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On September 14 2011 11:44 AxelTVx wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2011 04:45 kawaiiryuko wrote:On September 13 2011 04:37 PenguinWithNuke wrote:On September 12 2011 17:06 sleepingdog wrote:On September 12 2011 12:20 PenguinWithNuke wrote:
That's probably not the reason why you lose. If you let a zerg do anything like get 20 infestors, it's not the infestors that are killing you. Think about it. They're really expensive units in terms of gas, and die really quickly. You have to research NP. If you allow a zerg to get 20 infestors... well, you have bigger problems than the infestors. Zergs were designed to be a race that can get a macro-advantage unless the opponent plays a heavy, heavy pressure-style. The thing is, protoss never really had a build that was able to both apply pressure and not be completely all-in. The reason for that was/is that you can't afford to lose your sentries in midgame. If you attack with your sentries, you either win with them, or you lose them which more or less equals losing the game too. This is why the protoss 3 base turtle style came up. Zerg always had absurd supply-leads, but they failed to capitalize. Mainly because the grotesque QQ of IdrA and others proved to be an obstacle that apparently prevented many zergs from trying out new stuff. I've seen quite a lot of korean games where heavy nydus play and sudden muta-switches were used vs the bunker-deathball-style. Now with the infestor-buff, zergs are competitive (read: have the advantage) in BOTH of the aforementioned aspects. They still have the macro-advantage: if you go 3 gate expo, zerg drones up on 2 base faster than you. if you go FFE, zerg gets a quick third. I've never, ever seen a game where a competent zerg that a) doesn't get all-in-ed b) ends up with fewer drones than toss in midgame. We toss-players accept that as part of the design-choice of Blizz as to how this match-up will play out. Nevertheless, with strong infestors, our deathball is now ALSO weaker than the zerg-deathball! You say "letting zerg get xyz..." - remember, this is EXACTLY how protoss-players talked to zerg. "If you let protoss get xyz..." - what's the difference? The difference is, that previously zergs were able to literally take the whole map while the toss was restrained/contained on 3 bases. How on earth am I supposed to "not let zerg get xyz..." when zerg has an inherent macro-advantage already by design? Overall, either of two things must happen to re-balance PvZ, which had a worse win-% for toss than PvT in last GSL: a) "Give toss a strong midgame that is not all-in and that can put real pressure on droning zergs." Very unlikely, I have no idea how this could ever work with the given sets of units. You can't buff void rays, phoenixes, DTs, or w/e, so until HotS, where I expect some major design-changes, we are stuck with the current overall PvZ metagame. b) "Give toss the stronger maxed-out deathball:" and this is what we see now. If you put toss at the macro-disadvantage throughout midgame, they really "have" to have the stronger 200/200 ball. Even with the very minor infestor-change I somewhat doubt that it will pan out that way, since infestor/broodlord an remaxing on only roach while toss tries to get the counter to infestor/broodlord will still be incredibly strong. Nevertheless the P-deathball-buff/Z-deathball-nerf is required by the current way PvZ puts restraints on the set of possible protoss strategies. Thanks for clarifying. It seems to me that P needs a harassment unit that can go around and kill stuff, to decrease the amount of infestors that zerg can get. If only P had some sort of unit that could cloak and kill things with horrifying efficiency, but could also warp in via gateways and go anywhere! Man. I certainly hope they add such an unit. I'll just leave this here. Dt's are just very risky to tech too. Late game sure, they're okay, but recently a lot of Zerg pros have realized that you have to have 2-3 Spine Crawlers and a spore crawler at your expansions. Without it, you deserve to lose the base really.
Go and watch macro Protoss players like Sage... They neither are behind in the worker count (chrono Nexi are pretty much as strong as queen+hatch, as zerg has to get all his buildings+OLs from them too) nor do they ever stop with the air+warpin+dt+blink aggression.
Deathballs have been solved in the proscene and that's good, because they simply make games boring to watch, waiting till the maxcap is reached...
