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On May 24 2017 16:17 Moopower wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2017 16:17 L_Master wrote:On May 22 2017 15:35 Moopower wrote:On May 22 2017 14:15 L_Master wrote:On May 22 2017 11:53 aTnClouD wrote:On May 22 2017 05:39 FlaShFTW wrote:On May 22 2017 05:23 Moopower wrote:
Why is pvz such a hard match up? I personally think zerg has it easy when it comes to defending while protoss defense can be cracked a lot easier when you get to defiler. Even with reavers, costs alot for scarabs, can get picked off easily even with shuttle by hydras. Most pvz battles protoss hardly micros shuttle reaver, bc they have to multi-task, macro etc while zerg doesnt have to baby sit their units as much.
Pvt i think is the most balanced, pretty even historically and you can tell who played better clearly.
Zvt is favoring terran so that makes terran the best race on all match ups.
I hate seeing protoss lose against hydra bust bc, when the match up is decided based on losing your scouting probe and the zerg stays on top of your other probes trying to scout, how do you stay competitive without getting lucky?
If you blindly build cannons and zerg fakes you, youre behind, you try to go standard and get your first corsair, you lose.
Joins may 2017 with 8 posts and already making a balance whine comment? ????? please watch some more games before making a ridiculous comment like what i have highlighted in bold. zerg absolutely needs to baby their units otherwise their army will melt to storms. zerg is the highest apm race for a reason because of how micro intensive they need to be in all their fights in zvp to storm dodge, zvt to swarm properly and burrow lurkers properly and muta micro. you hate to see protoss lose to hydra bust? good, so do we. then hope that the protoss sends out a 2nd scouting probe and is able to see it because thats why protoss loses to hydra bust by not sending out 2nd probe to scout. Hydra busts are hard to hold because probe gets killed before being able to scout. It's the reason why we don't see a second probe being sent. Normal zergs don't get ling speed insanely fast, and it's usually possible to keep the probe alive for a very long time. The situation where the probe dies is usually: 1) Zerg is focusing like hell on trying to kill it and made 6 lings to help do so 2) Zerg got ling speed really fast, such that the probe dies a long time before corsair will be out In that situation if you really can't sneak one out, then you can pressure with zealots a little bit to draw the lings away and use that to sneak the probe out. If zerg has enough lings that you're afraid to poke out with 2-3 zlots, and he has been super aggressively denying scout....what does that mean 95% of the time? Yep, hydra bust. So, under those already rare(ish) circumstances, build 2-3 extra pre-emptive cannons around that timing. Yes, if by chance zerg isn't going for a bust it's a setback for P. Nevertheless, I'd arguing winning, or at least not dying, in 95% of "suspicious situations" and being behind 5% of them is a better choice by far than dying 19/20 games just on the off chance it's the 1/20 chance zerg is playing standard. So your solution is to hope zerg doesn't mind fuck protoss with a speed ling investment to get the protoss to be defensive and assume hydra bust in those situations? Your argument is based on the fact of what ppl normally do when they get speedling, they do try to go all-in or cheese strategies hence why they make such effort to deny any scouting, but a smart zerg player could take adv of this, and force protoss to be defensive and just macro after his initial investment. It doesn't take a lot of lings to deny probe scouting, and then once protoss is left in the dark they have to overcompensate with massive cannons or try to get greedy and lucky, bc they don't have any scouting info other than speedlings. If that were truly the case, zerg should just go speedling all the time and deny protoss scouting, and then fake going hydras and watch protoss have to climb back from being economically behind. What you should be doing is making cases of how progamers could overcome speedlings, with either their own aggression with zealots and then slip a probe by, or just go aggro with zealot and dragon. and then invest in tech later, forcing sunkens or at least a lot of lings at zerg's base and the game normalizes again. I think calling it a "solution" is quite a stretch. The face remains, if a zerg is really wants to deny protoss info before corsair he almost always can. There isn't really a solution to that. A goon serves no purpose against speedlings, and in order to amass the zlots you would need to be safe, you'd have to have played some alternate build with no/severaly delayed stargate and a super fast second gate, which really isn't that good of a build overall. I think there are a few reasons don't fake hydra busts on a regular basis. The first is that they could quite simply shift the meta a bit so protoss is always being more safe, thus reducing the chances of an actual hydra bust working. More importantly, there are only two ways zerg can really deny scouting pre corsair. 