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There has been a troubling wind stirring all that is wicked, and to Protoss it has come.
![[image loading]](http://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/content/mediaassets/images/something_wicked_show_main2.jpg)
I will be discussing the flaws of the Protoss race, the many things that seem to have been over looked, and the many ideas that were withdrawn from the Protoss arsenal. There are many players who like me, love Protoss, for whatever reason it may be. In Broodwar, I loved Terran and stuck with that, there was just something about those damned siege tanks that captivated me. The reason I play Protoss in SC2 is that they are sleek and ‘clean’ looking, and the overall design of Protoss is fascinating, also, I was around 12 when I played Broodwar, and now I just don’t feel the same way about Terran, although I still LOVE those siege tanks.
Ever since the beginning of beta, and even in design, Protoss has been ripped and pulled apart (removing so many needed/better designed Protoss units and abilities) in so many ways I really cannot fathom how so many Protoss players are comfortable with what Protoss has become. Protoss play has been marginally just Zealot, Stalker, Sentry (possibly even dropping one of these due to hard counter, few stalkers cause of marauders etc) and 1 other unit type; void ray, immortal, phoenix, high templar, dark templar, carrier. Protoss has many really strong units on paper but in a real game scenario; they are not designed to cope, baring almost absolutely no use at all, except in un-competitive play and team games/FFA. Some players say that it’s good enough that they are used in the team/FFA, and that in those, they can be quite overpowered. The exact reason for this is that this unit is one dimensional, have 20 or they’re useless, rush them or their useless, get speed upgrade and this upgrade or it’s useless.
I’m not comfortable at all with the mentality that’s been thrown around Protoss design; Making so many units that aren’t either viable, or logical to get at almost any point, this is also the case with late Protoss tech. The Templar Archives should not have divided the Dark Templar from it’s reaches, this just makes DT’s way less viable and hardly ever used except sprinkled in for specific harassment or having a few in your army to do some extra damage. We have to throw down 2 tech buildings just to get a decent (ground) harassment unit? Meanwhile Zerg has lings on t1 and Terran has Reapers and Hellions which ultimately serve the same role as a Dark Templar, perhaps way better considering their cost, mobility and strategic use. Lings, Hellions and Reapers also have upgrades, extending their use later on into the game. Dark Templar can only suicide to form an even more useless unit dubbed the Archon, and forget about Dark Archons or even the “Twilight” Archon, they do not exist in SC2.
![[image loading]](http://www.sc2blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/archonconcept.jpg)
The Twilight Archon
My goal isn’t to rant and rave about how the other races over power the Protoss in ways, this is all due to the fact Protoss after their Cybernetics Core is not very well rounded and designed so far. Protoss units have always been designed to be slightly stronger than their counter parts, meaning less smaller/weak units and more larger/stronger ones. This has obviously been taken way too far, as now Protoss is just riddled with all these large support units that barely have a role because there are just WAY too many Protoss support units. The Collosus is by far the best at its support job, along with the sentry. Carriers, Archons, Dark Templar, High Templar, Immortal, and the Mothership are all ‘support’ units either because of the changes to the unit specifically or because of their tech. Now, the worst part about this is that these units cannot even fill their own role as support, Carriers, Motherships and Archons spontaneously combust upon being seen, the Immortal and High Templar are the only other viable support units because of their necessary damage/abilities. Also, the Immortal and Collosus not being able to shoot or avoid air is really quite a problem because Immortals are almost useless versus +armored units and Collosus are so much money/time and die so easily to Viking or corruptors, the only counter is blink stalkers or air support (either of which will lose you the game 50% of the time because you have to devote so much) and those aren’t going to be doing much damage if you’re getting shot in the face with stimmed concussive shells whilst trying to kill the Vikings which are just A-moved onto your colossus. It doesn’t really seem fair at all in comparison to the other races which have units that compliment eachother; medivac and Viking/banshee, broodlord and corruptor/muta. Carrier and Pheonix? Why would you do that?! Carrier, Void ray? Little better? But I’d rather go Pheonix Voidray, which I still wouldn’t go. Any intelligent player would just go either Pheonix or Void ray to compliment their army, (If they were going for air support instead of ground)
![[image loading]](http://ui10.gamespot.com/1225/ss18hires_2.jpg)
The Collosus and Reaver
The largest issue with Starcraft 2 as a whole is the change from basic damage to all of this specific damage stuff; it’s obviously extremely hard to balance because 1 unit will always do BLAH against that type of unit. In my humble opinion, base damage needs to go up drastically in comparison to the specialty damage, higher tiered units being countered by t1 “specialized” units doesn’t seem at all balanced. There is far too much emphasis on specialty damage almost completely nullifying the fact there is different tier units that should just have a lot higher base damage and armor to some what counter masses of “specific damage” low tier units. This seems a lot more fair; rewarding and penalizing each strategic decision, not making one better than the other. But if Blizzard wants to keep it this way, so be it, I think there will be much more balance issues with specialty damage.
Now I know some of you say that Protoss is over powered, and I can agree with the logic; Protoss is a majority and Protoss relies heavily on those 3 early 3 warp gate units, which seem to be the most balanced area of Protoss so far. With these 2 ideas being said, it’s easy for many to think that Protoss is so strong because of the widely used strategy that is either 4gate or 3 gate robo, both counterable none-the-less they are still the most strongest pushes a Protoss has right now. For one, I think addressing the issues in this thread would open up Protoss tech diversity and overall unit viability, while bringing down the overburdening need of those 3 strong gateway units.
However, if the useless Protoss units do get changed, there would possibly need to be a stat rework of the gateway units and the immortal seeing that Protoss players have been holding their ground pretty well even with a huge disadvantage, Patch 13 was the last straw, making Terran without dispute the dominator of the other 2 races. If most of these Terran players were half as good as most of the Protoss players, the overall potential limit for Terran(over 9000) would be seen, and would be fixed, OR the other Races would have been brought to the same terms. It is going to be impossible to balance when the maximum potential for success of each Race is widely varied.
Other Protoss players have already brought up good points about certain ideas and I’d have to agree and share their ideas with you.
Edit:
Zealots
+ Show Spoiler +Quoted from http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=25170777216&sid=5000The upgrade for Zealots charge comes so late, but of course if it came earlier it'd be too strong. Little known by some people, but the Charge upgrade on Twilight Council increases Zealots speed by about 20% (from 2.25, same as marauders and most units, to 2.75). What I would like is if these upgrades are separated, and the +0.5 speed was researched at Cybernetics Core for really cheap, like concussive is. 50/50/60 sort of thing. Then Charge itself remains on Twilight Council for 150/150/140. A lot of people have called for having charge itself on CyCore, or being cheaper, which I don't really think is called for..
I really can agree with this, Zealots are strong but serve a limited role aside from tanking until you get charge, the upgrade SHOULD be split or moved to cyber core, Protoss early game is dull, predictable and very limited, having the capability of a speed-zealot timing would be nice. The fault itself is the Zealots default speed and melee role which it cannot exactly fulfill without charge, which is a costly and a late upgrade.
Concerns on Mothership
+ Show Spoiler +http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=126490
“From a design standpoint, the Mothership is one of my biggest letdowns in SC2. Originally designed to be a super unit capable of changing the tide of the battle and being a crucial part of any late game protoss army, the Mothership had several highly original spells that have since been either removed or changed drastically or moved to other units, and currently is one of the most unoriginal and boring units in the game. When I first saw that there could only be one Mothership at a time, I thought (besides that "Mothership" is a horribly lame name and I STILL can't believe that it's still called that!) that it was a horrible idea that was completely "un-StarCraftey" and some stupid idea stolen from Command and Conquer or one of those “other” RTSs. As time passed though I thought it could be a neat idea. It definitely makes Protoss more unique from the other races, and if done right it could be really cool. Unfortunately I subscribe to the idea that the Mothership right now does NOT do it right and not only is a useless unit, but a horrible missed opportunity to make a really cool unit.
If the Mothership truly was what it was originally designed to be (a large super unit that was key to Protoss lategame), it would allow for several different playstyles and be accessible in the late game and also a viable follow-up to several early and mid-game strategies. I believe the Mothership should be able to serve several (or at least more than ONE) different roles in the late game (either as a great support unit AND a great defensive unit, or at least a decent one of each), and to truly make the investment to get a Mothership worth it.”
Throughout said thread, there are many good suggestions for the Mothership. My favorite is; giving it 2 or 3 different toggle-able abilities, psi field (immobile), cloak (mobile), and the controversial shield battery-esque ability. I’d definitely have to say I would prefer a stasis like ability instead of shield battery, but Statis/Vortex could also be transferred to another unit, so who knows.
Tweaking the Mothership’s speed alone would make this unit more viable in the way an Arbiter was, if the speed does not get changed it will remain a large death beacon only capable of defensive play(logically useless in other words)
Carrier Concerns
+ Show Spoiler +http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=127452
“I had really completely forgot the unit is even in the game (Im 75 % Zerg Player, 25% Protoss). Mostly because it is one of the units that wasnt touched at all by patches and untaled and even UNPLAYED in nearly any high/pro level play.
