The state of Protoss in LotV - Page 3

Clear World

125 Posts

April 13 2015 23:53 GMT

#41

On April 14 2015 04:30 robopork wrote:
There's a lot of opportunity here provided they don't just revert changes. The bandaids have been pulled off and the hole in protoss has been exposed. There are probably a lot of possible solutions but it's tough for me to envision one that doesn't involve reworking warpgate and gateway units. That seems like the obvious next step.

Edit: I don't think reworking the immortal is the solution, it just seems like another bandaid. Do away with forcefields, remove/delay warpgate, and give flat stat boosts to gateway units. Proxy's have already been massively nerfed, which was the reason they increased gateway build times in the first place. This is the perfect opportunity to try that and it's something that's been harped on for years now.

Everyone knew about these glaring holes of the Protoss Gateway units. It's been long stated and long hated. The protoss gimmicky all-in style or Deathball syndrome are due to the weak gateway units and abuse of Warpgate to get the slightest edge possible. But a rework is something I believe is not a requirement to help push Protoss away from their style that is frowned upon by the community. Their tier 3 units are a clutch Protoss, and I personally believe that the Stalkers does nothing but make the entire situation worst for their lack of unable to fight any race in fair trades. Generally by the time when Stalkers are able to be losing as much as they are killing, they are already past the point in which they will simply overpower the enemy and abuse both Force-field and blinks to not lose anything, making the stalkers the worst offenders of the Protoss army at forcing the All-In situation. But if the other gateway units were decent, then all-in and Deathball would not be their only solutions. They could actually force strategic battles for once.

And here's why I think that. Please stop ignoring the darn Zealot. Zealots are a great unit in battle. They are tanky and have good DPS. And here is a bigger shocker, they can actually trade effectively with almost every lower tier unit (marine, marauder, zergling, roaches, ravagers, hydralisk, stalkers, immortal, adepts). The only problem, this is assuming if they could ever reach their target. If Protoss is only losing Zealots when killing the enemy units, you can actually break even in resource lost or even ahead, making the battle strategic for once. And since Zealots are strong against most mobile small packs and rather cheap in the grand scheme, losing them isn't soul crushing and generally, they could take out enough enemy units to maybe break-even.

If Zealot could actually contribute in battles, Protoss just needs to fill 1 real ninch, high DPS (something that makes Stalkers and Zealot synergy worthless since Stalkers doesn't provide the DPS). Adept don't need to be super mobile or tough since they have Zealots being the meat shield and the engagers. They don't need to be the bandaid to marine/marudar/roach/ravager/hydralisk packs, because zealots can actually hold those units at a bay.

So if I had to envision a way to improve Protoss early-mid game without reworking Warpgate and without making lategame deathball overpowered, it would go like this: (check in spoiler)

+ Show Spoiler +

Zealot
Simple goal. If Zealots could actually reach their target, they can actually make cost effective trade assuming they have Adepts to back them up. This shouldn't have much late game impact because either most player already got the upgrade by that time or didn't built Zealots to begin with.
- Charge upgrade is now researched at Cybernetic Core

Stalker
The change here is just to help deflect air harass. Not counter but deflect Muta, Banshee, or drop play. Also, once again should not have much of a late game effect since what race uses light air-units in large scale battle. I don't believe Muta are used in that fashion. Once again, making the Gateway unit more viable without making deahball more threatening
- Now has an air attack and ground attack. Ground attack is the exact same.
- Air attack deals 14 damage instead of 10 (+ 4 vs armor)

Adept
This could go either way, but I would wish they did something like this over just making the Adept a high single target DPS unit. By making it more of a soft-AoE DPS unit, it makes it more different from the marie and Hydralisk, while still performing the same task. Also, the bounce is only meant to go after units 'behind' the target and not to the sides. I rather see this because I believe the higher DPS units generally are in the back line instead of the front.
- Fragile. Relativity squishy for their cost, but not near Sentry level of squishy for cost.
- Attack animation improved to be quicker and swifter
- Changed to be more of a soft-AoE DPS unit (it doesn't need to be super quick attacks, but hopefully faster than the stalker's attack rate)
-- Single target DPS will be low (maybe slightly above Stalker DPS against non-armor units)
-- Total DPS will be higher due to: Adept's basic attack bounces one in a 135 degree angle behind their initial target, dealing ~60% of the Adept's damage to the second target.
--- Shockwave upgrade now improves Adept's basic attack to split into 2 instead of 1 (both still doing ~60% damage) and increase Adept's attack range by 1 (making total 5 range).
- Psionic Transfer can now end prematurely if casted a second time within 8 seconds.

