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Hey like my title says i want to talk about the Protoss deathball in Heart of the Swarm but before i start i talk a little about myself. Im a Protoss player (high master) who started in the early Beta of WoL and played through the complete Beta and release until HotS came out. I also watch a lot of Pro streams like Idra, Sase, Seed and Babyknight.
I think most of you probably remember the ime on maps like Shakuras Plateau where Protoss players just camped out until they had 200supply and then finish you with an nearly invulnerable deathball. Zerg players were complaining about the imbalance of it and how lame it actually is to play. Protoss players complained aswell about the lame style and how passive you have to be.
And now Blizzard patched the Voidray and implemented the Tempest . Since then it seems like Protoss more and more gets back to the times of the deathball. But its just on some Maps like Akilon Wastes where you get an easy third and fourth base.
Still its a boring style but it seems like everyone is doing it because nothing else works against the Viper that counters Colossi the high dmg Ultralisk or even the Idra style with baneling muta ling ultra.
Now Protoss players seem to allin most of the games or they camp out on maps like Akilon Wastes but thats boring as fuck for both races. The Zerg cant do shit against it just trying to harass as long as possible but when the Protoss holds a good position and can defend his bases well it seems like Zerg cant break it and the Protoss cant push out until his army is maxed. I know its effective and so on but i dont really want to play a boring style like this. I always was an aggresive Player, not Allin orientated, but i put on an highly aggresive playstyle that depends on harass.
Now i would ask you about this Topic.
What do you think about the current PvZ in Heart of the Swarm do you think the way i do or do you think a different way ?
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It comes down to the maps.
I was watching a few BW maps and was astonished at how huge the maps were. Also the thirds need to be a little more open and not so easy to take. This will prevent Protoss from getting that 3base production so early and pumping out deathballs.
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I think it would help a lot in HOTS if they made the Tempest attack a skill shot/ability. It does wicked damage against broods, and with its wicked range its just a boring select all army units, hold position and let enemy attack into me kind of unit. If it was more of a skill shot unit i think the game would be a helluva lot more interesting by having this long range siege unit that does awesome damage, but takes skill and in the hands of a great player can do some amazing things. Of course, adjustments would have to be made to what that skill shot does(perhaps AoE), the cost/supply,etc. At least then it wouldn't be an easily mass-able unit and it would add some great tension to games.
Also, fungal changes, to make it more worthwhile for protoss to want to harass. Our primary harass comes from stargate, and allows for some really great styles but when you have that fear of that one fungal,you arent really given cause to do it. I know its been said to death, but if fungal functioned more like plague, the game would probably benefit more overall, and if the projectile speed were adjusted slightly to be a little bit easier to avoid, then we'd probably hit a nice balance of interesting with necessary power(the snare).
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deathballs are the inevitable produce in beta, its the easiest and safest option, doesn't surprise me at all that deathballs will return in HotS, at least til its figured out more.
Also... what's up with the random capitalization everywhere? tbh thats most of what I took away from your post, random capitals at the start of words ;p
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On January 27 2013 03:21 YogyBear wrote:
Also, fungal changes, to make it more worthwhile for protoss to want to harass. Our primary harass comes from stargate, and allows for some really great styles but when you have that fear of that one fungal,you arent really given cause to do it. I know its been said to death, but if fungal functioned more like plague, the game would probably benefit more overall, and if the projectile speed were adjusted slightly to be a little bit easier to avoid, then we'd probably hit a nice balance of interesting with necessary power(the snare).
I totally agree ! Its kinda annoying that one fungal disables all the possibilities to micro or just to safe the unit. I dont get it anyway why blizzard added a unit that disables all movements its just stupid.
Btw im sorry for my english im trying my best with the english i know but its not the language i normally speak 
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That just how protoss works. Even in BW it was similar but their was actually some sort of timing attack and aggression that protoss can do with +1 zealot and corsairs. The problem imo, is that the economy of the game is kinda bad atm. 3 base is the optimal max efficiency economy. Protoss also need an early access to a third base other wise they will die to stephano 200 roach push. Since the game is balance around FF, the third cant be TOO expose otherwise they die to 200 roach push as well.
This lead to turtling since zerg have no reason to get a 4th base other than gas. This mean zerg will just tech up and turtle as well. One of the way to deal with turtling is the expand since you got map control but since the game doesnt encourage any way of grabbing more then 3 bases, it not really the optimal choice.
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On January 27 2013 03:32 emythrel wrote:
deathballs are the inevitable produce in beta, its the easiest and safest option, doesn't surprise me at all that deathballs will return in HotS, at least til its figured out more.
Also... what's up with the random capitalization everywhere? tbh thats most of what I took away from your post, random capitals at the start of words ;p
It's a German quirk.
Also, is there anything added in Hots that would break up death balls? WoL has the same problem.
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You shouldnt be so surpirsed.
Protoss has ruined most of Sc2, and at this point in HoTs its even worse than WoL.
TvZ? Pretty good MU espcially with nerfs to infestor broood
TvT always a good mirror
ZvP? A train wreck of gimmicky turtling play
TvP A terrible MU that is only balanced by the clock on the game. Not only that, the ideal unit combos are so damn stale its very boring.
Protoss has so many design problems its terribad,
FF, Warp ins, collsi, and now Skytoss are all big problems that Blizz decided to ignore, even tho they had a closed beta which would of been a great safety net to do some redesigns on the race. But nope they decided to fuck around with a gimmicky MSC and oracle for the duration of the beta.
So HoTs is going to pan out just like WoL, people are going to love TvZ and TvT, and then cry every ZvP and TvP at how damn boring it still is.
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I'm enjoying my PvZs quite a bit, as a toss. I have a response I can go for vs anything zerg, but I never feel like i'm getting easy or free wins. I haven't messed with tempests much, but i've been playing with void colo recall with plenty of success.
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On January 27 2013 03:32 emythrel wrote:
deathballs are the inevitable produce in beta, its the easiest and safest option, doesn't surprise me at all that deathballs will return in HotS, at least til its figured out more.
Also... what's up with the random capitalization everywhere? tbh thats most of what I took away from your post, random capitals at the start of words ;p
He's from Germany. The German language capitalizes their nouns.
OT, the problem that causes deathballs isn't maps; it's pathing and unit interaction. Blizzard has openly refused to even consider changing this stuff, so you can safely bet on seeing boring deathball play from Protoss through even LotV.
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I actually think all 3 Protoss matchups are way more fun in HotS than WoL. Skytoss is much more fun than Robo builds. PvP and PvZ are both a lot better than WoL--PvT still needs some work, but mostly on the Terran side (i.e. buff mech vs toss).
I think it would help a lot in HOTS if they made the Tempest attack a skill shot/ability. It does wicked damage against broods, and with its wicked range its just a boring select all army units, hold position and let enemy attack into me kind of unit. If it was more of a skill shot unit i think the game would be a helluva lot more interesting by having this long range siege unit that does awesome damage, but takes skill and in the hands of a great player can do some amazing things. Of course, adjustments would have to be made to what that skill shot does(perhaps AoE), the cost/supply,etc. At least then it wouldn't be an easily mass-able unit and it would add some great tension to games.
The Tempest already overkills like crazy if you aren't controlling their fire. They actually come a lot closer to replicating BW-style Tank overkill, than the SC2 Siege Tank does. The Tempest basically has the firing mechanics everyone was asking for the Siege Tank to have.
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On January 27 2013 03:52 SheaR619 wrote:
. The problem imo, is that the economy of the game is kinda bad atm. 3 base is the optimal max efficiency economy. Protoss also need an early access to a third base other wise they will die to stephano 200 roach push. Since the game is balance around FF, the third cant be TOO expose otherwise they die to 200 roach push as well.
This lead to turtleing since zerg have no reason to get a 4th base other than gas. This mean zerg will just tech up and turtle as well. One of the way to deal with turtleing is the expand since you got map control but since the game doesnt encourage any way of grabbing more then 3 bases, it not really the optimal choice.
This is pretty spot on, but another factor that we should consider for taking bases is the high ground mechanics and unlimited unit selection. In brood war, having more units than your opponent coupled with the high ground mechanics made it harder to have more units and just bull doze through, but in SC2 this isn't the case.
How significant would a mining change be to the game? Would increasing the individual mining rates of probes and increased gas rates(not even up to 8 like BW, but just an increase) lead to a more aggressive game where attacking doesn't have to be an all in or if your attack does fail, you have chances to come back with good control and effective counter play?
Presumably, one would think that if probes mine faster, you need fewer, everything ramps up quicker, your decision of gas allocation changes(with more thought put into probe allocation), but because you are mining out faster you have more pressure to expand more often. Subsequently you have more units available because less supplied is tied up in probes. You hit 200/200 faster and the game plays to the engines strengths.You can attack and expand more consistently because your expansion comes online faster and you dont need to probe/drone/scv as long.The game becomes more economic with people wanting to take bases, while attacking at the same time, teching faster with more switches and just generally more excitement. If you hit that death ball faster, and can resupply then we probably end up with a game where people are just constantly trading with these massive armies trying to control as best as possible and less of a pasive snooze fest while we all sit patiently waiting for our bank. The starcraft 2 engine is not the brood war engine; with unlimited unit selection and smart casting we should want big armies and should want to be constantly pushing on our opponents trying to out position them.