Also talking about "Deathballs". There is no zerg deathball... Ling/Infestor is a highly mobile composition and does not engage in balls and can't attack in narrow chokes.
Infestor/broodlord+stuff is the same. It doesn't play like a deathball, that always sticks together. It plays like a Marine/tank army that can spread out and split if there is need to.
I do agree that protoss players have been struggling lately (in the GSL) and I think, that it is not only because of their 1base cheeses and 2base allins (MC won 2 GSL titles with them and is now being beaten up by everyone) have been solved. It is rather a mixture of small balance problems (1-1-1, fungal growth) AND the solid leaders of the protoss race sticking to old styles, while new hopes (Sage, Puzzle, Tassadar...) still have and had to make it through Code A.
Last I want to add, that talking about "how races are designed and supposed to play..." is just bullshit. There were times in this game, when Protoss players claimed that the only way to safely expand vs zerg is by building 4gates. Then they invented 3gate expands. Then they invented FFEs & Nexus first. Then they invented 1gate expand... And all of those builds turned out to be safe openers.
Same for zerg. It started with pool-->hatch and turned into hatch-->pool. Then the canon rushes stopped hatch first and speedling expand became standard play and hell yeah, July even started the comback of 1base roach when Ps started to FFE.
The game has developed and will still develope for the next years... Players get better and people like MC hold roach/ling allins that were said to be "completly broken against 3gate expand" without forge or canons. (i could go on here forever, talking about archons and speedzealots, the comback of the baneling in ZvP and so on and so...)
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On September 13 2011 15:10 thobel wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2011 10:51 Supamang wrote:
Scan is not expensive. And dont give me that talking point "MULES cost 270 minerals". They dont. They only mine those minerals faster. If you dont call a MULE those minerals will still come in later.
Why bother to make extra workers then? One worker should suffice, you'll get all those minerals eventually anyway, right? The whole set of "XXX costs YYY minerals" statements are underspecified; they don't take into account the time value of money (minerals/gas in this case). 270 minerals now is worth more than 270 minerals 15 minutes from now. A lot more. If you didn't take things like that into account, zerg buildings cost tons of minerals due to opportunity cost of the drone. Then again, that cost is paid for by 1 larva and 50 mins. So 1 larva + 50 mins = tons and tons of minerals, right? Sounds silly. But it's true, because those minerals are taken over a long period of time. Analogously, terran can either say that a scan costs 270 minerals (over the lifetime of a MULE), which it does given fixed number of orbital commands, OR a scan every (recharge rate of 50 energy) costs 400 minerals + scv build time spent not mining, invested (orbital command build time) before a scan is desired. Both options are available, and both are possible prices for scans. They are, however, still prices when compared to some default option (muling). Later on in the game, mules put terrans econ ahead of the other races, due to oversaturation and/or gold bases. Early on, the mules are necessary to compensate for slower worker production rate, the necessary cutting of two scvs while the orbital morphs, and the higher infrastructure cost of terran production structures and depots (scv isn't mining). So, in the late game, scans are pretty much free. Early on, they are very very expensive.
Im not saying getting minerals later rather than now is totally without cost, im saying that Terrans tend to exaggerate the cost of scanning in place of a MULE. They often say "It costs 270 minerals to scan!" which is fallacious. When a Protoss spends the 25/75 on an observer, those are resources they have already mined and will never get back. Same for Zerg, the overseer costs 50/50 that they will never get back. A scan "costs" 270, but not only does that 270 not get expended immediately (a MULE mines 270 over a period of time), those minerals are still there to be mined later, unlike the resources spent on an observer or an overseer.
Terrans who love to mention the idea that "270 minerals now is worth more than 270 minerals later" seem to ignore the fact that the 25/75 and 50/50 for the observer and overseer are also resources that the player gives up NOW. Except, as mentioned before, those resources given up will never be recovered, unlike for MULES.
