Below is what I feel about my race, Protoss. It is about its mechanics and how HotS will not fix core issues holding my race back from competing at a high level vs. the other races.
It is with a long sigh that I write this in an effort to vent out some of the feelings of what I believe to be the majority of Protoss as I have personally witnessed. Where do I begin...
I am Archon, a high level Protoss gamer on SC2 and BW player. I have played Protoss back when Protoss were the high-cost, strong race, and powerful late game army. Since WoL, Protoss has lost their strength but retained their costs. As expected, the game was new and has years to match the expectations of BW balancing. With that being said, it should be noted that the fundamental concepts were 'already in place' since BW.
Let's move on to what this is really about: HotS. Before I touch base on Protoss changes I would like to bring attention to what I believe is even more important than new units... old ones. To clarify, I am referring to the buffs of several WoL units such as the reaper, ultralisk, hydralisk, hellion, battlecruiser, raven, etc. I feel like these buffs were well thought out for the above mentioned but I see something missing. Changes to Protoss WoL units. It is as if the development team considered the WoL Protoss units....perfect? I will not go into theorycrafting ideas but lay out the details such as the above.
Moving on to the problems I believe resonate with the majority if not all Protoss players. The New Hots units. As a high level gamer, I have tried it all, that's what we do; we look for the best, train, revise, repeat, and win. The new HotS units have almost no value to the way that I believe the metagame of WoL is played. Granted, the metagame will surely change in HotS for Zerg and Terran, but without the addition of "early/midgame units," as I shall term it, Protoss is not going to change much at all. That last sentence is actually a reference to another problem I will address later.
Back to the synergy of the new HotS units to our current units. Simple. There is none. Mothership core seemed like a brilliant idea, and indeed, it was. Past tense due to the hammer nerf to the ground making this core something I will highly consider skipping until I absolutely need it. It's garbage, damage, speed, ability costs, anything and everything to the point I have to ask...what does Blizzard want us to do with this. What do they believe we will be doing with this new unit. Some people believe mass recall is going to be amazing but I remain skeptical. We were talking about synergy. With the cost at an astonishing 150 energy, we have 1 use for a long while. The worst part is Protoss is not the race who can split units in the early and midgame as efficiently as other races. There will be no need to mass recall anything because I won't ever take anything I don't want to lose. I.e. I'm not worried about recalling my 4 zealots in my early game pressure as my stalkers can run home safely. I will spare the further details but remember this core point: Protoss won't be able to do multi pronged pressure with units they are not already prepared to lose.
Tempest saddens me. Not only did the iconic protoss unit, the carrier, get thrown into the can, but what saddens me is that I believe they did this because they just had no idea what other unit to give Protoss so they gave us a worse carrier. What do I mean? Remove thor and give terran warhound or remove roach and give zerg swarm host; Happy birthday, you didn't gain anything but broke out even in units. In the case of the Protoss, the tempest is a major nerf for reasons such as not being able to counter mech(I think it took 1 tempest around 10 shots to kill a warhound) The DPS is an issue, the cost is an issue, the time to make is an issue, etc. Synergy of this unit to Protoss? There is none with the exception that it is just as slow as the Protoss deathball. With no abilities on the tempest, it is just an a-move unit.
Moving on...
Alas, the oracle. The oracle was MY personal favorite unit going into the pre nerfed HotS. My god what use and strategy I could reap from such a versatile unit. Taking my third base earlier and cloaking it from roaches and lings and sniping a potential overseer with a stalker, engaging in micro with cloak...finally a cloak that I get before tier 3. An arbiter, not a "you can only have 1" slow "get this unit only to abuse it with vortex because that's all this unit is for" mothership. Cloaking my pylon to prevent it being sniped to allow my pressure to actually continue. Cloaking my warp prism at the corner of my enemy base while having the oracle slightly outside of firing range... I can go on for hours. It's gone. Cloak is gone. Strategy is gone. Protoss get a cheesy press e to block mineral patches ability. Oh I can see the strategy there. But that is not what bothers me, what bothers me is the nerfed split between its first ability having detection and now giving a 3rd ability.....detection. JUST GIVE THE ORACLE 2 ABILITIES. We know you have no idea for a 3rd ability, we get it. Don't worry, we won't be making the unit anyways. It won't have the "disruption web" the corsair had to prevent static defense from engaging so once an enemy gets 1 turret up, it's over for the oracle... "Hey oracle, meet phoenix." The cost is astronomically high and forces Protoss to commit to a stargate play which is already underpowered. Remember that list of zerg and terran units I mentioned that got buffs....now is a good time to make a connection to Protoss not receiving any. The Protoss does need a harassing unit as mentioned by David Kim. The oracle is not it.