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Don't mind the Protoss deathball, it melts pretty fast to mine. I am all for Deathballs aslong as only one side has them and the others try to bite of chunks of it and the Deathball player is on an eco timer, so they can't turtle to long. Anyway we will probably see changes in that regard soon.
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This reminds me of a game where I made a bunch of Voids on 4 bases, and eventually pushed him to his natural. He threw down a couple blinding clouds down on his ramp and moved his almost maxed Hydra army under them because he didn't know what it did and lost all of them to the voidness.
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On January 27 2013 05:28 ailouros wrote:
This reminds me of a game where I made a bunch of Voids on 4 bases, and eventually pushed him to his natural. He threw down a couple blinding clouds down on his ramp and moved his almost maxed Hydra army under them because he didn't know what it did and lost all of them to the voidness.
To be fair, blinding cloud would be so overpowered if it affected air.
You would literally be able to blanket cloud a deathball and a-move with no repercussions.
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On January 27 2013 05:49 InfCereal wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2013 05:28 ailouros wrote:
This reminds me of a game where I made a bunch of Voids on 4 bases, and eventually pushed him to his natural. He threw down a couple blinding clouds down on his ramp and moved his almost maxed Hydra army under them because he didn't know what it did and lost all of them to the voidness. To be fair, blinding cloud would be so overpowered if it affected air. You would literally be able to blanket cloud a deathball and a-move with no repercussions.
That's true but, since air has the mobility advantage over ground units, shouldn't there be more spells that affect air units than there are that affect grounds to compensate? There are lots of 'crowd control' type spells that only affect ground: Force Field, Time Warp, Blinding Cloud.
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United States7483 Posts
On January 27 2013 02:52 sagefreke wrote:
It comes down to the maps.
I was watching a few BW maps and was astonished at how huge the maps were. Also the thirds need to be a little more open and not so easy to take. This will prevent Protoss from getting that 3base production so early and pumping out deathballs.
Hard to take thirds just make protoss players do 2 base all-ins. Terrans and Zerg players have a much easier time securing hard to take bases than Protoss does (zerg has creep and their production makes it easier, terran has planetaries).
That's the problem, protoss race design means the third base has to be easy to take or the map is really bad for protoss. Forcefields are just too important.
If you want to solve the protoss deathball, you need to buff gateway units so that forcefields aren't a requirement anymore.
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Gate units are not weak, Forcefields is not a requirement or you die. It's a stylistic choice popular in the meta game because
Of the Koreans
So tired of this misconception. If you are tired of relying on sentries to keep you alive, stop building them and upgrade your units instead. 2 sentries == 1/1. If you miss those Forcefields you spent the gas for your 1/1 upgrades on you have no reason to complain
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On January 27 2013 06:32 c0sm0naut wrote:
Gate units are not weak, Forcefields is not a requirement or you die. It's a stylistic choice popular in the meta game because
Of the Koreans
So tired of this misconception. If you are tired of relying on sentries to keep you alive, stop building them and upgrade your units instead. 2 sentries == 1/1. If you miss those Forcefields you spent the gas for your 1/1 upgrades on you have no reason to complain
Warping in 2 sentries literally takes 5 seconds.
1/1 Upgrades take a bit longer also 2 forges +1 +1 = 500-200
2 Sentries = 100-200
And in many situations 1/1 would not even be better than the sentries.
Try holding off 120 fighting supply from Zerg with 40ish supply and 2/1 rather than sentries 
All that deathball talk is pissing me off.
In BW would a meching Terran against Protoss attack multiple locations all the time?
They would harass and get up their tank count. Pretty big difference to getting phoenix to harass while getting the Colossus count higher! I see...
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On January 27 2013 05:49 InfCereal wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2013 05:28 ailouros wrote:
This reminds me of a game where I made a bunch of Voids on 4 bases, and eventually pushed him to his natural. He threw down a couple blinding clouds down on his ramp and moved his almost maxed Hydra army under them because he didn't know what it did and lost all of them to the voidness. To be fair, blinding cloud would be so overpowered if it affected air. You would literally be able to blanket cloud a deathball and a-move with no repercussions.
What's the difference to right now?
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re:Whitewing but we can't also do that cause warping in stronger stalker to safe guard colli is going to be an even scarier deathball.
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Remove colossi, vikings, and corruptors and rebalance the game.
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United States7483 Posts
On January 27 2013 06:46 800800 wrote:
re:Whitewing but we can't also do that cause warping in stronger stalker to safe guard colli is going to be an even scarier deathball.
You can nerf colossi somewhat to compensate for a stronger gateway army.
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Well, i can say you that its impossible to win ZvP right now cause of deathball.
All the Toss need is 3 Bases and he just kills you with any kind of air army because
blinding cloud does shit as well as infestors right know.
But dont worry its only 2 months until release -.-.
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On January 27 2013 03:32 emythrel wrote:
deathballs are the inevitable produce in beta, its the easiest and safest option, doesn't surprise me at all that deathballs will return in HotS, at least til its figured out more.
Also... what's up with the random capitalization everywhere? tbh thats most of what I took away from your post, random capitals at the start of words ;p
It isn't random. Germans capitalize the first letter of nouns.
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On January 27 2013 08:04 spbelky wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2013 03:32 emythrel wrote:
deathballs are the inevitable produce in beta, its the easiest and safest option, doesn't surprise me at all that deathballs will return in HotS, at least til its figured out more.
Also... what's up with the random capitalization everywhere? tbh thats most of what I took away from your post, random capitals at the start of words ;p It isn't random. Germans capitalize the first letter of nouns.
I didn't check the whole OP but even in the first paragraph 'Early' and 'Release' are not nouns.
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From what I've seen (and how I play myself) HotS protoss is WoL protoss with extra defence/aggression in the MsC.
iNcontroL claimed himself that he plays WoL protoss with the MsC for "planetary nexus" and I feel like this is pretty much what HotS comes down to - whether you want to use MsC offensive (recall, time warp) or defensive (photon overcharge).
Sure, stargate has tempests, the new void ray and carrier but damn, I find these units really boring to play with. Mostly because I can't find any good use for the tempests (except when I face colossus in pvp), the new void ray doesn't tickle my talalah, because it's still a gimmicky unit and I don't want to be that "mass up void rays silver league style!"-guy.
As a protoss player, HotS is nice because it brings new stuff to the client not cause it adds to gameplay.
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On January 27 2013 08:21 DeCoup wrote:
I didn't check the whole OP but even in the first paragraph 'Early' and 'Release' are not nouns.
release can be a noun in german...I edited a lot of the words. Anyway can we get back to the topic. I really hope that blizzard is going to change something about it in the near future its just boring to play as protoss or against protoss at any point.
You may be right about the mothership core but its not like you get a chance to really dmg your opponent you only force him to build units and after he got his third base running it wont deal real dmg when he needs to build units. Its not like i hate the MsC i actually really like it. Same with the oracle even tho i think that the oracle really loses his purpose in lategame. Btw mass voidray tempest high templar isnt really silver style. I saw liquid hero doing it on stream and crushing everything with it.
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The deathball will always be an issue because it's the easiest thing to do. It doesn't matter how much Blizzard tries to balance the game, most players (not everyone obviously) will take the easiest route they know and that's just the sad reality. There are several different styles you can use right now that don't involve just sitting back, waiting to take a 3rd and then maxing out, it just comes down to a players' will to do it.
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The Protoss death ball isn't back. The Protoss players playing HOTS are terrible at Protoss (white-ra is the best Protoss in beta, which isn't saying much) or they don't know how to play toss yet. Like Artosis said in SOTG. We won't know balance until release when good players are actually playing. Cough Rain cough.
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On January 27 2013 07:58 Fortuna.424 wrote:
Well, i can say you that its impossible to win ZvP right now cause of deathball.
All the Toss need is 3 Bases and he just kills you with any kind of air army because
blinding cloud does shit as well as infestors right know.
But dont worry its only 2 months until release -.-.
I don't see how you can say that when mass corruptor literally beats any toss air army that isn't mass void rays in equal supply/upgrades, and toss air is much more expensive than massing corruptors. And mass void ray is still not a realistic choice because of fungal growth.
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On January 27 2013 06:57 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2013 06:46 800800 wrote:
re:Whitewing but we can't also do that cause warping in stronger stalker to safe guard colli is going to be an even scarier deathball. You can nerf colossi somewhat to compensate for a stronger gateway army.
No, you can't. Zerg can't beat 6-gate at all if gateway units are stronger. This allin uses no sentries and hits before roach speed, if stalkers get so much as +1 damage Zerg can't do shit about it because +1 stalkers will kill zerglings in 3 hits instead of 4, meaning there's nothing Zerg can produce to hold this off.
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On January 27 2013 09:31 ProfessionalNoob wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2013 07:58 Fortuna.424 wrote:
Well, i can say you that its impossible to win ZvP right now cause of deathball.