1) Regular timed ling speed, but makes 6+ zergling to deny probe, and is willing to leave 2 on ramp. Even then, protoss should still be able to dance between natural and third of the zerg and just keep tabs on what is making. If he see's a hydra pop out of an egg...cannons! If zerg holds production from the natural to "hide the hydras" that would hugely weaken his attack. If the zerg makes more regular lings than that, then they are hurting their own economy some themselves and making 2 extra cannons is not going to set protoss painfully behind 2) Getting ling speed before lair - Unlike #1, this in theory can completely deny scouting. Protoss will be nervous about moving out, and any probe is easily chased. However, this is costly to the zerg, especially in the context of wanting to fake bust but play a normal game. Lair will be significantly delayed, meaning that zerg will have to sack at least 2 OL, perhaps more, OR build spore/hydra. All of these cost money and slow zerg down. I strongly suspect that making 2 extra cannons as protoss in this situation would be, at worst, a marginal setback. It's quite possible protoss doesn't even come out behind at all. Zerg forces 2 cannons, P corsairs force 2 spore or 4-6 larva/drone for protoss. Most zergs don't go fast speedlings without a reason. It just slows down your lair and forces you to have to make hydra really fast or spore up versus corsairs. So far you only been agreeing with my points. I was responded to that post as "their solution" not mine, which if you read between the lines, it was a bad solution which is clearly implied, that to hope for zerg to be a subpar zerg to not be able to deny scouting probe with speedlings which you agreed with. Now your point about zerg not doing hydra busts on the regular due to it becoming meta therefore being predictable isn't a good argument imo. Because like I stated in the earlier post, a smart zerg will often fake hydra busts forcing protoss to invest in a lot of cannons to survive and they go on to macro instead and pull out ahead economically, now your point about getting lingspeed at a regular time still will deny probe. Hydras should start building around late 4 min mark - 5 minutes. Probe will be dead long before then. It basically becomes a coinflip or rock paper scissors game to where the player has to read the opponent on if they are actually committing to the hydra bust or if it's a fake. If they guess right protoss is ahead, if he guesses wrong or doesn't get enough scouting info which you yourself have agreed zerg could deny scouting if he was determined to do can accomplish. If protoss doesn't get enough scouting info, protoss has to either guess and get lucky that he got away with not making cannons and guessed correctly that hydra bust wasn't coming, but this is all based on the assumption that if zerg was a competent player and denied scouting. Now of course there may be games where zerg fails to deny scouting, but do you really want to base PvZ on the basis of zerg playing bad to allow the game to continue and have the matchup contingent on some idiotic strategy like that? I'm not sure if there are a lot of brilliant strategists among the progamers. I think a lot of them just go with the status quo and some exceptional players like Flash, bisu,etc kind of reinvent the wheel for everyone. When Flash was on top of his dominance in 2010-2012, you could see the games were past the level of just who had better macro, micro, and multitasking, it was also about reading the opponent's strategy and exploiting how the opponent did not anticipate. If players like shine and soulkey mastered their macro and multitasking abilities more, they would be a true force to be reckoned with. Their strongest points are their tactical and strategic play. So imagine soulkey who had macro that rivaled best but as a zerg. Who faked a hydra bust, forcing best to make cannons and then soulkey just goes back to macroing while keeping best pinned on 2 bases. That is truly fearsome. I can't really prove that there is an imbalance in favor of zerg in a PvZ, but there may be some truth to it when you look at it logically this way. Either majority of protoss with exception of bisu are worse players in general, or Zerg is slightly better in the PvZ match up, or map imbalances. So one of those 3 has to be the answer. So do we assume protoss players are just generally worse for years of progaming? Or do we assume a combination of map pool and worse protoss players, or perhaps the match up is favored for zerg? I mean if the statistics always point back to Z>P, I think if we had years of different maps favoring different races, it's hard to justify that it's always because of the maps or the player. Again I can't prove that PvZ is favoring for zerg, but based on a lot of difficulty in the early game of denying of scouting, ease of defending of zerg bases vs protoss (nydus, lurker spore sunk,lings are fast and cheap to reinforce and cut up the protoss army that take a long time to siege a base) this is just my opinion based on those reasons. If you can point to more successful protoss players who can consistently punish a zerg player for playing worse then I may reconsider, but even I see Bisu struggling against lesser Zergs and he comes to trade bases sometimes and the defense of zerg whittles down his army while his defenses crack so easily with dark swarm. Hts and reavers defending can defend well but not as well as sunk, spore lurker sim city def.
I'm not sure if it was clear enough what I'm driving at. The initial point I was responding to was about how protoss is very behind if they have to make blind cannons. I am suggesting this is only the case if zerg played completely standard. In other words, if protoss made 3 cannons against a zerg that made 4 lings then went straight to lair, making only drones. However, in this situation, protoss will be able to scout. 2-4 slow lings cannot deny a probe.
My two cases describe the situations in which protoss would be blind and need cannons, and then go on to outline why protoss isn't behind. Obviously, if a zerg hydra busts protoss is ahead if he made extra cannons. If the zerg is faking, then protoss is not behind because there is a cost to fake. If you fake by going ling speed before lair, your lair is slow and you will invariable lose multiple overlords to the corsairs, offsetting the investment in cannons.
