplace vs 973 hydra pressure that transitions into macro, but that is a pretty specific branch.
As a lategame addition, of course, they're underused.

On December 18 2024 23:25 Soulforged wrote:
This is in P going forge FE context, e.g. if P opens gate FE, the specifics change(for both parties).
Any A zerg could hit the described timing.

The only unusual thing is that you need den between 4th and 5th hatch, in order to have both upgrades finish by 8 min(starting with speed, range finishes right as you hit, overlord speed you want to finish as you start to move)

It is pretty trivial to pull off with a build like this:
- overpool 2-4 ling open
- 3rd hatch before gas, ~2:55-ish gas
- first 100 gas goes to lair
- next 100 gas go to ling speed
- need to have 6 lings out by 4:20 to deal with first zealot moveout possibility(assume P went nex/cannon/gate/pylon/gas, and got core & 2 probes, delaying first zealot a few seconds)
- need to have ling speed and 10-12 lings by 5:20 - this can deal with a 3 zealot attack, and can also threaten backstab if P moves out with more lings
- spire as lair finishes, 4th hatch should be around that time as well
- 2 pairs of scourge as spire finishes, to push sairs back and scout
- den before 5th hatch(something like 5:20 is good enough), 2nd gas at the same time
- 5th hatch as you have money, something like 5:40-50 is good enough
- hydra speed first, overlord speed as you have money
- start pumping hydra after you have drone per mineral patch and 3+3 on 2 gas. This will usually be around 30 drone. Can go up to 35 drones, this should allow to have money to have 6th hatch later, but may delay your attack by 13 seconds.

You should be able to get around 20-24 hydras and overlord speed done by 7:40, that can go from natural to natural in 20 seconds easily. Range hits as you hit P
Probably can fit a ranged +1 somewhere(not finish, but start at least - I'm not a Z, not sure where exactly that would fit.


This is not greedy and handles the standard early game pressure from forge FE open.
By standard I mean P isn't opening 2 gate before core, and doesn't go citadel zealot legs before stargate or mass goon...those would be seen by overlord and have different counters.
If P goes core -> sair ASAP this is basically it, if P goes something silly like 2 gate zealot after sair before citadel, zerg still has ling speed and capacity to make more lings, that holds everything before +1/speed.

The +1/zealot speed openers that are started after stargate - that cannot pressure such a zerg opener at all, speedlots basically arrive to meet a large hydra force and need to turn around.

Even if you do this poorly or get thrown off early game, well, you'd be hitting at 8:30 instead of 8.
Give it a try, if you are on point with worker transfer and keeping a drone per patch, it should not be difficult.

10:30 is...zerg can have 6 hatch 50+ drones, 4th started @ 7th hatch, that kind of army, with either muta or lurker switch incoming

On December 13 2024 18:43 iloveav wrote:


I dont know man.

They are laughing a lot about it.

I personally always thought that the Dragoon might be an issue. It is the first ranged unit that You can make from protoss and it is not particularly good at anything while having issues vs a lot of things.

In tvz marines are the first ranged unit and it is common to play it. In zvp hydra is the first ranged unit and it is common to play it.
In zvt, terrans are the ones that get the ranged unit faster (and cheaper) so it seems like zergs need a different approach than hydra.
In tvp, marines are not the common way to play, but it is not the dragoon that actually kills them (thou it buys the time), it is tech units.

I know this is not even remotely well thought out or researched, it is just what I always felt (feelings are not nesesarly logical).

In summary, I always thought that the equation was:

unit tech > unit numbers.
BUT
Unit numbers early > unit tech.

Thats why I got issues with the goon boi.

On December 14 2024 04:19 kidcrash wrote:
It makes me sad that the community is so anti-patch and insists on waiting till the end of time for map makers to figure it out. Something as simple as making cannons and pylons into behaving like medium units while they warp in, so that explosive damage from hydras is blunted could be enough. You would still have units that have normal damage to defend versus a cannon rush. But the reality is this will never be fixed and protoss will underperform until the end of time unless we normalize maps like sparkle I suppose.