All the Toss need is 3 Bases and he just kills you with any kind of air army because
blinding cloud does shit as well as infestors right know.
But dont worry its only 2 months until release -.-. I don't see how you can say that when mass corruptor literally beats any toss air army that isn't mass void rays in equal supply/upgrades, and toss air is much more expensive than massing corruptors. And mass void ray is still not a realistic choice because of fungal growth.
if people are talking about skytoss being imba its always skytoss + HT/archon. mass corruptor gets hardcore raped by skytoss with voids + storm and archons. zerg literally cant beat a 200 supply army of that composition.
they should just change corruption to sth. more useful and buff hydras finally. its about time to give hydras a real role as core unit which even david kim said some weeks before...and since then hasnt buffed them rofl.
we´ll see what they do ^^
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On January 27 2013 02:52 sagefreke wrote:
Also the thirds need to be a little more open and not so easy to take. This will prevent Protoss from getting that 3base production so early and pumping out deathballs.
As a Protoss player I totally agree. Easily taken thirds are really bad for SC2 in my opinion.
Problem is the Roach max armies in PvZ. Without a choke, you'll never secure a third in PvZ.
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On January 27 2013 04:03 XXXSmOke wrote:
TvP A terrible MU that is only balanced by the clock on the game. Not only that, the ideal unit combos are so damn stale its very boring.
So you haven't been watching PvTs lately? It's easily one of the better matchups.
The boring PvZ meta you mention is mostly due to infestor instant fungal death and how slow the BL army is.
TvZ is also very boring. All games are desperate attempts at pressure by terran while zerg tries to hold on and tech switch and remax a few times. Very fun indeed.
Note that out of the three 'counter' things you use in TvP (ghost, marauder, viking) only two are actually used in TvZ.
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On January 27 2013 03:52 SheaR619 wrote:
That just how protoss works. Even in BW it was similar but their was actually some sort of timing attack and aggression that protoss can do with +1 zealot and corsairs. The problem imo, is that the economy of the game is kinda bad atm. 3 base is the optimal max efficiency economy. Protoss also need an early access to a third base other wise they will die to stephano 200 roach push. Since the game is balance around FF, the third cant be TOO expose otherwise they die to 200 roach push as well.
This lead to turtling since zerg have no reason to get a 4th base other than gas. This mean zerg will just tech up and turtle as well. One of the way to deal with turtling is the expand since you got map control but since the game doesnt encourage any way of grabbing more then 3 bases, it not really the optimal choice.
That's the main reason I believe. I think mapmakers can help by introducing more expansions with significantly less resources at every expansion and larger distances between them, so that turtling till 200 becomes more vulnerable to harass and multi-pronged timing attacks. Isn't that what we want?
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United States7483 Posts
On January 27 2013 09:45 Xequecal wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2013 06:57 Whitewing wrote:On January 27 2013 06:46 800800 wrote:
re:Whitewing but we can't also do that cause warping in stronger stalker to safe guard colli is going to be an even scarier deathball. You can nerf colossi somewhat to compensate for a stronger gateway army. No, you can't. Zerg can't beat 6-gate at all if gateway units are stronger. This allin uses no sentries and hits before roach speed, if stalkers get so much as +1 damage Zerg can't do shit about it because +1 stalkers will kill zerglings in 3 hits instead of 4, meaning there's nothing Zerg can produce to hold this off.
6 gate all-in right now is actually trivial to stop, I'm uncertain it becomes unbeatable with stronger stalkers and zealots. I'm certain there are +1 armor timings zergs could experiment with to deal with things like this. Earlier burrow might be a powerful help as well. 7 Gate +2 blink is a bigger concern than 6 gate all-in, and I'm unconvinced it's that good with buffed stalkers due to the nerf to blink build time.
There's no way to theorycraft this stuff, it'd have to be tried out.
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United States7483 Posts
On January 27 2013 10:44 neptunusfisk wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2013 04:03 XXXSmOke wrote:
TvP A terrible MU that is only balanced by the clock on the game. Not only that, the ideal unit combos are so damn stale its very boring.
So you haven't been watching PvTs lately? It's easily one of the better matchups. The boring PvZ meta you mention is mostly due to infestor instant fungal death and how slow the BL army is. TvZ is also very boring. All games are desperate attempts at pressure by terran while zerg tries to hold on and tech switch and remax a few times. Very fun indeed. Note that out of the three 'counter' things you use in TvP (ghost, marauder, viking) only two are actually used in TvZ.
There are players that use all 3 of those units, watch Gumiho play, for example. He regularly makes use of ghosts in TvZ to deal with infestors, vikings are obvious, and he uses marauders against both ling/bling and against ultralisks.
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On January 27 2013 10:44 neptunusfisk wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2013 04:03 XXXSmOke wrote:
TvP A terrible MU that is only balanced by the clock on the game. Not only that, the ideal unit combos are so damn stale its very boring.
So you haven't been watching PvTs lately? It's easily one of the better matchups. The boring PvZ meta you mention is mostly due to infestor instant fungal death and how slow the BL army is. TvZ is also very boring. All games are desperate attempts at pressure by terran while zerg tries to hold on and tech switch and remax a few times. Very fun indeed. Note that out of the three 'counter' things you use in TvP (ghost, marauder, viking) only two are actually used in TvZ.
That is the case in WoL sure, but not in hots. Terran can fight late game zerg just fine. More then fine, zerg does NOT have an advantage late game zvt anymore.
If terran see's bl's just get ravens 2 seeker missiles each and their sick good, ultras are only better vs marines so the counter to them is the same as in WoL, mass MMM + widow mines to makes it strong to.
Zvt is actually really entertaining to watch in hots and is really back and fourth now that zerg doesn't have an instant win late game, not even close it's balanced late game, mid game favors terran a lot though.
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On January 27 2013 06:48 lorestarcraft wrote:
Remove colossi, vikings, and corruptors and rebalance the game.
newbs like this need to pipe down.
j/k, but deathball is fine.
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I think Bliz really missed their chance with the Mass Recall, it could be a spell that encourage small attacks, harass but they turned it into a deathball gtfo button.
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On January 27 2013 09:30 SoFrOsTy wrote:
The Protoss death ball isn't back. The Protoss players playing HOTS are terrible at Protoss (white-ra is the best Protoss in beta, which isn't saying much) or they don't know how to play toss yet. Like Artosis said in SOTG. We won't know balance until release when good players are actually playing. Cough Rain cough.
A lot of the flaws and problems with WoL were forseen and muttered about plenty in advance of the problems manifesting themselves. Theory crafting has as much value as any of the cute stats that get thrown about.
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On January 27 2013 03:52 SheaR619 wrote:
That just how protoss works. Even in BW it was similar but their was actually some sort of timing attack and aggression that protoss can do with +1 zealot and corsairs. The problem imo, is that the economy of the game is kinda bad atm. 3 base is the optimal max efficiency economy. Protoss also need an early access to a third base other wise they will die to stephano 200 roach push. Since the game is balance around FF, the third cant be TOO expose otherwise they die to 200 roach push as well.
This lead to turtling since zerg have no reason to get a 4th base other than gas. This mean zerg will just tech up and turtle as well. One of the way to deal with turtling is the expand since you got map control but since the game doesnt encourage any way of grabbing more then 3 bases, it not really the optimal choice.
Yeah, it's the bases. The fewer minerals per bases maps (which sadly has fallen off) really helped fix the deathball problem in SC2 (while it lasted).
I'd like to add a few things which helps with the deathball, turtle until win issue in BW are:
1. Control groups (a bit basic) being limited to 12 or less.
2. The pathing - Units (even if you tried) rarely clumped up in a small space.
3. And a lot of people forget to add this - The spells. In BW, spells were way way stronger than in SC2 and it greatly discouraged deathballs (or attacking with everything in one place) and encouraged more attacks everywhere.
Every race had good defense thanks to the spells. This meant you were actually encouraged to attack with small groups of units instead of just one big unit (of everything you have). If someone attacked you with a maxed out army in BW, you had powerful spells that could take it all out if they weren't careful (so this encouraged attacking with small groups instead of large groups).
Storms did 120 damage and had a much bigger radius (it's 2.0 if you convert it from BW to SC2, and that's around 33% bigger radius).
A few storms would take out any death ball (nearly every unit, besides a capital ship, could be taken out by 1-2 storms as opposed to in SC2).
On the Terran side, they had EMP (which removed all shields and energy) and Irradiate. Vultures and siege tanks (yet more anti death balls).
Zerg side, Lurkers, Plague (up to 300 damage to all units affected, units cannot die from plague though).
Also all the AoE units in BW weren't a-move units (well, besides Archons). Lurkers, Siege Tanks, Vultures (with spider mines), and spell casters were all units that required micro to use.
So, this along with more bases (more spread out bases instead of just turtling on 3 base), the two important things IMO, prevented the death ball syndrome in BW.
And it made for a much better game because battles were happened more often (than in SC2) and were much less predictable too.