If the zerg didn't get fast ling speed, and is instead going straight standard, there won't be ling speed and another probe can be sent out to scout. If zerg is trying really hard not to let the probe out, then zealots can be safely used to allow the probe onto the map. Zerg could block the ramp to the main, but the probe would still be free to scout the natural/third, which is more than enough time to see spawning hydras, and start adding cannons in time to defend the bust.
Now of course there may be games where zerg fails to deny scouting, but do you really want to base PvZ on the basis of zerg playing bad to allow the game to continue and have the matchup contingent on some idiotic strategy like that?
This is a different point, and I imagine most people would agree it would be a bad situation if the matchup was contigent on whether or not you could scout zerg.
Fortunately, this isn't really an issue in the matchup. Zergs aren't doing fake busts all day long; in fact they aren't doing them at all. Considering that zergs were experimenting a good bit with this tactic very late KeSPA/early Afreeca we have to ask why this didn't become more prevalent?
The simple answer is that it isn't really an especially strong tactic. It comes with a significant cost, wherein even if you trick protoss into making an extra cannon or two...you aren't really in any advantage because you've delayed your lair and spire in favor of quicker ling speed.
I mean if the statistics always point back to Z>P, I think if we had years of different maps favoring different races, it's hard to justify that it's always because of the maps or the player. Again I can't prove that PvZ is favoring for zerg, but based on a lot of difficulty in the early game of denying of scouting, ease of defending of zerg bases vs protoss (nydus, lurker spore sunk,lings are fast and cheap to reinforce and cut up the protoss army that take a long time to siege a base) this is just my opinion based on those reasons.
If you can point to more successful protoss players who can consistently punish a zerg player for playing worse then I may reconsider, but even I see Bisu struggling against lesser Zergs and he comes to trade bases sometimes and the defense of zerg whittles down his army while his defenses crack so easily with dark swarm. Hts and reavers defending can defend well but not as well as sunk, spore lurker sim city def.
I don't think it's necessarily hard to justify. There are certain characteristics that are popular in maps over the past 10 years. It's quite possible that the general trends of popular maps are inherently marginally advantageous for zerg. That said, there is really no way to definitively ascertain which (map vs matchup) influence the ZvP trend or to what degree.
I'd also say most players would probably agree that in general PvZ is a little more challenging for protoss. The issues arise with the word imbalance. Technically it would be correct to say that PvZ is generally imbalanced, but imbalanced is usually reserved for situations in which their is a serious discrepancy and it's extremely difficult for one side or the other to win. More importantly, imbalance as it is normally used suggests that there is a problem, something is wrong with the MU, and needs to be addressed.
I don't think that is the case at all. PvZ is challenging, but not unreasonably so. Truly expert players like Bisu have shown us that top protoss can be successful against even the top tier zerg competition. In light of that I don't understand what you mean by you see Bisu struggling. His win rate against the best zergs is above 50%, and his overall WT is well north of 70%.
Watching games where Bisu loses his bases as his army gets whittled down by Hyun would be analogous to me suggesting that Flash and terran in general struggles with TvZ because I was watching some games where Flash was struggling against Larva, which him trying to maintain his map position but Larva constantly blocked that with his swarm usage, throwing in queens to whittle down Flash's presence and goliath count as he switched to mutas to clean up. We both know that Flash wasn't struggling because TvZ is hard, but because he made some mistakes and wasn't playing as good as normal, whereas Larva was playing fantastic. Same goes for Bisu vs some random zerg, he still beats them 80% of them time (closer to 50% for the better guys, hence the 70% average).
Conclusion for me is that PvZ is a hard match-up, as is ZvT. Perfect balance isn't possible, and given that neither matchup is unreasonably difficult I don't see any cause for concern or complaint.
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On May 24 2017 08:05 _Animus_ wrote:
This map pool is fucking protoss graveyard. Best had to do magic to survive. With almost perfect play in 4 out of 5 games, it was such a struggle that its sad.
You know whats more sad? the score tanngard mentioned - 5 win vs 27 losses in pvz matchup. Tell me more about balance.
Protoss is so vunerable vs Zerg. At the same the flexible zerg can defend easily everything that is thrown at him...
By "almost perfect" you actually meant "generally medicore with lots of sloppy mistakers" right? Best's play was about as "almost perfect" as my heavily burnt piece of toast this morning.
Atrocious ramp blocking, atrocious corsair usage (almost non-existant) + losing sairs to hydra in middle of the map over and over, poor army control at times, poor response to zerglings in his main, etc.
MTA: As a side note: what in the actual fuck is up with all the balance noise lately. I was initially thinking it was due to many people coming in from SC2, where with the constant patching real balance issues do crop up, not to mention a culture of balance whining...but honestly when I look at the outright complaints or salty messages a TON of them are from longtime BW forum vets.