Finalizing my position is the revisiting of a core issue: the metagame. Currently, I believe a lot of Protoss do what is widely known as "timing attacks or all ins" to win a game vs a zerg or terran player. There is little strategy to these attacks by Protoss and require a relatively low skill cap to execute(good ff, good blinks..that's it) compared to the potential of other races. This is boring to execute and boring to watch but it should be remembered that Protoss is not a very strong late game(At least in regard to what it used to be.) Yes I am referencing Brood War but before I receive a "this is not Brood War" comment. Need I remind you we already have our goliath(warhound) and lurker(swarm host) back from Brood War.
As I try to remain relatively distant from posting in these forums, I would like to voice my opinion for MY race. I believe Protoss is broken; from the reliance on sentry to survive early game, to reliance of exploits of mothership and terrain and ramps(ff) and even to how the warpgate mechanic is setup, Protoss is a shell of its former glory. But still I choose to play for this race because I keep waiting for change.
The Protoss of the starcraft 2 community are outraged. As most would say, we don't want to be strong, we want to play on an even playing field. The beta is still in beta but it is obviously headed in the wrong direction for Protoss. I personally would be thrilled with the removal of oracle, mothership core, and tempest, and just get a buff on the void ray. We, as a race of the Protoss do not want to wait for LotV to fix core problems still lurking in WoL with our race(including needing to abuse "archon toilet" to stand a chance. As the Spectre would say, "I'm tired of waiting."
On September 10 2012 08:54 Harbinger631 wrote: The biggest thing I don't understand from Protoss QQ threads is that Protoss is winning everything in WoL right now...
Also, calling the Tempest an "a-move unit" makes you looks silly. Positioning/vision are essential to make it work.
You're missing the point. Protoss wins, but it isn't a fun or interesting race to play compared to BW. I know people say that about every race but it is especially bad for Protoss
On September 10 2012 08:54 Harbinger631 wrote: The biggest thing I don't understand from Protoss QQ threads is that Protoss is winning everything in WoL right now...
Also, calling the Tempest an "a-move unit" makes you looks silly. Positioning/vision are essential to make it work.
Read his post before making such remarks. He is not talking about the win rate, he is talking about HOW Protosses win. Practically all Protoss wins come from timing attacks, cheeses, and all-ins. Just because Protoss has decent win rate doesn't mean the race's mechanics aren't broken.
On September 10 2012 08:54 Harbinger631 wrote: The biggest thing I don't understand from Protoss QQ threads is that Protoss is winning everything in WoL right now...
Also, calling the Tempest an "a-move unit" makes you looks silly. Positioning/vision are essential to make it work.
"[–]SCA_Suende 26 points 6 hours ago
Who the fuck wants to spend 300/300 on a unit that only causes problems that the other guy has FOUR MINUTES to figure out? Personally if I saw someone had the Tempest and had to choose what to do, id choose to go kill him, you know if he built any of those his army's gonna be pretty pathetic. "
"[–]DrMuffinPHD 13 points 3 hours ago The other day I was watching white-ra play. He had three tempests out and Demuslim dropped a warhound and a few SCV's into white-ra's base. The Tempests started shooting at the Warhound, but but couldn't kill it (no damage was being done due to repair). They couldn't even kill the SCV's on autorepair due to the medivac. It was pathetic. Really showed how useless the tempest is."
"DB: The one reason we’re pushing the range of the Tempest to 22 is to say “OK, this is a really long ranged weapon, guys, this is not a brood lord. This is something that can be in a different part of the map and still hit.” We’ll see how that works out.
Interviewer: I tried the tempest earlier and I was kind of disappointed. It’s expensive but the damage is very low.
DB: It is, it’s very light for its cost.