(ps. it doesnt take 15 minutes to mine 270 minerals)
Yes, scans early game are much more expensive in a relative sense, but the post I quoted was talking about mid game.
Secondly, it doesnt matter that scans early game cost a lot. The fact that Terrans have the option of scanning early game is already a HUGE advantage for detection over the other 2 races. All races have a flying mobile detector (observer, overseer, raven) and a stationary detector (spores, turrets, cannons). Only Terran gets the on-demand detector scan. Sure a MULE is hard to give up early game, but if its the choice between giving up a MULE or losing 10 SCVs to DTs it shouldnt be a hard choice to make. If the guy rushes DTs and hides his Dark Shrine and gets DTs into your base, you can scan in a pinch. If the same happens to Zerg or Protoss, they dont even have that option. All races can build static detection if they suspect cloak play early, but only Terran can scan if they get caught off guard.
Lastly, I like to leave out the whole opportunity cost discussion if I can because it simply gets too arbitrary and complicated if we bring it up. Trying to calculate the opportunity cost of buildings for Zerg would be too annoying to discuss because wed have to calculate the mining time lost for the drone lost + the drone cost itself + opportunity cost of larva spent on a drone instead of something else and whatnot. Its not really helpful to bring all of that up in this discussion
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^ Zerg's scouting options are very limited early game, and often times can be completely denied. For example, fast third will always beat FFE, but FFE can win if the zerg doesn't know exactly what's going on.
2 base DT or stargate play will always lose if they fail to do any damage at all, that's the problem with Protoss harass. Usually some damage can be done (largely due to Zerg's issues with early game scouting).
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Or P could use DTs like Thors. For their burst damage and as (invisible) walls.
I was on the receiving end of it. Good thing I had energy for scan. I'd imagine Zerg would have a huge problem if a few DTs were mixed in.
Idunno, to me DTs were like super reaper/hellions/thors all-in-one. Economy isn't everything. Sparta for many years crushed Athens despite their wealth (hired mercenaries). IANAZ.
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^ why do you say such goofy things? DTs and banshees and mutas and hydras, they are all horrible as combat units because they die way too fast.
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On September 14 2011 14:13 Belial88 wrote:
^ why do you say such goofy things? DTs and banshees and mutas and hydras, they are all horrible as combat units because they die way too fast.
Coming from a protoss that's lost his fair share of games to 1-1-1 builds, I don't think you can say banshees aren't at least decent combat units. A better comparison might be a ghost, but ghosts are surprisingly resilient units too.
Compared to stimmed marauders without a medivac, banshees have essentially the same damage against an armored target and double their damage against non-armored enemies. The banshee has 35 more HP after a stim, and only marginally slower movement. On top of that, it is unaffected by terrain or force fields, and has cloaking which can greatly extend its life.
The real reason we don't see banshees as a main army unit is the high tech requirement, and the long build time. In the time it takes to make 1 banshee, 2 marauders could be on the field.
Dark templar don't really die too quickly, especially with a guardian shield and proper positioning and force fields. However, they fall far behind zealots in terms of build time. A warpgate that just made a DT takes 60% longer to cooldown than one that made a zealot. I'd much rather spend 800 minerals for 8 zealots than 625minerals and 625 gas for 5 DTs, even though if they were allowed to just sit and do damage, the 5 DTs would win.
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when a unit owns its counter part ressource efficiently one might argue it is hardly right calling it a horrible unit
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^ what are you talking about?
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^ I guess referring to banshees actually doing quite well vs stalkers in smaller numbers. (Just like banshees cream hydralisks in small numbers).
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On September 14 2011 17:56 Thraundil wrote:
^ I guess referring to banshees actually doing quite well vs stalkers in smaller numbers. (Just like banshees cream hydralisks in small numbers).
Not sure how you're calling stalkers the 'counter' to banshees. Banshees only to air to ground damage - there's no way you're calling a ground unit the 'counter' to them.
