TvP Lategame comment from Blizzard - Page 20

On May 04 2012 20:50 Testuser wrote:
People are really whining a lot.

I like what blizzard said here. Yes, if you as a terran allow a toss to freely turtle, you're probably gonna get smashed, and I think that is alright. It's pretty much the same if you allow a zerg to drone as much as he wants without pressuring at all.

On May 04 2012 21:03 Destructicon wrote:


That's stupid, simplistic and single minded. I haven't seen a game where the terran crippled the protoss if the protoss was in a defensive posture or if the protoss hadn't commited some horrific and idiotic mistake till then.

On May 04 2012 21:06 LF9 wrote:
That's irrelevant. Protoss can't come out and actually FIGHT Terran in the open field at that stage. An all in isn't necessary to secure a win; building a strong army and using it to get a base (or two) ahead of your opponent who can't stop your expansions is generally sufficient.

On May 04 2012 21:09 Finnz wrote:
I think i speak behalf of all the terran players in the sc2 community that if blizzard was to buff protoss early game and buff terran late game then they would be very happy with this as long as it was in reason.

On May 04 2012 21:00 LF9 wrote:
If anything is done to buff Terran's lategame vs Protoss, it will be ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to significantly buff Protoss' early and midgame against Terran. A TvP lategame buff would completely change the matchup, because Protoss' entire goal in PvT is to survive against the superior early and midgame of Terran with a decent economy, and add tech units to their army to allow them to push out, take the bases they had been denied, and start engaging in full on fights and evening the economic playing field.

Currently, Terran is a heavyweight boxer, and Protoss is an unarmed man crawling toward a handgun. T pummels P with incredible might, while P covers up and crawls towards the gun. Either A) T beats P to death before reaching the gun, B) P weathers the beatdown, grabs and loads the gun, and unloads it into T and finally kills him, or C) T beats the living daylights out of P while P struggles to get the gun, P manages to get the gun, but is so badly injured with broken bones that he is unable to wield or fire it, and T delivers the final lethal stomp to the skull.

That's the gist of the matchup, in a somewhat drawn out metaphor. Terran is at an advantage as far as setting the pace in early and midgame, and has the edge on map control as well, while Protoss can defend and hold onto their portion of the map and tech in order to break out and contest extra bases. This obviously requires "gamechanging" stuff like Templars with Storm and Colossus with Thermal Lance (by the way, the plural for Colossus is Colossus. "Colossi" is NOT a word). These must be strong enough to augment an inferior army in such a way that it can not merely survive against but PUSH BACK and ZONE OUT the opposing army.

This is very crucial to the PvT dynamic. Terran is more linear, and stim aside, doesn't have many lategame "oh shit" units; T progresses in strength in a mostly linear way, while Protoss is a little slim on the power side until a "threshold" point in the lategame where powerful units pop out that can push Terran back. This is okay, because T generally can utilize drops to keep Protoss honest, scan if necessary, and attack Protoss expansions at will with very little COMPARATIVE risk due to the fact that stimmed MM outruns anything Protoss has and Medivacs can lift units trapped by forcefields. I'm not saying Terran has mass recall, but they can attack without making a serious commitment in the way that Protoss must. With lower risk attacks and harassment drops, T can keep P in check, apply firm and consistent pressure to keep P resources flowing into army rather than economy, and expand & add production behind this. The floating building ability adds to this; a CC being built behind a wall in somewhere in the main (say, on Shakuras) is MUCH less risky than a Nexus just warping in at a third. Terran CAN obviously build expos on location, but if necessary, they can build them behind safe walls, morph to orbital and utilize macro mechanics until it's safe, and land at the expo and let it rain MULEs.

This may all make it seem like I think Terran is overpowered; I don't. I just think that Terran has many opportunities to get "ahead" early with lower risk aggression, and Protoss has a powerful lategame to rest on, and just HOW powerful that lategame is depends ENTIRELY upon how P did against T in the earlier stages.