Then I thought: Doesnt that mean that it can become TOO good because it wasnt really tested during beta so Blizzard never really saw there problem?”
This is 100% true, although the Carrier has undergone 1 public change during the design and that is replacing a unit called the “Tempest” which looked exactly like the current carrier. However, the Carrier in its current design is far from “too good” it’s actually really too bad to use in serious situations.
The Tempest (earlier idea for Carrier replacement)
"In comparison to the carrier, the tempest was slightly weaker, but cost fewer resources to build."
(^ already a huge reason not to doubt the viability of the Tempest)
The tempest had powerful shields and, while having no armaments of its own, carried a number of small fighter-type drones called shuriken that launched, surrounded and swarmed a target, doing little damage individually but significant damage when combined whilst maneuvering rapidly, making it difficult to destroy. The drones could be auto-built with a right click, a behavior which was carried over to the carrier.
The shuriken made melee attacks.
Special Shields
The tempest was strong against ground targets, but was ill-equipped to handle air-to-air encounters; it had poor air defense as its shields did not activate against air attacks, but the shields took little damage from ground attacks.
First thoughts are: This is a really cool replacement for the Carrier, and although it may not have “worked” in their eyes, the current Carrier is far less “working” than I think this idea would have been. During the beta especially, players will most definitely experiment with new units, coming to find a use for a unit that is far in the tech tree is vital for feedback purposes. The SC2 community was not even given the chance to experiment with this unit. For one, this unit is so similar in design that the only difference is the name, its interceptors were melee and the Tempest had way better maneuverability. Having this unit be almost the same as a carrier, but weaker and cheaper would support Protoss making phoenix and voidray for air support along with the Tempest to have something to combat A-A, and would also open up the possibility to get a Mothership because you now have air support. I cannot say if I want a Carrier or Tempest, because it should have been for the community to decide seeing as Carriers in SC2 are not nearly as formidable as in BW.
The major problem is not the unit themselves but the fact that nothing has been done to create a use for what seems like wasted pixels. Ultimately, this is almost the exact idea that should replace the current carrier, a weaker but more resource viable unit, also increasing the range slightly (If still too weak)of the Tempest would assist with many problems the Carriers currently face; being killed by ground units way too quickly. This being said there is hardly any risk anymore to micro and kill these larger, high tier air units whilst there is an opposing ground army aside from having some units force fielded (worst case scenario) or stormed (horrible in comparison to EMP or Fungal Growth)
According to Dustin Bowder, "the Tempest didn't feel right and that there was too much of an emotional connection with the original unit(Carrier)."
The “Carrier” and the “Tempest” are the idealistically, the same unit, deciding to keep its name should not warrant it’s own death because of its previous success and (more so) viability. Also, I think the emotional connection was to the design and look of the SC1 Carrier, the latter not being at all the same anyway.
Dark Templar/High Templar
Everyone knows the fix for HT/DT viability is making one tech building open these two units as it was in BW, the current tech route (Cybernetics Core -> Twilight Council -> Either Templar Archives (logical) or Dark Shrine (No upgrades, very situational) )for these two units is really quite a blunder to Protoss versatility and overall unit viability.
Archons
With no option of ‘Dark’ Archons, Archon viability and diversity has gone down the drain. Archons in Starcraft 2 are almost equally as much a waste of resources as a Mothership, both of which will be killed before almost any use can be made, the Mothership less so but still a sad development considering just one Arbiter did a hell of a better job than the Mothership, and it’s a fu$king Protoss MOTHER. SHIP.
Quotes on the versatility and diversity issue.
Artosis sits down with former SC1 Korean pro Tester to talk about his experiences with SC2, strategies, and the issue of balance.
+ Show Spoiler +http://www.scforall.com/sctv/sc_tv01.asp?mNum=s03&movNum=437
Tester gives us a peek into the Korean servers and their views on the game, the
strategies, and balance. He states that Terran is virtually unstoppable right now if played right by someone coming from the SC1 world. When being asked about Void Ray builds against Terran, which have been slowly causing havoc in PvT since Patch 10, Tester shrugs it off like its no big deal. He states it isn't a big problem on the Korean servers because everyone knows how to counter it, since Void Rays were used since the beginning on the Korean servers.
Quote
If he [Tester] plays Terran, and if somebody uses Voids Rays against him, he'll say: "Thank you very much, I'll kick your ass”
“He states that Terran is virtually unstoppable right now if played right by someone coming from the SC1 world.”
Fragster.de interview with Idra
+ Show Spoiler +http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=127980
I often heard players saying, that Protoss is to weak. What do you think about that?
IdrA: Personally, I feel that Protoss is very, very strong early game but, at least vs Zerg, becomes ridiculously weak as the game progresses. I don't know as much about the PvT matchup.
How would you rate the first patches Blizzard published? Did they make improvements?
IdrA: I've really disliked a lot of the balance changes Blizzard is making, actually. It feels to me like they've been balancing matchups by making one race overpowered early game, and the other overpowered late game. This made lead to a balanced win rate but it creates terrible game quality, and in the long term it'll be imbalanced as people get a better feel for early game defensive timings.
Quotes from Over-nerfed by Artosis
This talks about Zerg, but I would like to emphasize the idea that having less viable units can in-turn make certain portions a lot stronger, like how Protoss has been focused on the 3 early Warp Gate units + 1 other type.
+ Show Spoiler +http://www.mymym.com/en/news/18583.html
This is a huge difference, especially when you consider that one of the Zerg units, the Ultralisk, is completely inferior to any other choice the Zerg have. This brings us down to eight units. Why does this make the Zerg better on the Asian server?
Streamlined learning. This is all that the Zerg has to work with. That means, the best units, ideas and strategies boil down much faster. There is simply less to test. StarCraft II is a very complex game, with many, many factors contributing to any situation. The Zerg have less of these factors. You have a very limited number of options. This doesn't make playing the Zerg easier, per sey, it just makes figuring out how to player the Zerg right easier. While other races are still around with three to five extra units, the Zerg already know what combination work and don't work. This makes every practice game a Zerg player plays worth more, as they are already past the testing phase.
These ideas as a whole are 99% true, Terran is the most refined, diverse and versatile race in Starcraft 2 right now, combined with the right player, you are 99% unstoppable because of how well every unit, upgrade and mechanic works and compliments eachother. Our goal as the Starcraft 2 Community is to see balance between race diversity and versatility, the two governing traits of any races overall design. All this talk about imbalanced units and such is nonsensical when what really matters is the much broader ideas, and they most definitely need to be polished and thoroughly looked at and discussed. Thank you very much for your time and patience listening to my feedback.
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Interesting read, though the problem doesn't seem too bad. Carriers do need a revamp really, to fill a niche the voidray doesn't. (I was one of the few that liked the Tempest, and it's delicious irony to hear people wanting it back)
Dark shrine would be ok if it had some more options, having some tech/upgrade/unit unlocks from it.
I'm calling it right now that dark shrine will get a lot more in the upcoming expansions (LotV imo)
Multiple archon types, I'm a bit more doubtful of, considering how reluctant they are to make archons into a real unit choice (even though they are still somewhat useful at the moment)
Mothership...makes me want to facepalm, don't remove arbiters if you're just going to replace it with an arbiter wannabe, replace it with the star relic or something, give it some linking attack (focusing beam weapons for example), pylon power, shield regen aura, whatever (then add arbiters back if you're desperate for cloak aura and recall...)
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good read, I can tell you put a lot of thought into this and it really shows.
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Great read. I agree that the problem is broader than simply unit balances. When playing the game, I get that Command & Conquer 3 feeling, when controlling my marines around. Zerg is the race that needs to be reworked, they are completely unfinished and lack interesting units. Terran are allright, and Protoss have an amazing scope of unit diversity, but needs a bit of tweaking.
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Wait. Isn't it my life for Aiur?
Oh thats right, puns.
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@ Emikochan
overall, not a hard or large problem, but when there are no changes being made, it kind of exacerbates the situation quite a bit.
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Nice read. Whether people consider protoss to be overpowered or not, there is definitely something special lacking at the moment.
The versatility of terran play has increased dramatically over the last few weeks, with the one of each building, swapping tech labs / cores around, many different harassment techniques etc.
Zerg has had some real game changes with infestors, ultras, and even the roach, hydra, ling, baneling and muta differences are significant enough to create diverse tech paths that all have relevant late game applications.
Protoss however are becoming increasingly under represented in tournaments and are doing worse and worse in these competitions. I played toss for years through broodwar and naturally carried on in sc2, but since playing platinum level protoss I have swapped to zerg and terran play interests me more currently than protoss.
It's true that protoss has too much support / useless units and not enough specific tech paths. People will spam saying you can go immortals / colossus / vrs / phoenix / HT's / DT's, where's the problem? Immortals and colossus are support counters to specific units but largely the same tech pattern, whilst vr's aren't a viable "build only" build so require extensive warp gate support. You can't just build phoenix but this is a good example of a nice variation in build orders. HT's and DT's aren't great or worth the tech most of the time though, especially DT's.
