[D] Why is protoss doing so bad in the GSL? - Page 8

On November 02 2010 05:11 Beyonder wrote:

Yep. You need the PERFECT unit mix to counter such stuff, and that's why Y say P is WC3. And it's really somewhat impossible to out-micro your opponent versus all their slowing and faster units. So it becomes a choice of where and when you fight 90%. Which again, is WC3.

On November 02 2010 05:30 Bairemuth wrote:
I think there are several problems with protoss that have caused it's potential to stagnate when compared to the other two races. The two things that seem like the biggest problem are: scouting and units that are too easily countered and not cost effective in many situations.

First of all, during the early game, they are the worst race in terms of scouting. Probe scouting will be easily fended off once a marine or a couple zerglings hit the map. After this, they are not able to scout until they reach T2 units (or a very long tech). They can scout with observers, hallucination, or phoenix. All of these techniques are powerful, but leave one vulnerable in the early game. Since it takes so long to employ these scouting tools, protoss basically has to play safe and hope their build order isn't hard coutnered, or they have to take a risk and gamble in some rock paper scissors.

This is very evident in RO8 with our only remaining protoss. In one game, protoss tries to go blink stalkers and did basically no scouting during this process. He lost the gamble since terran went fast cloak banshee and thus lost. In another match, protoss decides to play it "safe" with 2 gate robo. He builds an observer first, but it's already too late, he's already lost. Terran went with a fast thor with marines and protoss stands absolutely no chance. He could have built an immortal first, but doing such a thing is also a risk. An immortal is quite useless in many situations. So if terran had massed marines then that immortal is worthless.

(obviously zerg can scout easily with overlord sacs and scan, all of which can be emploied much earlier than any of the protoss options).

So basically, protoss is really forced to gamble and a lot of the victories / defeats are soley based upon build orders and not actual player skill, which is a serious design flaw in my eyes.

As I mentioned, protoss has issues scouting, but that's not the only problem. Their other problem is the fact that they have too many gimicky units that are also very risky.

Their gateway units are all great and quite effective, but other than that the other units they can choose from I consider "gimicky." Maybe this isn't the right word, but what I mean is this: their units choices are basically great against very specific situations, but against a wide variety of things could be completely useless and worthless. I really think that immortals, phoenixes, dark templar, and void rays fall under this category. All of these units will either dominate or be dominated. Below I will explain.

Immortals: dominate marauders, siege tanks, and thors. However, generally if a terran sees a strong amount of immortals, then they will quickly get a ghost and then immortals are essentially uselss and terrible in terms of cost effectiveness. Therefore, making immortals is very risky business and requires very specific timing for them to be effective. The same concept can be applied to zerg. Immortals are great against roaches and ultras, but useless everywhere else.

Phoenix: The most gimicky unit in the game really. They can harass a little bit against zerg, but really it's hard to pull this off safely because often times zerg can just go KILL you as Day9 himself has mentioned. So basically the phoenix is amazing against mutas....and not much else. Sure they are quite good for certain situations such as maybe lifting up some tanks and other things like that, but again, they are just too gimicky and are paper weights and if any vikings or corruptors come out then they become useless.

Dark Templar: Such an expensive and time consuming tech choice. Huge gas dump, you are quite vulnerable to early pushes if you don't have your DTs out yet. Once you get DTs on the field you can often win the game outright if your opponent has no detection. But more often than not, your opponent will be able to survive and then be ahead of you economically and then you have a DT shrine that is basically a waste. One could argue that they might be marginal within an army with their sick DPS, but to me they don't seem very cost effective.

Void Rays: These used to be much more gimicky of course, but now blizzard seems to be pushing them in a direction where one could use them within an actual army. But again, they are simply too expensive and too easily countered thus making them very bad in terms of cost effectiveness. Terran can easily respond with a few vikings mixed in with their MM ball and void rays are a non-issue. Void rays seem worse against zerg. Zerg just needs to mass up some queens and get hydras or corruptors or anything really.

Other units I have issues with: Colossus and Carrier. Basically, the colossus is an excellent unit especially at a critical mass. But generally, any good zerg or terran will easily scout this and counter it quite effectively with vikings / corruptors. The Colossus is at its best during a very tight timing window in which you get them out without them being scouted. The Carrier...I won't actually comment on this unit since I rarely see it, but the problem with protoss isn't this super late game anyways.

