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I agree with a lot of the points people are making in this thread, so calm down with the hate please 
I agree building lings and marines and microing lings and marines and mutas probably inflates APM.
I agree that APM doesn't equal skill. I never said that Protosses are bad at the game because they have low APM.
All I'm saying is that to me, it seems like while Zerg is scouting around for proxy pylons with lings and injecting larva at multiple bases every 40 seconds and spreading creep and spreading overlords and making drones and units and taking extra bases and making extra macro hatcheries, Protoss is sitting in his base making probes, the occasional building, warping in units every 40 seconds, and chronoboosting (when he remembers).
To me, this seems like Zerg has to do more than Protoss. Is it too bold to say that Zerg is mechanically harder than Protoss?
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On September 24 2011 14:00 StatX wrote:
the main difference of APM between protoss and the other races is that protoss doesnt require larva handling or add on swapping.
Larve injecting and add-on swapping have protoss component(s). Namely Chrono boosting and the pylon radius mechanic. They are unrelated, but the idea of equality is there.
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On September 24 2011 14:02 Cambam wrote:
To me, this seems like Zerg has to do more than Protoss. Is it too bold to say that Zerg is mechanically harder than Protoss?
Yes. It is. Because it is incorrect.
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When spraying an area with IT gets "rewarded" the same by the APM tab as good blink micro I sometimes want to throttle said tab.
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Protoss is indeed the easiest race.... but not the strongest race..... p can do more with the same low apm but can do less with the same high apm than t n z.... i wonder if people understand what am i talking about....
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On September 24 2011 14:02 Cambam wrote:I agree with a lot of the points people are making in this thread, so calm down with the hate please I agree building lings and marines and microing lings and marines and mutas probably inflates APM. I agree that APM doesn't equal skill. I never said that Protosses are bad at the game because they have low APM. All I'm saying is that to me, it seems like while Zerg is scouting around for proxy pylons with lings and injecting larva at multiple bases every 40 seconds and spreading creep and spreading overlords and making drones and units and taking extra bases and making extra macro hatcheries, Protoss is sitting in his base making probes, the occasional building, warping in units every 40 seconds, and chronoboosting (when he remembers). To me, this seems like Zerg has to do more than Protoss. Is it too bold to say that Zerg is mechanically harder than Protoss?
I wonder.. who actually forced you to play Zerg.
Care about your own race if you choose it because you like to play it do that.
I went from T to P because Protoss just looks way more awesome
but supposedly i would be on an equal skill level by now if i had started with zerg
from the beginning aswell.
E: And no, it ain't to bold because it's true. But while you spread your creep freely it gives you a decent advantage throughout the whole game. And if you let the protoss camp/turtle up all the way through until 200/200 and complain afterwards that would be your own fault.
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Northern Ireland27469 Posts
Protoss don't have superfast, 25 mineral, .5 supply units that they can run around the place to scout for things, it's not something that as a race they can viably do. Their strength generally comes from their tech and strong unit comps that work well together.
Protoss is meant to play differently from Zerg, I genuinely don't think it's any easier or more difficult.
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The 2nd to last paragraph in the original post is atrocious, it has absolutely no place in your topic. It might not necessarily be wrong, but it's certainly not correct or a properly collected "empirical evidence."
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On September 24 2011 13:57 Ju!cy wrote:
If Protoss was indeed the easiest race, why don't all Pros switch to Protoss then?
Cheers
There's a difference between being easiest to play and being strongest.
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Maybe it's because protoss APM is more concentrated. If a race is considered easy, then it should dominate. Protoss has always been considered easy even in BW, yet it's the race that struggles the most at the highest levels.
Which leads people to say Protoss has the least skilled players. Yet the high APM Zerg and Terran have is mostly centered around their macro(building stuff and larva injects). When it comes down to micro-ing armies I say Protoss requires more actions.