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On May 25 2017 04:22 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2017 08:05 _Animus_ wrote:
This map pool is fucking protoss graveyard. Best had to do magic to survive. With almost perfect play in 4 out of 5 games, it was such a struggle that its sad.
You know whats more sad? the score tanngard mentioned - 5 win vs 27 losses in pvz matchup. Tell me more about balance.
Protoss is so vunerable vs Zerg. At the same the flexible zerg can defend easily everything that is thrown at him... By "almost perfect" you actually meant "generally medicore with lots of sloppy mistakers" right? Best's play was about as "almost perfect" as my heavily burnt piece of toast this morning. Atrocious ramp blocking, atrocious corsair usage (almost non-existant) + losing sairs to hydra in middle of the map over and over, poor army control at times, poor response to zerglings in his main, etc. MTA: As a side note: what in the actual fuck is up with all the balance noise lately. I was initially thinking it was due to many people coming in from SC2, where with the constant patching real balance issues do crop up, not to mention a culture of balance whining...but honestly when I look at the outright complaints or salty messages a TON of them are from longtime BW forum vets.
My theory is that its a feedback loop. The more whiny newbs that come in, the more the preexisting whiny newbs feel empowered to express their unhappiness and vent their poor ladder results.
Isnt it strange how protoss always think protoss is underpowered, and zergs think zergs are underpowered, and terrans think terrans are underpowered? It's almost as if the whole thing is one sad defense mechanism. *whistles*
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On May 25 2017 05:12 Dazed_Spy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2017 04:22 L_Master wrote:On May 24 2017 08:05 _Animus_ wrote:
This map pool is fucking protoss graveyard. Best had to do magic to survive. With almost perfect play in 4 out of 5 games, it was such a struggle that its sad.
You know whats more sad? the score tanngard mentioned - 5 win vs 27 losses in pvz matchup. Tell me more about balance.
Protoss is so vunerable vs Zerg. At the same the flexible zerg can defend easily everything that is thrown at him... By "almost perfect" you actually meant "generally medicore with lots of sloppy mistakers" right? Best's play was about as "almost perfect" as my heavily burnt piece of toast this morning. Atrocious ramp blocking, atrocious corsair usage (almost non-existant) + losing sairs to hydra in middle of the map over and over, poor army control at times, poor response to zerglings in his main, etc. MTA: As a side note: what in the actual fuck is up with all the balance noise lately. I was initially thinking it was due to many people coming in from SC2, where with the constant patching real balance issues do crop up, not to mention a culture of balance whining...but honestly when I look at the outright complaints or salty messages a TON of them are from longtime BW forum vets.
My theory is that its a feedback loop. The more whiny newbs that come in, the more the preexisting whiny newbs feel empowered to express their unhappiness and vent their poor ladder results. Isnt it strange how protoss always think protoss is underpowered, and zergs think zergs are underpowered, and terrans think terrans are underpowered? It's almost as if the whole thing is one sad defense mechanism. *whistles*
Suspicious thing, that. :D
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On May 25 2017 04:22 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2017 08:05 _Animus_ wrote:
This map pool is fucking protoss graveyard. Best had to do magic to survive. With almost perfect play in 4 out of 5 games, it was such a struggle that its sad.
You know whats more sad? the score tanngard mentioned - 5 win vs 27 losses in pvz matchup. Tell me more about balance.
Protoss is so vunerable vs Zerg. At the same the flexible zerg can defend easily everything that is thrown at him... By "almost perfect" you actually meant "generally medicore with lots of sloppy mistakers" right? Best's play was about as "almost perfect" as my heavily burnt piece of toast this morning. Atrocious ramp blocking, atrocious corsair usage (almost non-existant) + losing sairs to hydra in middle of the map over and over, poor army control at times, poor response to zerglings in his main, etc. MTA: As a side note: what in the actual fuck is up with all the balance noise lately. I was initially thinking it was due to many people coming in from SC2, where with the constant patching real balance issues do crop up, not to mention a culture of balance whining...but honestly when I look at the outright complaints or salty messages a TON of them are from longtime BW forum vets.
You mean soulkey outplayed best? First look at the race vs race stats, then tell me how exactly that happened, because i didnt saw nothing impressive from soulkey. Its just the flexibility of the race doing same old stuff and maps that cut protoss possibilities for win. Its super easy for zerg to kill a probe with fast lings, then toss has no clue what is going on untill corsair. Corsair usage. What corsair usage vs mass hydra? You mean he shouldve killed ton of overlords with only 2 corsairs when hydra is defenending everywhere or he should commit to corsair on 2 gas ignoring high templar and other tech?