If P survives with a crippled economy on 2 bases, they get steamrolled by 3/3 MMM, Ghosts, Vikings, and the kitchen sink. If P snipes a dropship, manages to outmicro T and kill his entire army in an early engagement at the natural, and just takes an early third, his lategame will be STUPID good and crush T. However, if both P and T are diligent about upgrades, Terran drops a couple of times with moderate success (doesn't lose dropship/all marines, kills 2 or 3 units, and forces P to run his probes away from the mineral line) and shows a strong presence at the front door of P's natural with MMM, the game is pretty much even. In that situation, Protoss has to invest heavily in army to break out with upgraded gateway units and possibly a few Robo units in order to take a third, because of being somewhat behind due to harass delaying the 3rd and forcing more units. T generally has more bases at this point and is ramping up production while P scrambles to reach desired tech option. This is what generally makes for an even game. It comes down to micro, decisions, positioning, etc.

Protoss has a bigger obligation to defend his workers, and this gap increases as the game goes on because a maxed Terran with 6 Orbitals would probably be glad to have a few SCVs get killed just to free up supply; at this point, mineral bank plus MULEs coming down like a monsoon makes for a solid economic situation capable of supporting seemingly endless production cycles. Protoss, while certainly capable of pushing a T army around by forcing him to dodge storms or waste medivac energy, isn't at such a giant advantage as some incensed Terran players proclaim.

Even the most PERFECTLY placed storm is no guarantee; it's always possible to split, dodge, etc. EMP, however, is instant. It doesn't take X number of seconds to deal damage like storm, it simply strips the P units of an INSANE number of shield energy. Don't underestimate this; shields regenerate, but that doesn't mean much in a battle. Stripping a P unit of shields is the equivalent of instantly reducing it to half health. Since it's instant, even the best Protoss' can't do anything once the spell has actually been cast, and must be diligent to keep multiple observers in the field. That doesn't even take into account the energy eliminating effect of EMP; HTs are the DPS backbone of a PvT army that isn't relying on Colossus; if an EMP lands that strips all energy from EVERY HT, that engagement is lost for Protoss by a landslide, and if Terran is able to, with scans and a few vikings, kill the observers, this is almost a certainty.

I know what you may be thinking at this point; "yes, but Protoss is also capable, potentially, of feedbacking every medivac, possibly forcefielding the T army, and simply killing it with storms, chargelots, colossus. What's the difference?" The difference lies in the production. A beginner might conclude that Protoss is at an advantage due to the ability to warp in Zealots, Templars, Stalkers, or Sentries immediately after the engagement, mass chronoboost all the warpgate cooldowns, and repeat. But it still takes a bit to replace a maxed army if you're on a reasonable (not more than 20ish or so) number of WGs, and Terran units don't build THAT much slower.

But there is a MUCH bigger point here that must be realized. Everyone knows why Zealots are such great reinforcement units lategame; because P generally doesn't have mass Robos, and it's SO much faster to warp in Zealots than wait for Colossus type units to build, one by one. The waiting game. This applies to the PvT matchup in a HUGE way lategame, and not in regards to Colossus. It has to do with energy; High Templar and Sentries.

Terran wants Marines, Marauders, Medivacs, and Ghosts now (remember, all the Colossus are dead, this is the second engagement). Marines and Medivacs can be built in larger numbers than Ghosts because of Reactors, and there is no threshold energy number of the "heal" spell; if they have energy, they heal. They also have a more starting energy upgrade, which is insanely useful lategame, and something Templars lack. Protoss wants Zeals, Templars, Sentries, and some Stalkers. Even if P is smart and makes the Templars and Sentries first to get them building energy, it's a while before storm (now the main DPS of the army) and guardian shield (not blanketing your army with these against lategame stimmed bio is insane) are ready, and when they are, it's short in number. This is the main offense and defense. Compare the armies with regards to what they have at the outset after remaxing quickly vs what they have to wait for. Terran: Marines and Marauders can immediately stim (main damage) and medivacs have the extra starting energy upgrade, Ghosts can snipe (all that's needed against HTs, really) but not immediately EMP. Protoss: Zealots are Zealots, Stalkers are Stalkers, and each Sentry can use one forcefield, but HTs can't storm immediately, and Sentries can't use guardian shield.