It just seems that protoss has become a predictable, slow, uninventive bore, which is a real shame.
*Hell I'd love a sentry buff and sentrys requiring a below core level building the "Sentry Citadel" or something less shit.
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Interesting read, but I completely disagree that there are inviable units in the Protoss race. As a matter of fact I find that most units of the Protoss are very well rounded useful in most every situation, units. This is one of the reasons I don't buy into the 'hard counter' theory. While I will agree with you that Protoss has lost some diversity, I think this article is a stretch. The only units I have not found a use for in my adventures as a Protoss during the beta is the mothership and carrier. These opinions come from my experiences playing Protoss on the bronze and silver level.
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I think it's best that we come out with more ideas like this in order for blizzard to buff some units in the protoss arsenal. I kinda like the HT's more than the Collosi since I can use that awesome spam storms that placement of those is easy.
I agree with the Mothership having an overhaul. I mean BC's aren't totally useless, (been using them in TvT for destroying tanks and using Raven PDD's to infiltrate bases turrets) Unlike the Mothership which is a BM unit itself already if you ask me.
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"As a matter of fact I find that most units of the Protoss are very well rounded useful in most every situation"
Please elaborate on what units, and how they themselves are viable, and also, I must point out "most" units, Protoss is still the only race with units that aren't used or viable, aside from the Ultralisk, which IS being looked at and atleast attempts have been made to fix it/help out.
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The main problem I have with the current protoss design is how damn weak i feel vs other tier 1/2 armies.
Zealots evaporate to anything that looks at them and are too slow for a unit that relies on being in melee. Charge is too expensive, how on earth is stim 100/100 to buff 2 ranged units enormously vs charge 200/200 to buff 1 unit's ability to do its job off a much higher tech building?
Stalkers are just mediocre at everything. Poor damage, poor harras, poor anti air, armored unit... Hate them. They try to do everything but fail miserably at all of them.
Sentries are awesome but you can only throw out so many forcefields. At some point you actually have to kill the other guy.
Tier 2:
Phoenix: Awesome unit, in fact my favorite opener vs terran and zerg on certain maps just wish they dint have such a huge +dmg to light on their dps budget or just 1 attack so armor dint rape their damage against armored targets such as vikings or corruptors.
Immortals: great vs armored units but terrible against anything else.
EMP just totally nullifies them. Zerg rarely makes roaches or ultras so.. In my experience their best usage is against other protoss that go mass stalker.
Void ray: was awesome for a while till people realized.... hey flying units actually do damage in sc2 i better counter it. They look great on paper but battles are usually over so fast that this unit feels weak unless you attack a base and charge up on some buildings first.
As a capital ship killer its pretty lacking. Yamato 1 shots them iirc, carriers are bad so who cares, good luck killing a broodlord with a void ray with 30 hydrass underneath them.
But my biggest complain about void rays is how retarded the charge up system is. If the target of the void ray dies before the charge completes it resets. Unless i micro every single void ray on to a high hp target (which are usually in the back of such army) they take ages to charge. If i focus all the void rays on 1 target it dies too fast to charge most of the time.
DTs are ok but as everyone seems to be asking they should be merged into templar archives.
They are nice specially late game to keep certain areas scouted / kill creep tumors with an observer buddy and keeping your enemy contained until he can get proper detection and even then they will have to keep some defense at their expos for the entire game. But dts don't work that well as an army support unit since they suffer from zealot sindrom. Instant combustion
Tier 3
Colossus are awesome. Only complain is they become visible to attackers on low ground that have no air units to spot for them. Being targetable by air is fine otherwise they would be imba
HTs are awesome (just wish storm did 81 damage so freaking hydras would die instead of standing there and living with 1 hp IT INFURIATES me seeing this in mid game where there's no colossus to happily sweep once and roast them. Feedback is godly vs certain terran builds and corruptors in super late pvz
Carriers are shit: expensive as hell, slow to build even with chrono and there's wayyyyyyy too many counters for them.
Mothership: I love the mothership as a defensive tool in super late game, gives you the freedom to strike anywhere on the map and if you don't like what you see you can recall to save yourself or simply to defend an important far expo.
But i would just rather have arbiters.
TLDR: until protoss gets to tier 3, the area damage tier. You can't fight the ranged balls of death once they reach critical mass.
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In order for the Mothership to be useful, it needs to move faster. At its current movement speed it is useless. I think it would also go a long way to helping out the Mothership if it got a spirit link for all protoss units in its cloaking field that only links units that currently have shields. That would be a pretty good reason to have a mothership with your army and would also partially incorporate the shield battery idea.
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It's because Blizzard never focused on the overall traits of each race's ARMY when designing units.
Protoss used to be the naturally strong, robust race while Terran was the very tactical race that relied heavily on good army control and positioning, and Zerg used to be the race that relied on staying alive with minimal units until drone count was high, and Zerg could afford to attack with large numbers of mobile units with more expansions. And each race's army functioned very differently, which is why we got very dynamic match-ups.
Now in Starcraft 2, armies function very simply, and none of the races represent their core traits:
1. Warpgates can pump out units quickly, resulting in an overall drop of Protoss Gateway unit solidarity and an increased reliance on support units.
2. Terran and Zerg each received robust units and buffs so they could easily deal with the Protoss armies from a PURELY NUMERICAL standpoint, and so lost the traits that made them unique and DIFFERENT from the Protoss.
3. Blizzard tried to emulate the balance caused by deep understanding of the game and good army control through NUMERICAL BALANCE, which requires very SHALLOW understanding of the game and little army control.
In other words, if Blizzard wants to save Starcraft 2, it needs to go through each race, mechanic, army, and unit to make sure that they function the way each race is SUPPOSED to function and maintain the FLAVOR of each unique race.
EDIT: I may have exaggerated on some points, but I still think the problem is dire enough to merit some exaggeration.
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Intersting read, but do you really want chat rooms?
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It's actualy "My wife for hire"...
I have to agree on the templar tech being split, it's such a huge problem for protoss.
In my eyes the only thing holding the protoss boat afloat is the tier one units and warpgates, the rest is pretty situational.
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United States889 Posts
I'm not sure I agree with you about designating "templar" and "colossus" and others as support units.
Look at BW PvZ. Basically, the Forge FE was a great way for Protoss to both build econ and tech safely. What were they teching to? Storm. Because Storm was the anathema to zerg. Storm in PvZ wasn't the support to the protoss army, it was the tip of the spear, the leading attack, the backbone and the most important aspect of the mid through late game PvZ army. Once a toss army runs out of storm and if the zerg is still coming, the toss army retreats.
It is in fact the units around the templar that are the support, the meatshields, the distractors. This is pretty much the same as the colossus and the immortal and storm again. Those are the lead attackers and the most important parts.
A sentry is a support unit. It doesn't do much damage, but its spells help other units be more effective, which is the definition of support. The guardian shield and the forcefield both make other protoss units more effective or opposing units less effective, not lead the attack.
Kind of flips a whole bunch of your argument around imo.
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As a Protoss player, I've never ragequit so much in any game as when clumps of 50m Marines rape every single unit I can make. After crushing my way through my week of beta and moving up I've just run into a wall of Terran players that play the exact same way - never taking risks or any deviations.
Chargelots work, but oh wait the mass Marauders rip them apart with 50/50 Conc Shells and Stim.. Never mind blowing 200/200 for Charge, after having to get the tech building, Terran infantry are already in my base.
At first I hated the Stalker as I loved the Dragoon as the staple Protoss unit. After using it I started to actually like it, until I realized massing them doesn't work, at all, and the way they attempt to create a fucking British 18th century firing line just ends with them getting raped. 11 base damage compared to the old Dragoons base damage makes this thing eat shit to basic units like Marines as well. I actually like this unit, but it can't reliably do anything well. Not to mention their armor class gets them extra damage taken.
Immortals... 5 marines kill one of these, without the 150 gas and cost of a Robobay, and it cant even attack air, what a fucking joke for supposed to be living up to a god-like Dragoon risen from the dead for the second time. Slow firing, expensive, and has no real role other than having a couple of them in your control group for kill shots. I understand the theory behind it, but the Terran composition just nullifies its role. You cant close on Siege Tanks with this thing. Maybe its true merit is in attacking buildings.
The Protoss unit composition expected to counter the simplicity of Zerg macro and whatever it is you call Terran play now is just beyond reason with the expense and expectations of actually having enough to not get overrun by an attack move. At the current stage of the game Protoss are require to be extremely aggressive early on or pray your opponent makes a series of mistakes in mid and late game.
At the beginning of every game your forced to rush a Stalker or Zealots to counter 6 zerglings or 1 reaper from raping your entire mineral line, and then your forced to buy extraneous tech buildings for incredibly expensive upgrades to make your units even viable. My oh my if my tech came from my tech1 building and cost less than 200 or 150 minerals and Gas each.