5 - 27 is super imbalanced score, no matter what angle you look at, and if was so easy to point out flaws here and there koreans wouldve realised before us and already changed the results
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On May 25 2017 06:02 _Animus_ wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2017 04:22 L_Master wrote:On May 24 2017 08:05 _Animus_ wrote:
This map pool is fucking protoss graveyard. Best had to do magic to survive. With almost perfect play in 4 out of 5 games, it was such a struggle that its sad.
You know whats more sad? the score tanngard mentioned - 5 win vs 27 losses in pvz matchup. Tell me more about balance.
Protoss is so vunerable vs Zerg. At the same the flexible zerg can defend easily everything that is thrown at him... By "almost perfect" you actually meant "generally medicore with lots of sloppy mistakers" right? Best's play was about as "almost perfect" as my heavily burnt piece of toast this morning. Atrocious ramp blocking, atrocious corsair usage (almost non-existant) + losing sairs to hydra in middle of the map over and over, poor army control at times, poor response to zerglings in his main, etc. MTA: As a side note: what in the actual fuck is up with all the balance noise lately. I was initially thinking it was due to many people coming in from SC2, where with the constant patching real balance issues do crop up, not to mention a culture of balance whining...but honestly when I look at the outright complaints or salty messages a TON of them are from longtime BW forum vets.
You mean soulkey outplayed best? First look at the race vs race stats, then tell me how exactly that happened, because i didnt saw nothing impressive from soulkey. Its just the flexibility of the race doing same old stuff and maps that cut protoss possibilities for win. Its super easy for zerg to kill a probe with fast lings, then toss has no clue what is going on untill corsair. Corsair usage. What corsair usage vs mass hydra? You mean he shouldve killed ton of overlords with only 2 corsairs when hydra is defenending everywhere or he should commit to corsair on 2 gas ignoring high templar and other tech? 5 - 27 is super imbalanced score, no matter what angle you look at, and if was so easy to point out flaws here and there koreans wouldve realised before us and already changed the results
Would 5-13 be okay balance for you? Because that was the zerg vs protoss winrate in the last season of the ASL which ended 5 months ago about which I doubt you were complaining. In ASL season 2 protoss went 5-1 vs zerg on circuit breaker, in this season protoss is 1-4 vs zerg on the same map. Perhaps the meta has gotten significantly harder for P in the last 5 months, or MAYBE winrates depend a bit on the map, a bit on the players general skill, and a lot on what happens on the day - sometimes you just have an off day and don't block your ramp with 3 zealots.
I wont deny, as a protoss player myself, I think zerg has a slight advantage but the truth is only 6 months ago Protoss was smashing zerg 13-5 (72%) and now are 5-27 (16%) in whatever time period this is cherry picked from. Anyone who thinks the balance has shifted that far in just 6 months is wrong. Anyone who thinks BeSt played perfectly in this series is just as mistaken.
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I will never understand the mindset of Protoss players to never send out a 2nd probe and hide it to see whats going on at key times (i.e this game, which probably everyone knows) but instead whine. They deserve to lose to hydra busts. If you don't send an additional scout as Terran, you are as likely to lose to some random Zerg ling all-in.
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Tbh Best was unlucky in games 1 and 4. Game 1, every Protoss moves out with 4/5 zealots with 1 gate opening which scouts the bust easily (like the JD game i mentioned previously), but he chose not to, probably opting for a stronger +1 timing. Game 4 yes he fucked up, but Soulkey had speed 80% done and more lings coming, all of that would have been a waste had he not moved down the ramp.
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On May 25 2017 06:02 _Animus_ wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2017 04:22 L_Master wrote:On May 24 2017 08:05 _Animus_ wrote:
This map pool is fucking protoss graveyard. Best had to do magic to survive. With almost perfect play in 4 out of 5 games, it was such a struggle that its sad.
You know whats more sad? the score tanngard mentioned - 5 win vs 27 losses in pvz matchup. Tell me more about balance.
Protoss is so vunerable vs Zerg. At the same the flexible zerg can defend easily everything that is thrown at him... By "almost perfect" you actually meant "generally medicore with lots of sloppy mistakers" right? Best's play was about as "almost perfect" as my heavily burnt piece of toast this morning. Atrocious ramp blocking, atrocious corsair usage (almost non-existant) + losing sairs to hydra in middle of the map over and over, poor army control at times, poor response to zerglings in his main, etc. MTA: As a side note: what in the actual fuck is up with all the balance noise lately. I was initially thinking it was due to many people coming in from SC2, where with the constant patching real balance issues do crop up, not to mention a culture of balance whining...but honestly when I look at the outright complaints or salty messages a TON of them are from longtime BW forum vets.
