IEM Global Challenge Cologne - "Dead Presidents" - Page 22

On September 09 2011 12:34 -y0shi- wrote:


I love how you just assume no one has tried the mothersahip yet...
But even then, even on paper, what exactly does it have to offer? its slow, cloke is worthless in late pvt, vortex doesnt do too much (and dont get me started on even getting it close enough to actually get a vortex off) and its sooo expensive. Seriously. YOu hardly need Stargates in PvT, so thats 150/150 + 300/200 + 400/400. 850/750 + no worker production + its really hard to even survive that transition.

I absolutly agree with this article but Im still listening to people who argue and may have a point. But when you say protoss should use the mothership more often its obvious youre grasping at straws...

Vikings > Protoss Air, is anyone going to argue about that? Vikings are not that expensive and can be mass produced easily and then there are stimmed marines. Vikings also kill Colossi and come from the same building as medivacs so they can be produced almost instantly when needed. If Vikings counter you anyways, why not just build colossi?

And Carriers are just big flying money dumps, they take forever to build and when there is a bioball smashing in your front door, would you want a last second colossi or a last second carrier?

Argue all you want but the mothership?! That seems like a rather desperate attempt...

On September 09 2011 05:25 Olinim wrote:
"I tentatively suggest that too much weight is being placed on GSL results when making deductions concerning balance." "It's still wrong to ignore other tournament results." I just don't think thats true and generally it's completely fine to ignore other tournament results, especially when there are no koreans in it:/. Forgive me if you weren't suggesting that IPL2 has relevance regarding balance.

On September 09 2011 05:30 Olinim wrote:
By your logic, are there any patches that should have gone through? Has there ever been a point where a strat was demonstrated to be unbeatable with supposed perfect play? 5 rax reaper...maybe. Your view simply isn't realistic, and blizzard disagrees with you since apparently they do think bunker rushes are op, considering the nerf. Hopefully they will not take a page from your book of insanity and look further into the absolute nonsense that is the 1/1/1 :/. This simply isn't fair to protoss players, the results, the games, and the opinions of other pros show that. And yes MC shouldn't have to play perfectly to beat Puma's sloppy 1/1/1 on XNC that he didn't even do very well, because NO ONE plays perfectly.

On September 09 2011 06:01 OlorinTheWise wrote:


While the GSL has the highest level of play in StarCraft 2, it also has far too few games to make a definitive analysis on the balance of the game. Until such a time as there is a regular Proleague format; the Korean scene as a whole, and thus the balance of the game at the highest level, cannot be easily evaluated. There are simply far too few games being played to make a truly accurate assessment.



The Reaper wasn't nerfed because of the 5-Rax reaper build being imbalanced in 1v1, it was nerfed because of how imbalanced Reaper/Speedling was in 2v2.

On September 09 2011 06:01 OlorinTheWise wrote:


While the GSL has the highest level of play in StarCraft 2, it also has far too few games to make a definitive analysis on the balance of the game. Until such a time as there is a regular Proleague format; the Korean scene as a whole, and thus the balance of the game at the highest level, cannot be easily evaluated. There are simply far too few games being played to make a truly accurate assessment.



The Reaper wasn't nerfed because of the 5-Rax reaper build being imbalanced in 1v1, it was nerfed because of how imbalanced Reaper/Speedling was in 2v2.

On September 09 2011 04:06 Havefa1th wrote:
To blame one player's downfall on the "faults" of an entire race is a racey and unwarranted claim. To say that no Protoss is good at ZvP is as an absurd statement as saying that 1-1-1 will forever be unholdable. The 1-1-1 will be, in the end, just another cheese (like the 4 gate and the roach-ling all-ins before it) that is scoutable and held cost-efficiently with slight build order changes and superior micro.

The fact of the matter remains is that Protoss is not underpowered, there just is no overarching Protoss "president," so to speak. Jinro himself says that MC has stagnated due to lack of provocative and innovative play. To be honest, there isn't any Protoss player that's innovating the race... meanwhile there are Zerg players (mainly foreign ones) commanding the helm of the Infestor battleship and Korean Zergs at the front of faster, safer roach based play that has shown success against a variety of unit compositions. And there are the Terrans like Boxer and the rest of SlayerS, who made one small unit (and therefore the mech composition) more popular of late due to aggressive, cost-efficient play.