Any case as a Terran player I'm pretty stoked about hunter seeker. Really excited to try out some hunter seeker/bc comps late game ZvT cause now I can actually hunter seeker corrupters. Ultra build time decrease seems kind of annoying but I don't think anyone was really pushing a 15 second window in TvZ when there are no ultras out - their build time was silly large anyway. Neural nerf seems kinda strange, would rather they did something like make fungal 100 energy and let infestors cap out at 250 energy. But then again, they made strike cannon a worthless spell too so w/e.
Immortal pushes look scarier now but they've always been scary anyway. Not sure really what difference 5 to 6 range will make fighting them. Might see some midgame immortal heavy armies but if I scout that I'll just try to go really marine heavy. Immortal heavy midgame means robo time is devoted to them, not collusi. Made a big difference for roaches but you have so many roaches it matters more with them.
Warp prism buff makes me sad - I wish they simply switched the shields and HP, not just add shields. Killing a warp prism that's warping DT's into your base might not happen before the DT's get in so that's annoying, but I think it's another one of their 'HEY LOOK AT ME' changes, rather then anything else. Glad about blink nerf, although I'm not sure there's any timing designed to hit exactly as blink finishes and just move a chrono over to blink and it probably finishes in about the same time as if you were aiming to hit exactly as it finishes.
Blue flame nerf only affects TvT really imo. If I drop 4 red flame hellions, you'll be as screwed as if I dropped 3 blue flame (for the most part). If you could deal with 3 blue flame, you'll surely deal with 4 red flame, and if you couldn't deal with 3 blue flame, you can't deal with 4 red flame. Who knows - might even be better to drop As for vs Zerg I never really counted on 2 hellions to kill a ton of lings. If I wanted to completely nullify lings I'd get like 10 hellions. Then I don't even need blue flame. Or if I got a few, I'd count on holding the naga towers till mutas came out/roaches. I'm just not sure how this will change my gameplay at all really.
Sure at the highest levels things look drastically different but I'm just posting my thoughts off my games.
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^ yeah... The changes mean that mass BCs + upgraded ravens become viable late game comp.
That being said, ravens will now have a better chance of being fielded for more than PPDs and mobile detection.
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On September 14 2011 12:43 Supamang wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2011 15:10 thobel wrote:On September 13 2011 10:51 Supamang wrote:
Scan is not expensive. And dont give me that talking point "MULES cost 270 minerals". They dont. They only mine those minerals faster. If you dont call a MULE those minerals will still come in later.
Why bother to make extra workers then? One worker should suffice, you'll get all those minerals eventually anyway, right? The whole set of "XXX costs YYY minerals" statements are underspecified; they don't take into account the time value of money (minerals/gas in this case). 270 minerals now is worth more than 270 minerals 15 minutes from now. A lot more. If you didn't take things like that into account, zerg buildings cost tons of minerals due to opportunity cost of the drone. Then again, that cost is paid for by 1 larva and 50 mins. So 1 larva + 50 mins = tons and tons of minerals, right? Sounds silly. But it's true, because those minerals are taken over a long period of time. Analogously, terran can either say that a scan costs 270 minerals (over the lifetime of a MULE), which it does given fixed number of orbital commands, OR a scan every (recharge rate of 50 energy) costs 400 minerals + scv build time spent not mining, invested (orbital command build time) before a scan is desired. Both options are available, and both are possible prices for scans. They are, however, still prices when compared to some default option (muling). Later on in the game, mules put terrans econ ahead of the other races, due to oversaturation and/or gold bases. Early on, the mules are necessary to compensate for slower worker production rate, the necessary cutting of two scvs while the orbital morphs, and the higher infrastructure cost of terran production structures and depots (scv isn't mining). So, in the late game, scans are pretty much free. Early on, they are very very expensive. Im not saying getting minerals later rather than now is totally without cost, im saying that Terrans tend to exaggerate the cost of scanning in place of a MULE. They often say "It costs 270 minerals to scan!" which is fallacious. When a