You mean soulkey outplayed best? First look at the race vs race stats, then tell me how exactly that happened, because i didnt saw nothing impressive from soulkey. Its just the flexibility of the race doing same old stuff and maps that cut protoss possibilities for win. Its super easy for zerg to kill a probe with fast lings, then toss has no clue what is going on untill corsair. Corsair usage. What corsair usage vs mass hydra? You mean he shouldve killed ton of overlords with only 2 corsairs when hydra is defenending everywhere or he should commit to corsair on 2 gas ignoring high templar and other tech? 5 - 27 is super imbalanced score, no matter what angle you look at, and if was so easy to point out flaws here and there koreans wouldve realised before us and already changed the results
5-27 would of course be a concern if it were representative of the general state of PvZ. However, as xccam already highlighted, a small sampling of games has little reflection to the state of PvZ on the whole, and 30 games is an EXTREMELY small sample size, especially in a game with as much variation in win/loss as BW. Players go on hot streaks and slumps. Not to mention you have Outsider in the pool, which is clearly giving protoss some HUGE fits right now.
If you want a reasonable, meaningful sample you'd need to look over at least the past year, including all tours + spon matches. Somewhere between 500-1,000 games at a minimum. If you look over that, and PvZ is at 40% (which it isn't), then we'd have a legitimate reason to be concerned.
Soulkey v Best: Soulkey didn't look especially impressive. I agree with you there. But let's look at the games.
1) Best didn't scout well, took a gamble, and died to hydra bust. Soulkey didn't do anything great, but Best gambles/screwed up and lost. I wouldn't say Soulkey was "better" in this game, but Best took a huge risk and lost as a result.
2) Best played fairly well, Soulkey played poorly, especially in the final engagement, where he thought Best was out of storms and went away to macro, but it turned out Best had more and stormed the ever living daylights out of 2 groups of dra. Best played better and won handily
3) Best did an interesting one base build, but handled the tricks that Soulkey threw at him very well. He then controlled his army fairly well and won, despite being a little sloppy losing his first shuttle very quickly. Soulkey didn't get very favorable engagements against Best, and the better player in this game clearly won.
4) Best played horrible. He failed to block a ramp with THREE zealots. Soulkey exploited. Even after the lings were in, Best showed some serious abysmal defense, letting just 4 lings eat away at his probes for minutes, leaving him hopelessly behind and shortly overrun by Soulkey. Soulkey's runby was neither impressive nor especially well controlled, but he got a win because Best played terribly against it.
5) Fairly standard game. Things started to go wrong for Best a little after his initial zealots were on the map. He made two corsairs, and as you said we wouldn't expect them to do huge damage. However, he quickly threw them away in the middle of the map, which left him with no AA, and then he opted to take a third on a map where the ramp favors the attacker. Fine, but you'd better be prepared to defend. As part of that, Best had lost his corsairs in the middle of the map, and SK was making pure hydra. What do you expect the response to be if you lose your corsairs and zerg is massing hydra? Obviously most zergs will make muta. Best needed to either have not lost those sairs/kept making more sairs OR figured out something clever to hide his templar from muta sniping. Unfortunately, Best looked like he was literally caught with his pants down, as SK shows up with 11 muta and best had just 3 dragoons and no other defense for his templar. Oh, and apparently he also screwed up horrifically by not getting goon range, further limiting his ability to defend muta. These are some colossal mistakes and it's obvious Best didn't win that game. Huge mistakes from Best, he predictably lost.
I honestly don't see how on earth you could argue that Best losing games 4 and 5 weren't a result of his own terrible play/mistakes. Not getting goon range is legit D- stuff. He even won the two games he played well, which would be expected. Game 1 is the only game where there wasn't much to say, he lost because he took risks knowing hydra bust is always a possibility. I literally don't see how there is anything at all in this series that a player could be crying imbalance about, nor do I have any clue how you could possibly try to argue best played "almost perfect" in games 4 and 5. He played terrible in those two.
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On May 25 2017 06:57 Cryoc wrote:I will never understand the mindset of Protoss players to never send out a 2nd probe and hide it to see whats going on at key times (i.e this game, which probably everyone knows) but instead whine. They deserve to lose to hydra busts. If you don't send an additional scout as Terran, you are as likely to lose to some random Zerg ling all-in.
Neither will I. It's 100% do-able in situations where zerg doesn't have ling speed. I love hydra bust PvZ because it's always just scout -> free win. Sending a probe out at a minimum you'll be able to see what's popping out of nat/3rd base hatches and respond in time.
I guess the one exception is a zerg that does 9 pool speed or something, where they could conceivably shut off scouting. At that point though I think you either have to gamble or build a preemptive extra (3rd) cannon. Which is fine in that case because zerg has already really hurt their economy to open 9pool speed
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On May 25 2017 05:12 Dazed_Spy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2017 04:22 L_Master wrote:On May 24 2017 08:05 _Animus_ wrote:
This map pool is fucking protoss graveyard. Best had to do magic to survive. With almost perfect play in 4 out of 5 games, it was such a struggle that its sad.
You know whats more sad? the score tanngard mentioned - 5 win vs 27 losses in pvz matchup. Tell me more about balance.