Interviewer: Yes, and so you will have to produce a lot of them, which gets quite costly.
DB: That, or be comfortable with a light amount of damage and say “Look, I am not going to kill you with this but you can’t stay there forever. I am chipping away at you, I am not killing everything but I am beating you pretty good. You have to move away, or engage this tempest or figure something out because you have limited time to do it.” And that’s the other reason why I think it feels different than a standard artillery unit. Because the standard artillery units, like the siege tank, are all like “No, you are dead. You need to move immediately.” The tempest is like “Yeah, he’s working away at my nexus and this is a problem. But it’s not a problem I need to solve in four seconds, it’s a problem I need to solve in 30 seconds, or maybe a minute.” And that creates a different kind of feeling. "
I get what you're saying - Toss can win but it's no fun playing it. To be honest though, I think it's the current metagame that's to blame. From a zerg player's perspective, it's not too different. The ZvP matchup is much like you said it - half the time I'm defending a huge gateway or immortal sentry allin and when that doesn't happen, it's a three base timing allin to try to kill me right before hive. Rarely, when that doesn't happen, it becomes a huge, ugly turtlefest where we're both maxed on deathballs where the whole game is decided by a single engagement. Either I get the chain fungals off or he archon toilets. Yeah, there's some harassment mixed in on both sides but for the most part it's what it is - a huge turtlefest into deathball fights, not really an action-packed, multitask challenging, dynamic "struggle" that I wish it was.
What I'm trying to get at here is that in the current metagame, zerg isn't very "zergy". They are really forced to turtle up until they get the broodlord infestor deathball, mostly in the modern ZvP. The other matchups are seeing more of it too. A lot of my ZvZs are have been really turtly lately.
The HotS units? Honestly, I've got to agree that the Protoss ones are lamer than the zerg or terran additions as of right now. However, I think it's a tad too early to start the QQ, the beta's only been our for what, like two days now. Give people time to come up with some builds/strats.
Imho it has nothing to do with the metagame. Protoss has this situation since WoL beta.
But I seriously doubt Blizzard will redesign a whole race for an addon....also I doubt it would be possible in the timeframe they want to get hots out.
I respect your opinion Archon. This is how I felt about zerg in the last days of beta / first months of WoL.
But ultimately, Blizzard won't fix it untill its absolutely blatant.
I remember when the HotS beta come out, and all the T/Z players raving about the new units they got. The few protoss players in the Skype Call, were all pretty quite and didn't have much to say. Because there isn't much to say, because they didn't get anything to talk about.
As a Protoss player myself, I am not outraged and disagree with you on a few points, Archon.
Mothership Core Mass Recall being unnecessary because "There will be no need to mass recall anything because I won't ever take anything I don't want to lose"... how about instead of doing a weak harassment with a couple of zealots, you add in some stalkers and sentries? And when the Zerg finally gets out enough speedlings to surround and kill your army, you just teleport away? You deal more damage with your units, and force more military units from Zerg. That's exactly what Mass Recall is all about. Energize will probably be a good safety net when opening Stargate vs. cloaked units, to make sure your Oracle can have enough energy to detect invisible units.
It's far too early to dismiss the Tempest; there's a lot of experimentation left to do with this unit, and if it turns out that it's weak then Blizzard will buff its stats. Calling it worse than the carrier at this point is laughable.
The Oracle's one-ability-in-two is pretty underwhelming, I'll give you that. Hopefully we'll see an actual third ability on it again.
I do agree with some of your sentiments, though. Protoss going from a "high cost but powerful race" to "high cost but can be abusive via force fields and warp-in" feels pretty bad, and seeing no buffs on any Protoss WoL units, not even on ones that evidently need it like the Void Ray, is rather discouraging so far in the HotS beta.
So... you think Protoss has been underpowered for the entirety of Wings of Liberty, because it has a different role in WoL than it had in BW. You think it should be like BW, even though you acknowledge they are different games, and your justification for this is that two units have been added that are similar in model to two BW units, even if those two new units function completely differently from their BW look-alikes. You dislike effective Protoss strategies like force fields, archon toilet and warpgate, calling them "exploits" because that makes them sound illegitimate. You're convinced that all the new Protoss units are completely worthless, despite the fact that beta has been out for less than a week. And you've been dissatisfied with your race for years now, but you keep playing it anyway because you're hoping Blizzard will give you a buff (for which you are now begging them).
