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On November 03 2010 00:03 MrCon wrote:
Immortals are awesome and underused, huk made 3 of them early in each his PvT in EG Masters, that made him "push proof", first time I saw that and he did really well. That makes sense obviously, even against marine, in small numers marines and marauders waste some much shoot against immortals, they are awesome tanks.
What I don't get is you never see any protoss make more than 2 or 3 of them. They cost 100 minerals more than siege tanks and less gaz, and they take so long to kill and make so much damage they worth it im(m)o. I'm sure if they were a terran unit, there would be OP whine about them :D
Well, I guess there reasons for this underuse, but seeing huk make a lot of them very fast against terran and rape very convincigly makes me wonder what are those reasons.
The problem is, immortals - like about 80% of all protoss-units - are easily countered by EMP. Seriously, if I want to transition into HT I better make sure I do NOT have built immortals earlier and "forced" my opponent into early ghosts. Same with archons, nearly everything that is "not" colossus will bring terran to build the perfect counter to your best tech.
Don't get me wrong, I love immortals early vs terran - I just feel stupid when transitioning into HTs, since Terran already has the counter in place long before I even start the storm-tech.
EMP is imo somewhat misconceptioned, it it's "kinda" good vs everything protoss has, but not "extremely" good vs storm, because there are always some HTs left with energy if I'm not completely stupid.
Imo EMP shouldn't remove shield but have a much larger AoE....this way it could be a true counter to templars but wouldn't, as a side-effect, prevent archons and immortals. Immortals are easy to deal with stimmed marines as it is anyways, later on they get one-shotted.
EDIT: to implement some korean sentiments about current balance:
http://www.playxp.com/sc2/jingjing/
Protoss has nearly reached a QQ-level that resembles zerg pre patch
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Archons should be massive, they don't do shit against terran bio because of concussive shells. They are supposed to be good against bio.
Archons are horrendous, they just exist to slow your opponent as your army retreats (and they always die before the transformation completes). Nobody in their right mind ever creates them on purpose. Watch any game where they are made and try to see them get ONE kill, it's impossible, they're too bulky to get to the front and do damage, they just spin around for a few seconds and then die.
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I think Terran has the capability of ending the game before the protoss gets their tech unit. The only way Protoss can defend is with a 4 gate. At my skill level though, if the Protoss gets a robo up and working with Collosssus, its reallly hard for me.
Its tough to balance though because if they buff the gateway units to help protoss defend terran early, then 4 gate pushes will be overpowered.
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On November 03 2010 00:12 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2010 00:03 MrCon wrote:
Immortals are awesome and underused, huk made 3 of them early in each his PvT in EG Masters, that made him "push proof", first time I saw that and he did really well. That makes sense obviously, even against marine, in small numers marines and marauders waste some much shoot against immortals, they are awesome tanks.
What I don't get is you never see any protoss make more than 2 or 3 of them. They cost 100 minerals more than siege tanks and less gaz, and they take so long to kill and make so much damage they worth it im(m)o. I'm sure if they were a terran unit, there would be OP whine about them :D
Well, I guess there reasons for this underuse, but seeing huk make a lot of them very fast against terran and rape very convincigly makes me wonder what are those reasons. The problem is, immortals - like about 80% of all protoss-units - are easily countered by EMP. Seriously, if I want to transition into HT I better make sure I do NOT have built immortals earlier and "forced" my opponent into early ghosts. Same with archons, nearly everything that is "not" colossus will bring terran to build the perfect counter to your best tech. Don't get me wrong, I love immortals early vs terran - I just feel stupid when transitioning into HTs, since Terran already has the counter in place long before I even start the storm-tech. EMP is imo somewhat misconceptioned, it it's "kinda" good vs everything protoss has, but not "extremely" good vs storm, because there are always some HTs left with energy if I'm not completely stupid. Imo EMP shouldn't remove shield but have a much larger AoE....this way it could be a true counter to templars but wouldn't, as a side-effect, prevent archons and immortals. Immortals are easy to deal with stimmed marines as it is anyways, later on they get one-shotted. EDIT: to implement some korean sentiments about current balance: http://www.playxp.com/sc2/jingjing/Protoss has nearly reached a QQ-level that resembles zerg pre patch
ROFL! Thanks for this gem. Blizzard you now have a new tool that will completely solve all your balance problems! the QQ statistics of the month!
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On November 02 2010 23:58 bokeevboke wrote:Archons should be massive, they don't do shit against terran bio because of concussive shells. They are supposed to be good against bio. Or make concussive shell work only when HP damage is dealt. That'd solve so many problems, even though it's never going to happen.