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On September 24 2011 13:14 lazyo wrote:
Ahem, playing zerg will always push your apm up, because when spamming units by holding down hotkeys every unit you make gets counted as one action.
Similarly, terrans generally make a lot more units unless they are going mech (which is also just hotkey repetition). Terrans also use stim a lot which is again just a hotkey press.
On the other hand, protoss generally makes much less units and except forcefields only starts using spells/abilites in the midgame. Also, they often use only 2 production buildings with a robo producing collossi requiring very little apm to continually produce from. Couple that with the fact that you have to change your camera location for every warpin and that's alot of the explaination right there..
Pretty menaingless data really.
Thank you. You saved me from rofling over the OPs analysis. He gave us some really sound data (great work, OP) then jumped to a conclusion. Before we infer the ease of playing a race based off of required APM, I think we need more discussion like that from lazyo.
A zerg going ling-infestor simply makes more units when playing against a toss. The push 'z' many more times than a toss needs to push any button to make a unit. Does this make Zerg harder to play? As a former random player, I felt no difficulty spamming 32 lings at the same time.
tl'dr Thank you for your research, but why the need for sensationalism in your analysis? Ease of play requires us to look, not only at speed, but at care of our units. Given the high expense and non-spammability of toss units, a lot of the skill required to play the race, imo, comes from eking out the most value from your units. Speed helps with this, but brains (positioning/knowing when to retreat) help as well.
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With the current meta-game multitasking I feel reward Terrans and Zergs alot more than Protoss. Terrans harass alot more, so drop ships, helions, and what not are moving all over the map. Zergs always have something to do, larva inject, creep spread, overloard spreading, and what not. Not many protoss's, on ladder at least, do as many tasks.
I haven't played alot on ladder this past week so I'm not sure how the new patch effects this...whether or not hellions are still used alot and if warp prisms are being used at all.
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On September 24 2011 13:04 darkness wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2011 13:02 Nothingtosay wrote:
Just because protoss requires less apm doesn't mean it is easier. This. It needs to be understood. Moreover, <1000 reps aren't enough to judge the whole race.
If you knew about statistics you would know that his sample size was actually pretty acceptable... It does represent very well all the razes there are.
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this is a personal observation but,
it's odd but i do play protoss like how i tend to play zerg, when flipping through control groups of hatcheries to check inject progress.
it would be similar in how i flip nexus groups to watch chronoboost as i don't ever really like having above 25-50 en.
however, protoss has been my race of choice. i play random but notice small details about the races i play and the level of comfort i have for each. it is more interesting to me because i use the same sort of hotkeys across the board.
i feel that i'm most confident with terran,
fastest with zerg,
slowest with protoss, being what i perceive to be my worst race.
it is hard for me to understand when to make a specific group of units, and the lack of foresight or planning causes me to be slower in general.
there are a lot of other things i notice, but i have a good feeling of how my apm for each race and matchup has solidified,
250~350 as terran, 290~380 as zerg, 200~330 as protoss
and now with the patch, i don't really feel as though much has changed about that over the few games i played.
overall, its been a very odd feeling, and playing random has affected how i play as each race option. protoss is still difficult for me to read and to play as. it can be difficult to react and to play from behind.... yet some of the goody protoss builds are so simple to execute.... 2 gate/3gate robo, 4 gate w/gasses
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mmm i play all races until i got another portrait. My apm with zerg in non combat situation is higher by around 50% then toss, while my terran apm is around 20% higher then my toss apm. I wouldn't give alot on standard apm. Since personally i consider zerg the easiest race in a non combat situation. (though the most apm taking)
Injection and tumor mechanics, distract the apm a zerg get for those and they will be below the terra, even if you take away scan and mules. Also terran and zerg produce more 1 food units, (so in short 2 clicks where toss does 1).