Think of the implications. Think of a full on lategame scenario where both P and T have mass production and plenty of resources and keep slamming maxed armies into each other, fighting their hearts out, and reinforcing and repeating the process. The crucial factor hear is energy buildup. The clock is in Terran's favor, actually. As these remaxes happen, Protoss can't afford to wait for Storm against a constant barrage of medium energy medivacs supporting Marines and Marauders with stim available. Morphing HTs into Archons is the only sane solution as a gas sink, and this means that T can actually make some ghosts and let them build up energy because there is no threat of storm. Archons and Zealots can be kited, and they are currently P's main source of damage output. Morphing a few Templar just to feedback some medivacs helps, but Protoss has no opportunity to attack anything but Terran units, while Terran can kill P structures if the fight takes place near them, being ranged units.

With all this in mind, it boils down to stim Marine Marauder with extra starting energy medivacs against Zealots and Archons, because all of Protoss' main damage sources take time; Colossus need time to build, Storm needs time for energy to charge. Marines and Marauders ARE Terran's backbone damage source, and they come out of the gate with stim. This lategame scenario boils down to one army being able to spam his core damage dealing units against the other army only able to spam his damage tanking units. If that happens, P starts losing buildings, losing production, possibly even losing tech structures. Losing any sort of production starts a landslide, which is game over right there. But even if the armies just fight, realistically, the Zeals and Archons are going to die and the MMM will have some survivors. If this keeps happening, it's a snowball effect. If T keeps having a midsized army left while P has to remake everything, T can build ghosts, which build up energy, and medivacs build energy, and each sequential engagement becomes more and more one sided until it's a steamroll right into P's production.

Most engagement don't seem to go this way, for some reason. I honestly think it's micro. Unless you're MarineKing, it's insanely hard to split/dodge storms at a moment's notice, while kiting, while trying to land EMPs on the P army, while trying to snipe HTs, etc. But even a lot of pro Terrans don't EMP offensively, as most of the time I see it used in pro games it's used as an AoE energy strip to avoid getting stormed. But EMP the whole army, and it's butter. It seems that lategame TvP actually IS balanced, it's just the simple fact that in this matchup, in the lategame battles, Terran simply requires a LOT more micro to utilize than Protoss. That's just a simple fact, and if you disagree, watch MarineKing play lategame against Parting, then watch a long PvT of some random pros.

TvP lategame is HARD, but by no means underpowered. If this difficulty is prohibitive and acts as a de facto nerf, then it would be wisest to make the army easier to utilize, not make it stronger, because then when Flash comes to SC2 and actually CAN use T's full lategame potential, battle.net will explode.

The main point that I MUST emphasize is that PvT lategame is entirely dependent on the midgame and how it plays out. Protoss must have tools because hitting the lategame in PvT is like staging a comeback, because P is "behind" by definition. If Terran's lategame vs Protoss is buffed, then the entire matchup is futile and wrong; instead of hiding and playing safe to wait for that strong weapon to break out, fight, and expand, Protoss would be left to hide and turtle until they get their lategame weapon, then come out and . . . get instantly demolished because now Terran has one, too, and has been ahead all game to boot. IF TvP is buffed lategame, then it's absolutely ESSENTIAL that PvT get a buff to early and midgame to compensate, so at least the two races are on equal footing.


Edit: Sorry for the giant frickin' essay, I just started writing and had to get the entire thought out. Much respect if you actually read the entire thing and digest it.

On May 04 2012 21:13 SarcasmMonster wrote:


What would the Zergs think of this? Balance is not that simple.

On May 04 2012 20:50 Testuser wrote:
People are really whining a lot.

I like what blizzard said here. Yes, if you as a terran allow a toss to freely turtle, you're probably gonna get smashed, and I think that is alright. It's pretty much the same if you allow a zerg to drone as much as he wants without pressuring at all.