Then we could have so many more of those amazing PvZ :D
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i think it mostly comes down to (and they all tie together)
1. Protoss is a lot more predictable as a race, the builds and unit used will generally always be pretty much the same,
2. The difference in composition arent necessarily game breaking, and can usually be overcome by decent micro, or can be tech switched to be accommodated by the other races (with exception of voidrays)
3. There are a lot of protoss players. Which also just means the other races are more used to versing protoss players, and working out the builds/weaknesses.
i dont think there's much OP or UP about it, that's the way Protoss has always been, a solid race, not too hard to use with early tier units that are strong and adaptable for most situations, but in general serves that sole purpose without much creativity...
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On November 02 2010 17:35 Tirr wrote:
The problems of protoss as I see:
1. Lack of early game harass (not 4gating).
2. Completely predictable late game - it is just Colossus-HT+gateway units.
3. The only creativeness comes from cheases - DT, VR. After the cheese is properly scouted - you can throw that units right away.
4. A lot of SHITTY units - carriers, mothership is a joke, VR is hardly integrated in regular army and is used for cheeses only, phoenixes are used mostly in PvZ for killing couple of probes, archons are bad.
5. Warp prism is crap compared to other races - especially it's speed. T have dropships with good speed and heal. Ovies after the upgrade is a free transport for 100 minerals which you will have in insane amounts.
6. HT is insanely good unit, but to get it to full strength you have to spend like 1100 minerals 950 gas for 2 fully upgraded HTs. While infestors and ghosts have their core skills just at the start (EMP, fungal).
7. Every game you HAVE to go robo, unless you will be destroyed by invisible unit. This+p.6 leads again to completely predictable late game - gate units+colossus.
And saying that P late game is hard to beat... Colossus are easily countered by vikings/corruptors, HT are completely demolished by ghosts.
All of that definitely feels true as Protoss, but in thinking about it some are not really the case.
1. Protoss can harass with early Zealots pretty effectively. Not 4 gate, just early zealots over short land distances.
2. This I agree with you. Protoss are way too predictable and way too easily countered at least as far as Colossi go.
3. Mostly agree but this might be a case of people not finding the right way to play protoss yet. I'm not ready to say you *cant* be creative with toss. Although it seems that way now, someone may come along to change that, I hope.
4. I would replace shitty for highly situational and in need of review.
5. I feel like warp prisms are one of those units that might give the toss the ability to be creative. Right now though, there are so many down sides. You have no escape path for warped in units. It's slow and losing units as toss is more punishing than any other race because of cost.
6 No argument there. HT's make me feel like I can play confidently once fully upgraded assuming i'm not already way behind. (until they get emped)
7 Agree again. Although do we really HAVE to go observer vrs Zerg? I mean burrow yeah but burrow wont kill you like a cloaked banshee rush. Will it? I always get observers vrs zerg but the more I think about it I might be able to get away without it. Terran clearly you need to go observer, period. Toss too, I've lost games where I've had an obs, but his DT rush got to me as my 1 obs was across the map and by bye bye nexus.
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On November 03 2010 00:03 MrCon wrote:
Immortals are awesome and underused, huk made 3 of them early in each his PvT in EG Masters, that made him "push proof", first time I saw that and he did really well. That makes sense obviously, even against marine, in small numers marines and marauders waste so much shoot against immortals, they are awesome tanks.
What I don't get is you never see any protoss make more than 2 or 3 of them. They cost 100 minerals more than siege tanks and less gaz, and they take so long to kill and make so much damage they worth it im(m)o. I'm sure if they were a terran unit, there would be OP whine about them :D
Well, I guess there reasons for this underuse, but seeing huk make a lot of them very fast against terran and rape very convincigly makes me wonder what are those reasons.
Did you not read like afew posts above you? One EMP will dominate 3-4 immortals easily. In fact, If I recall the games you are talking about, Huk vs Drewbie, Drewbie totally missed his EMPS like really badly, and that was the only battle in that game he lost which ended the game.. The other times, Drewbie stuck with pure marauder.. 2-3 ghosts = all immortals dead. You dont even really need ghosts, as long as you have the same amount of marauders in terms of cost, with stim you can snipe immortals so fast (if he went 3-4 immortals he wont have enough money for the gateway fodder units to soak the damage)
If you watched the game on Steppes of War, it was RETARDED how Drewbie almost won off PURE marauder, vs every single mix of protoss units.. One tier 1 unit vs storm, collosus, stalkers, zeals, sentries, immortals.. And its not like his economy was THAT much better either, he just knows that marauders basically own everything on the ground protoss has and kept charging forth, if he lost 2 marauders to take out 2 collosus, so what, marauders are so cheap in comparison he didnt need to do anything.. Was very stupid that he almost won from it, and would of if he didnt make afew bad decisions where to attack.