Protoss is so vunerable vs Zerg. At the same the flexible zerg can defend easily everything that is thrown at him... By "almost perfect" you actually meant "generally medicore with lots of sloppy mistakers" right? Best's play was about as "almost perfect" as my heavily burnt piece of toast this morning. Atrocious ramp blocking, atrocious corsair usage (almost non-existant) + losing sairs to hydra in middle of the map over and over, poor army control at times, poor response to zerglings in his main, etc. MTA: As a side note: what in the actual fuck is up with all the balance noise lately. I was initially thinking it was due to many people coming in from SC2, where with the constant patching real balance issues do crop up, not to mention a culture of balance whining...but honestly when I look at the outright complaints or salty messages a TON of them are from longtime BW forum vets.
My theory is that its a feedback loop. The more whiny newbs that come in, the more the preexisting whiny newbs feel empowered to express their unhappiness and vent their poor ladder results. Isnt it strange how protoss always think protoss is underpowered, and zergs think zergs are underpowered, and terrans think terrans are underpowered? It's almost as if the whole thing is one sad defense mechanism. *whistles*
To be honest, there was a lot of complaining about balance during old days of BW, too. Whenever new maps were introduced, on the first page there were always a few posts with "Terran imba map." I still remember when people were saying that maps like Battle Royale were Terran favored before...
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I'm not sure if it was clear enough what I'm driving at. The initial point I was responding to was about how protoss is very behind if they have to make blind cannons. I am suggesting this is only the case if zerg played completely standard. In other words, if protoss made 3 cannons against a zerg that made 4 lings then went straight to lair, making only drones. However, in this situation, protoss will be able to scout. 2-4 slow lings cannot deny a probe.
My two cases describe the situations in which protoss would be blind and need cannons, and then go on to outline why protoss isn't behind. Obviously, if a zerg hydra busts protoss is ahead if he made extra cannons. If the zerg is faking, then protoss is not behind because there is a cost to fake. If you fake by going ling speed before lair, your lair is slow and you will invariable lose multiple overlords to the corsairs, offsetting the investment in cannons.
If the zerg didn't get fast ling speed, and is instead going straight standard, there won't be ling speed and another probe can be sent out to scout. If zerg is trying really hard not to let the probe out, then zealots can be safely used to allow the probe onto the map. Zerg could block the ramp to the main, but the probe would still be free to scout the natural/third, which is more than enough time to see spawning hydras, and start adding cannons in time to defend the bust.
Now of course there may be games where zerg fails to deny scouting, but do you really want to base PvZ on the basis of zerg playing bad to allow the game to continue and have the matchup contingent on some idiotic strategy like that?
This is a different point, and I imagine most people would agree it would be a bad situation if the matchup was contigent on whether or not you could scout zerg.
Fortunately, this isn't really an issue in the matchup. Zergs aren't doing fake busts all day long; in fact they aren't doing them at all. Considering that zergs were experimenting a good bit with this tactic very late KeSPA/early Afreeca we have to ask why this didn't become more prevalent?
The simple answer is that it isn't really an especially strong tactic. It comes with a significant cost, wherein even if you trick protoss into making an extra cannon or two...you aren't really in any advantage because you've delayed your lair and spire in favor of quicker ling speed.
I mean if the statistics always point back to Z>P, I think if we had years of different maps favoring different races, it's hard to justify that it's always because of the maps or the player. Again I can't prove that PvZ is favoring for zerg, but based on a lot of difficulty in the early game of denying of scouting, ease of defending of zerg bases vs protoss (nydus, lurker spore sunk,lings are fast and cheap to reinforce and cut up the protoss army that take a long time to siege a base) this is just my opinion based on those reasons.
If you can point to more successful protoss players who can consistently punish a zerg player for playing worse then I may reconsider, but even I see Bisu struggling against lesser Zergs and he comes to trade bases sometimes and the defense of zerg whittles down his army while his defenses crack so easily with dark swarm. Hts and reavers defending can defend well but not as well as sunk, spore lurker sim city def.
I don't think it's necessarily hard to justify. There are certain characteristics that are popular in maps over the past 10 years. It's quite possible that the general trends of popular maps are inherently marginally advantageous for zerg. That said, there is really no way to definitively ascertain which (map vs matchup) influence the ZvP trend or to what degree.
I'd also say most players would probably agree that in general PvZ is a little more challenging for protoss. The issues arise with the word imbalance. Technically it would be correct to say that PvZ is generally imbalanced, but imbalanced is usually reserved for situations in which their is a serious discrepancy and it's extremely difficult for one side or the other to win. More importantly, imbalance as it is normally used suggests that there is a problem, something is wrong with the MU, and needs to be addressed.