There are other changes I would want to make like modify Sentry with removal of Forcefield and nerf/change Colossus and Disruptor, but that's a completely different story with a bunch of other changes. In terms of balance, I'm not sure how well it would work, but in theory, this should allow Protoss a much stronger early game with having almost zero impact in the late game. The only real impact would be how well the Adept becomes the core unit, and if they are good, then it would be reasonable to nerf the tier 3 units so Protoss becomes less reliant on them to win.

robopork

United States511 Posts

April 14 2015 00:56 GMT

#42

On April 14 2015 08:53 Clear World wrote:

Show nested quote +

Let's be frank, everyone knew about these glaring holes of the Protoss Gateway units. It's been long stated and long hated. The protoss gimmicky all-in style or Deathball syndrome are due to the weak gateway units and abuse of Warpgate to get the slightest edge possible. But a rework is something I believe is not a requirement to help push Protoss away from their all so style that is frowned upon by the community. Their tier 3 units are a clutch Protoss, but if the gateway units were decent, then all-in and Deathball would not be their only solutions. They could actually force strategic battles for once.

And here's why I think that. Bizzard and many people within the community needs to stop ignoring the darn Zealot. Zealots are a great unit in battle. They are tanky and have good DPS. And here is a bigger shocker, they can actually trade effectively with almost every lower tier unit (marine, marauder, zergling, roaches, ravagers, hydralisk, stalkers, immortal, adepts). The only problem, this is assuming if they could ever reach their target without taking heavy lost. If Protoss is only losing Zealots when killing the enemy units, you can actually break even in resource lost or even ahead, making the battle strategic for once.

If Zealot could actually contribute in battles, Protoss just needs to fill 1 real ninch, high DPS. Adept don't need to be super mobile or tough since they have Zealots being the meat shield. They don't need to be the bandaid to marine/marudar/roach/ravager/hydralisk packs, because zealots can actually hold those units at a bay.

So if I had to envision a way to improve Protoss early-mid game without reworking Warpgate and without making lategame deathball overpowered, it would go like this: (check in spoiler)

+ Show Spoiler +

Zealot
Simple goal. If Zealots could actually reach their target, they can actually make cost effective trade assuming they have Adepts to back them up. This shouldn't have much late game impact because either most player already got the upgrade by that time or didn't built Zealots to begin with.
- Charge upgrade is now researched at Cybernetic Core

Stalker
The change here is just to help deflect air harass. Not counter but deflect Muta, Banshee, or drop play. Also, once again should not have much of a late game effect since what race uses light air-units in large scale battle. I don't believe Muta are used in that fashion. Once again, making the Gateway unit more viable without making deahball more threatening
- Now has an air attack and ground attack. Ground attack is the exact same.
- Air attack deals 14 damage instead of 10 (+ 4 vs armor)

Adept
This could go either way, but I would wish they did something like this over just making the Adept a high single target DPS unit. By making it more of a soft-AoE DPS unit, it makes it more different from the marie and Hydralisk, while still performing the same task. Also, the bounce is only meant to go after units 'behind' the target and not to the sides. I rather see this because I believe the higher DPS units generally are in the back line instead of the front.
- Fragile. Relativity squishy for their cost, but not near Sentry level of squishy for cost.
- Attack animation improved to be quicker and swifter
- Changed to be more of a soft-AoE DPS unit through quick attacks
-- Single target DPS will be low (somewhere around Stalker DPS against Non-armor units)
-- Total DPS will be higher due to: Adept's basic attack bounces one in a 135 degree angle behind their initial target, dealing ~50% of the Adept's damage to the second target.
--- Shockwave upgrade now improves Adept's basic attack to split into 2 instead of 1 (both still doing ~50% damage) and increase Adept's attack range by 1.
- Psionic Transfer can now end prematurely if casted a second time within 8 seconds.