Protoss spends the 25/75 on an observer, those are resources they have already mined and will never get back. Same for Zerg, the overseer costs 50/50 that they will never get back. A scan "costs" 270, but not only does that 270 not get expended immediately (a MULE mines 270 over a period of time), those minerals are still there to be mined later, unlike the resources spent on an observer or an overseer. Terrans who love to mention the idea that "270 minerals now is worth more than 270 minerals later" seem to ignore the fact that the 25/75 and 50/50 for the observer and overseer are also resources that the player gives up NOW. Except, as mentioned before, those resources given up will never be recovered, unlike for MULES. (ps. it doesnt take 15 minutes to mine 270 minerals) Yes, scans early game are much more expensive in a relative sense, but the post I quoted was talking about mid game. Secondly, it doesnt matter that scans early game cost a lot. The fact that Terrans have the option of scanning early game is already a HUGE advantage for detection over the other 2 races. All races have a flying mobile detector (observer, overseer, raven) and a stationary detector (spores, turrets, cannons). Only Terran gets the on-demand detector scan. Sure a MULE is hard to give up early game, but if its the choice between giving up a MULE or losing 10 SCVs to DTs it shouldnt be a hard choice to make. If the guy rushes DTs and hides his Dark Shrine and gets DTs into your base, you can scan in a pinch. If the same happens to Zerg or Protoss, they dont even have that option. All races can build static detection if they suspect cloak play early, but only Terran can scan if they get caught off guard. Lastly, I like to leave out the whole opportunity cost discussion if I can because it simply gets too arbitrary and complicated if we bring it up. Trying to calculate the opportunity cost of buildings for Zerg would be too annoying to discuss because wed have to calculate the mining time lost for the drone lost + the drone cost itself + opportunity cost of larva spent on a drone instead of something else and whatnot. Its not really helpful to bring all of that up in this discussion
I dont think you understand early games MULEs. THey are necessary not a luxury. If you dont use them you are behind.
Its like saying that P also have the option of queing gateway units like T just dont make your gateways warp gates. You have to, otherwise you are behind.
A scan costs a MULE. Thats 270 min over some short period of time. You seem to be trying to argue that you cant say scans cost minerals. They just do. Flat out.
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No, he simply states that it's opportunity cost vs actual cost.
Mules are an opportunity cost, if you dont make a mule you dont get additional 270 mins within a certain period of time. But those mins are STILL THERE.
Z/P detection is actual cost AND opportunity cost. Not only do they cost to make (and i argue that obs cost almost the same as mules when gas X 3 = mins and zerg costs more prepatch with gas x 3 = mins) But it's an opportunity cost since almost every non cheese P build is gas heavy and everything post Lair for zerg is gas heavy and that gas could go to those units/upgrades/tech AND in the case of P it delays build time (but since obs is cloaked i'll take that factor out and even say opportunity cost isn't lost since it's such a usable unit). Now lets discuss the building, you can say that since cannons and spores aren't gas heavy, that negates part of the cost. And thats mostly true, but effective cannon/spore placement often costs MORE then a scan would. Two cannons needed for effective placement (one at nexus, one near ramp) and a spore + 2/3 spines for zerg.
So while yes, a scan hurts T econ early game, not only is it more forgiving then other races but it is effectively cheaper to defend then in the other races.
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On September 13 2011 23:53 Squigly wrote:
"Observers require you to commit to a tech path" Really? Reaaalllly?
Absolutely they do. There are many times I would love to go straight to blink stalkers, or to DTs, or to stargate play, but the specter of the opponent throwing some cloaked units at me is enough to force me to go Robo. Honestly I think it's downright crazy that you are forced to go early robo just in order to have detection. Cannons are expensive as hell and you can't really realistically afford putting one or two in your mineral line and others around your buildings in case a DT or cloaked banshee shows up. And when something does catch you off guard, that's 200/100 + 25/75 to get detection, plus 65+40 in build time. 105 seconds is more than enough for anything cloaked to kill you or set you seriously behind.