Protoss gateway mass is not comparatively that weak I don't believe. However I believe that Terran expenses and ease of upgrades just hand Protoss its ass to easily. Beyond this point... the Terran has every option in the world to brutalize whichever dedicated tech tree the Protoss decides to rape his economy going down.
Rax, Fact, Techlab and you have Siege Tanks with siege.
CybCore, Robo Bay, Support Bay and you've got Colossus... at a ridiculously higher cost from the Bay itself, then the Colossus alone - not to mention then needing the range upgrade to still get raped by Siege Tanks.
Vikings are ridiculous air to air. Pheonix may rape Mutas, but they can't damage armored Air. These things not only can rape Colossus, but land and rape the rest of your ground forces from behind the wall of M&M.
Void Rays are neat, besides the fact everything rapes them and they're a support or gyp unit. Marines rape these things... and they're so expensive to go for while maintaining a presence on the map, nor can they hold their own in any circumstance unless base-raping. But good luck getting enough of these to be useful before your run over by Terran infantry.
tl;dr drunk protoss hates terran playground merry go round sandbox rubber tools
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On May 29 2010 12:46 Arrian wrote:
I'm not sure I agree with you about designating "templar" and "colossus" and others as support units.
Look at BW PvZ. Basically, the Forge FE was a great way for Protoss to both build econ and tech safely. What were they teching to? Storm. Because Storm was the anathema to zerg. Storm in PvZ wasn't the support to the protoss army, it was the tip of the spear, the leading attack, the backbone and the most important aspect of the mid through late game PvZ army. Once a toss army runs out of storm and if the zerg is still coming, the toss army retreats.
It is in fact the units around the templar that are the support, the meatshields, the distractors. This is pretty much the same as the colossus and the immortal and storm again. Those are the lead attackers and the most important parts.
A sentry is a support unit. It doesn't do much damage, but its spells help other units be more effective, which is the definition of support. The guardian shield and the forcefield both make other protoss units more effective or opposing units less effective, not lead the attack.
Kind of flips a whole bunch of your argument around imo.
It really only reverses my comments about whatever units I said were support actually, which isn't most of my argument. My argument is that these units are so weak at their job alone they need to be there with other units and Protoss has too many units that rely on another or such late, or specific tech, this is the problem, lack of versatility drops the overall diversity that Protoss HAS but can't unlock unless you fast expand which currently isn't always possible. Regardless this changes nothing saying units are support or not, fact is they are used as 'support' because they do poorly alone at their role.
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As a protoss and zerg player, I find no issues with Protoss units. Pretty much every single unit the protoss makes feels powerful and useful to me.
Sure, the mothership and carrier probably won't see a lot of use in 1v1s, but super units like that have always been rare in serious 1v1 in BW as well. Zealots are a superb mineral only unit (and my zealots always feel WAY more powerful than my zerglings) that becomes a really efficient unit once you get the charge upgrade. I've never understood why people complain about this upgrade as simply getting it and pushing with chargelots has won me many a game. Yes, it's expensive, but it's also more of a game changer than blink is. While blink is certainly handy, charge basically makes your zealots twice as efficient at killing with no micro required.
Templar tech is another tech I don't understand why people complain about. So, going templar tech obviously requires citadel which you are either going to get anyway (for upgrades) or if you are going this tech first allows you to get charge and blink very early, effectively making your already strong gateway units even stronger. Going this tech tree also allows you to go gate heavy before or after starting the tech because everything that comes out of this tech path is built from gateways. This adds a lot of versatility to your build and provides easy reinforcement since every unit you are making can be warped in. Then we have the templar. Once again, a unit everyone complains about and a unit that I find it is hard to lose with once it is out. These guys are very strong and intimidating to the enemy. Against zerg they just wreck entire armies and against terran they not only wreck bio-balls but they feedback the crap out of everything.
The biggest downside to a templar tech path is the lack of observers. While the lack of detection can screw you over for obvious reasons, the lack of scouting can be easily compensated for by researching hallucinate (a very under used ability) and making a fake pheonix now and then.
Robo tech has always been very strong and is weak only to opponents who invest heavily in airforce, and stargate has recently become the flavor of the month in most matchups. That pretty much covers the entirety of the Protoss army, and I find it all useful.
When it comes to zerg, I still find roaches useful as well even though most people now claim they suck. The ultralisk however, is and always has been terrible. Hopefully they'll fix that.
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Damn thats one hell of a read, but one point I want to say is that carriers are just about as viable as battlecruisers yet no terran really complains about that. They're useless top tier units, it happens, they can be useful in some situations but they're not useful overall. Look, maybe protoss does have a lot of so called weaker units that are supposed to be massed, but thats just how the cookie crumbles, protoss also has advantages such as splash damage that almost no other units are in the whole game (colossus, archons, tons of storms, FF's). In the end toss has some disadvantages and some advantages and it all balacnes out. It's relaly not a big deal...
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You put a lot of effort into this thread, and I applaud you for that. I agree with you on two bits, and those include the lack of versatility with the high/dark templar techs for one and the mothership's overall uselessness. Beyond these two factors, I don't see these glaring problems with protoss that you talk about. You talk about Protoss having too many support units, but I don't really agree with that at all. Mid to late game armies should not consist of as few as 3 units, which it seems you'd rather have as opposed to the mixed army style protoss currently has to play. Your point regarding colossi being weak to corruptors/vikings doesn't really phase me, simply because by the time your enemy's air kills your colossi in a battle, their entire ground army should be ripped to shreds if you control properly. Your point about carriers at this moment falls under the category of "complaining without testing" and I'd gladly refute that statement if you prove you made a genuine effort to integrate carriers into your gameplay, as opposed to complaining about their inefficiency without so much as building a fleet beacon. As for the tempest, Blizzard decided it didn't want that unit in SC2, just like the goliath, the lurker, the firebat, etc. Is it a shame we never got to play with it? Yes, but thats not the unit Blizzard wanted and we have to accept that.
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terran is still the most tactical race and still needs precise army control. they even have more units that require fairly high apm. thinking about hellions, ghosts, ravens, occasionaly vikings and even thors have a active ability.
OP: I really like your post and it has some good points. carriers and motherships both need a role. I also do not like the templar tech.
I think its true what you said about the gateway units and the warpgates. they are the most exciting and refined units in the protoss arsenal plus the warpgate mechanic is really powerfull and awesome.
What I also like are phoenixes, voidrays and colossi. all nice support units in my opinion.
I also agree on the bonus damage part. I think that SC2 needs the bonus damage system, thinking of phoenixes or immortals. but in the case of the immortal its way too much. the immortal is allready a slow unit and its shields do allready soak up most of the damage from the units it counters while it does not function against units that it shouldnt counter.
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I think it was a huge mistake for the designers to just create "the most interesting units" and not just look at each race as a whole. Zerg seems lacking as well.
I agree about the Archons and Carriers (LOL they explode on being seen).
They need some work to make them an actual choice in certain situations.
Immortals should be buffed in some small regard. Your point about 5X50minerals marines eating 1 250minerals/100gas Immortal is really well made. I would think to either raise the base damage a hair, or reduce the cost to 200m or even 225m. Especially since the 250 minerals Terran has to spend is so easily acquired with MULE.
The only good answer to Mass infantry is Colossus, and I know as a Terran player, just have your already made Starport with Reactor crank out a couple rounds of Vikings- and you've added enough to fight Colossus readily.
My only real hope is that Blizzard has something up its sleeve for expansions with all 3 races. Though lately its been nothing but a string of disappointments.
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Really interesting read. I have to say, I agree with the OP - protoss lacks something substantial to build their units around.
Too many protoss units have overlapping roles:
Collosus overlaps with Templar (both aoe, which is why I think no one uses templar - who wants to spell when you can just point and shoot?)
Zealot overlaps with Immortal (ranged shield or melee shield?)
Phoenix overlaps with Stalker (ground aa/harass or air aa/harass?)
DT with Carrier and Mothership (all pretty much cheesy/all in/unused)
The only unique units seem to be void rays and sentry which are touted as imba and overpowered by other races only because certain strategies have come out for them that are creative and hard but not impossible to counter.
Of course we have the observer and the warp prism - one which is good because it basically hasn't changed at all since it's humble beginnings in sc1 and another which is basically a shuttle/ flying pylon that costs 200 minerals.
Terran have marines - high dps low hp ground unit
Maurader - unit that slows other units, meat shield
Hellion - melts light ground units
Reaper - cheesy harass
Ghost - super offensive caster unit (WITH 4 SPELLS)
Raven - super defensive caster unit (with 3 spells)
Tank - ground ranged superstar
Thor - badass 1v1 unit/base destroyer/light air demolisher
Viking - air ranged superstar
Medivac - heavy armored healer (only transport with 1 armor)
Banshee - cheesy win button - if that fails, becomes great damage when added to your army
Battlecrusier - cheesy all in
Granted, I took some liberties in describing the units, but it's pretty clear - to me at least, that Terran has greater flexibility. Where toss has a few viable builds, Terran may have many.