There are other changes I would want to make like modify Sentry and nerf/change Colossus and Disruptor, but that's a completely different story. In terms of balance, I'm not sure how well it would work, but in theory, this should allow Protoss a much stronger early game with having almost zero impact in the late game. The only real impact would be how well the Adept becomes the core unit, and if they are good, then it would be reasonable to nerf the tier 3 units so Protoss becomes less reliant on them to win.

It's simpler, definitely. But warpgate places a comparatively low ceiling on how good the units produced from it can be. As you said, this isn't a new or even disputed discussion for the most part so I won't waste space reconstructing the whole argument.

But it follows that you can't make warpgate units good enough to defend and have them be weak enough to not break the game when attacking, so as interesting as putting charge in the cybernetics core could be I think you're still going to run into the same problem; without true defender's advantage, just right in one area = all fucked up in another, unless you make other units that don't benefit from warpgate in the same way disproportionately powerful (e.g. sentry, colossus).

So we nerfed our heavy hitters and protoss is weak, no surprises there. It's also true, though, that weaker late game options make it possible to buff early game units and have a deathball that, at least on paper, is about as strong. But to do that we need defender's advantage. So warpgate has to go or change pretty radically.

The reason I think the time is now is that we have already upset that delicate balance of unit interactions, not just with protoss but the other races as well, and unless we give up and revert the changes there's going to be re balancing effort expended. I think it should focus on the core units, as far as protoss is concerned, rather than trying to come up with a solution through higher tech units that's interesting and reliable, as well as versatile enough for protoss to keep up in this fast paced expansion gobbling environment ( I don't think any one unit can be all of those things, and it's probably going to err on the side of being lame because balance is something you can quantify).

Honestly I'm not sure I'm right about all of this, but it's the way it looks from where I'm sitting. If we appreciate how much of the game is up in the air and how deep some of the changes run, it doesn't seem like that much more work to at least test these changes and see how they play out.

Edit: I should qualify the statement about deathballs on paper by saying that the big picture goal here is to work away from deathballs, open up more options, and create dynamic spread out gameplay, while keeping the deathball that could ultimately form manageable.

avilo

United States4100 Posts

April 14 2015 01:07 GMT

#43

I still think only reason Protoss appears weaker is because of the economy. If they adjust the economy to not punish defensive play like that recent TL article explains...but reward expanding, then Protoss will be perfectly fine, same with mech Terran.

It's just right now LOTV economy is what i like to call "The gun to your head" economy. You expand asap or you basically die.

If blizzard tests that double harvest economy proposed / tested by the TL guys and such, i bet Protoss will be in a good spot and that defensive strats will be just as viable as offensive ones.

ZeromuS

Canada13388 Posts

April 14 2015 01:22 GMT

#44

On April 14 2015 10:07 avilo wrote:
I still think only reason Protoss appears weaker is because of the economy. If they adjust the economy to not punish defensive play like that recent TL article explains...but reward expanding, then Protoss will be perfectly fine, same with mech Terran.

It's just right now LOTV economy is what i like to call "The gun to your head" economy. You expand asap or you basically die.

If blizzard tests that double harvest economy proposed / tested by the TL guys and such, i bet Protoss will be in a good spot and that defensive strats will be just as viable as offensive ones.

That is part of the reason we wrote it.

I think on the surface though it seems like protoss needs unit changes.

Part of the problem is also that Protoss needs something like blink to make stalkers really good but they can't get it in time with the speed of the current economy. So if they commit to the current economy stalkers will need to be better at fighting light units specifically (because of Z) or a big buff to blink research time to support a third base with blink stalkers.

The other problem is also that protoss units cost a lot, and need research which the economy doesnt support. Maybe if we had power units good enough that they could trade against other races even when down on econ (even better collossus never gonna happen) we could expo as toss.