On December 22 2024 22:24 mtcn77 wrote:

I play zerg(though not in 20 years) and I think you and people that defend that patch idea is wrong. The most one sided games against zerg recently have been JyJ vs Soulkey in 76 and Mini vs Queen (preasl17 I think) whichever map that was.
I think you miss the point where game mechanics will further imbalance the zerg race. Remember, the zerg was never meant to be played in fear of losing a failed swarm attempt. Units were expendible. What you guys don't recognise is zerg has already reached its targets and met its goals of victory once it comes to making the units to swarm the enemy. Starcraft is a logistics simulation game and zerg runs on "just in time production". Once it has the production capacity, it can only be a player error that throws the game - you are supposed to lose against a weak race that survived into late game.
Going back to the previous TvZ and PvZ examples, what you fail at explaining is where the zerg advantage, or the disadvantage of opponent races lie. Zerg, runs a combined production whereas Protoss and Terrans have them separately and - most importantly - simultaneously running. You might be tempted to consider an earlier fast expand ought to benefit Protosses and Terrans against Zerg, but that is the wrong idea! You have 1+1 production lines whenever you add another production building. Zerg has 1(1) it can make worker units, or fighting units - the distinction is huge!
The way you force the zerg into a corner is not through breaking the game any further, but by putting constant pressure early game to stop the zerg from making any hatcheries - it has already been done before and I show you how: I just gave you the example Mini vs Queen game, make two zealots, you will just have to find more examples. It is game breakingly simple, you just don't want to compromise your lofty(and lazy) mindset trying to macro against an already superior macroing race. Changing the macro balance on the other hand will leave the game unrecognisable like sc2.
PS: I get that protoss and terran players also want to replicate the innate zerg advantage that comes from a fast expansion - the big boost to mineral harvesting - however zerg cannot run two lines simultaneously while you can. The penalty of making 3x workers in order to match the mineral harvesting rate of two bases with 2x workers in total does not hurt the terran and protoss economies since you have separate buildings to make fighting units from. Two barracks and 1 cc, or two gateways and 1 nexus can easily match a fast expand zerg with 2 hatcheries if you give the zerg no break while the zerg has to delay development in order to make defensive units.

On December 24 2024 23:28 mtcn77 wrote:
I couldn't find Mini vs Queen. Here is Mini vs Soulkey.
m.youtube.com
The same early game zerg pressure that I was talking about not knowing it was indeed a two gate rush.
The math checks out. Don't attribute your losses to the game, or we won't have the same game to speak of. It all goes downhill once losers make the rules which is contrary to the rule the spoils go to the victor.

On December 24 2024 23:54 SiarX wrote:


A single game cannot be representative of game balance, because its outcome is influenced by a lot of factors (players comparative skill, players mistakes, Lucky/unlucky build, being in poor shape or unwilling to go all-out, etc). However statistics showing that Protoss is always dominated by terran and zerg, is representative. It cannot be that all Protoss players for decades have been that Bad/not smart enough to figure the right Way to play...

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On December 26 2024 03:10 Xeln4g4 wrote:


i have seen ppl being banned from here for much much less....

On December 28 2024 04:51 FlaShFTW wrote:

You evidence that 2 gate is the better build for PvZ is that... it doesn't work in PvT? Not really following the logic with this one.

If you think 2 gate is the way to go, why don't you try it on ladder and play S rank zergs with it then? Show us the way! I'm sure Protoss players would pay a lot of money to learn from you if it starts to work.

On December 28 2024 04:51 FlaShFTW wrote:

You evidence that 2 gate is the better build for PvZ is that... it doesn't work in PvT? Not really following the logic with this one.

If you think 2 gate is the way to go, why don't you try it on ladder and play S rank zergs with it then? Show us the way! I'm sure Protoss players would pay a lot of money to learn from you if it starts to work.

On January 09 2025 16:11 iopq wrote:


My practice partner plays two gate vs. Zerg on the ladder and he doesn't have an issue hitting S rank

On January 10 2025 00:55 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote:

bet he loves playing against 9pool zergs because that can reallly screw over 2 gate openers.

On January 11 2025 19:14 Giovanni8 wrote:
Ppl talking about 2 Gates Just make me laugh.,..from a scientific point of view 2 gates Is losing at 100% rate vs Z. The only way to play this mu Is FE and with It in use (+proper map) you get to 44-46% win rate. DA? ....surely its a great unit, problem with MOST thing that people don't realize Is timing. The timing for DA+storm or DA+archons Is too slow (game opening). You can make DA very fast but then you have no DPS to combo with and defend. Many ppl here make confusion between "science of SC" and amateur play (science of SC Is like a chess opening so it suppose to have correct scouting, correct micro, correct timing, correct decisione making and so on,from both side of course, while amateur play Is the other way around) There Is only a possible way to balanced and its called balance patch for PvZ Something that will never happens at this point (unless the best 10 p and the best 10 z in the world lock them in a room and start discussing/experimenting for some time+blizzard support of course).

