The proportion of each race at top level - Page 3

On May 03 2010 22:57 Takkara wrote:
Here's the thing about numbers, they can say anything you want it to say. The first question, even before "why is Terran so low" is "why the Top 250?" Is that somehow the most representative amount? Is that where you ran out of effort to do more? Is it a somehow important percentage of top players? It's so meaningless. To prove it, I compiled the Top 10, and all the numbers at values of 25 thereafter. You can see it shows completely different results depending on where you decide to draw your arbitrary cutoff. So I don't think your numbers show anything.

US:


Europe:

Asia:

On May 06 2010 17:06 spinesheath wrote:


Vikings are cheaper, have 3 more range and deal more DPS to colossi. They have less HP, but their insane range compensates very well for that.

On May 06 2010 19:34 Artrey wrote:
The numbers are far too low to use them statistically. It's nonsense to deduct anything from such a low pool of samples. At least as long as you only compare the extreme examples. If you add up everything, it becomes a bit more valid and shows a slight toss advantage compared to terran, but that is what Blizzard told us already.

On May 06 2010 16:12 kickinhead wrote:


First of all, there are way less Terrans high up in the Tournaments than Zerg and Protoss. Look at the Zotac-Cups for example:

14 different players overall made it to the Finals in the 10 times so far, only 3 of them were Terrans and only one of them was able to win and that was a long time ago in Cup#3.

The reason why Terran is underperforming atm. and will keep getting weaker and weaker is IMHO, because Terran has to surprise the opponent in some way to be able to win with early harrassment (reaper), fast-tech to certain Units (Banshee-rush) or surprise the opponent with Thor-Drop's, Hellion-Drop's, Tanks on Cliffs etc. if you don't just want to rely on Mass-Marauders.

It's IMHO very hard for Terran to play a standard-game because for one thing all their Units have very strong counters to them and they just aren't that good at defending anymore, one example:

- You wan't to get up a fairly early expansion with T against P without dying to cheese, so what do you have to prepare for?

1) DT's (even if you see no council/shrine, it could be a proxy somewhere on the map)
--> Save Scans, which are basically 275 minerals, which is A LOT to kill one DT or get up turrets which aren't that good against DT's anymore either, because they cost more than in SC:BW, but do more DMG, but what does the DMG-buff help against DT's?
2) VR-Rush (even if you scout properly, it could again be a proxy)
--> you need a lot of Marines and vikings and/or turrets - everything quite expensive
3) 4-Warpgate timing-push
--> you need Bunkers and lots of Units
4) Timing-Push with Immortals
--> you need M&M's and probably Ghost for EMP
5) Collossi-rush
--> you shouldn't have many Marines and most likely you'd want to have some vikings
6) Protoss goes for a rather fast exe
--> you'd want to have the least amount of minerals spent on static defense as possible

So for a safe build you need let's say 3 Turrets (e-bay cost's 125, 3 Turrets 300, which is 425 - more than one expansion worth of money just to be kinda safe while defending against cheese/rushes?) But now comes the timing-push, against which you'll definitely loose with more than 400 minerals worth of stuff that doesn't help against warpgate-units and Immortal or that is a waste if the Protoss opted to go for an expansion himself. Also, the Mass Marines against VR's/Immo's get raped by Collossi and the Marauders by Immortals, without EMP-support... to defend against the same sort of stuff (VR/DT/Timing-push), Protoss just has to go robo and "waste" 50/100 for mobile detection and splash a bit more stalkers/sentries in their Unitmix as Antiair! So it's also easier to defend against timing-pushes and be economical nonetheless. Same is with Zerg - they don't have to go far out into other techroutes and build stuff they don't need if the opponent does not choose to go a certain way in his tech, cuz Queens are Anti-Air (so just splash in additional queens if necessary) and at T2, you can morph an Ovi into overseer and you have AntiAir anyways with Mutas/Hydras and economy-wise, Z should be fine with their FE anyways.

The Problem here is that the different ways to deal with the Protoss potential strategy are very different, so it's hard to be cost-effective and play safe at the same time. Besides, T is IMHO the race which is depending the most on Upgrades and Synergies between the Units. So besides wanting to play safe and having some Turrets and a good Unitmix AND the fact you want to get up your Expansion as fast as possible, you also want to get stim, shield-upgrade, marauder-upgrade, Medivacs to support your Infantry-Units etc.

I'm not saying that Terran Unit's aren't good, but if you want to come up with a fairly solid build, which is something you have to do to play solid on a higher level, T has just a hard time. Of course, this may not only be due to balancing-issues, but it's IMHO a Problem T's suffer from atm.

What I want to see, just to be able to come up with a safe build for starters, is just better static defense to hold of cheese/rushes/timing-attacks. With that I mean for example cheaper Turrets and no Bonus-DMG against Buildings because they are considered "armored", so you can actually keep a bunker alive by repairing it in dire situations. Also, Make E-Bay cheaper and able to fly, so you can defend better against stuff on your cliffs.