I mean protoss has some GREAT harass options. We just dont have good expand options. So since we can't keep up in expansions Protoss falls behind really hard (especially when turrets are so early and spores). Love or hate oracles and disruptors these are the only two high impact harass units protoss has to "level" out the economy when the thirds and fourths are so late for toss.

Its a lot of things but I really feel like the economy more than anything else has hurt protoss and by extension mech. Except cyclones are really really good, so i guess mech can be mobile now.

But I really dont think heavy tank space control mech will work in LotV. And I wouldnt be surprised if you noticed this.

Clear World

125 Posts

April 14 2015 02:03 GMT

#45

I feel like you are using the crappiness of the Stalker trading potential to put some blame on Warpgate and then why Protoss 'must' have this very powerful unit outside of Warpgate. Let me just give some example on trading resources during battle and why being too focus on the Stalker is really skewing all this information in believing that Protoss 'requires' a powerful non-gateway unit.

To make this simple, let's just say 2 gas = 1 mineral in cost (because I think that's how people still views it).

Now in this given example, say you are moving 4 Stalkers on the field and come by 8 marines (with stim). In a direct battle with almost no mirco, 8 marines would destroy those 4 stalkers hands down with 4-3 marines still living. They lost around 200 resources and you lost around 900 resources. Now that is a terrible trade and is in all favor of the Terran.

Now in the same example, let's say you somehow completely out-mirco the 8 terrans with your 4 stalkers, killing all 8 marines (with stim) and saving 2 stalkers. You still lose this trade. They only lost 400 resource while you lost 450 resource. Though, this is really hard to do even with blink mirco. Without Blink, it's impossible.

Now, instead of 4 stalkers, you have 4 Zealots (with charge) against the 8 marines (with stim & shield). In a direct battle with almost zero mirco, the 4 zealots would destroy the 8 marines and probably have 2 of them still alive. You only lost 200 resource and they lose 400 resource. You win this trade easily.

But now let's those 8 marines micoo like a boss and kills every zealot and managing to keep at least 2 of their marine alive. You lost 400 resources and they lost 300 resource. Trading resource here, you don't come out that far behind and this is more or less assuming they are like micro kings.

This is just an example, and with marines but the same sort of holds true against any lower tier unit. You could lose 2 zealots and that would be better than losing 1 Stalker. The bigger difference here is that, 2 zealots can absorb twice as much damage, and dish out 4 times the damage of 1 Stalker. The only reason why people don't use zealots in the early game is because, they are kited by everything and so hard that their much higher DPS is basically 0 making them worthless and making the Stalkers better since they can actually deal damage.

And here's another thing I think you overlook, if Zealots could finally participate in most battles, you can use Zealot to be the sacrificial lamb and keep your more expensive out of harms way. And I'm talking about large scale battles around like 15-25 units. The Zealots would be able to put in their high DPS and absorbing roughly the same amount of damage as a Stalker, all while doing it on like half the cost of a Stalker. If you're about to lost the fight, let the Zealot die and allow your 2x more expensive unit run to their safety.

If you want to talk about needing powerful units, than this is a huge buff for Protoss if their tanky, strong DPS front line unit if they could actually contribute. Zealot may not be the cheapest or strongest units in the game, but compared to the Stalker, Zealots are so cheap and powerful.

People like to say, Protoss gateway units can't trade effectively. I rather say, Stalkers can't trade effectively and since they generally is the Protoss main damage output for most of the early game, this causes Protoss to look awful at trading.

avilo

United States4100 Posts

April 14 2015 02:17 GMT

#46

On April 14 2015 10:22 ZeromuS wrote:

Show nested quote +

In regards to mech, from my experience so far, a lot of the games that go lategame half my army is like mass tanks, the other half cyclones, very similar to bw tank/goliath. Lots of people go for the pure mass cyclone/hellion with almost no tanks, but i think that is really weak imo vs people that know how to take advantage.

On April 14 2015 08:44 DinoMight wrote:

Show nested quote +

A unit that's only really viable if used with a Warp Prism. So Zerg goes Muta and shuts that down.