On January 16 2025 05:06 TMNT wrote:
Saw the last game of Major Proleague today and thought about this topic.

It's a PvZ that Soulkey opens with 9 pool and Snow not only holds it perfectly with just zealots, but also is able to delay his cannon until after 5 mins. In other matchups if you have something equivalent to that, the leading player should be able to comfortably cruise through.

But not in PvZ. What follows up is Snow hanging on by a thread with probes being pulled left and right, while Soulkey attempts multiple semi all-ins and switches back and forth between Hydras and Mutas at will, to the point that Snow falls behind in supplies at multiple points. And it's not like Snow makes some cheap mistakes (like losing corsairs or zealots for free) to let the game go to that point. Of course in doing so, Soulkey's econ is not the healthiest. But the fact that he could have won the game if not for some clutch defending from Snow, and after that opening, highlights how the flexibility of Zerg's BO in this matchup (and the lack of information for Protoss) makes it the most problematic matchup in the game.

On January 17 2025 12:54 Severedevil wrote:
The dragoon is trash in PvZ and it leaves a gaping hole in Protoss's early game.

Terran can defend itself and threaten Zerg with just academy+ebay, using medic/marine/turret/upgrade. This early strength restricts the Zerg's growth and provides safety against Zerg all-ins. (Terran eventually needs higher-tech units, but not until much later.) The Protoss equivalent is zealot/dragoon/cannon/upgrade, which is not effective since dragoon DPS is so low against zerg's light/medium units. Protoss has to tech higher to compete, leaving a wider window where Zerg can attack or power. Protoss also has to buy anti-muta and anti-hydra units separately since the dragoon is trash at both roles, leaving Protoss vulnerable to Zerg's ability to rapidly shift composition.

On January 15 2025 02:26 Akio wrote:
I have nothing to offer in terms of balance discussions, but I think the topic of which race is chosen when starting out to play seriously for these pros is interesting. The kids that started out and had good mechanics might have been more incentivized to play Terran rather than Protoss. I mean, the top dogs were usually Terrans in BoxeR, Nada, oov, etc. I always saw Zerg as kind of its own category because it plays out so differently than the other two.

I know he's a controversial figure here but I remember an old interview where LastShadow was talking about Bisu and he said something along the lines of "it's a shame that he wasn't a Terran", referring to how many more tourney he "could have won". All speculation, but still.

On January 10 2025 08:29 mtcn77 wrote:
I just wanted to point out, there is an inconsistency. 2 gate is a response to hatchery first, not 9 pool.

On January 18 2025 19:11 Severedevil wrote:

2 gate is stronger against 9 pool than against 12 hatch 11 pool. 2 gate isn't fast enough to break a 12 hatch before the second hatch kicks in, and the 12 hatch's extra production is a bigger threat than the 9 pool's earlier Zerglings. 2 gate 1 nexus will outproduce and out-mine a single hatchery, but two hatcheries will outproduce and out-mine 2 gate 1 nexus if the Zerg gets any space. (A 9 pool's early 6 Zerglings will of course eat Protoss's 1 zealot if the Protoss tries attacking with the first zealot, but if the Protoss instead builds up 3-5 zealots before attacking then the 9 pool Zerg will struggle to keep up with the 2 gate 1 nexus's greater production.)

Hatcheries produce larvae at every 12.6 second interval. Gateways make zealots every 25.2 seconds. Nexuses are the same as a hatchery. How can the zerg outproduce the protoss?

On January 19 2025 07:09 Severedevil wrote:
Gateways come online faster than the hatch/pool, but the gateways aren't at the Zerg's base. If Protoss wants to attack, those slowlots have to slowly cross the map, which gives Zerg (and defenders in general) significant extra time to build units. I agree that 12 hatch would die to 2 gate on a map with no travel distance.


A hatchery produces four zerglings in the time a gate produces one zealot. Four zerglings is stronger than one zealot in a direct fight (except in tight spaces) and is far more maneuverable (can cut off reinforcements or counter). Additionally, a 12 hatch opening has extra minerals to spend on sunkens or a third hatch or on tech. The Zerg doesn't stall out at two hatch slowling vs two gate slowlot.