Where's the Protoss? You can argue for MC's storm drop play, but that's a technique that is shadowed in the end by standard, stagnated build orders and strategies. You can argue for White-Ra, who shoves the square Warp Prism into every round hole the PvX matchup has, but in the end, it's one unit that forces no special macro-related reaction from the other player.

The lack of success is not the fault of an "imbalanced" race or the 1-1-1, it's MC's (and the rest of the Protoss PLAYERS) fault. You can't blame the losses of one player on the race. You just can't.

However...

Easily the best written article I've read on this website (about Starcraft 2, that is). Keep this shit up.

On September 09 2011 12:27 Brian333 wrote:
I wrote this a day before this article:

An explanation for the state of Protoss

I see a lot of reasons for why Protoss is in its current state but I rarely see a much more important reason mentioned because I think too many people who have invested a lot of time into SC2 are simply afraid to mention it.

The game design is fundamentally flawed so game balance was inherently impossible from day 1.

I think that all along, the focus of discussions was misplaced. With design and balance, the most important thing is a balance of options across all three races, yet, despite that idea, all we've seen is the gradual deterioration of Protoss options.

For example, in a design sense, Protoss tier 1 is inherently inferior to Terran tier 1 and Zerg tier 1. Without micro and in open areas, there is simply no way a Protoss tier 1 army will win against an equal supply, equal cost Terran or Zerg tier 1 army.

What this led to was Protoss leading the other 2 races in the necessity to evolve their meta-game and stepping up to that demand.

Sentry play became incredibly valuable because micro allowed the Protoss to circumvent the weakness of the units in a straight up battle by changing the conditions of the battle to favor themselves. FF usage became an art. Build-orders were adjusted to get earlier sentries so that they would have more time to build energy.

Zealots (especially chargelots) increased in their value because of this and sentry / zealot early-game compositions became a staple of certain strategies.

Double forge or single forge upgrade timings were developed to help offset the weakness of tier 1 armies with an upgrade advantage.

Blink play was developed, refined, and would go on to transform Stalkers from one of our weakest units into one of our strongest.

Different timings off 1-base and 2-base were developed to win through shear numbers rather than the strength of individual units (4-8 gate and all their variations). Tricks with clever pylon placement and high-ground warp-ins were discovered to further the strength of these pushes.

We found ways to rush higher tech in order to completely leap-frog our tier 1 weaknesses.

With all these examples on the table, I'd like to point out the critical point that Protoss led the meta-game progression because of the inherent disadvantages we were given at the start, that because of an imbalance in options, we were forced to adapt before Terrans and Zergs.

So, as a response to our progression, Zergs and Terrans were forced to adapt and either through Blizzard's help or their own ingenuity, they did. Terrans started to actually make and use Ghosts more often to negate the value of sentries. Medivac play was used to either lift around FFs or force the Protoss army to split up, thus negating their synergy. Various all-ins were developed and refined in order to deny Protoss the ability to tech or expand without investing heavily in a lower tech. Safe expansion builds of their own allowed them to match or exceed Protoss econ. Zergs learned to be smarter about engagement locations, expand with better timing, scout with more direction, and defend more efficiently. They learned to get roaches with burrow to negate any Protoss timing push without detection, and burrow movement to negate heavily FF dependent pushes. They learned to use their mobility better with ling-backstabs. They realized that there was a roach-ling timing off 2-base that would deny Protoss their natural even if they opened with their safety, 3-gate sentry expand. Of course, there are more examples, but I think that is enough to prove my point.

So, we're left with the current state of SC2. It's a point in Protoss progression where we're essentially being forced to adapt again with our already limited options to strategies that have been tailor made to beat everything we had previously known. And, at this point, our options have been exhausted because they were already explored in great depth.

And, this all stems from the fact that the playing field was not level to begin with.

To Terrans and Zergs who tell us that we need to adapt, imagine what would happen if your counterparts magically knew how to stop everything you could do. Imagine if all the builds you had learned to do were all irrelevant. Imagine if your safe builds were no longer safe and your risky builds were just suicide.