Yeah, I think I disagree with every single thing you said. About the only thing we might agree on is that PvZ lategame is kind of dumb, and I think the Tempest creates a new and interesting way to deal with that. But you're entitled to your opinions I guess, and I hope you find something that makes you a little less down on the state of SC2.
On September 10 2012 10:09 ChristianS wrote: So... you think Protoss has been underpowered for the entirety of Wings of Liberty, because it has a different role in WoL than it had in BW. You think it should be like BW, even though you acknowledge they are different games, and your justification for this is that two units have been added that are similar in model to two BW units, even if those two new units function completely differently from their BW look-alikes. You dislike effective Protoss strategies like force fields, archon toilet and warpgate, calling them "exploits" because that makes them sound illegitimate. You're convinced that all the new Protoss units are completely worthless, despite the fact that beta has been out for less than a week. And you've been dissatisfied with your race for years now, but you keep playing it anyway because you're hoping Blizzard will give you a buff (for which you are now begging them).
Yeah, I think I disagree with every single thing you said. About the only thing we might agree on is that PvZ lategame is kind of dumb, and I think the Tempest creates a new and interesting way to deal with that. But you're entitled to your opinions I guess, and I hope you find something that makes you a little less down on the state of SC2.
Calling the way tempest interacts with broodlord death balls interesting is pushing it, but it should be effective I agree
Protoss was my main race in WoL but I stopped playing a few months ago. Basically protoss is extremely boring to play and I tried to transition to Terran but found it to be immensely frustrating so I quit SC2 instead.
I don't know what needs to be done but Protoss feels like an incomplete race. I can't bring myself to play it anymore. I will try again to transition to either terran or zerg in hots but if I fail I will quit SC2 for good.
On September 10 2012 07:28 Cabinet Sanchez wrote: Anyone seen this game from WhiteRA PvT? He completely and utterly outplayed his opponent and just scraped by, it was ridiculous.
I actually read Archons post on Bnet earlier. I can certainly agree that the protoss of WOL and HOTS is inferior to the BW protoss in almost every way. The only real improvements being warp and the warp prism. I remember reading how much trouble Blizzard had in developing zerg in WOL, they weren't sure what to do with the race and it's abilities. If you look back at the many changes to corruptors and infestors, it's pretty obvious. It seems like protoss has taken that place, and Blizzard just isn't sure what to do with protoss and what it's identity as a race is or is supposed to be.
In BW protoss identified as a race with a strong army, that was able to project it's power out onto the map, and have very powerful late game armies and abilities. Things like arbiters, carriers and dark archons, were very powerful units to support powerful gateway armies. That's what Terran is now, with MMM, ghost/viking support, and the new "walking mech". Terran is now the powerful mobile army that can project is power out onto the map.
It seems like protoss's identity in Sc2 is basically all in, or turtle until maxed and use mass warp ins to tip the battle in your favor. The spell casting has become more of a gimmick to make up for the weaker army, like FF's and Vortex. I honestly think at this point they should just accept protoss as the turtling, timing attack race that it now is.
Basically, terran and protoss have swapped identities from BW to WOL. I am fine with that, I say run with it. Give protoss even more turtle power, like terran has bunkers, pf's, lowering supply depots, ect. Then just add in some very strong positional units, similar to how siege tanks and mines function. I think with the state of protoss, the oracle and tempest are bad units for what protoss's role has actually become. The mothership core is pretty much perfect for this, what protoss needs now is things like shield batteries, the ability to reposition pylons, and some non deathball space control units. Immobile units that have to setup, much like a siege tank or swarm host.
Maybe give immortals a way to sink their feet into the ground and extend their hard shield, much like a guardian shield works now. Or give sentries a way to "phase out" and be cloaked but unable to move. So you can position them to drop FF's and slow incoming aggression, or allow them to draw power from the void and self destruct while cloaked dealing massive dmg. These aren't serious suggestions, just a quick example of the kinds of things protoss needs to manipulate the battle field and buy time, control space and delay aggression. That's what makes a turtling high tech race strong, like terran mech was in BW. It would be impossible to play mech in BW without the space control and dmg you get from setting up mines and siege tanks. But catching them without these things in place was death.