Take the macro out and i guess the toss will be higher in apm then the other 2 races. (zerg probably the lowest, but thats only due to the current playstyle zerg prefers.)
the toss is the easiest race is a myth carried over from bw. The apm analysis is not surprising considering how the races are build and has no say in the matter, that a toss players have it easier. My in battle apm for toss is by far the highest, while zerg isn't close to it. Does that mean zerg is the easiest race to play since it basically means zerg is a click? (my zerg opponents are even worse then me when it comes to in battle apm, you don't even notice that they are in battle)
I wouldn't think so, the races are designed to be different, so while zerg macro take more apm, their battle takes less. Basically that way it is quiet easy to make the races feel different and you notice that it was done this way quiet easy.
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On September 24 2011 13:26 Medrea wrote:
These numbers do not prove anything except that APM measuring means nothing.
I play all three races at reasonably similar levels. When I play zerg, my APM is measured higher. Does that mean I am better at it? FUCK NO! It doesn't even mean I am working harder. Honestly I think zerg and terran "train" marine and zerglings add a lot of inflation to the APM count.
"Protoss EZPZ" is retarded. All this "mechanics" and shit is just bullcrap.
As a former random player, "Amen, brother."
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think about hwo many more units zerg has compared to protoss, u make lings u move 4 lings (2 supply) is 4 movements. u move 1 zealot (2 supply) is 1 action. Zerg just gets more apm cause they have more stuff, mechanically they all haev their differences in races. Terran imo has the most to do and the most to gain from high apm (stutter, split); (ghosts emp and snipe correctly, then will just rape the fight). Zerg has to spread creep and inject larvae every 40 seconds sure. Protoss has to use their chronoboost. Zerg is probably slightly harder to keep up with, but is it something that is "mechanically more difficult?" I wouldn't quite agree seeing that it's really not that hard. I only play zerg once in a while, and I do haev trouble late game keeping up, but I'm sure if you are used to it it's something that you can do easily.
What did I just say in this long block? Every race has their own mechanics where if looked at, doesn't necessarily seem easier for any one race.
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On September 24 2011 12:55 Cambam wrote:I thought this was neat because it lends support to the idea that Protoss is the easiest race. I know many people already believe this, but many Protoss players out there are in denial. These results, of course, aren't the final word on the issue, but they are piece of objective, empirical evidence in support of the "Protoss is EZPZ" hypothesis 
Way to take some interesting statistics and then totally throw all credibility out the window and turn this into a joke thread. I know you're probably joking/being sarcastic, hence the winking face, but stuff like this still should just remain excluded. It's not needed and is just plain juvenile.
On September 24 2011 13:08 Snorkle wrote:
I don't think this is thread worthy. But your mlg info is skewed because the top talent there (koreans) were heavily representing terran and zerg.
I'd have to agree with this, I'm tired of seeing all these "statistics" threads using incredibly limited data to draw conclusions as to how each race operates. 200 ladder games is such a small amount of data that it's essentially meaningless, and the MLG data, as you mentioned, is skewed because of the players that were present.
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On September 24 2011 13:33 absalom86 wrote:
Is this some kind of stealth protoss hate post ? Latter part of the OP sounds a lot like it, some harsh words.
I think the main reason protoss is the lowest apm is because their units are slow, cumbersome and clumsy. Zerg apm is inflated with the 5sd5sd, creep tumor spreading, injecting and especially ling micro early game.
Protoss has no real map presence early game, so they don't really start with any apm at all. You don't run your zealots around checking stuff out and such, and terran units are very microable. The most active protoss unit is probably the pheonix and it doesn't really see much use compared to zergs and terrans fast units ( mutalisks, speedlings, marines, hellions, banshees etc. ).
Protoss is the slow race, dead set race which relies on timing attacks and only has certain windows to even be able to move around the map without being surrounded by lings or cleaned up by a bio ball.
Good point. We're doomed to "hold position" micro for our first zealot as the lings bounce back and forth. 
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Protoss may be the easiest to learn but it's the hardest to master.
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EPT