My point is that Protoss had a number of tools it could use to dictate the pace of the game early. Now with the 3-4 base before anything happens economy, Zerg's "late game" tech switches happen much earlier. So if you don't get Ravager all-inned, by the time you have any tech to speak of Zerg can already very comfortably counter it.

From all my off-race PvZ games...when i'm P i feel like Zerg is invincible and on 4 base and i'm stuck on 2, or that Z can use ravager + speedlings to just deny 3rd for so long that by the time you can maybe get 3rd nexus Z is on 5 base with high tech as you said lol

ZeromuS

Canada13388 Posts

April 14 2015 02:34 GMT

#47

On April 14 2015 11:17 avilo wrote:

Show nested quote +

On April 14 2015 10:22 ZeromuS wrote:

Show nested quote +

Well youve got cyclones to pressure the map I guess

GoodRamen

United States713 Posts

April 14 2015 03:12 GMT

#48

What do people think about this post.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/15690578935

The op made some very good points about protoss.

Redfish

United States142 Posts

April 14 2015 04:06 GMT

#49

On April 13 2015 10:46 Honeybadger wrote:
I just see a lot of meta complaining without actually waiting to see how things work. If adepts prove strong enough, they could be excellent harass defenders paired with a DEFENSIVE warp in behind the mineral line. You don't NEED to put your warp ins right in front of his army, in fact, that should be as stupid as it sounds.

The thing is blizzard WANTS protoss to stop being so clumpy and slow. The beta is very much going to be in flux, and we're likely to see changes made. But right now, very, very clearly, blizzard is most interested in the new economy.

So while I do agree that protoss is certainly the odd one out, being forced to rethink unit comps moreso than terran or zerg, I don't think the game has been broken. Meta wank is always the absolute nadir of this game, and it just never, ever plays out according to how things "should" be. discussing theoretical potentials of composition and structure/economy just do not EVER translate to core gameplay.

Stop going off the rails and bitching at blizzard. Provide clean feedback based on what you are seeing in a way that makes their job (which is providing us with a good game, not just pissing specifically on your shoes for a laugh) easier to do, not combing through miles of speculative nonsense.

As it stands, I think the economy is causing more problems than the unit comp for all races equally, maybe SLIGHTLY less so for zerg, but the DRG vs yoda style of crashing waves of units on a fortress is weakened just as much.

That said, lurkers shouldn't outrange colossus. That is kind of stupid.

Show nested quote +

But the thing is, protoss is not in a position with the current meta for that to be a huge problem. Protoss is already one of the most forgiving races for new players and still performs very well at the pro level. So this kind of comment is not very helpful.

I see a lot of posts like this one and it upsets me that sweeping judgements about the reality of many players' experiences are discounted as mere speculation, and that "forgiveness of race" claims are thrown about recklessly and without merit.

Is Warp-In forgiving? Yes and no. It means you can build a certain number of units at once more or less where you choose, which is nice. But, those units are hugely weak compared to their cost, and it's an excessively unforgiving macro mechanic in that you can't que up units like in Barracks to ensure maximum production uptime, and you're limited to low tech units for Warps, unlike Zerg who use one type of production (larvae) for all levels of tech units. Unlike Terran as well, you usually don't want a huge army of low tier units at the end of the game, so units that are warped in, aside from Templar, lose value for the supply they take up as the game goes on. This is also why you see Protoss so centered around hitting specific timings in matchups, as those units rapidly decline in effectiveness beyond that timing they're designed to hit.

Each race is very forgiving in its own way. Blasting all of your saved up Orbital energy on 10 MULEs at once when you've been inefficient on spending it is forgiving, as is being able to float an Orbital to a new expo that's been built in the safety of your own base. Stockpiling huge amounts of resources instead of spending it effectively and being able to have a ton of larvae banked in order to do so is forgiving, as is being able to reposition your Static D.