On January 20 2025 23:10 Bonyth wrote:
damn Peeano, conceptual MMR easily 2500+

mtcn77, you are not right.

On January 20 2025 23:10 Bonyth wrote:
damn Peeano, conceptual MMR easily 2500+

On January 20 2025 23:10 Bonyth wrote:
damn Peeano, conceptual MMR easily 2500+

mtcn77, you are not right.

On January 22 2025 02:10 mutantmagnet wrote:
The game could stand to have 1 more balance patch but I do think there are 2 fundamental problems that could be inferred from pro play.


Someone listed the most balanced maps in the pro scene and it seems there is tendenacy that it is much easier to screw over protoss. Also it seems if zerg isn't having some type of advantage in ZvT then the map works in way that Protoss will have a fairer time.



The other thing is that I don't think protoss has been fully figured out.

https://tl.net/forum/brood-war/617209-data-analysis-on-8-million-games

Against zerg From 9 to 19 minutes protoss generally wins but at all other points they lost significantly enough.
But if you isolate for the highest MMR protoss can decisively win after 33 minutes.

Meanwhile they have more wins over terran across all skill levels but at the highest level terran competes a lot more passed 34 minutes and as a result there is a huge amount of volatility in wins for both factions.

It might be the case protoss at the highest levels haven't figured out a way to stabilize in the late game that is holding back any of them from reaching S tier.

On January 22 2025 05:51 mtcn77 wrote:

Yes, sir. That is the message I was trying to convey.
The reason I know this to be true is because protoss has a spell that is NOT used in the current meta. HTs can hallucinate units.
The protoss army is the most intimidating albeit glass cannon army in starcraft. You are supposed to pick and choose engagements. The fact hallucinate is not even considered is the only evidence I know for a fact what we are doing is wrong. As with the queen, it takes only the best players to make it happen.
Instead, what we have been seeing in the past is protoss players who have tried to Troy their way against Jaedong and failed all this time. This matchup is 'heavily' protoss favored when counting who makes more expansions. You cannot play meek when handed the most unbalanced army roster. You have to go big, or go home.
There is no way it is zerg favoured according to the numbers I have demonstrated. We have just been witnessing tower defence players until now. That is a path with no future since it is in fact an early game rush strategy that rushes cannons and loses because cannons in your expansions have NO OFFENCE. You wouldn't doubt zerg would lose because of too many sunkens - where is your judgement when expecting the same from protoss?
Remember, in the starcraft lore zerg has the Overmind and can control psi just like the protoss in order to coordinate swarms of units successfully; however protoss has fallen into civil disarray from time to time at times when their psionic link broke. There won't be a time the protoss outshines the zerg until protoss has single handedly outsmarted the zerg and zerg can no longer tell when and where the surgical strike is going to come.
TL;DR: make more expansions, but not before early game aggression. The ball is in your court, not zerg.

On January 22 2025 08:05 Volka wrote:
I'm very skeptical about your take, but I would love for you to show us a good use of hallucination vs Zerg. A replay will be preferred.

The problem that I see with what you are saying is that Zerg is the one that has map control in this matchup, because speedlings are so fricking good. I don't know how you over-expand vs a Zerg that has map control.
The theory of sitting behind a wall of cannons is to tech to speed zealots and Corsairs: the fast harassment units to fight for map control. What's your alternative to this? How do you contest for map control without those tech units? slow zealots? Dragoons? I don't get it.

Edit: Also Zergs sit behind a wall of sunkens for Crazy Zerg vs Terran to tech to Ultras, and is one of the greatest strats ever.

On January 22 2025 08:44 QRCode wrote:
Snow has been getting some really good wins. He is my favorite Protoss to watch right now. He beat Flash and Soulkey in two really high-level games, Speed 4:1, Sorry 4:0. He is reminding me of Jangbi. Just a solid balance of macro and micro, with some really good micro. You can tell he's really improving his game, he's been trying a new corsair micro, and his dragoon micro is starting to be a class of its own like his reaver. He kites his dragoons extremely well, and focus fires along damage breakpoints. His reaver control is still in its own class, and he looks like he's not even trying with it anymore.

@mtcn77 If hallucination is going to work, it probably has to be used with an early zealot timing on the third, when Zerg has only hydras and sunkens. If we're going by game theory, you are trading raw damage against units for basically more HP / damage negation, so if you want to make the most of it, you have to use it in a situation where storm's damage wouldn't be applicable, and your damage is already good enough, and where the extra survivability would be useful. Storm doesn't work on sunkens, but hallu can negate a lot of damage, especially from the sunken. If you don't get unlucky with the targeting, your real zealots will be taking little damage and dishing out a lot, which can be very impactful on Zerg at that phase in the game.