We'll see how HotS does though. If HotS is basically WoL with a few less death ball units, I really think they should try changing SC2 more with LotV.
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forcefield and warpgate are the main problem.
Due to that the gateway units are much weaker than other tier 1 on open field.
And the stupid unique MSC of course promotes deathballs as well.
It's a bit sad but still the protoss MU's are becoming more interesting due to the air options at least...
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On January 27 2013 11:23 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2013 10:44 neptunusfisk wrote:On January 27 2013 04:03 XXXSmOke wrote:
TvP A terrible MU that is only balanced by the clock on the game. Not only that, the ideal unit combos are so damn stale its very boring.
So you haven't been watching PvTs lately? It's easily one of the better matchups. The boring PvZ meta you mention is mostly due to infestor instant fungal death and how slow the BL army is. TvZ is also very boring. All games are desperate attempts at pressure by terran while zerg tries to hold on and tech switch and remax a few times. Very fun indeed. Note that out of the three 'counter' things you use in TvP (ghost, marauder, viking) only two are actually used in TvZ. There are players that use all 3 of those units, watch Gumiho play, for example. He regularly makes use of ghosts in TvZ to deal with infestors, vikings are obvious, and he uses marauders against both ling/bling and against ultralisks.
Well, he does it because it's not standard meta so all the zergs are confused.
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On January 27 2013 16:39 Sabu113 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2013 09:30 SoFrOsTy wrote:
The Protoss death ball isn't back. The Protoss players playing HOTS are terrible at Protoss (white-ra is the best Protoss in beta, which isn't saying much) or they don't know how to play toss yet. Like Artosis said in SOTG. We won't know balance until release when good players are actually playing. Cough Rain cough. A lot of the flaws and problems with WoL were forseen and muttered about plenty in advance of the problems manifesting themselves. Theory crafting has as much value as any of the cute stats that get thrown about.
And worse problems came also from not giving things enough time and putting them aside. And just saying they are flat out bad. While the multitude of the forseen flaws were no flaws at all, just bad play. It is hard to pick out the 1% truth of what people say at the beginning when it is just theory. It takes alot of testing and practical experimentation to filter the true flaws, from the ones people only imagine themself.
For example the useless Wings Voidray, that currently rips through HotS after they nerfed it, but made it easier to use in exchange.
So it is way easier to test it first when doing the fine tuning, before doing alot of hit and miss testing, which is of course good if something is really of balance.
WoL also is a good example on the terrible results that can come from fast changes, so the people that want to do it slow have a good example. But Blizzard is doing a good job now with balance timing, even though I hate alot of what they are doing right now.
Mainly responded because I found the players mentioned in the first quote a funny example.
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On January 27 2013 16:52 Goldfish wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2013 03:52 SheaR619 wrote:
That just how protoss works. Even in BW it was similar but their was actually some sort of timing attack and aggression that protoss can do with +1 zealot and corsairs. The problem imo, is that the economy of the game is kinda bad atm. 3 base is the optimal max efficiency economy. Protoss also need an early access to a third base other wise they will die to stephano 200 roach push. Since the game is balance around FF, the third cant be TOO expose otherwise they die to 200 roach push as well.
This lead to turtling since zerg have no reason to get a 4th base other than gas. This mean zerg will just tech up and turtle as well. One of the way to deal with turtling is the expand since you got map control but since the game doesnt encourage any way of grabbing more then 3 bases, it not really the optimal choice. Yeah, it's the bases. The fewer minerals per bases maps (which sadly has fallen off) really helped fix the deathball problem in SC2 (while it lasted). I'd like to add a few things which helps with the deathball, turtle until win issue in BW are: 1. Control groups (a bit basic) being limited to 12 or less. 2. The pathing - Units (even if you tried) rarely clumped up in a small space. 3. And a lot of people forget to add this - The spells. In BW, spells were way way stronger than in SC2 and it greatly discouraged deathballs (or attacking with everything in one place) and encouraged more attacks everywhere.Every race had good defense thanks to the spells. This meant you were actually encouraged to attack with small groups of units instead of just one big unit (of everything you have). If someone attacked you with a maxed out army in BW, you had powerful spells that could take it all out if they weren't careful (so this encouraged attacking with small groups instead of large groups). Storms did 120 damage and had a much bigger radius (it's 2.0 if you convert it from BW to SC2, and that's around 33% bigger radius). A few storms would take out any death ball (nearly every unit, besides a capital ship, could be taken out by 1-2 storms as opposed to in SC2).On the Terran side, they had EMP (which removed all shields and energy) and Irradiate. Vultures and siege tanks (yet more anti death balls). Zerg side, Lurkers, Plague (up to 300 damage to all units affected, units cannot die from plague though). Also all the AoE units in BW weren't a-move units (well, besides Archons). Lurkers, Siege Tanks, Vultures (with spider mines), and spell casters were all units that required micro to use. So, this along with more bases (more spread out bases instead of just turtling on 3 base), the two important things IMO, prevented the death ball syndrome in BW.
And it made for a much better game because battles were happened more often (than in SC2) and were much less predictable too. We'll see how HotS does though. If HotS is basically WoL with a few less death ball units, I really think they should try changing SC2 more with LotV.
Please, TvP was a tank deathball MU, always. Boring as shit, and predictable to the very core.
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On January 27 2013 22:08 naastyOne wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2013 16:52 Goldfish wrote:On January 27 2013 03:52 SheaR619 wrote:
That just how protoss works. Even in BW it was similar but their was actually some sort of timing attack and aggression that protoss can do with +1 zealot and corsairs. The problem imo, is that the economy of the game is kinda bad atm. 3 base is the optimal max efficiency economy. Protoss also need an early access to a third base other wise they will die to stephano 200 roach push. Since the game is balance around FF, the third cant be TOO expose otherwise they die to 200 roach push as well.
This lead to turtling since zerg have no reason to get a 4th base other than gas. This mean zerg will just tech up and turtle as well. One of the way to deal with turtling is the expand since you got map control but since the game doesnt encourage any way of grabbing more then 3 bases, it not really the optimal choice. Yeah, it's the bases. The fewer minerals per bases maps (which sadly has fallen off) really helped fix the deathball problem in SC2 (while it lasted). I'd like to add a few things which helps with the deathball, turtle until win issue in BW are: 1. Control groups (a bit basic) being limited to 12 or less. 2. The pathing - Units (even if you tried) rarely clumped up in a small space. 3. And a lot of people forget to add this - The spells. In BW, spells were way way stronger than in SC2 and it greatly discouraged deathballs (or attacking with everything in one place) and encouraged more attacks everywhere.Every race had good defense thanks to the spells. This meant you were actually encouraged to attack with small groups of units instead of just one big unit (of everything you have). If someone attacked you with a maxed out army in BW, you had powerful spells that could take it all out if they weren't careful (so this encouraged attacking with small groups instead of large groups). Storms did 120 damage and had a much bigger radius (it's 2.0 if you convert it from BW to SC2, and that's around 33% bigger radius). A few storms would take out any death ball (nearly every unit, besides a capital ship, could be taken out by 1-2 storms as opposed to in SC2).On the Terran side, they had EMP (which removed all shields and energy) and Irradiate. Vultures and siege tanks (yet more anti death balls). Zerg side, Lurkers, Plague (up to 300 damage to all units affected, units cannot die from plague though). Also all the AoE units in BW weren't a-move units (well, besides Archons). Lurkers, Siege Tanks, Vultures (with spider mines), and spell casters were all units that required micro to use. So, this along with more bases (more spread out bases instead of just turtling on 3 base), the two important things IMO, prevented the death ball syndrome in BW.
And it made for a much better game because battles were happened more often (than in SC2) and were much less predictable too. We'll see how HotS does though. If HotS is basically WoL with a few less death ball units, I really think they should try changing SC2 more with LotV. Please, TvP was a tank deathball MU, always. Boring as shit, and predictable to the very core.
Exactly, and still people beg for mech to be buffed so they can mass out factory units every single game and attack at 180-200 supply.
That is exactly the same principle, how come it would be soooo beneficial to the game if Terran could turtle up to a deathball but it kills eSport if Protoss does it?
It feels like Protoss gets so much hate from people just because Protoss is possibly OP at lower levels, or maybe because it is "cool" to do so because of amazing role models like IdrA who, coincidentally still said Protoss is the strongest race when the rest of the world knew that ZvP was hugely imbalanced toward Zerg. . . .
Even IF the Protoss turtle style would be the strongest, over time it would get better and more action packed.
Once people realise weaknesses of the Turtle style (timing wise) and exploit those as well as get an eco advantage you will see Protoss changing it up and going for a later death ball with more harass and action in the early and mid game.
Just take your chill pills...
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On January 27 2013 22:13 rEalGuapo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2013 22:08 naastyOne wrote:On January 27 2013 16:52 Goldfish wrote:On January 27 2013 03:52 SheaR619 wrote:
That just how protoss works. Even in BW it was similar but their was actually some sort of timing attack and aggression that protoss can do with +1 zealot and corsairs. The problem imo, is that the economy of the game is kinda bad atm. 3 base is the optimal max efficiency economy. Protoss also need an early access to a third base other wise they will die to stephano 200 roach push. Since the game is balance around FF, the third cant be TOO expose otherwise they die to 200 roach push as well.