So, let's please stop with the "this or that is easier or more forgiving" and stick to observations of gameplay - which, if you've been watching Protoss LotV streamers, do speak to a major issue with the weakness of Gateway units and the problems Protoss has right now both early and mid game in holding attacks. Ravager rushes and Cyclone rushes are both prevalent and cripplingly effective early game. Warp gate defense midgame is also very lacking for the exact reason the OP described, and contrary to what you're saying, you actually do want the Gateway units coming in as close to the drop/harass as possible so they can close distance and end the threat as soon as possible. You can't afford to wait for the MSC to get from your third or fourth to your main (if it even has energy) or you'll lose too much to come back from. It's not just me saying this either - I recently watched HuK play ViBE, who Ravager rushed him. HuK called it from the start of the game, built a heavy forward D, and still lost his whole front wall and all Gateway units he had minus one Stalker he was microing with a Warp Prism in order to try and stay alive. Meanwhile, on ViBE's stream, he watched the replay and called the Ravager OP verbatim, while noting that he could have won the game much earlier by just following it with an a-move Ravager army attack several minutes later due to their incredible damage and attack speed. The feedback is there and available - it's not just "speculative nonsense", as you call it.

My_Fake_Plastic_Luv

United States257 Posts

April 14 2015 04:13 GMT

#50

The entire problem with this game boils down to the speed ling. Its just too fast.

Think about it.

Seriously.

DinoMight

United States3725 Posts

April 14 2015 04:48 GMT

#51

On April 14 2015 13:13 My_Fake_Plastic_Luv wrote:
The entire problem with this game boils down to the speed ling. Its just too fast.

Think about it.

Seriously.

Haahaha.

Basically. Protoss NEEDS FF against it early. Which causes problems later if they mass Sentries. Etc.

AeTheReal

United States108 Posts

April 14 2015 04:51 GMT

#52

I think Blizzard should reintroduce the Dragoon into the Protoss army and change stalkers in the following way.

Dragoon 125M, 50G, 2 Supply
100 HP, 80 Shields, 1 armor
Attack: 10 (20 vs armored) @ 1.44 cooldown

Stalker 100M, 75G, 2 Supply
80 HP, 80 Shields, 1 armor
Attack: 14 @ 1.44 cooldown

Dragoons are the beefier unit that can tank better and have better burst damage vs armored. Stalkers become a better harass/anti light unit. The full 14 damage attack makes them much better at killing light units in general in the early game. Increased gas cost and lowered mineral cost frees up some minerals for making the expansions you need, as well as limiting how many stalkers you can build so their numbers don't get too crazy.

So with this change, 4 stalkers (400M, 300G) have about as much offensive power vs light as 6 stalkers (750M, 300G) currently. This number of stalker is when they become a potent harassment force. They can kill a combat shield marine in one volley. They can kill a zealot in 3 volleys. SCVs can be killed in one volley and probes and drones can be as well even if you only have three stalkers.

My_Fake_Plastic_Luv

United States257 Posts

April 14 2015 07:03 GMT

#53

On April 14 2015 13:48 DinoMight wrote:

Show nested quote +

Haahaha.

Basically. Protoss NEEDS FF against it early. Which causes problems later if they mass Sentries. Etc.

UMMM... exactly... plus all those terran walls

Zanzabarr

Canada217 Posts

April 14 2015 07:30 GMT

#54

I've made many posts like 6 months ago or so addressing a lot of the problems I foresaw going into the Lotv beta for protoss..... most of the problems they are facing in the beta right now. Unfortunately basically none of them have been dealt with by Blizzard as of yet.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/470781-legacy-of-the-void-announced?page=50#998
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/471552-legacy-of-the-void-multiplayer-development-update?page=16#310
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/473613-legacy-of-the-void-multiplayer-development-update?page=10#190
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/470781-legacy-of-the-void-announced?page=137#2732

I'll just post the last one in full. It's a bit pessimistic
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have high hopes for LOTV, but I fear that they are going to have a hard time balancing the game with the proposed economy changes. I fear for Protoss the most, as they are going to have one hell of a time defending the 4-5 bases they need at a game time where they'd normally have at most 3 in HOTS.