Protoss in WOL is totally different than protoss in BW. Okay, great, now just give protoss what it needs to be a turtling, positional race and it will be fun to play. Just like mech was in BW.
Edit: now that I think about, as much complaining as there is about the warhound. It is exactly what terran needed. Terran cannot mech like it did in BW but MMM was not very strong late game. Now terran has a massable, high hp, strong dps, mobile unit that is still good in the late game. It's what every terran who QQ'd about their late game wanted, just not in the form they expected. They wanted mech from BW, what they got was protoss from BW. Kind of ironic imo.
It's hard to know how much of this surge of Protoss QQ is because we got the crap toys for X'mas and are throwing a mass tantrum. Yeah, we do not seem to have gotten much love in this expansion. Still, I hope Protoss players in the beta make the best of it, and just try out stuff as the metagame has changed. For example, gate expands are now more viable vs Z (and may become the preferred build rather than FFE) as we can stay light on Sentries and pressure with Zealot/Stalker (while using the extra gas to tech) and be able to to Recall after doing damage and forcing units. If we scout an early attack (say Speedlings/Baneling bust/Roach all-in) the MC means better defense. Just speculating here - but the point is, it is too early to tell about viable Protoss strategies in the expanded SC Universe. Let's wait and see before screaming for "a fix".
I think we should be careful about how much we whine as the storm of whining from all players in WoL meant a lot of possibly fun stuff being nerfed. As much as I envy some of the cool new toys for T and Z, I would hate if P whine meant a nerf to these toys (especially those toys which do not deserve it). The game would be poorer for it. Protoss in WoL has always been about making the best use of a limited, but effective, tool kit. (This is one reason, in my opinion, why Protoss - at least on TL - talk to each other all the time, write guides and help each other.) The same may hold true for HotS. If so, if we find viable strategies in the new metagame, then maybe these will be buffed (e.g. SG tech) and Z and T not overly nerfed.
In the words of MC after being down vs Stephano in a BoX, "Play. Just play."
On September 10 2012 10:09 ChristianS wrote: So... you think Protoss has been underpowered for the entirety of Wings of Liberty, because it has a different role in WoL than it had in BW. You think it should be like BW, even though you acknowledge they are different games, and your justification for this is that two units have been added that are similar in model to two BW units, even if those two new units function completely differently from their BW look-alikes. You dislike effective Protoss strategies like force fields, archon toilet and warpgate, calling them "exploits" because that makes them sound illegitimate. You're convinced that all the new Protoss units are completely worthless, despite the fact that beta has been out for less than a week. And you've been dissatisfied with your race for years now, but you keep playing it anyway because you're hoping Blizzard will give you a buff (for which you are now begging them).
Yeah, I think I disagree with every single thing you said. About the only thing we might agree on is that PvZ lategame is kind of dumb, and I think the Tempest creates a new and interesting way to deal with that. But you're entitled to your opinions I guess, and I hope you find something that makes you a little less down on the state of SC2.
Calling the way tempest interacts with broodlord death balls interesting is pushing it, but it should be effective I agree
Well, maybe not THAT interesting. But at least how to handle it is non-obvious. Obviously pure BL-infestor does well partly because it forces opponents to come to it; now that's no longer the case. BL-infestor is still fairly strong in an offensive position, but BL's are slow enough that the Protoss might just be tempted to keep retreating and firing potshots at the brood lords. Then zerg's response is unclear. Add vipers to pull enemy units toward your brood lords and prevent retreat? Try and dash forward with infestors to fungal something and hold it in place? Try to flank with corruptors to kill the Tempests? Deny vision of his brood lords so they can't be sniped? Bring queens and just transfuse the damage?
I'm actually really interested in seeing some of the new late-game battles arise. It happens pretty rarely just yet in beta because early betas are always about all-ins, and even when late-game scenarios do come up they're so rare that no one knows how to play them out properly. But once they do start happening a little more frequently, I'm really curious how it will play out.
Toss got really one fucked up thing that is source of all the problems: Warp Gate mechanic It actually fuckes up not only PvX but also, indirectly, other match ups.
EPT