Where is the creativity? Just because it's an advanced race from outer space doesn't mean you can skimp on the development. In fact, I am confused on how Protoss has "highly advanced technology" and yet Terran seems to have all the shiny new toys. Someone in Protoss R&D needs to be sent to Char.
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I understand your points very clearly and they are well made. I have a few points to add for Zerg as well as I feel that are probable one of the worst designed races to be created.
However, I do strongly suggest to you to remember where we are at the game. We are in beta or nearing beta. Trying to get a 50:50 matchup should be the #1 thing to do during a beta so when you release, at least you enter with a 50:50 matchup ratio so that one race isn't overly powered over another.
Once the game is released however, then you can really start getting stat tracking with millions of games between good, bad, excellent people.
It's a long journey in balance, and this is an entirely new game from Brood War. We'll have to see how things play out and I'm quite sure that this game will be one of the most balanced games come the third expansion.
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On May 29 2010 14:38 wankey wrote:
I understand your points very clearly and they are well made. I have a few points to add for Zerg as well as I feel that are probable one of the worst designed races to be created.
However, I do strongly suggest to you to remember where we are at the game. We are in beta or nearing beta. Trying to get a 50:50 matchup should be the #1 thing to do during a beta so when you release, at least you enter with a 50:50 matchup ratio so that one race isn't overly powered over another.
Once the game is released however, then you can really start getting stat tracking with millions of games between good, bad, excellent people.
It's a long journey in balance, and this is an entirely new game from Brood War. We'll have to see how things play out and I'm quite sure that this game will be one of the most balanced games come the third expansion.
Unfortunately, balance does not equate to interesting, dynamic gameplay. What Blizzard should focus on is REALLY differentiating each and every single race's core army composition in how they move, mass, and attack rather than just aiming for strict balance. On top of that, balance should be designed around CONTROL, not just numbers.
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I really agree with you man , and one thing that particularly annoys me is how easily accessible are the terran infantry upgrades while getting charge requires so much time and resources, and is nowhere near as powerful as stim or concussive shells.
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Very interesting and well thought out post, and i have to say i agree with what was said. I think there need to be some tweaks for protoss to be balanced late game.
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its rumored that if you get DT's in the zergs base around mid game that the zealots will actually start saying "I sniped your spire"
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Terran has the most units, least cost, and all that jazz
Clearly Terran is so Pumped up in SC2, that Zerg and Protoss are lacking something in return
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We are in beta or nearing beta.
Eh, it's been beta for months, if not over a year at this point, closed beta is over long ago. We're in the public beta phase right now, and soon to be open beta.
Public beta usualy means stress testing and play testing, the fundamentals is in place, eg. no more new units to be thrown in, just tweaking.
But I doagree that Zerg is feels pretty generic, they've got no cool gimmics at all, just macro heavy mechanics, that is all. I guess they want to save the "cool" stuff for zerg till the expansion comes around.
Untill then I think it's perfectly legit to crritizise one races unit diversion. I can honestly say I build archons, void rays, carriers, warp prism, motherships & dark templars in 5% or less of my games(probably even less in most cases). So what does that leave me?
Zlots, stalkers, sentries, observer, collossus, immortals, phoenix & high templars
For obevious reason zlots, stalkers, sentries and observers is pretty close to 100% appearance in my games(Counting out the games where I never reach cybernetics for whatever reason!).
It's a tad harder for me to guesstimate how much I use the three last units however, I would guess one in every 10 games, maybe even less.
What i'm trying to say is, yeah, protoss got a pretty diverse mix of units, but if it's only a handfull of those units your using it doesnt really matter how diverse that mix is. Does that mean the units I dont use as often isn't good? Ofcouse not, they have their uses, for sure. I just find their rolls overlap the other units(which imo, does the job better). Either that, or they are too easily countered for the roll they fit contra the effort I have to put into fitting that roll into my playstyle.
Would I like to see the rest of the units more viable? Sure, but I'm not holding my breath.
If I were playing terran, would the list be similar? I'm pretty sure it would be, even if terran got this "awesome diversity" too theres still units I wouldn't utilize often. And imo theres still some units for terran that needs tweaking, one way or another.
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A Hell of a read ^^.
On May 29 2010 12:46 Arrian wrote:
I'm not sure I agree with you about designating "templar" and "colossus" and others as support units.
Look at BW PvZ. Basically, the Forge FE was a great way for Protoss to both build econ and tech safely. What were they teching to? Storm. Because Storm was the anathema to zerg. Storm in PvZ wasn't the support to the protoss army, it was the tip of the spear, the leading attack, the backbone and the most important aspect of the mid through late game PvZ army. Once a toss army runs out of storm and if the zerg is still coming, the toss army retreats.
It is in fact the units around the templar that are the support, the meatshields, the distractors. This is pretty much the same as the colossus and the immortal and storm again. Those are the lead attackers and the most important parts.
A sentry is a support unit. It doesn't do much damage, but its spells help other units be more effective, which is the definition of support. The guardian shield and the forcefield both make other protoss units more effective or opposing units less effective, not lead the attack.
Kind of flips a whole bunch of your argument around imo.
Dont agree with your examples. Kinda agree with you're definition of support (in game) tho.
I would say the roles for almost every unit SC1/SC2 change according to specific moments in game, lets say when engaging enemy forces or between battles or harassing and even deflecting attacks and such. The roles change throughout the entire game.
A high templar could be both, supporter or supported, it all depends on your tactic ( the way your'e using it ). If you are "Storm Dropping", a Zealot will become the supporter by absorbing the initial Siege Tank fire, if there happens to be any so the High Templars can inflict their attack.
When engaging enemy forces Zealots/Dragoons will be supported by High Templars and their PsyStorm.
Anyways, a High Templar was meant to be a support unit.
How can I prove you that? Easy, in a real match (Pro Matches), you'll find their unit composition well define by this: A larger number of units (attacking/supported) and a smaller group of units (supporting/supporters).
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I'm not gonna gripe about lack of variety in armies, considering zerg have the least number of useful units to use in an army, and only one spell caster. However I think people are underestimating what the expansions are going to do to the game. You may argue that adding 1-2 units to each army wouldn't change much, but can you really argue the addition of corsairs and lurkers changed zvp and zvt drastically? The medic becoming a staple unit, and between lurkers and medics zvt would not be even close to what it is today. The dark templar and dark archon didn't exist before broodwar, protoss stealth was essentially non existant.
So if I were you I wouldn't post topics about armies lacking flavour, because plenty of flavour is going to be added in the next two expansions.
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On May 29 2010 16:40 slowmanrunning wrote:
I'm not gonna gripe about lack of variety in armies, considering zerg have the least number of useful units to use in an army, and only one spell caster. However I think people are underestimating what the expansions are going to do to the game. You may argue that adding 1-2 units to each army wouldn't change much, but can you really argue the addition of corsairs and lurkers changed zvp and zvt drastically? The medic becoming a staple unit, and between lurkers and medics zvt would not be even close to what it is today. The dark templar and dark archon didn't exist before broodwar, protoss stealth was essentially non existant.
So if I were you I wouldn't post topics about armies lacking flavour, because plenty of flavour is going to be added in the next two expansions.
Firstly, every zerg unit is extremely useful and is used frequently, aside from the ultralisk which I have mentioned. Second, either you lack knowledge of these areas or you didn't read my post, maybe both. Zerg have 3 spell casters, the queen, infestor and overseer. The infestor having 2 of the best spells in the game. There would be barely any changes and quick fixes without the amount of feedback Blizzard receives from the community. This is constructive feedback about the areas many feel have been over looked or left out CURRENTLY in design. It is good to change perspective sometimes and get criticism from a different view or on an area that many don't seem to discuss.
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I believe you pretty much summed it up. As a 75%Zerg 25%Protoss player, I am starting to feel the same way you do about all the units you describe.
They just dont synergize enough.
Its really misterious to me how they managed to make such an awesome race like the Terrans, with multiple opening styles, surprise transitions, while keeping versatility and unit strenght, while Protoss and Zerg were given the short stick in terms of unit mixes, number of total strategies and overall look and feel of the gamplay.
Terrans really feel like a race coming from 2010 design, while Protoss and Zerg look like something from the age of the start of RTSs.
I can even go as far and say that Broodwar Zerg and Protoss felt better than these other two.
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On May 29 2010 12:52 Feijichang wrote:
As a Protoss player, I've never ragequit so much in any game as when clumps of 50m Marines rape every single unit I can make. After crushing my way through my week of beta and moving up I've just run into a wall of Terran players that play the exact same way - never taking risks or any deviations.
Chargelots work, but oh wait the mass Marauders rip them apart with 50/50 Conc Shells and Stim.. Never mind blowing 200/200 for Charge, after having to get the tech building, Terran infantry are already in my base.