Due to the warpgate mechanic removing defender's advantage, an army of warpgate units was made strictly weaker than an army of equal tier units from the other races in the mid and late game. Protoss compensated for this by only every fighting part of an army at a time (splitting up with forcefields), and by teching quickly to T3 splash (colossus mainly). Due to the extreme gas cost of getting lots of sentries // teching up and getting colossi (not to mention their lack of mobility), Protoss is more or less forced to keep all of their units in a deathball in order to protect these gas heavy units. This has always been quite bad for the game, as having an army that doubles in strength with the addition of a couple T3 units is bad game design (Needing T3 units to combat T1-T2 units is also bad game design). With this need for a deathball, Protoss has always been the weakest at being able to split their army into multiple chunks while remaining cost effective.

The Mothership core was introduced in HOTS to help Protoss with the issue of their immobile deathball, by enabling early access to both recall and photon overcharge for defense against multi-pronged harass. Recall also enabled Protoss to be out on the map with their expensive immobile army more aggressively (previously in WOL, moving out on the map generally either meant winning a fight, or losing everything, and most often the game afterwards). The problem with the Mothership core, is that it only ever really was a band-aid over more deep and fundamental design problems with the Protoss race. These fundamental problems being:

1) the inability to fight tech for tech and cost for cost over many small and spread out engagements.
2) mobility.

Through careful map design and the MSC band-aid (or through just all-inning) Protoss has been able to be successful despite these weaknesses, but the band-aid like the MSC will no longer be sufficient for a 4-5 base Toss at the same game time of a 3 base toss in HOTS. When you add into consideration the mobility of the speed medi-vac for Terran and the ability to break forcefields at Lair tech with the Ravager for Zerg, I can't see Protoss being anything other than "FUCKED" unless they get some heavy changes to their race. Protoss will need to be able to actually fight tech for tech and cost for cost in small engagements to have any chance of keeping up to the other races in expansions in LOTV. For this to happen, Protoss will need:

1) a T1.5 or T2 splash option
2) stronger gateway units
3) both.

Such changes will not only allow, but probably require Blizzard to change / nerf warp-gate, force-fields, and the colossus to compensate for the increased strength of T1-2 Protoss. While I feel the community would rejoice over such changes, I fear Blizzard will be unwilling to make them.

I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard overcomes these challenges in a clunky, round-a-bout way by either having very regimented maps with easily accessible 4-5 bases covered in ramps / choke points galore, or by giving Protoss a gas-heavy, tech-heavy option for defending locations from small attacks, that also happens to be completely hit or miss. (Makes me think of the disruptor... 300 gas... also robo bay tech... can blow up an entire 1-2 medi-vac force or miss everything). Imagine a world in which Protoss needs to tech up to disruptors fast at like the 10 minute mark so they can put them at all of their outlying bases for defense. Sounds... sooooo... terrible.

I also wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard doesn't even recognize the need for any changes until they are well into LOTV beta and Protoss is forced to 1-3 base all-in every game in order to win...........with people complaining like mad for something to be done........ and with Blizzard eyeing the win rate percentages on Beta ladder thinking to themselves "Well the numbers are balanced from Bronze to Gold league in these match-ups. Things seem to be ok for now."

Oh the fear. I want the more spread out, more action packed, more enjoyable game LOTV aims to be.... I just fear Blizzard will be too incompetent to implement the necessary changes correctly.

Big J

Austria16289 Posts

April 14 2015 09:05 GMT

#55

As it stands I think that Protoss is lacking a unit to counter the power of mass zergling early game. Zerg and Terran can combat zerglings with hellions and banelings by just adding a single extra tech building (the factory or the baneling nest).
Protoss throughout all of the history of Starcraft has been forced into early walls and bigger amounts of production and tech. Regardless how you design warptech, a race that is forced to invest into high amounts of production early is forced to use and abuse it.

Enter the ravager which is designed to kill the current early game walls, canons and take the zerglings designated hardcounter - the sentry - out of the game by popular demand. Enter warpgate changes.

The solution is rather simply though, they need to make the adept work more like a hellion (strategically speaking). No focus on the gimmicky spell that cannot avoid a zergling surround. No snailing behind zerglings running circles around you.
Just plainly a speed value between 3.75 and 4.5 (depending on the amount of damage point the unit receives in return).