This lead to turtling since zerg have no reason to get a 4th base other than gas. This mean zerg will just tech up and turtle as well. One of the way to deal with turtling is the expand since you got map control but since the game doesnt encourage any way of grabbing more then 3 bases, it not really the optimal choice. Yeah, it's the bases. The fewer minerals per bases maps (which sadly has fallen off) really helped fix the deathball problem in SC2 (while it lasted). I'd like to add a few things which helps with the deathball, turtle until win issue in BW are: 1. Control groups (a bit basic) being limited to 12 or less. 2. The pathing - Units (even if you tried) rarely clumped up in a small space. 3. And a lot of people forget to add this - The spells. In BW, spells were way way stronger than in SC2 and it greatly discouraged deathballs (or attacking with everything in one place) and encouraged more attacks everywhere.Every race had good defense thanks to the spells. This meant you were actually encouraged to attack with small groups of units instead of just one big unit (of everything you have). If someone attacked you with a maxed out army in BW, you had powerful spells that could take it all out if they weren't careful (so this encouraged attacking with small groups instead of large groups). Storms did 120 damage and had a much bigger radius (it's 2.0 if you convert it from BW to SC2, and that's around 33% bigger radius). A few storms would take out any death ball (nearly every unit, besides a capital ship, could be taken out by 1-2 storms as opposed to in SC2).On the Terran side, they had EMP (which removed all shields and energy) and Irradiate. Vultures and siege tanks (yet more anti death balls). Zerg side, Lurkers, Plague (up to 300 damage to all units affected, units cannot die from plague though). Also all the AoE units in BW weren't a-move units (well, besides Archons). Lurkers, Siege Tanks, Vultures (with spider mines), and spell casters were all units that required micro to use. So, this along with more bases (more spread out bases instead of just turtling on 3 base), the two important things IMO, prevented the death ball syndrome in BW.
And it made for a much better game because battles were happened more often (than in SC2) and were much less predictable too. We'll see how HotS does though. If HotS is basically WoL with a few less death ball units, I really think they should try changing SC2 more with LotV. Please, TvP was a tank deathball MU, always. Boring as shit, and predictable to the very core. Exactly, and still people beg for mech to be buffed so they can mass out factory units every single game and attack at 180-200 supply. That is exactly the same principle, how come it would be soooo beneficial to the game if Terran could turtle up to a deathball but it kills eSport if Protoss does it?
The only reasonable reason i cann come up with is that some people are so used to BW, they can not see it has flaws.
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Whole engine changes etc. are silly.
Blizz should have just focussed more on making clumped up turtle styles being a bad way to play. Instead they've introduced changes that revert all attempts of moving away from deathball style play.
Fungal got nerfed fairly badly, tempests counter the broodlords which forced you to be mobile and voidrays got buffed again..
It's basically back to lasertoss from before in PvZ, only the viper sort of promotes splitting and can tear apart the deathball but not even that efficiently.
PvZ is the only real matchup with deathball behaviour though, PvT doesn't have it that much and PvP sort of got ridden of it without colossi being the ultimate composition.
I agree though with what some others said, P has been the worst designed race by far of the game in both HotS and WoL. They simply never had interesting harass options and rely on critical masses and timings way too often. The colossus was one the largest design mistakes in RTS history by making a pseudo air unit that forces your opponent into AA which subsequently also counters are interesting forms of harass you can do, warp prism play is still a bit rare just because it doesn't fit with colossi.
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On January 27 2013 15:42 BlueKatz wrote:
I think Bliz really missed their chance with the Mass Recall, it could be a spell that encourage small attacks, harass but they turned it into a deathball gtfo button.
lol, they did drop the ball on that one
I agree with the above, the Colossus is a stupid, stupid unit. For the aforementioned reasons, plus it gets exponentially more powerful the more of them you mass up (yes, to an extent, ~5, or WoL PvP ~8). One colossus should be super efficient, with each additional colossus having diminishing returns (overkilling, for example). Plus, warp prism + colossus could make sense. Maybe.
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On January 28 2013 01:02 MrBarryObama wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2013 15:42 BlueKatz wrote:
I think Bliz really missed their chance with the Mass Recall, it could be a spell that encourage small attacks, harass but they turned it into a deathball gtfo button. lol, they did drop the ball on that one I agree with the above, the Colossus is a stupid, stupid unit. For the aforementioned reasons, plus it gets exponentially more powerful the more of them you mass up (yes, to an extent, ~5, or WoL PvP ~8). One colossus should be super efficient, with each additional colossus having diminishing returns (overkilling, for example). Plus, warp prism + colossus could make sense. Maybe.
It's already countered by Tempests range 15, Viper's abduct and Terran's Vikings.
You also, included the diminishing return amount (>5 for PvZ and PvT, and >8 for PvP)
You countered your own argument.
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Colossi aren't nearly as dominant in HotS as they were in WoL, and because stargate is so much better Protoss are less reliant on robo tech in general. Its true that Blizzard didn't simply remove them, but they've definitely reduced their role.
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On January 27 2013 22:08 naastyOne wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2013 16:52 Goldfish wrote:On January 27 2013 03:52 SheaR619 wrote:
That just how protoss works. Even in BW it was similar but their was actually some sort of timing attack and aggression that protoss can do with +1 zealot and corsairs. The problem imo, is that the economy of the game is kinda bad atm. 3 base is the optimal max efficiency economy. Protoss also need an early access to a third base other wise they will die to stephano 200 roach push. Since the game is balance around FF, the third cant be TOO expose otherwise they die to 200 roach push as well.
This lead to turtling since zerg have no reason to get a 4th base other than gas. This mean zerg will just tech up and turtle as well. One of the way to deal with turtling is the expand since you got map control but since the game doesnt encourage any way of grabbing more then 3 bases, it not really the optimal choice. Yeah, it's the bases. The fewer minerals per bases maps (which sadly has fallen off) really helped fix the deathball problem in SC2 (while it lasted). I'd like to add a few things which helps with the deathball, turtle until win issue in BW are: 1. Control groups (a bit basic) being limited to 12 or less. 2. The pathing - Units (even if you tried) rarely clumped up in a small space. 3. And a lot of people forget to add this - The spells. In BW, spells were way way stronger than in SC2 and it greatly discouraged deathballs (or attacking with everything in one place) and encouraged more attacks everywhere.Every race had good defense thanks to the spells. This meant you were actually encouraged to attack with small groups of units instead of just one big unit (of everything you have). If someone attacked you with a maxed out army in BW, you had powerful spells that could take it all out if they weren't careful (so this encouraged attacking with small groups instead of large groups). Storms did 120 damage and had a much bigger radius (it's 2.0 if you convert it from BW to SC2, and that's around 33% bigger radius). A few storms would take out any death ball (nearly every unit, besides a capital ship, could be taken out by 1-2 storms as opposed to in SC2).On the Terran side, they had EMP (which removed all shields and energy) and Irradiate. Vultures and siege tanks (yet more anti death balls). Zerg side, Lurkers, Plague (up to 300 damage to all units affected, units cannot die from plague though). Also all the AoE units in BW weren't a-move units (well, besides Archons). Lurkers, Siege Tanks, Vultures (with spider mines), and spell casters were all units that required micro to use. So, this along with more bases (more spread out bases instead of just turtling on 3 base), the two important things IMO, prevented the death ball syndrome in BW.
And it made for a much better game because battles were happened more often (than in SC2) and were much less predictable too. We'll see how HotS does though. If HotS is basically WoL with a few less death ball units, I really think they should try changing SC2 more with LotV. Please, TvP was a tank deathball MU, always. Boring as shit, and predictable to the very core.
Even though I generally agree, it still had stuff like Vulture herass all game long, Reaver drops, Zealot bombs and whatnot. In addition the a-move part after the turteling was done was different to SC2 deathballs. It was even more about positioning and getting the tanks sieged up in time. Some SC2 PvZ games don't have any action sometimes until giant armies are massed because nobody wants to. Protoss could lose his third, or army, or because of that the game when moving out to early, Zerg generelly wants to prolong the game to get the strong lategame army out. On top of that the herassment options aren't all that great (because they are not great in general or a huge commitment).
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Six gate wouldn't be a problem if protoss didn't have warp in. Any gateway all in suddenly becomes less effective when Protoss has reinforcement time. Blizzard could also easily just reduce the build time on spine crawlers to make them more viable as a fast reaction to all ins.
It's too expensive and risky to poke as protoss past early game. Ling speed and stim/concussive will catch you off gaurd too easily. You have to rely on forcefield to fight these units, but the sentry is too slow so you cant keep it out on the map unless you are effectively all inning.
Perhaps in HOTS, with recall we will see more activity on the map from protoss when we can guarantee a retreat.
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On January 27 2013 04:03 XXXSmOke wrote:
You shouldnt be so surpirsed.
Protoss has ruined most of Sc2, and at this point in HoTs its even worse than WoL.