At first I hated the Stalker as I loved the Dragoon as the staple Protoss unit. After using it I started to actually like it, until I realized massing them doesn't work, at all, and the way they attempt to create a fucking British 18th century firing line just ends with them getting raped. 11 base damage compared to the old Dragoons base damage makes this thing eat shit to basic units like Marines as well. I actually like this unit, but it can't reliably do anything well. Not to mention their armor class gets them extra damage taken.
Immortals... 5 marines kill one of these, without the 150 gas and cost of a Robobay, and it cant even attack air, what a fucking joke for supposed to be living up to a god-like Dragoon risen from the dead for the second time. Slow firing, expensive, and has no real role other than having a couple of them in your control group for kill shots. I understand the theory behind it, but the Terran composition just nullifies its role. You cant close on Siege Tanks with this thing. Maybe its true merit is in attacking buildings.
The Protoss unit composition expected to counter the simplicity of Zerg macro and whatever it is you call Terran play now is just beyond reason with the expense and expectations of actually having enough to not get overrun by an attack move. At the current stage of the game Protoss are require to be extremely aggressive early on or pray your opponent makes a series of mistakes in mid and late game.
At the beginning of every game your forced to rush a Stalker or Zealots to counter 6 zerglings or 1 reaper from raping your entire mineral line, and then your forced to buy extraneous tech buildings for incredibly expensive upgrades to make your units even viable. My oh my if my tech came from my tech1 building and cost less than 200 or 150 minerals and Gas each.
Protoss gateway mass is not comparatively that weak I don't believe. However I believe that Terran expenses and ease of upgrades just hand Protoss its ass to easily. Beyond this point... the Terran has every option in the world to brutalize whichever dedicated tech tree the Protoss decides to rape his economy going down.
Rax, Fact, Techlab and you have Siege Tanks with siege.
CybCore, Robo Bay, Support Bay and you've got Colossus... at a ridiculously higher cost from the Bay itself, then the Colossus alone - not to mention then needing the range upgrade to still get raped by Siege Tanks.
Vikings are ridiculous air to air. Pheonix may rape Mutas, but they can't damage armored Air. These things not only can rape Colossus, but land and rape the rest of your ground forces from behind the wall of M&M.
Void Rays are neat, besides the fact everything rapes them and they're a support or gyp unit. Marines rape these things... and they're so expensive to go for while maintaining a presence on the map, nor can they hold their own in any circumstance unless base-raping. But good luck getting enough of these to be useful before your run over by Terran infantry.
tl;dr drunk protoss hates terran playground merry go round sandbox rubber tools
To ur thoughts about Marine/Marauder clumps I strongly agree! Artosis recently interviewed Tester[gm], who he believes to be the best player in the world right now and ironically he's a protoss. During that interview, tester said that due to the low number of Terran players on the Asian/Korean servers, he hasn't had much experience versus them, but from what he's seen, he feels that they're overpowered. He went on to say that, if some of the old school korean terran pro-gamers got a hold of terran in SC2, the way they are now, terran would be near impossible to beat.
I think this goes to the fact that marine/marauder clumps are soo easy to mass, yet very hard to stop. Adding to this that they get their upgrades soooo cheap, 100-100 for stim, 50-50 for concussive shells (wtf!?) and 100-100 for combat shield.. Not to mention early reaper harass which, if executed well, by say a 7 racks proxied, can normally kill about 3-4 probes before a stalker can come out.. only to very safely transistion into 4-5 marauders by the time the protoss can counter w/ 1-2 stalkers..
To the OP and his pretty well laid out post and details, i, myself, have always been a Protoss player. I loved them from the 1st time I seen them in SC. I liked their whole aura. That they were very devoted to their homeland, prideful and patriotic and brave warriors. I also liked their physiques.. almost like that of Predators. Tall, alien-like w/ advanced weaponry like their psi-blades and their plasma shields etc.. they were just awesome.. they are awesome. Dragoons, Carriers, Archons (my fav. unit), zealots, immortals, void rays, dt's.. all awesome.
going along w/ the discussion about support units and the damage that they do etc, like immortals.. I too, think that this specific damage-type is kinda unrealistic.. I mean, I know its a fantasy sci-fi game etc.. but i mean.. Take the immortal for instance.. Its got these 2 gigantic cannons mounted on it, thats does like 50 dmg against 'armored' units.. yet, it doesn't do squat against 'low tier' units like zeal/marine/ling.. wtf is that? I mean thats like saying, this rocket launcher does 100 damage against a tank (which means it blows it the fuck up), yet it only does 5 damage against this bicycle.. I mean.. wtf!? a cannon is a cannon.. why would it do less damage because something is smaller.. yes, might be a harder target, but still, its a fucking cannon! Why does it take 4 hits to kill a marine with only 45 life. In these instances, I think the damage system is really stupid.
another thing i've noticed that definately don't like about SC2 Protoss is that.. U ever compared them to the P units in BW, like against Z or T even:
Dragoon - 20 dmg
zealot - 16 dmg
archon - 30 dmg
sc2
stalker - 14 dmg (against armored) otherwise 11
zeal - 8 dmg, 11 w/ +3 weapons
sentry - 6
BW: Z:
ling - 6 dmg
hydra - 9 dmg
muta - 9 dmg
sc2 Z:
hydra - 10
roach - 16
My point is that, Protoss has always been known to be the race with very strong units, doing more damage, just being more expensive.. which makes it worth it seeing as though they do a lot of dmg, where as zerg is supposed to have cheap units but easily massed due to their in-expensiveness. That's not the case anymore.. Protoss units still cost a lot, Zerg units still are inexpensive, however, Zerg units now do as much damage as Protoss units and are more easily massed.
Unit production:
Say u want to make 6 stalkers, well u gotta make 6 gates @ 150 each.. thats 900 minerals + the cost of stalkers..
U want to make 6 hydras, just make the 1 hydra den, then hydras from ur larva @ w/e cost of hydra and repeat.
I actually don't understand where people can think that Protoss is overpowered. They've lost all their abilities that made them strong. They lost their damage advantage. They lost their best ability, psi-storm (doesnt do nearly as good as it did in BW), its supposed to do 80 dmg, but i've seen hydras sit there during the full effect of storm and still not die.. Sure, they may die after 1-2 more shots from a stalker, but thats not the point! The time, resources spent on getting to storm, plus the fact that zerg costs and produces so much better than Protoss, they need storm to help even the flow of battle, they need storm to kill lots of units.. not to use 5 storms to kill a group of hydras, wasting all the energy, only to be confronted w/ another group of hydras in 1 min.
Sure, the collosus is a very good unit that owns almost all ground units, but in context against Z, the cost of collosus and by the time u get a sizeable force of them, 4+, zerg would have alrdy known this is coming and gets liek 8+ corruptors, which narrows ur window of using them in battle..
I think Protoss is still just as costly as they ever were, or need to be, but still lack in their efficiency. Like immortal is 250-100.. well hell, for an extra 50-100, u could make a collosus, which does a lot better against some ground types.. but wait, the upgrade for collossus is 200-200..
oh yea, plus the thing about the high temps and dark temps being 2 separate buildings.. I think thats a crock too.
Dts may still be useful, in the fact that they do high dmg, and are cloaked.. but the building itself costs soo much and takes so long and only provides that 1 unit and u'd still need the temp-archives to get storm, plus the upgrade itself.. its way too much for ur "temp" tech.. I mean, theres still the robo tech path and the star tech path.. the divided temp tech is too much..
Artosis even agreed to this change when Tester mentioned it.. Like tester said, there should be at least an ability @ the temp-archive to upgrade the ability to use dark-temps.. rather than having a separate building for them.. that just discourages the use of dts.
<3 Protoss
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Yeah I also want some changes on the toss... Gateway 200 minerals for example. So a 3gate actually feels like an allin rather then: "ok ill delay my voidrays for a minute or two, to have them save against any agression while beeing aggro like a Rancor myself"
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the mothership is fine, the game just wouldn't be the same without humiliation units
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My main concern with protoss is the lacking fun aspect after a while. Protoss seem to be so "direct damage" focused. Terran and zerg are so much more versatile. Want to go phoenix or DTs to change a bit or harass ? Sure thing, but it's SO commiting. Tech choices are very hard to revert back as protoss. So yeah, pretty much every game is the same stuff. Some slight changes in early build order but then always the same : defend against early aggression, expand, choose your way between collossi / HTs, build up army.
Off course you can do some funky stuff like immo drops but it's not nearly as effective. "Non standard" options are very costly and difficult to manage as protoss. I often watch Tozar's stream because he is playing protoss the funky way with blink stalkers / dts most of the time and even with his experience and strong micro, many games end up with a base race. It's not nearly as commiting for zerg or terrans to play muta/banshee harass for a while, then revert back to classic army, then doing speedlings / reaper harass, etc..
And to be honnest, I think terrans should win almost every time against protoss (and zerg for that matter). With the current version of the game, I'm pretty sure terrans will own the ladder so much after a few weeks/months. I still don't understand why terrans don't use ghosts every fucking time against protoss since it's basically a I Win button right now but I'm not gonna complain.