Lair is a tech choice every Zerg must make eventually as a prereq to other tech, and scan is so damned useful that every single Terran always has it and generally never bothers with Ravens.
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Two cents on the mule/scan dichotomy: The opportunity cost of the scan would be the discounted sum of minerals collected over the mule's lifetime. The discount factor is important; there is a difference between throwing down a scan when you want to, and when you need to. It may be reasonable to say that a customary scan has a high discount factor i.e. you value the scan information right now more than the minerals foregone, so you discount the minerals heavily over a short period of time, this greatly reduces the opportunity cost of a scan.
Forcing a scan however, carries a much higher cost simply because a mule may have been preferable then. You could say that timely scans are needed to streamline mule call downs (i.e. a scan revealing a dark shrine shouldn't lead to all energy being spent on mules for a while)
Attributing value by lump sum amounts is misleading imo, since flow matters more in sc2. If gathering information now helps direct flow better, then the opportunity cost of gathering information drops drastically.
+ Show Spoiler +Z/P detection is actual cost AND opportunity cost. Not only do they cost to make (and i argue that obs cost almost the same as mules when gas X 3 = mins and zerg costs more prepatch with gas x 3 = mins) But it's an opportunity cost since almost every non cheese P build is gas heavy and everything post Lair for zerg is gas heavy and that gas could go to those units/upgrades/tech AND in the case of P it delays build time (but since obs is cloaked i'll take that factor out and even say opportunity cost isn't lost since it's such a usable unit). Now lets discuss the building, you can say that since cannons and spores aren't gas heavy, that negates part of the cost. And thats mostly true, but effective cannon/spore placement often costs MORE then a scan would. Two cannons needed for effective placement (one at nexus, one near ramp) and a spore + 2/3 spines for zerg.
The cost would only be the opportunity cost, you can't add the material (minerals+gas+time) cost twice. You can carry the discounting analogy further, in that the net value of a cannon or spore is the discounted sum of minerals it saves you over its lifetime (balanced against the discounted minerals extra drones could have gathered but remember that in the presence of a cloaked threat the discount factor is v high). This is generally a lot more than a scan. Forcing cannons or spores hurts, but adds value over time, a scan does not do this (but has a more favourable balance with respect to lost mining time).
+ Show Spoiler +Absolutely they do. There are many times I would love to go straight to blink stalkers, or to DTs, or to stargate play, but the specter of the opponent throwing some cloaked units at me is enough to force me to go Robo. Honestly I think it's downright crazy that you are forced to go early robo just in order to have detection. Cannons are expensive as hell and you can't really realistically afford putting one or two in your mineral line and others around your buildings in case a DT or cloaked banshee shows up. And when something does catch you off guard, that's 200/100 + 25/75 to get detection, plus 65+40 in build time. 105 seconds is more than enough for anything cloaked to kill you or set you seriously behind.
You need the observer to scout (and the present value of scouting is enormous). If you scout cloaked threats coming via other means, you will have to react, with cannons or a robo. The time can be cut short with chrono boosts. The game being reactionary, how is that crazy?
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You need the observer to scout (and the present value of scouting is enormous). If you scout cloaked threats coming via other means, you will have to react, with cannons or a robo. The time can be cut short with chrono boosts. The game being reactionary, how is that crazy?
Terrans are fairly difficult to scout, and terran has such a strong defense in mineral-only units that they have the option to tech heavily from the get-go. If a protoss probe scouts too late and finds 2 depots and a bunker at the top of the ramp, he basically HAS to go robo tech because if the terran goes cloaked banshees, theres no scenario where the protoss doesnt get crushed by the cloaked banshee if he does not have observers out or very close to out by the time they arrive. (Or cannons, but who builds cannons blind vs terran).