TvZ? Pretty good MU espcially with nerfs to infestor broood
TvT always a good mirror
ZvP? A train wreck of gimmicky turtling play
TvP A terrible MU that is only balanced by the clock on the game. Not only that, the ideal unit combos are so damn stale its very boring.
Protoss has so many design problems its terribad,
FF, Warp ins, collsi, and now Skytoss are all big problems that Blizz decided to ignore, even tho they had a closed beta which would of been a great safety net to do some redesigns on the race. But nope they decided to fuck around with a gimmicky MSC and oracle for the duration of the beta.
So HoTs is going to pan out just like WoL, people are going to love TvZ and TvT, and then cry every ZvP and TvP at how damn boring it still is.
I cannot agree more. PvT is bearable but PvP and PvZ are a real mess.
The real problem with Protoss is that they are dependant on two game ruining mechanics: Warpgate and Forcefields.
Warpgate makes the timings too good. The concept of this game is that someone who spends 80% of his ressources to do a rush, while you spend 60% will still lose because he has to walk the map's distance in order to get to you. Warpgate destroys this, so therefore gateway units have to be weak in order to balance the timings. But in the late game, since the gateway units are weak, their support units have to be highly cost efficient and supply efficient. Therefore, Robo units are very strong.
As for Forcefields, they are way too abusable. Warp in sentries early, wait for them to be full on energy and you have pretty much infinite Forcefields. I wouldn't see the spell is overpowered, because it ties up an awful lot of gas so it is a tech tree of its own, but it is a spell that frustrates both the user, and the opponent. You miss one forcefield and you lose.. or you can't do shit because of the enemy's forcefields. A truly disgusting spell, from a design standpoint.
So when you take those two things into considerations, you quickly notice that Protoss, in order to be able to fight a T or Z army, have to stay in a ball (need the support units, need all the sentries together). Therefore, Protoss will screw up every matchup they are in.
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PvP is awesome btw. It's one of the most fun matchups to play as well.
If you think PvP is only colossus wars/proxy gates you're missing something. + Show Spoiler +(And if you think proxy gates and colossus wars are both skillless and super boring, I guess you haven't been watching them.)
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On January 28 2013 06:08 neptunusfisk wrote:PvP is awesome btw. It's one of the most fun matchups to play as well. If you think PvP is only colossus wars/proxy gates you're missing something. + Show Spoiler +(And if you think proxy gates and colossus wars are both skillless and super boring, I guess you haven't been watching them.)
If you like build order wins and one base play then yes.. pvp is fun to play.
I switched to T because of it.
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On January 28 2013 03:34 CruelZeratul wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2013 22:08 naastyOne wrote:On January 27 2013 16:52 Goldfish wrote:On January 27 2013 03:52 SheaR619 wrote:
That just how protoss works. Even in BW it was similar but their was actually some sort of timing attack and aggression that protoss can do with +1 zealot and corsairs. The problem imo, is that the economy of the game is kinda bad atm. 3 base is the optimal max efficiency economy. Protoss also need an early access to a third base other wise they will die to stephano 200 roach push. Since the game is balance around FF, the third cant be TOO expose otherwise they die to 200 roach push as well.
This lead to turtling since zerg have no reason to get a 4th base other than gas. This mean zerg will just tech up and turtle as well. One of the way to deal with turtling is the expand since you got map control but since the game doesnt encourage any way of grabbing more then 3 bases, it not really the optimal choice. Yeah, it's the bases. The fewer minerals per bases maps (which sadly has fallen off) really helped fix the deathball problem in SC2 (while it lasted). I'd like to add a few things which helps with the deathball, turtle until win issue in BW are: 1. Control groups (a bit basic) being limited to 12 or less. 2. The pathing - Units (even if you tried) rarely clumped up in a small space. 3. And a lot of people forget to add this - The spells. In BW, spells were way way stronger than in SC2 and it greatly discouraged deathballs (or attacking with everything in one place) and encouraged more attacks everywhere.Every race had good defense thanks to the spells. This meant you were actually encouraged to attack with small groups of units instead of just one big unit (of everything you have). If someone attacked you with a maxed out army in BW, you had powerful spells that could take it all out if they weren't careful (so this encouraged attacking with small groups instead of large groups). Storms did 120 damage and had a much bigger radius (it's 2.0 if you convert it from BW to SC2, and that's around 33% bigger radius). A few storms would take out any death ball (nearly every unit, besides a capital ship, could be taken out by 1-2 storms as opposed to in SC2).On the Terran side, they had EMP (which removed all shields and energy) and Irradiate. Vultures and siege tanks (yet more anti death balls). Zerg side, Lurkers, Plague (up to 300 damage to all units affected, units cannot die from plague though). Also all the AoE units in BW weren't a-move units (well, besides Archons). Lurkers, Siege Tanks, Vultures (with spider mines), and spell casters were all units that required micro to use. So, this along with more bases (more spread out bases instead of just turtling on 3 base), the two important things IMO, prevented the death ball syndrome in BW.
And it made for a much better game because battles were happened more often (than in SC2) and were much less predictable too. We'll see how HotS does though. If HotS is basically WoL with a few less death ball units, I really think they should try changing SC2 more with LotV. Please, TvP was a tank deathball MU, always. Boring as shit, and predictable to the very core. Even though I generally agree, it still had stuff like Vulture herass all game long, Reaver drops, Zealot bombs and whatnot. In addition the a-move part after the turteling was done was different to SC2 deathballs. It was even more about positioning and getting the tanks sieged up in time. Some SC2 PvZ games don't have any action sometimes until giant armies are massed because nobody wants to. Protoss could lose his third, or army, or because of that the game when moving out to early, Zerg generelly wants to prolong the game to get the strong lategame army out. On top of that the herassment options aren't all that great (because they are not great in general or a huge commitment).
Reavers drops vere very rare. Zelot drops also rare. And SC2 has medivac drops, warp prism, and dancing arround your warp-in pylon, and you could dance arround infestor-broodlord ball cutting zerg expos with zelots warp in or your army and using mothership recalls. And Zergs could counter-attacking with lings. And Nydus worms. PvZ was unique in that infestor-broodlord was so good, you needed archon toilet to kill it, but now P has tempests, and T has new raven seeker missle, and fungals are nerfed, so XvZ should not be that bad any more.
Also, you can not compare by using few games, BW had some crappy games as well. Especially if played by somebody why were not KeSPA players.
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Did the deathball leave at any point in time?
It was there in all matchups for protoss - PvP with mass collossus, PvZ with mothership/templar/archon/collossus and PvT with chargelots/collossus/templar
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On January 28 2013 08:38 Emzeeshady wrote:
ZvP - Awful in every sense of the word. From the no fighting early game to the predictable mid game to the no fighting late game. Worst matchup in the game.
#Remove Toss (JK but seriously Toss needs to be redone)
Just played about 8 games today with about 4 of them being against Toss and this is absolutely right.
Early game
1. Open two base against Protoss with a quick tech to Lair
2. Fend off the incoming Oracle harass
Mid game
3. Take 3rd after Lair finishes
4. Begin Hydra den and Infestor pit and research roach speed and missile attack upgrade
5. Pump out Hydras, Swarm Hosts, Roach
6. Attempt to poke Protoss but NOPE has Collossi and Void. BACK UP SO I CAN GET CORRUPTORS! Take more bases for gas production
Late game
7. Make about 8 Corruptors and begin Hive tech
8. Start harassing Toss 3rd and 4th wiht Swarm Hosts.
9. Engage Toss army which now consists of Tempests as well
10. Pump out 3-4 Vipers
11. Win the game.
Seriously boring. There's no real chance for action mid game without the risk of either Protoss losing their entire army or Zerg losing their entire army. It's literally one battle and the game is essentially over.
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On January 28 2013 08:55 sagefreke wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 08:38 Emzeeshady wrote:
ZvP - Awful in every sense of the word. From the no fighting early game to the predictable mid game to the no fighting late game. Worst matchup in the game.
#Remove Toss (JK but seriously Toss needs to be redone) Just played about 8 games today with about 4 of them being against Toss and this is absolutely right. Early game 1. Open two base against Protoss with a quick tech to Lair 2. Fend off the incoming Oracle harass Mid game 3. Take 3rd after Lair finishes 4. Begin Hydra den and Infestor pit and research roach speed and missile attack upgrade 5. Pump out Hydras, Swarm Hosts, Roach 6. Attempt to poke Protoss but NOPE has Collossi and Void. BACK UP SO I CAN GET CORRUPTORS! Take more bases for gas production Late game 7. Make about 8 Corruptors and begin Hive tech 8. Start harassing Toss 3rd and 4th wiht Swarm Hosts. 9. Engage Toss army which now consists of Tempests as well 10. Pump out 3-4 Vipers 11. Win the game. Seriously boring. There's no real chance for action mid game without the risk of either Protoss losing their entire army or Zerg losing their entire army. It's literally one battle and the game is essentially over.
If you find that boring, why don't you use Mutas in the midgame?