Idra told in his itw that he thinks protoss is very strong early game and very weak after a while and I think he's totally right. Protoss early game is strong because they have some good cheeses and they have the very solid warpgate timing push but if you don't win here, you're gonna be behind because you won't be able to adapt to the game and ennemy's tech switches as fast as other races and if the other player is playing smart (i.e not spamming his marauder button while I have 6+ collossi), he will win.
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Exactly.
Protoss gateway units are reasonable, with the sentry being one of the best spell casters in the game even though they're gas heavy. Which leads to another point is that having sentries to hold off an early terran bio push is extremely hard as we'll have no gas for colossi later in the game.
I'd like to say that stalkers are decent and fun to micro but they are way too fragile and don't really fit the role of a harassing unit. They take so many hits to kill zealots/marines and 125/50 is too expensive. Fast movement speed is great but with low damage and SLOW attack it kinda sucks. I'd rather it move a little slower but have it's dps higher (they have blink anyway who needs fast movement.)
Immortals are dog shit, they were great before for holding off roach timing pushes (when roaches were 'op' lol) but once you have enough units all you need is 10 units to attack an Immortal ONCE !!!! and the shields are already gone. They are useless (for countering tanks) who would leave their tanks by themselves without marines? It's incredibly stupid.
Next the phoenix and void ray I've never had a problem with, I think they're great units but the phoenix AtA damage is low enough to make me cry. Void rays were fine prepatch imo, there are many counters it was just that people started using void rays a lot that patch so everyone had a cry when they saw a 'newish' unit being used and losing - crying imba!
Carriers are hopeless - their build time is so huge and they die to focus fire so easily, it's hard to micro them as their movement speed is quite slow.
Same with the mothership, who even uses this? It's a bm unit - takes just a little under 3 minutes to build, slowest movement speed..
Those two units are just not worth the tech route.
HT's are ok, but are quite expensive to tech to. I'd like to see a cheaper templar archive or the dt and ht to come together from the same archive because dt's dark shrine is insanely gas heavy for such a shit unit HP wise. By the time you have dt's (with the incredibly long shrine build time) EVERY decent player will have detection by then and dt's fall so easily (not to mention they're only use is for harass, they have no spells, cost 125 gas and 250gas shrine 100 build time) is it really worth all that commitment?
HT damage is FINE, I'm not complaining for a buff there.. Feedback is also underused and a great spell!
I think the colossi isn't a support unit - they are the staple of every matchup. I lose most games when I don't have colossi and after 4-5 of them they do extremely good damage. Corrupters or vikings do own them, it's hard to get stalkers to focus fire the air units when they're being blocked/slowed by over 9000 marauders and tanks...
All in all I like protoss but they get extremely boring for me to play as I tend to rely on gateway/colossi - toss air is too much of a gamble with phoenix ONLY being good for countering mutas or mineral line harassing.
I would like to see a buff to our templar tech or carriers and I'll be happy. It's so boring playing with gateway units and losing without colossi..
Terran is op rant:
Seriously? The last terran buff is so stupid. They were cheap enough and only require a fkn cheap tech lab!
We need 200/200 for charge + twilight council!!
Stim on marauders is fkd, their damage output is insane... Tanks are too hard to take down even with blink (not complaining about tanks but) WHEN THEY HAVE over9000 marauders/marines with STIMMMMMMMMMM your stalkers wont do shit against tanks, or your phoenix wont be able to pick them up, or your dt's will die in 0.00009thousand seconds with a single scan.
Terran bio is too strong for it's low cost and even their researches are low cost..
ps. Immortals are dog shit
pps oh and Carriers
and mothership
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HT/DT:
This branch looks fine to me, even if it's less used than the robo/stargate branches. HT and DT plays different roles, and you don't want necessarily to build HT if you're going DT. So I dont see why merging templar archives and dark shrine could be a buff. The main concern I think is that getting psionic storm is very long and expensive, although HT are (almost) only get for this spell. If you compare the time/cost to get EMP vs storm, and their respective effectiveness. It looks a bit unfair. Maybe should HT get another spell? or storm upgrade cost/time should be reduced?
Carrier:
They are just like the Battlecruiser for the Terran. A kind of units you can consider in 2v2 if the game is becoming very very long. I dont think they need a remake. They are slower than VRs but have better range. Making them "Tempest" wont make them better : they already outrange turrets and any ground anti-air units, so they don't especially need the special Tempest shield.
Mothership:
I agree : Big fail. This is obvious to anyone. There's already a lot of suggestion thread about this, so i wont add mine. The main flaws IMO : this unit need mobility to be something else than a desesperate temporary expensive defense. This unit is also too much vulnerable to EMP/Neural Parasite/Feedback.
PvT:
VR are often used in PvT just because EMP+Concussive shells owns every early ground composition from the protoss and are so easy to get. VRs outrange EMP and force the Terran do do something else. However even if PvT look a bit unfair on the paper, this matchup doesnt seem to be such an issue : If you look at competitions like the HDH invitational, there's no terran player after RO8, while there's 2 protoss players on the podium.
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I enjoyed the read. and lots of the replies were good too 
and i agree wholeheartedly with the the large majority of what's been said.
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you can't compare the cost and timing of tech upgrades from one race to another. stimpack is so universally essential that it has to be considered standard for terran infantry.
i see many well known high level players saying that terran are the strongest, with no real evidence to suggest that this is the case. these same players are still usually beating terran players in tournaments. do these players not believe in a winning mentality and picking the race which gives them the best chance of winning?
if we actually heard the story from the side of the terran it would be easier to swallow.
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buff up protoss
and terran a bit weaker?
i find playing PvT its hard to win when terran turtles and crap.
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also, thor is bs
thor can attack air
colossi cant(10 RANGE WTF SPLASH WTF) it should have long range/no splash or splash/short range wtf!!
thor can be repaired
colossi cant
hey bro just bring OVER9000 scv's and repair the thor
colossi wana heal bro? oh wait all u got is shields bl there
thor has a special ability which can stun and do OVER9000 dmg
colossi has no special ability
hey bro got ultras? np ill just thor ur ass
the things colossi has an advantage over thor is walk over cliffs, splash
why can colossi get shot by air but thors cant?
id rather colossi cant walk up cliffs and ill just use warp prisms (well see more drops or micro cause we never see this unit) and cant get attacked by air it would save me so much worries haha
why can medivacs pick up thors, but phoenix cant... thats bs lol arent protoss supposed to be way hi tech compared to terran lol
anyway my proper post is above a couple of posts this is just a rant cos thors rip everything
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I play toss, and while I don't think i should be one to try to balance the game i see 1 or 2 things I don't really like. DT tech is a silly route to go, and a huge investment for a high risk/reward. I'd rather have a huge investment in to something else that isn't so risky and I'll be using for the rest of the game instead of the next 1 minute. All of the upgrades for blink/charge feel too expensive and too high on the tech tree... so either earlier on the tree, or stay where at with a reduced cost...(hallucination is fine where its at), and I wish one of those things would change just a little, and I don't think it would break the toss..
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On May 29 2010 12:46 Arrian wrote:
I'm not sure I agree with you about designating "templar" and "colossus" and others as support units.
Look at BW PvZ. Basically, the Forge FE was a great way for Protoss to both build econ and tech safely. What were they teching to? Storm. Because Storm was the anathema to zerg. Storm in PvZ wasn't the support to the protoss army, it was the tip of the spear, the leading attack, the backbone and the most important aspect of the mid through late game PvZ army. Once a toss army runs out of storm and if the zerg is still coming, the toss army retreats.
It is in fact the units around the templar that are the support, the meatshields, the distractors. This is pretty much the same as the colossus and the immortal and storm again. Those are the lead attackers and the most important parts.
A sentry is a support unit. It doesn't do much damage, but its spells help other units be more effective, which is the definition of support. The guardian shield and the forcefield both make other protoss units more effective or opposing units less effective, not lead the attack.
Kind of flips a whole bunch of your argument around imo.
A fire support unit will always deal higher damage than standard units or it would be useless, so what you're describing is exactly what fire support is.
Support units are the ones that are vulnerable in combat on their own, that's why they are relegated to the role of support and avoid direct contact with the enemy and HTs very much fit that.
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On May 29 2010 21:17 tarsier wrote:
you can't compare the cost and timing of tech upgrades from one race to another. stimpack is so universally essential that it has to be considered standard for terran infantry.
i see many well known high level players saying that terran are the strongest, with no real evidence to suggest that this is the case. .
You can't compare the cost and timing of tech upgrades from one race to another? What kind of statement is that? lol, Stim and Concussive shells have to be 2 of the best upgrades in the game for 2 of the best t1 units in the game for a really cheap price. There really aren't many high skilled Terran players, as many pro's have said, and even the ones who are good are an easy example. Watch some replays of QXC, Sen, Brat Ok or Strelok, the potential for winning and being able to react and counter is a lot better. Evidence is all around you, open your eyes.