Terran has the prime reactive detection in the scan. If terrans suspect foul play they save up their MULE - throw a scan and suddenly are ahead. Zerg has good reactive detection on lair tech, but is the race that generally techs the slowest which is why we see many spore crawlers nowadays. Protoss have hands down the worst reactive detection, and I dont understand why changes are not already being implemented, because we basically have a scenario where terrans wall in, protoss cant scout and is almost forced to go for a quick robotics facility, whilst the terran does whatever the hell he wants because he knows theres a high chance for the protoss to infact go for the robotics tech.
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You could use hallucinated phoenix. Observers are used to keep continuous tabs on army composition and movement imo, rather than reactive scouting (though you can do that too of course). Notice that hallucinated phoenix share a lot of similarities with the scan, and are in fact better, since they are mobile and last longer.
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On September 15 2011 19:01 chestnutcc wrote:
You could use hallucinated phoenix. Observers are used to keep continuous tabs on army composition and movement imo, rather than reactive scouting (though you can do that too of course). Notice that hallucinated phoenix share a lot of similarities with the scan, and are in fact better, since they are mobile and last longer.
I think Protoss has the best scouting options in the game which is logical considering how slow we switch tech and the relative weakness of our T1 and static defenses. However protoss scouting is fairly slow on the field.
Cloaked Banshee hits between 7:15-7:45.
Hallucinated Phoenix won't reach the terran's base until around 7:30 at the earliest unless you go double cybercore or hallucination before WG. Neither is particularly appealing.
Now, a lot of the issue can easily be solved by being agressive with early stalkers and poking up the ramp to check for marauders but in the case of 2 depots, a bunker with only marines and no expo at 6:00 you have to build a robo. There is no going around it.
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On September 15 2011 17:30 Thraundil wrote:
Terrans are fairly difficult to scout, and terran has such a strong defense in mineral-only units that they have the option to tech heavily from the get-go. If a protoss probe scouts too late and finds 2 depots and a bunker at the top of the ramp, he basically HAS to go robo tech because if the terran goes cloaked banshees, theres no scenario where the protoss doesnt get crushed by the cloaked banshee if he does not have observers out or very close to out by the time they arrive. (Or cannons, but who builds cannons blind vs terran).
Terran has the prime reactive detection in the scan. If terrans suspect foul play they save up their MULE - throw a scan and suddenly are ahead. Zerg has good reactive detection on lair tech, but is the race that generally techs the slowest which is why we see many spore crawlers nowadays. Protoss have hands down the worst reactive detection, and I dont understand why changes are not already being implemented, because we basically have a scenario where terrans wall in, protoss cant scout and is almost forced to go for a quick robotics facility, whilst the terran does whatever the hell he wants because he knows theres a high chance for the protoss to infact go for the robotics tech.
Exactly. Terran can go any number of tech choices after his wall is up. Protoss has only one possible reaction. Since an observer is such an enormously expensive unit if you include the Robo, this puts the Protoss way behind if he doesn't plan to use Robo tech anyway. And since halluc is researched after cloaked banshees hit, as said above, there is no way around this.
So a walled-in terran knows that robo tech of some sort is coming. Luckily, with the warp prism being built out of the robo, that doesn't automatically mean immortal / colossus, but pre-warp prism buff it pretty much does.
Since cannons aren't mobile like spore crawlers, they are pretty much a no-go for protecting anything but the mineral line.
Also, Protoss lacks alternate means of knocking an enemy out of cloak, such as fungal or EMP - Protoss does not have a comparable spell that can reveal. And of course, no scan.
Lots of people overestimate the value of having a cloaked detector. While it is nice, it is very slow without the speed upgrade, and both the observer and the upgrade force the Protoss down very expensive tech choices. And an observer melts in a second when a Terran notices the ripple and scans.
I would like to see a change in how observers are made - e.g. built out of Nexus after Cyber Core, and increase the cost to something like 50/100. This would give Protoss a lot more freedom of tech.
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EPT