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On January 28 2013 09:00 CruelZeratul wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 08:55 sagefreke wrote:On January 28 2013 08:38 Emzeeshady wrote:
ZvP - Awful in every sense of the word. From the no fighting early game to the predictable mid game to the no fighting late game. Worst matchup in the game.
#Remove Toss (JK but seriously Toss needs to be redone) Just played about 8 games today with about 4 of them being against Toss and this is absolutely right. Early game 1. Open two base against Protoss with a quick tech to Lair 2. Fend off the incoming Oracle harass Mid game 3. Take 3rd after Lair finishes 4. Begin Hydra den and Infestor pit and research roach speed and missile attack upgrade 5. Pump out Hydras, Swarm Hosts, Roach 6. Attempt to poke Protoss but NOPE has Collossi and Void. BACK UP SO I CAN GET CORRUPTORS! Take more bases for gas production Late game 7. Make about 8 Corruptors and begin Hive tech 8. Start harassing Toss 3rd and 4th wiht Swarm Hosts. 9. Engage Toss army which now consists of Tempests as well 10. Pump out 3-4 Vipers 11. Win the game. Seriously boring. There's no real chance for action mid game without the risk of either Protoss losing their entire army or Zerg losing their entire army. It's literally one battle and the game is essentially over. If you find that boring, why don't you use Mutas in the midgame?
Because if he's already opened with Stargate tech and I go Mutas, he's eventually going to pump out Phoenix which will make my Mutas pretty pointless. There's also the possibility that if he scouts me going 2 base Muta, he can just all in me and win right there from the get go.
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On January 28 2013 07:56 naastyOne wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 03:34 CruelZeratul wrote:On January 27 2013 22:08 naastyOne wrote:On January 27 2013 16:52 Goldfish wrote:On January 27 2013 03:52 SheaR619 wrote:
That just how protoss works. Even in BW it was similar but their was actually some sort of timing attack and aggression that protoss can do with +1 zealot and corsairs. The problem imo, is that the economy of the game is kinda bad atm. 3 base is the optimal max efficiency economy. Protoss also need an early access to a third base other wise they will die to stephano 200 roach push. Since the game is balance around FF, the third cant be TOO expose otherwise they die to 200 roach push as well.
This lead to turtling since zerg have no reason to get a 4th base other than gas. This mean zerg will just tech up and turtle as well. One of the way to deal with turtling is the expand since you got map control but since the game doesnt encourage any way of grabbing more then 3 bases, it not really the optimal choice. Yeah, it's the bases. The fewer minerals per bases maps (which sadly has fallen off) really helped fix the deathball problem in SC2 (while it lasted). I'd like to add a few things which helps with the deathball, turtle until win issue in BW are: 1. Control groups (a bit basic) being limited to 12 or less. 2. The pathing - Units (even if you tried) rarely clumped up in a small space. 3. And a lot of people forget to add this - The spells. In BW, spells were way way stronger than in SC2 and it greatly discouraged deathballs (or attacking with everything in one place) and encouraged more attacks everywhere.Every race had good defense thanks to the spells. This meant you were actually encouraged to attack with small groups of units instead of just one big unit (of everything you have). If someone attacked you with a maxed out army in BW, you had powerful spells that could take it all out if they weren't careful (so this encouraged attacking with small groups instead of large groups). Storms did 120 damage and had a much bigger radius (it's 2.0 if you convert it from BW to SC2, and that's around 33% bigger radius). A few storms would take out any death ball (nearly every unit, besides a capital ship, could be taken out by 1-2 storms as opposed to in SC2).On the Terran side, they had EMP (which removed all shields and energy) and Irradiate. Vultures and siege tanks (yet more anti death balls). Zerg side, Lurkers, Plague (up to 300 damage to all units affected, units cannot die from plague though). Also all the AoE units in BW weren't a-move units (well, besides Archons). Lurkers, Siege Tanks, Vultures (with spider mines), and spell casters were all units that required micro to use. So, this along with more bases (more spread out bases instead of just turtling on 3 base), the two important things IMO, prevented the death ball syndrome in BW.
And it made for a much better game because battles were happened more often (than in SC2) and were much less predictable too. We'll see how HotS does though. If HotS is basically WoL with a few less death ball units, I really think they should try changing SC2 more with LotV. Please, TvP was a tank deathball MU, always. Boring as shit, and predictable to the very core. Even though I generally agree, it still had stuff like Vulture herass all game long, Reaver drops, Zealot bombs and whatnot. In addition the a-move part after the turteling was done was different to SC2 deathballs. It was even more about positioning and getting the tanks sieged up in time. Some SC2 PvZ games don't have any action sometimes until giant armies are massed because nobody wants to. Protoss could lose his third, or army, or because of that the game when moving out to early, Zerg generelly wants to prolong the game to get the strong lategame army out. On top of that the herassment options aren't all that great (because they are not great in general or a huge commitment). Reavers drops vere very rare. Zelot drops also rare. And SC2 has medivac drops, warp prism, and dancing arround your warp-in pylon, and you could dance arround infestor-broodlord ball cutting zerg expos with zelots warp in or your army and using mothership recalls. And Zergs could counter-attacking with lings. And Nydus worms. PvZ was unique in that infestor-broodlord was so good, you needed archon toilet to kill it, but now P has tempests, and T has new raven seeker missle, and fungals are nerfed, so XvZ should not be that bad any more. Also, you can not compare by using few games, BW had some crappy games as well. Especially if played by somebody why were not KeSPA players.
Reaver drops were very rare? I call shennanigans.
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On January 28 2013 07:56 naastyOne wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 03:34 CruelZeratul wrote:On January 27 2013 22:08 naastyOne wrote:On January 27 2013 16:52 Goldfish wrote:On January 27 2013 03:52 SheaR619 wrote:
That just how protoss works. Even in BW it was similar but their was actually some sort of timing attack and aggression that protoss can do with +1 zealot and corsairs. The problem imo, is that the economy of the game is kinda bad atm. 3 base is the optimal max efficiency economy. Protoss also need an early access to a third base other wise they will die to stephano 200 roach push. Since the game is balance around FF, the third cant be TOO expose otherwise they die to 200 roach push as well.
This lead to turtling since zerg have no reason to get a 4th base other than gas. This mean zerg will just tech up and turtle as well. One of the way to deal with turtling is the expand since you got map control but since the game doesnt encourage any way of grabbing more then 3 bases, it not really the optimal choice. Yeah, it's the bases. The fewer minerals per bases maps (which sadly has fallen off) really helped fix the deathball problem in SC2 (while it lasted). I'd like to add a few things which helps with the deathball, turtle until win issue in BW are: 1. Control groups (a bit basic) being limited to 12 or less. 2. The pathing - Units (even if you tried) rarely clumped up in a small space. 3. And a lot of people forget to add this - The spells. In BW, spells were way way stronger than in SC2 and it greatly discouraged deathballs (or attacking with everything in one place) and encouraged more attacks everywhere.Every race had good defense thanks to the spells. This meant you were actually encouraged to attack with small groups of units instead of just one big unit (of everything you have). If someone attacked you with a maxed out army in BW, you had powerful spells that could take it all out if they weren't careful (so this encouraged attacking with small groups instead of large groups). Storms did 120 damage and had a much bigger radius (it's 2.0 if you convert it from BW to SC2, and that's around 33% bigger radius). A few storms would take out any death ball (nearly every unit, besides a capital ship, could be taken out by 1-2 storms as opposed to in SC2).On the Terran side, they had EMP (which removed all shields and energy) and Irradiate. Vultures and siege tanks (yet more anti death balls). Zerg side, Lurkers, Plague (up to 300 damage to all units affected, units cannot die from plague though). Also all the AoE units in BW weren't a-move units (well, besides Archons). Lurkers, Siege Tanks, Vultures (with spider mines), and spell casters were all units that required micro to use. So, this along with more bases (more spread out bases instead of just turtling on 3 base), the two important things IMO, prevented the death ball syndrome in BW.
And it made for a much better game because battles were happened more often (than in SC2) and were much less predictable too. We'll see how HotS does though. If HotS is basically WoL with a few less death ball units, I really think they should try changing SC2 more with LotV. Please, TvP was a tank deathball MU, always. Boring as shit, and predictable to the very core. Even though I generally agree, it still had stuff like Vulture herass all game long, Reaver drops, Zealot bombs and whatnot. In addition the a-move part after the turteling was done was different to SC2 deathballs. It was even more about positioning and getting the tanks sieged up in time. Some SC2 PvZ games don't have any action sometimes until giant armies are massed because nobody wants to. Protoss could lose his third, or army, or because of that the game when moving out to early, Zerg generelly wants to prolong the game to get the strong lategame army out. On top of that the herassment options aren't all that great (because they are not great in general or a huge commitment). Reavers drops vere very rare. Zelot drops also rare. And SC2 has medivac drops, warp prism, and dancing arround your warp-in pylon, and you could dance arround infestor-broodlord ball cutting zerg expos with zelots warp in or your army and using mothership recalls. And Zergs could counter-attacking with lings. And Nydus worms. PvZ was unique in that infestor-broodlord was so good, you needed archon toilet to kill it, but now P has tempests, and T has new raven seeker missle, and fungals are nerfed, so XvZ should not be that bad any more. Also, you can not compare by using few games, BW had some crappy games as well. Especially if played by somebody why were not KeSPA players.