Protoss have all these units that can just be countered too hard and aren't effective enough in too many situations. With other races, you may have a certain build that your opponent has countered, but generally you can effectively respond to make your build still quite cost effective. A good example is that if you go MM and quite marauder heavy, the protoss may respond with Immortals. All you have to do is get ghosts which isn't that far away tech wise and then you are in great shape until HTs hit the field. However, it takes soooooooooooooooooooooo long for Protoss to actually be able to get HTs. I mean really...you have to build a twilight council, then templar archives, then research storm, oh and let's not forget the amulet. Sure if you get all that, then you are in great shape, but reaching that point is the problem.

Anways, TL;DR: Protoss have a problem reaching late game because of a difficulty in scouting when compared to other races, and the fact that many of their build options are too easily countered, and there aren't any proper responses to make such builds cost effective after being countered.

On November 02 2010 05:37 dcberkeley wrote:
SangHo had shitty forcefields not because forcefields are hard but because he was too greedy. Since you can FF on a placed FF, you just have to do it every 10 or so seconds but he didn't. His fault. Forcefields aren't hard if we're talking about forcefields on the ramp.

Then you have people complaining about having to go robo every game to win. Sure, it's retarded that you HAVE to stick with that build, but what's even dumber than that? SOME TOSSES DONT DO IT, watch Slayers v. Toss opponent, ITR v. Genius, etc, etc.

Tosses lose in the GSL because they fuck up. Either forcefields, being cute with no robo, etc.

On November 02 2010 05:37 dcberkeley wrote:
SangHo had shitty forcefields not because forcefields are hard but because he was too greedy. Since you can FF on a placed FF, you just have to do it every 10 or so seconds but he didn't. His fault. Forcefields aren't hard if we're talking about forcefields on the ramp.

Then you have people complaining about having to go robo every game to win. Sure, it's retarded that you HAVE to stick with that build, but what's even dumber than that? SOME TOSSES DONT DO IT, watch Slayers v. Toss opponent, ITR v. Genius, etc, etc.

Tosses lose in the GSL because they fuck up. Either forcefields, being cute with no robo, etc.

On November 02 2010 05:44 Skyze wrote:


So terran can play every matchup without a factory or starport, or zerg can play a whole game without a roach warren or spire.. but Protoss will instantly lose without a robo?? Do you see why this is not fair?

Add up the fact how EXPENSIVE earlygame it is to get a Robo, and how if you try to get a Robo then theres no way in hell you'll have enough gas to afford templar tech (esp when you need 3+ sentries to block the ramp from the impending mass marauder charge).. Its just very rough.

Thats the reason you dont see templars in the first ~20-30 minutes of a PvT, because if you get templars and they went banshees, you lose instantly because no obs.. and even if they stick with pure marauder, there is no way you'll be able to get enough storms out to do enough damage to stop them.. Protoss is FORCED to play the exact same way every game at a high level (where terrans arent stupid enough to lose to 1 voidray)

Least zerg and terran have choices. Even terran with depot before rax has way more choices than protoss. Then your sentry micro has to be PERFECT just to come out even in any fights. One missed forcefield = GG

GSL 2 shown how hard it is for any protoss to make it past any terran in high level games.

On November 02 2010 05:15 Beyonder wrote:


Yeah.. but it is so sad that PvZ and especially PvT are so unfun to watch. I hope we can get the more 'skilled stuff' such as templar drops and base warp-ins. Because right now it is all about making the right mix of units, a clicking and force fielding properly. Jippie!

A-click units are not fun to watch ..

But I think it will become better if they make protoss FE more viable, and not a rock-paper-scissors that it is now.

On November 02 2010 05:44 Skyze wrote:


So terran can play every matchup without a factory or starport, or zerg can play a whole game without a roach warren or spire.. but Protoss will instantly lose without a robo?? Do you see why this is not fair?

On November 02 2010 05:47 mols0n wrote:


QQ more fucking noob

On November 02 2010 05:50 Beyonder wrote:
Can we agree that even if protosses in the GSL2 lose quite a lot of games to fuckups, there is still a (possible) problem with the race. And this is adressed nicely by Bairemuth.

The lack of scouting possibilities is a big problem. Basically, you are always, always playing reactive unless you want to take a pretty big chance or do a 4gatelolpush...

Do people find Protoss fun to watch? -_-