On January 22 2025 00:16 sas.Sziky wrote:
Hardest Race : Terran. why ? we can put things about zvp tvp pvz pvt and etc but one things TVT is the most hardest mirror match up in this game.

On January 22 2025 16:15 Bonyth wrote:
mtcn77
it was long noticed that you are a zerg main.
Btw, are you aware that the more ranged units player has, the stronger they get? Read: 2 hydras don't beat 1 zealot, but 20 beat 10 zealots.
There are milion of arguments to throw your 2gate vs zerg strategy out of the window. I know, I've been 2-gating in PvZ a really long time.


Mirror match-up cannot decide if the race is hard. Say there are 2 terrans with 0% win rate in TvZ and TvP, their TvT win rate will likely to be 50%, despite the fact that these 2 players are very very bad.
Just the fact that the TvT match up is most macro oriented, doesn't make it hardest. Micro is a very underrated perk nowadays.

On January 23 2025 03:06 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote:
best mechanics = best player argument can be entirely refuted by looking at Hyuk and Soulkey. Soulkey's raw mechanics are worse than Hyuk's. Hyuk has maybe the best zerg mechanics. But his decision making and how he overspends on the wrong units at the wrong time costs him so many games. Soulkey is largely the smartest player, but by no means mechanically better than his peers.

On January 23 2025 03:45 Peeano wrote:

I get what you're saying, but can we call dumb button bashing mechanics?
I would not be surprised if Soulkey can/could button press like Hyuk, because Soulkey still needs to execute fast to hit all his timings.

Button bashing can only make you king when you have an overabundance of resources.

On January 23 2025 03:06 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote:
best mechanics = best player argument can be entirely refuted by looking at Hyuk and Soulkey. Soulkey's raw mechanics are worse than Hyuk's. Hyuk has maybe the best zerg mechanics. But his decision making and how he overspends on the wrong units at the wrong time costs him so many games. Soulkey is largely the smartest player, but by no means mechanically better than his peers.

On January 24 2025 03:59 EndingLife wrote:
Hallucination in PvZ could be okay in super late game where the map is mined out. It might also be okay to hallucinate speed shuttles and send them to every Zerg expansion to threaten storm drops while one real speed shuttle storm drops the drones. I've never done it myself but I could see it somewhat working.
Hallucination does have a use in PvT. When P goes arb and plans to recall but Terran turtles and over defends with turrets and there's literally no way to recall. I've done this quite a lot with pretty good success.
No idea about PvP hallucination, maybe in split map mined out games which basically doesn't happen at a decent skill level game.

On January 24 2025 16:04 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote:
I have seen shuttle, Mini and Snow all try to utiluze hallucinations vs terran multiple times. Hallucinations to tank shots from tanks to engage on large terran armies. It didnt work a single time because you ultimately do zero damage with the hallu units plus they end up blocking your own units. Hallu however was effective in escorting shuttle drops through turret lines to get storms off on scvs. Or to misdirect with fake arbiters. Also seen it used to fake out carrier movement by sending fake carriers through vision, and the real ones elsewhere. But that was one single time and it didnt make a difference lol.

On January 24 2025 18:19 mtcn77 wrote:

Yes sir. People need to stop equating apm with decision making. I literally see it all the time. Just watched XiaoGeGe vs ArtUser at CNSL7. WHY would you front the attack with your dragoons and attack the hatchery with your zealots?! Protoss players have themselves to blame. Fix your own lawn before badmouthing the municipality. You guys don't know how to play ceasar 3 or warcraft 3. I couldn't find any other example to demonstrate.
There is a point in the game when numbers stop mattering anymore and what matters is the initiative. You protoss players make cannons and literally throw dragoons in the midst of the enemy frontal charge meatshielding zealots! Damn losers got to say protoss sucks. How about no?
Please, if you are going to question my zerg bias can you please find some perspective yourself? There are countless errors in your games. All I do is praise Mini and Bisu who himself doesn't know 6 mini expansions mine more than 4. It is just basic arithmetic folks, you don't need my zerg fact checking to verify...
Like for instance why not to make cannons: protoss is the most mineral dependent army in the game. I counted until 8:30 minutes in the Paralyze vs Beast game that Artosis recently cast protoss just made 2 bases. Suppose 1 minute the protoss makes 5 probes, in the second minute starts the natural nexus and the third fills them up to 9 probes and 3 more harvesting vespene geyser. Rechecked: second nexus done by 171 seconds, right on time if you discount the travel distance.
At 8:30 it is likely to have harvested 9844 minerals and 3210 vespene gas from two 17/3 bases. From two 9/3 bases that number is 7468 minerals and 3210 gas. However, it takes 1000 more minerals to supply 40 probes instead of just 24 probes. All told, two bases with 17/3 probes cost 2700 minerals leaving 7144 minerals while two bases with 9/3 probes cost 1700 leaving 5768 minerals. You have just spent 1000 more minerals, cost yourself 16 supply in order to mine 24% more eventhough spending 38% more time probing.
There is no way you need 3210 gas apart from making 9 archons at that point. Everything is mineral based. Even with 4 gateways you cannot mine enough to maximise 3210 gas.
I checked again and edited the entire upper section. Nonstop probing from two nexuses cost 480 a minute - literally burning away what you gain from your expansion. It takes 8 probes just to mine that much every minute(almost an expansion) and there is diminishing returns on higher probe densities(even worse tradeoff). It only starts paying off when you stop probing - you are literally bankrupting your entire early game. That is what I'm trying to say when I say your early game is not OK.
PS: also Soulkey is where he is at because he was the macro zerg. Just listen to Tasteless describe his solid and steady learning curve. He got to where he is because he wouldn't change his play style and cheese.

On January 25 2025 02:48 SiarX wrote:
I wonder whether supporting cannons with shield batteries would be more efficient than pure cannons defense?

On January 25 2025 02:48 FlaShFTW wrote:

Jesus christ this is like E rank levels of analysis. You make more probes so that you can afford more gateways. Please explain how you're going to afford 8 gateway production after 8:30 while sitting on 18 probes total? Just play the game a bit more, learn a bit more, and maybe you'll hit C rank one day.

On January 25 2025 05:16 M2 wrote:

Sometimes I wonder if batteries are allowed to charge buildings, would this actually improve meaningfully Protoss early vs Zerg (without impacting other matchups too much)

On January 25 2025 02:48 FlaShFTW wrote:

Jesus christ this is like E rank levels of analysis. You make more probes so that you can afford more gateways. Please explain how you're going to afford 8 gateway production after 8:30 while sitting on 18 probes total? Just play the game a bit more, learn a bit more, and maybe you'll hit C rank one day.

On January 24 2025 22:35 TMNT wrote:

It worked this time though:

https://youtu.be/SvKWIzrcBmQ?t=262

My favorite Protoss moment last year =) but yeah it's extremely rare case.

On January 25 2025 07:32 TMNT wrote:
BW is a fun community. Once in a while you have some random guy popping up with a new idea/build and claiming pros should take note.

The Dunning Kruger effect couldn't apply better anywhere else.

On January 25 2025 21:42 mtcn77 wrote:

Just watched the Bisu vs Jaedong game. Bisu started the nexus at 3:45, I measured the fastest time can be 1:36 and finished at 3:13. You might consider this fool's errand, but pros benchmark their builds. I just don't see the same from the protoss community. Otherwise there would be more discussion. Flash changes the meta, nobody claims he is wrong, but what protoss players play is so wildly different than Bisu and Mini, even zerg players like myself have to chime in. For your information, Bisu didn't make FE in that game. It was a gateway first.
https://youtu.be/sF-qFkMRQ3M?si=Tu2Tq_SBECY3L88B

On January 26 2025 06:01 TMNT wrote:
I didn't read mtcn77's previous posts in this thread. Just skimmed through and saw something about 2 Gate vs Z and laughed. But now I read a bit more and he literally suggests building the Nexus at natural after 9 Probe. I guess that's the 1:36 Nexus timing.

Yep you heard it right. 12 Nexus is outdated, Artosis. Now 9 Nexus is your new worry.

Uhm, but... what happens when 6 lings run into your base at around 3th min then....?

On January 26 2025 05:26 EndingLife wrote:

Not a good example for gateway expand nexus timing as Bisu made 3 zealots before nexus because of 9 pool open.
2 zealot expand is the standard. What is your build order for 1:36 nexus timing?