The new HSM is bullshit...I mean the target unit is shown in red color and even a bronce player could move them out in 5 seconds...
Three seconds would be much better but 5 is a joke but thats not the topic of that thread.
The Protoss Deathball has his comeback in HotS and I agree with the most of you all.
The most boring match up is with Protoss as the oponent.
-TvT ist awesome, no explanation needed
-since the Infestor was nerfed TvZ become interesting and funny to watch
-ZvZ is not that interesting but better than PvP
-TvP is always the same...mid game aggression from Terran and turtling from Protoss and than mostly nothing
-ZvP is the turtle MU atm and not even worthy to be in SC2...
Protoss needs some rework like removing Collossus and buffing the High Templar like in Broodwar with 120 damage storm and more area-size (or maybe put something like the reaver into HotS), nerf the Voidray and make Tempests interesting (massing and a-move atm).
The most tactics of Protoss (hight level) are basically built a huge army composition and just attack move (because the Collossus design is bullshit).
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Yeah with how death bally toss has become I have started to play less and less hots cause I get zvp 90% of the time. I can only handle such a boring mu so much. Past week or 2 it's gotten worse and I would say it's now worse or as bad as WoL PvZ which I thought wasn't possible.
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It would help if 3rds and 4ths weren't so easy to take.
Newkirk City has this sort of right where the Natural has a wide ramp and it isn't a short distance between the natural and the 3rd.. but that is one map out of several.
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On January 27 2013 22:08 naastyOne wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2013 16:52 Goldfish wrote:On January 27 2013 03:52 SheaR619 wrote:
That just how protoss works. Even in BW it was similar but their was actually some sort of timing attack and aggression that protoss can do with +1 zealot and corsairs. The problem imo, is that the economy of the game is kinda bad atm. 3 base is the optimal max efficiency economy. Protoss also need an early access to a third base other wise they will die to stephano 200 roach push. Since the game is balance around FF, the third cant be TOO expose otherwise they die to 200 roach push as well.
This lead to turtling since zerg have no reason to get a 4th base other than gas. This mean zerg will just tech up and turtle as well. One of the way to deal with turtling is the expand since you got map control but since the game doesnt encourage any way of grabbing more then 3 bases, it not really the optimal choice. Yeah, it's the bases. The fewer minerals per bases maps (which sadly has fallen off) really helped fix the deathball problem in SC2 (while it lasted). I'd like to add a few things which helps with the deathball, turtle until win issue in BW are: 1. Control groups (a bit basic) being limited to 12 or less. 2. The pathing - Units (even if you tried) rarely clumped up in a small space. 3. And a lot of people forget to add this - The spells. In BW, spells were way way stronger than in SC2 and it greatly discouraged deathballs (or attacking with everything in one place) and encouraged more attacks everywhere.Every race had good defense thanks to the spells. This meant you were actually encouraged to attack with small groups of units instead of just one big unit (of everything you have). If someone attacked you with a maxed out army in BW, you had powerful spells that could take it all out if they weren't careful (so this encouraged attacking with small groups instead of large groups). Storms did 120 damage and had a much bigger radius (it's 2.0 if you convert it from BW to SC2, and that's around 33% bigger radius). A few storms would take out any death ball (nearly every unit, besides a capital ship, could be taken out by 1-2 storms as opposed to in SC2).On the Terran side, they had EMP (which removed all shields and energy) and Irradiate. Vultures and siege tanks (yet more anti death balls). Zerg side, Lurkers, Plague (up to 300 damage to all units affected, units cannot die from plague though). Also all the AoE units in BW weren't a-move units (well, besides Archons). Lurkers, Siege Tanks, Vultures (with spider mines), and spell casters were all units that required micro to use. So, this along with more bases (more spread out bases instead of just turtling on 3 base), the two important things IMO, prevented the death ball syndrome in BW.
And it made for a much better game because battles were happened more often (than in SC2) and were much less predictable too. We'll see how HotS does though. If HotS is basically WoL with a few less death ball units, I really think they should try changing SC2 more with LotV. Please, TvP was a tank deathball MU, always. Boring as shit, and predictable to the very core.
I say deathball very generally.
In SC2, battles end in like 5 seconds.
In BW, the battles were much more tug of war which were way more fun to watch than death ball vs death ball into gg 5 seconds later.
TvP BW was more fun to watch compared to TvP SC2 (IMO). TvP in SC2 is basically just amass MMM + Vikings then ram all units into Protoss army. While there are some really good TvPs in SC2 (MVP vs Squirtle games), a lot of them mostly are mostly the same.
Edit - Thinking about it, the potential for good games in TvP is definitely better in SC2 than in BW. While most of the games do end involving just one big battle into GG, the games that aren't that are really good. Ok, so TvP is probably better in SC2 than in BW.
Besides that, BW definitely had boring games but they were far less than SC2.
BW had a much better foundation for better games than SC2.
Edit - Speaking of that, I honestly wonder if Mutalisk micro should return (being able to attack move into attack without slowing down) in SC2. It's definitely possible to do in the Galaxy Editor.
I can see this making Mutalisk too much of a dominate unit (especially with fungal being a projectile now) in ZvZs but in other match ups, it could be more interesting.
I remember when the crowd cheered so loud when Jaedong built Mutalisks for the first time in SC2.... but sadly the crowd did not know Mutalisk are terrible in SC2 (compared to BW).
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You can't avoid death ball as a P player, due to the synergy between the differents units and sentries. Gardien shield ff.
Speed ling could be countered if all unit stay together if you split it you loss.
Death ball is the result of multiple things that cannot be avoid even in HOTS, but what is the problem of it?
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On January 28 2013 16:06 BerthaG wrote:
You can't avoid death ball as a P player, due to the synergy between the differents units and sentries. Gardien shield ff.
Speed ling could be countered if all unit stay together if you split it you loss.
Death ball is the result of multiple things that cannot be avoid even in HOTS, but what is the problem of it?
biggest problem:
the game becomes who gets a better ball AND once you lose an engagement, there is almost no coming back because a counter will just kill you.
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I just want to throw something in:
Yesterday I watches TLS Broodwar and it was a hell lot of fun (especially tvz). All around the map are small skirmishes and the terran player can get strong positions by just setting up some tanks and marine / medics with spider mines.
What I noticed was, that I really see a big problem in sc2 with xel naga towers give you a huge vision on the most important paths of the game.
For example on daybreak. In TvP I (the terran player) just get the watchtower and then get 1 marine on the top and one at the bottom path of the map and I'm done. I can spot every army movement from my opponent. My main base gets turrets and a sensor tower and I will be immune against every harassment at all.
So my point is that the huge vision range you get with Xel-Naga towers combined with small amount of attack paths disencourages small army movements because the other player will see it easily and you wont get any real benefit from doing them. You can react with your main army too fast and defend right in time and then you go back and sit on that xel naga tower again just waiting to intercept the next wave. Without xel naga towers on key positions you maybe should leave some units at that 5th base position because you cannot spot them early enough to deal with them. So you need to get units at important positions just to make sure you delay his push or even stop it. You also have to control space around your main army so you wont get flanked or ambushed if you move out.
It would be just way more dynamic if maps wont have that standard tower right in the middle of the map or at key movement positions like entombed, antiga, daybreak and other maps have.
I think it really sucks and limits the game by a lot. With creep you see half of the map and with the xel naga towers the rest? Whats the point of fog of war? To hide some early game shenanigans cause everything up from the mid game you can predict anyway? Why oracle has a spell to get vision on the army if vision is no real resource?
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
I'd rather see deathball sky toss than colossus, colossi are just so boring.
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On January 28 2013 20:56 Targe wrote:
I'd rather see deathball sky toss than colossus, colossi are just so boring.
Doesn't matter if it's air deathball or colossi, it's still boring.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
On January 28 2013 21:13 ViperPL wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 20:56 Targe wrote:
I'd rather see deathball sky toss than colossus, colossi are just so boring. Doesn't matter if it's air deathball or colossi, it's still boring.
It's less boring, Colossi are in my opinion the most boring unit in the game.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On January 28 2013 21:13 ViperPL wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 20:56 Targe wrote:
I'd rather see deathball sky toss than colossus, colossi are just so boring. Doesn't matter if it's air deathball or colossi, it's still boring.
Atleast if it's an air deathball they actually take a while to make and are super expensive. Kind of like a large number of carriers in BW.
Admittedly they need to make it so carriers are the best toss air unit rather than the tempest, but it's hella more interesting than a collosus deathball as it's a lot easier to punish.
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Tbh I get irritated when people throw around the word "Deathball" so invariably. The word "Deathball" contains so much silliness and to me it points to everything wrong with the game.
But now you people use it like its actually supposed to be a mechanic or strategy. Maybe we should simply change our ideas of playing the game?
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EPT