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We have so little to hold off early aggression. We don't have strength in sheer numbers like Zerg or numerous harassment options like Terran. All we have is late-game tech and unit synergy to try and bust down the enemy's front door.
Also, Protoss tech tree flexibility is extremely rigid. It's not like we have a 1/1/1 build that will work effectively or we have larva into x unit choices. Even if Protoss does a mock build of 2/1/1, it's going to hinder teching up to Colossi or Carriers. You could have saved up the extra 150/150 that you dumped into a Stargate for a Robotics Bay, etc etc.
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They should lower the cost of the robo bay because you really need two of them.
Ah fuck it, I'm done. I just changed races to Zerg. Goodbye, Protoss, I never really did enjoy playing as you.
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You know one change that I thought really messed with everything, Sentry damage change.
When Sentries did more damage, you actually had a better chance fighting off the crazy terran pushes. It made it so that even if you went 4-5 sentries (which are required, or you lose to mass marauder run up ramp), they still were useful AFTER the forcefield. Right now, You either choose to get stalker/zealot to deal damage (still kited and easily lost by insane concussive shells) or sentries to remain safe, but deal no damage..
Fix that and maybe protoss will have a bit more earlygame help, without affecting the lategame.
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It's cuz P players are worse. Obviously.
And cuz there's no reaver. Collosi just don't bug out enough.
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On November 03 2010 00:47 lowercase wrote:
They should lower the cost of the robo bay because you really need two of them.
Ah fuck it, I'm done. I just changed races to Zerg. Goodbye, Protoss, I never really did enjoy playing as you.
Thats what I really felt like doing for the longest time, but I think im gonna stick it out with Protoss and just not play until they fix it with a patch..
I 100% agree with making the Robo cheaper.. between the insane cost of a robo, and the insane cost of all their units they produce, its really not balanced at all. It will take you 600+ gas to just get out one collosus, while 600 gas can get terran what, two cloaked banshees? What would you rather have..
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On November 03 2010 00:03 MrCon wrote:
Immortals are awesome and underused, huk made 3 of them early in each his PvT in EG Masters, that made him "push proof", first time I saw that and he did really well. That makes sense obviously, even against marine, in small numers marines and marauders waste so much shoot against immortals, they are awesome tanks.
What I don't get is you never see any protoss make more than 2 or 3 of them. They cost 100 minerals more than siege tanks and less gaz, and they take so long to kill and make so much damage they worth it im(m)o. I'm sure if they were a terran unit, there would be OP whine about them :D
Well, I guess there reasons for this underuse, but seeing huk make a lot of them very fast against terran and rape very convincigly makes me wonder what are those reasons.
Immortals don't scale very well and they are slow. It lets all your zealots get stim-kited. They can't shoot up either.
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Protoss Tech/Gas costs are kinda widly out of hand. 300/200 for just the prerequisite mothership/carrier? no wonder it's considered joke tech to only go when you already won (and almost lose going for it)
150/100 for a building that serves no purpose other than to charge me 200/200 (combat shield + stim cost) at tier 2 for charge or 150/150 for an already grossly underpowered for cost unit.
Wish i could afford dark shrine cause if dt fail to end game i failed to won game t t
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I think Protoss' unique problems might stem from time-expensive tech switches. For high templars you need after the core the council (50 seconds), then the archives (50 seconds).
Charge costs 200/200 and 140 seconds, psionic storm costs 200/200 and needs 110 seconds. They are very expensive and time-consuming. You can not easily switch and if you commit to this tech tree, it's quite risky because it takes such a long time, even with chronoboost.
Then there the void rays, with don't have an extreme role anymore and the carriers which also have this extrem long building time and when colossi are in play, the T will already have built the counter.
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damn, guys, building immortals doesnt mean immortals are good. unless they have a armor upgrade 3 stimmed rauders own an immortal. but they facerape stalkers, so you prefer getting owned ofc.
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On November 02 2010 04:25 Nihilnovi wrote:As many people have pointed out, toss is a really un-versatile and un-creative race. The fact that the only movable detection comes out of robo, and that the other AOE tech is templars, makes almost every single toss game some sort of robo variation, 1 base allin, or fe into robo variation. Not opening robo is just autolose so many times. + Show Spoiler +nexgenius pwnt by cloaked banshee when he tried anything that didnt involve robo The fact that T can be safe against any P with builds that are tilted towards harassment, timing push or macro makes them a very versatile race. P has no reliable way to scout without robo while T has scan & reaper. I can't remember the last time I saw a P set the pace of the game, every single P game I watch is basically the P going "shit shit shit hope I can survive the early - midgame without being too far behind". I'm not saying its imbalanced, I'm just pointing out what to me is a design flaw between the race dynamics which pidgeonholes P players into a really boring playstyle which is very predictable and leaves little room to do anything else.