DarkPlasmaBall

United States44069 Posts

April 14 2015 12:00 GMT

#56

On April 14 2015 18:05 Big J wrote:
As it stands I think that Protoss is lacking a unit to counter the power of mass zergling early game. Zerg and Terran can combat zerglings with hellions and banelings by just adding a single extra tech building (the factory or the baneling nest).
Protoss throughout all of the history of Starcraft has been forced into early walls and bigger amounts of production and tech. Regardless how you design warptech, a race that is forced to invest into high amounts of production early is forced to use and abuse it.

Enter the ravager which is designed to kill the current early game walls, canons and take the zerglings designated hardcounter - the sentry - out of the game by popular demand. Enter warpgate changes.

The solution is rather simply though, they need to make the adept work more like a hellion (strategically speaking). No focus on the gimmicky spell that cannot avoid a zergling surround. No snailing behind zerglings running circles around you.
Just plainly a speed value between 3.75 and 4.5 (depending on the amount of damage point the unit receives in return).

I think you have a really good point. I'd much rather have the adept (or any new gateway core unit) be a bit slower, *not* have that copied blink ability, and instead have a little bit of splash damage (either a straight line like a hellion, or a small spray like a hellbat). It doesn't need to be a huge harass unit, but it could have plenty of utility helping deal with huge speedling surrounds and might even prove effective in mid or late game with warp prism drops/ warp-ins in mineral lines. Having minor splash damage early on would really help out the Protoss, and I'd imagine the numbers and speed could be tweaked enough so it's not like it'll do game-ending damage.

Salteador Neo

Andorra5591 Posts

April 14 2015 13:08 GMT

#57

To deal with speedlings they could also just give the adept the muta-like bounce attack by default instead, and make the shade the research instead. Maybe even mix the shade and blink research together and make it cost 200/200 lol.

DinoMight

United States3725 Posts

April 14 2015 16:31 GMT

#58

Yeah honestly I think Protoss's weakness comes from an inability to deal with mass Speedlings until frickin Colossus or Disruptors are out, now that forcefields can be killed...

Perhaps making the ravager ability a researched thing that takes a long time would be better?

Time it so that it can hold off an Sentry allin if scouted and researched at the right time. Sems that this fix would delay the Ravager cheese we're seeing and allow Protoss to get their 3rd at a reasonable time and get Colos to deal with Speedlings.

LlamaSc2

Scotland12 Posts

April 14 2015 18:53 GMT

#59

Id honestly just love to see warp gate nerfed or removed from the game/only applicable to warp prisms. Then see gateway units given a buff so that protoss can hold its ground in the early to mid game.

Most of the games fights are focused around the centre of the map because your defending 3 to 4 bases now or at least exerting a level of map control around these bases. This doesn't favour a reliance on slow to gain tech.

Basically need stalkers to be like dragoons were, spam rallied from gateways to the centre of your 4 bases and used to trade and hold the map.

Big J

Austria16289 Posts

April 14 2015 21:09 GMT

#60

On April 15 2015 01:31 DinoMight wrote:
Yeah honestly I think Protoss's weakness comes from an inability to deal with mass Speedlings until frickin Colossus or Disruptors are out, now that forcefields can be killed...

Perhaps making the ravager ability a researched thing that takes a long time would be better?

Time it so that it can hold off an Sentry allin if scouted and researched at the right time. Sems that this fix would delay the Ravager cheese we're seeing and allow Protoss to get their 3rd at a reasonable time and get Colos to deal with Speedlings.

I think it would be just better if Protoss had more capable mapcontrol units against speedlings instead of hiding behind walls and forcefields until the midgame. This has been a major point of critique with the PvZ matchup since 3gate sentry expands died. There is little interaction between the races for so long.
The ravager with its ability is one way to punish a Protoss relying too heavily only on walls+forcefields, granted of course that it gets balanced.
The current situation is also a huge limit for mapdesign. Protoss against Zerg without rushed out walls would allow for a much bigger variety of natural base layouts.

The contra-point to ravagers punishing overreliance on walls instead of units early would be units that force the zerg into units instead of drones early. Basically more early game dynamics for both races.

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