I don't think that is the case at all. PvZ is challenging, but not unreasonably so. Truly expert players like Bisu have shown us that top protoss can be successful against even the top tier zerg competition. In light of that I don't understand what you mean by you see Bisu struggling. His win rate against the best zergs is above 50%, and his overall WT is well north of 70%.
Watching games where Bisu loses his bases as his army gets whittled down by Hyun would be analogous to me suggesting that Flash and terran in general struggles with TvZ because I was watching some games where Flash was struggling against Larva, which him trying to maintain his map position but Larva constantly blocked that with his swarm usage, throwing in queens to whittle down Flash's presence and goliath count as he switched to mutas to clean up. We both know that Flash wasn't struggling because TvZ is hard, but because he made some mistakes and wasn't playing as good as normal, whereas Larva was playing fantastic. Same goes for Bisu vs some random zerg, he still beats them 80% of them time (closer to 50% for the better guys, hence the 70% average).
Conclusion for me is that PvZ is a hard match-up, as is ZvT. Perfect balance isn't possible, and given that neither matchup is unreasonably difficult I don't see any cause for concern or complaint.
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I don't buy that zerg will be too behind on tech for spending the 1st 100 gas on ling speed than on lair tech. Corsair should pop out around 5:45 by normal standards and kill an ol by around 6 min. that 1 corsair that kills an ol is not going to slow zerg down if they were going 3 hatch hydra bust or faked it. Accumulating another 100 gas takes about 20 secs? If you admit that PvZ is favored towards zerg it is by definition imbalanced. Imbalanced means imbalanced, even if it is a slight at the highest levels of play for progamers that means a lot, than an average gamer. Pointing out 1 successful protoss progamer and using the exception to prove the standard is a bad argument imo. Many protoss progamers have struggled against zerg players for a REASON. Bisu could just be naturally attuned to the match up, and overcome the match up but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a fair one. Or it could mean that all the other protoss progamers suck comparatively and the other race progamers are on average better, so which are you going to say it is?
I don't think anyone can say race balance is impossible. To say it's impossible you have to prove that it is. But like me, you can't really prove anything other than examples of your own experiences, unless you have some math professor who calculates the dmg, unit hp, reinforcement, unit speed, unit damage per sec, and other apm tasks that take away from the ability to get to max potential. If the developers wanted to, they can tailor dmg specific to each races what each race unit does to each other relatively, rather than a blanket dmg system of small,medium, and large units, not saying this is a good idea, but the possibility to do that is there. Or they can reclassify some units to be small,medium or large depending on how each units of each race interact for better balancing, but I think this would be hard since that would affect how other units already interacted with that particular unit, so that is why if they were to rebalance the units, they would need to make exceptions of how certain units deal dmg to another, after the small,medium large dmg structure is in place.
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On May 25 2017 17:12 Lebesgue wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2017 05:12 Dazed_Spy wrote:On May 25 2017 04:22 L_Master wrote:On May 24 2017 08:05 _Animus_ wrote:
This map pool is fucking protoss graveyard. Best had to do magic to survive. With almost perfect play in 4 out of 5 games, it was such a struggle that its sad.
You know whats more sad? the score tanngard mentioned - 5 win vs 27 losses in pvz matchup. Tell me more about balance.
Protoss is so vunerable vs Zerg. At the same the flexible zerg can defend easily everything that is thrown at him... By "almost perfect" you actually meant "generally medicore with lots of sloppy mistakers" right? Best's play was about as "almost perfect" as my heavily burnt piece of toast this morning. Atrocious ramp blocking, atrocious corsair usage (almost non-existant) + losing sairs to hydra in middle of the map over and over, poor army control at times, poor response to zerglings in his main, etc. MTA: As a side note: what in the actual fuck is up with all the balance noise lately. I was initially thinking it was due to many people coming in from SC2, where with the constant patching real balance issues do crop up, not to mention a culture of balance whining...but honestly when I look at the outright complaints or salty messages a TON of them are from longtime BW forum vets.
My theory is that its a feedback loop. The more whiny newbs that come in, the more the preexisting whiny newbs feel empowered to express their unhappiness and vent their poor ladder results. Isnt it strange how protoss always think protoss is underpowered, and zergs think zergs are underpowered, and terrans think terrans are underpowered? It's almost as if the whole thing is one sad defense mechanism. *whistles* To be honest, there was a lot of complaining about balance during old days of BW, too. Whenever new maps were introduced, on the first page there were always a few posts with "Terran imba map." I still remember when people were saying that maps like Battle Royale were Terran favored before...
Yup. Pull up LR threads from any point during the KeSPA period and you'll find a fair amount of balance whine. It's fortunate that Blizzard didn't pay any attention to this and stopped adding balance patches after 2001 when the game was still just a budding e-sport. Otherwise we might not have had the same awesome game with all its glorious history of strategic innovation, changes in the meta, eras dominated by different bonjwas, etc.
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