Lots of people are hitting on the problems. I agree with most of the above quote. My own:
1. Robo is almost forced for scouting/detection. Being predictable is a huge detriment. It's also super convenient for critics to say "the P guy lost b/c he didn't scout well... so P isn't underpowered".
1.5 Also Protoss have basically no harass options until 3 bases, making them even more predictable. Hence the "all-in" effect of any tech route that isn't just a stall into an expand.
2. Early game got nerfed over and over for P. Now T and Z have nice killer harass, all-in, or Fast Expand options.
3. Forges are separate from Gateways. This is done design-wise so proxies are harder. But it means Protoss have no way to defend super super early without picking an early tech path... cannons or gateway. Terrans can build bunkers after brx and zerg can build spines after pool. This is also part of the problem PvP.
4. Protoss have the worst time vs air units, especially early on. Mutas and banshees can hurt protoss directly or with harass.
5. Protoss are gas starved until they are on 3+ bases.
6. At least around these parts, SC2 Protoss aren't the type to complain (read whine). Don't know why this is... maybe because in a straight up macro low-harass type game Protoss do fine and TeamLiquid is so macro-favored due to the last several years of BW that it seems fine from a macro standpoint. Maybe it's because the TL fan favorites are Z or T. The thing is Blizzard seems to listen to whiners a bit more than not.
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Suggestions to make P more flexible:
Reduce gas cost and build time of robo and observers OR make hallucination (for phoenix only) free/built-in.
Reduce cost of forge to 75 minerals, but make it take appropriately longer to compensate so it isn't better for proxies. That way P can make a forge when it's an unclear situation. Then when they finally scout air or cloaked units, they have something to fall back on. Or get crazy and allow cannons to be made after a forge OR a cybernetics.
Give them something less expensive to harass with that is recyclable but not outright game ending. This could be a more durable warp-prism or a faster way to get blink.
One of the main tricks, i think, are allowing Protoss flexibility without making warp-in over cliffs too good early on.
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On November 03 2010 01:00 SaDGoWu wrote:
Protoss Tech/Gas costs are kinda widly out of hand. 300/200 for just the prerequisite mothership/carrier? no wonder it's considered joke tech to only go when you already won (and almost lose going for it)
150/100 for a building that serves no purpose other than to charge me 200/200 (combat shield + stim cost) at tier 2 for charge or 150/150 for an already grossly underpowered for cost unit.
Wish i could afford dark shrine cause if dt fail to end game i failed to won game t t
Twilight Council does seem kinda redundant to me. Its a tech building that doesn't give you anything other than the chance to tech some more. Templar tech path is slow enough as it is without having the twilight council speed bump on the way. While the upgrades that are on it aren't shabby by any means it doesn't look like they are strong enough by themselves to ease the transition to HT's.
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There are some serious issues with P as a whole, mainly that it is a very inflexible race and that they can't tech spread like T or Z. Their unit strength does not represent them very well either, as both Z and T now have super highly effective 1a units (Roaches and Mauraders) that force a P to play extremely well with Forcefields, unit mixes, and tech units. Even then it's an even fight at best.
PvT is not really imbalanced; it's more of a totally stupid match-up where the T player picks his choice of 1 out of 4-5 all in strats (3 rax, Bancheese, 1 Thor all in push, 3-1-2 push, etc.) and the P guesses blindly which one it is. P guesses right, he wins automatically because the T player will be so behind. P guesses wrong, he loses. The reason why this is happening is because of a design issue with both T and P, in that P's early game is just shitty by nature, and T basically has no late game presence since Mech totally blows due to lack of mobility and getting countered by Zealots/VRs. If the Goliath existed instead of the Thor, you bet that T would be going Mech in this MU. Oh, and EMP needs to get some sort of a nerf, because P has zero counters to it at the moment.
PvZ, here is just an example of total failure of Blizzard's balancing. The 4 range Roach basically funnels the P player into playing one style, which is 4 warpgate +1 attack push. 3 Gate Expand build (which is basically the Sentry FE) will set you behind on tech, eco, etc. and is generally not very good, and 15 Nexus is just pure cheese. Forge FE no longer works, so P is really screwed here due to a real balance issue. Archons not being cost effective anymore is a pretty big issue also, not having the same splash as Archons in BW while also being just as expensive is pretty redundant.
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EPT