On January 26 2025 06:09 EndingLife wrote:

9 Nexus is at like 1:22, 11 nexus is 1:40 or so. No idea what this new 1:36 nexus is lol. Can't wait to see his build order for it!

On January 26 2025 06:16 mtcn77 wrote:

That is not his game time. That is what I suppose normal FE timing is from ideal mining thoughts thread.

On January 26 2025 06:21 EndingLife wrote:

So... what is your build order for 1:36 nexus? 9 pylon 14 nexus? Not a build and not possible to get 14 nexus at 1:36.
With nexus first, literally only 11 or 12 nexus is viable. 11 nexus = 1:40, 12 nexus = 1:46

On January 26 2025 06:37 mtcn77 wrote:

I quoted the old wrong calculation again from stuck memory. I told a couple posts back that I misquoted 750 instead of 700 for 14 scvs from the ideal mining thoughts thread, that is where 1:36 comes from, it really is 2:06; however I still didn't take acceleration. It should be later.
It was to study whether FE is viable against 2gate or some other strategy. The nexus came out so late - at 20 - you only make 3 probes from the new nexus. Also there is no defence. As I said, I cannot think Nexus first working out, I'm just trying to run the numbers rather than make it work.

On January 26 2025 06:40 EndingLife wrote:

2:06 is a not a nexus first timing.

On January 26 2025 06:47 mtcn77 wrote:

That is what it should be if you probe nonstop. I'm also lost on the idea, but we are checking how fast the limit is for protoss economy. Obviously not so fast. The main benefit comes from new expansions like I said after all. 75 probes from 3 bases have just enough mining as 54 probes from six bases. That also costs more 1350 minerals not to expand to those six bases and sitting at three. Zerg will have a field day if you do that to your economy. You know how much 1350 minerals can change the tide of the game?

On January 25 2025 18:34 Bonyth wrote:
don't forget about half-prized archons! It's also thanks to hallucination spell.

And hey! I'm sure it's a feature and not a bug!
https://www.twitch.tv/bonyth/clip/YawningSpicyUdonStoneLightning?filter=clips&range=all&sort=time

75 probes from 3 bases have just enough mining as 54 probes from six bases

On January 25 2025 05:59 FlaShFTW wrote:
you're right, all the pros have never tried to cut more probes from their build ever. You've discovered the secret! You should switch to protoss to show all these bad pros how to do it

On January 26 2025 20:26 TMNT wrote:
Why are you guys trying to argue over a few seconds of timing for the Nexus why the freaking elephant in the room is not addressed: what are you gonna do when the lings come from a 9 pool?

I mean, for example:

Wtf is this supposed to mean as an in game strategy? what mode are you playing lol? No rushes before 10 min? This guy is like a troll but given the amount of calculations he put into this it doesn't seem like a troll so I dont know what it is haha.

On January 26 2025 16:05 QRCode wrote:
Bro don't be a number guy. The audio world is full of you and those guys are insufferable. Numbers don't get the big picture. You are coming up with total costs and taking them out of in game context. It's like comparing images in two different photographs, and trying to argue they should be switched. Doesn't make sense. Your numbers are not even right anyway, you keep saying Bisu got his nexus at 3:45, but I watched the game and he got it at ~2:55. The way he opened is pretty ideal, if you hope to have a standing army, tech fast, and establish map control, things which you say are good. Going nexus first is just not worth it because you will die to pool first builds, or need to make cannons early, which is not meta anymore. The tempo of the game is so tight right now that any wasted minerals for Protoss in the beginning is basically gg.

On January 26 2025 21:21 mtcn77 wrote:

The fact that you don't understand six bases mining one probe per patch vs three bases mining three probes per patch both having the same mineral income - which is 3200 minerals per minute - gives me the grounds for having to explain it. You sure you play starcraft with all its intricate aspects before you criticize me for having tried my luck at explaining it?

On January 27 2025 02:49 QRCode wrote:
"People make such false assumptions like bigger maps will strengthen 'FE' 12 Nexus and small maps will reinforce gate first openings"

What do you mean? You don't think a bigger map and more travel distance to being attacked helps when you want to expand so early? Or the opposite, having less distance between you and the enemy will help with your attacks?

On January 27 2025 04:30 TMNT wrote:
So your entire theory crafting is like saying if I make 5k per month I'll be able to have 100k in my bank account in 20 months. Nothing can stop me from getting rich.

Except that I forget I also have to pay rents, buy foods,...