Stim and Concussive Shells > Charge, even Concussive Shells > Charge in the degree its way cheaper and available a lot earlier on. How can you even dispute that Protoss lacks? Terran has two of the best special ability upgrades (whilst not changing barely any tech) you can get 5 minutes into the game, 1 makes it so you can almost always retreat or burst down; stim, the other making it so your enemy can't retreat or advance as efficiently, concussive shells.
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On May 30 2010 00:02 JaspluR wrote:
also, thor is bs
thor can attack air
colossi cant(10 RANGE WTF SPLASH WTF) it should have long range/no splash or splash/short range wtf!!
thor can be repaired
colossi cant
hey bro just bring OVER9000 scv's and repair the thor
colossi wana heal bro? oh wait all u got is shields bl there
thor has a special ability which can stun and do OVER9000 dmg
colossi has no special ability
hey bro got ultras? np ill just thor ur ass
the things colossi has an advantage over thor is walk over cliffs, splash
why can colossi get shot by air but thors cant?
id rather colossi cant walk up cliffs and ill just use warp prisms (well see more drops or micro cause we never see this unit) and cant get attacked by air it would save me so much worries haha
why can medivacs pick up thors, but phoenix cant... thats bs lol arent protoss supposed to be way hi tech compared to terran lol
anyway my proper post is above a couple of posts this is just a rant cos thors rip everything
Thor is fine and fits a completely different role than the colossus. You can only compare the two under the umbrella of large mechanical units. That's it.
At least the Thor doesn't get to use its range 10 air attack against colossi.
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Good read. I pretty much agree with everything.
MS is bad everyone knows that.
I was looking forward to the carrier but sadly it's like an overpriced balloon
Archon, sick look, dies in a second.
I miss the reavers 
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ive been saying this forever. glad someone is actually bringing this up in a wellwritten post, cuz im too lazy
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My main gripe with the Protoss army is that (imo) everything revolves around basically 2-3 units. The sentry is essentially the lynch pin to the Protoss army because it is the 1 unit that you HAVE to have in every situation. Getting attacked by MMM? GS to knock down marine damage and FF to cut their army in half. Getting surrounded by mass lings/blings? FF to create an artificial choke for your zealots not to get surrounded. Mutas in your base? GS to reduce their splash damage. Getting attacked by a massive tier 1.5 Protoss army? FF to cut their zealots off from their stalkers, retreat, then pwn the zealots.
Also when you get into the mid-late game you then have to rely on the Colossus or HT. There is no way around using these units because both Z and T reach critical mass so easily and once they do you can kiss your zealots and stalkers goodbye. In fact I dont even know if stalkers have a critical mass... theory would state that they should, but they are just so sub-par at everything they do that it's kinda pointless. Anti-air? meh. Harass? Mutas, banshees, speedlings, reapers, and hellions all do it better. Ranged attack? meh. The only thing that stalkers are good for are basically for being a meatshield for your colossi/ht and shooting down vikings or corruptors. And even at being a meatshield chargelots do it better for cheaper. It's a shame chargelots can't levitate.
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I been holding myself back from posting something similar to this, well here goes.
I feel protoss is severely lacking when compared to terran and riddled with many game breaking gaps in the counter line up.
Immortals counter hard hitters such as siege tanks/marauders but both of these are always accompanied by marines rendering immortals practically useless against anything other then lolroaches or stalker spam. I mainly only use them for their high damage which is also fairly ineffective with their short range and slow movement speed they are guarantied to be stuck behind your stalker crescent walking back and forth trying to find a gap. They also require upgraded weapons to effectively counter marauders. I believe using just ONE of the following suggestions would be simple solutions to increase the immortals effectiveness:
A: Increasing immortals range. (so what siege tanks will still out range them)
B: having the hardened shield effect always apply even after shields are down. (it doesn't make logical sense but it makes sense role wise for a tank)
C: Adding splash damage to the immortals attacks. (protoss needs this to counter early bioballs)
High Templars
A: Decrease storm time to two 2 second and double the damage done per second. (Allows for only half the damage to be negated by moving out.
B: Remove the cool down on storm. (this allows for multiple insta-casts on the same spot one shotting things, it wouldn't be anymore over powered then one multiple seige tank volley)
C: Increase the casting range on storm. (I often find that when moving out offensively with HTs my other units will enter the battle first and take heavy casualties due to having to wait till the Hts catch up and get my storms in)
Archons are not viable due to cost/time versus effectiveness.
A: increase damage and splash versus bio to that of a seige tank. (now this may seem overpowered at first due to mobility,no deadzone, and ability to strike air but think about this thoroughly. Archons are higher teir then siege tanks cost twice as much in terms of production time and cost. so you would be seeing them very late in the game and not in giant blobs. also the most important thing to consider is that archons have a very short range no where near that of a siege tanks, so they will run up to the front lines fire one volley and evaporate immediately. this change will also allow them to hard counter mutalisks like intended)
B:Increase health by at least 100 and leave the shields as they are.(much more conservative)
Carriers
A: Grant them the anti-ground shield tempests had. (might be too overpowered)
B: Reduce the cost and build time slightly (more conservative approach)
Collosi are very useful but they are too fragile due to the AA weakness that was given to them which makes sense logic wise but breaks protoss endgame and here's why. protoss anti-air is by far the weakest in my own opinion, corruptors and vikings far out power anything protoss can throw at them not to mention even if we did have an equally powerful unit it would be very difficult to obtain enough of them and enough collosi which are absolutely necessary to take down massed ground units. now if you can see the problem here it is for you layed out:
protoss collosi > other races ground
other races air > collosi
what protoss unit > other races air? none.
the best example of this is in PvZ, say your opponent go mass lings n hydras, you need to get collosi, in order to win you absolutely must attack with your first 1-2 collosi during your small window that the zerg hasn't established air yet, that window is very narrow because good zerg players know this and once corruptors hit the field its over and you no longer stand a chance as you can't fight back against the corruptors. this also applies to vikings.
my only possible fix for this other then some good AA units would be
A: to grant the collosi the increased range w/o needing the upgrade in order to increase the size of that window.
B: to remove the air weakness collosi suffer from. (when compared to the thor which can hit air and ground and wasn't given an absurd weakness it seems weak,but the poor ultralisk needs to gain the zealots charge renamed ultralisk charge)
Phoenix, I feel aren't a good enough counter to mutalisks and here's why: say you scout your opponent and notice a spire, you immediately throw down a starport, when his spire finished he gets to create as many mutalisks as he can afford while your stuck building one at a time. guess what mutalisks build faster then phoenix do unless boosted but will still be out produced numerically too so therefore phoenix will always be out produced by the zerg heavily if used reactionary so what other option do you have left? building phoenix from the get go (like nony does) which does even up production and effectively counter mutalisks but its like rolling the dice, what if they go hydra and no spire tech? gg right there. also if you hunt overlords they now know to start getting ready to counter phoenix and will just recreate the over lords easily. I also feel the lack of anti ground weakens protoss's ability to harass, I'd pick mutas and or vikings over phoenix any day. gravitation beam while able to damage workers pales in comparison to the ability to kill workers in large quantities like mutas or transformed vikings and they have the added bonus: being able damage buildings.
A: give them a low damage air to ground attack.
B: increase the cost of gravitation beam but make it a small AoE. (should even out worker killing potential)
C: grant them a strong AA attack instead of bonus light. (too help against everything else, there are other air units besides mutas that protoss needs help against....)
Voidrays while they do a good job of destroying buildings, don't fulfill their role as anti capital ship like vikings and corruptors due to the charge up time leaving protoss anti air in critical state. only possible solution i can come up with is granting the void ray full charge on either massive or amored targets not including buildings from the start and resting this instantly gained charge if switched onto to a non massive or armored target. against non massive or armored the void ray would work the same as it does now and the charge could be transferred from target to target if gained like this. wierd and probably to confusing for people just starting the game, but only thing I can think of. to simply it for noobs it could have a different animation, like a red beam against capitol ships since the voids rays description does in fact mention both void power and regular protoss power.
Dark Templar
A: reduce gas cost (DTs feel like an all in strategy to me)
B: reduce dark shrine build time by a decent amount. (anything to make them more viable)
C: add DTs to the templar archives and discard the darkshrine, but change the requirement to create overseers from a hive to an evolution chamber. (as it would make DTs op agiasnt zerg, terran have scan early enough.)
Please feel free to comment on these, I'd really like to know which of these you agree with and or don't with reasons why.
I'm also going to post this on blizzards feedback forum now that my thoughts are written and just a simple copy and paste away.
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Give carriers more range, say 9? They deploy mini ships ffs! That would give them a key advantage to make them useful
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On June 02 2010 07:51 Anon06 wrote:
Phoenix
Phoenixes do work against muta, however if zerg is going something like mass mutas off 2 bases, protoss needs 2 stargates to catch up in air production. Overcommitting to phoenixes shouldn't really be a problem, because with phoenixes it's easy to check zerg's unit mix.
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On June 02 2010 08:52 Cerion wrote:
Phoenixes do work against muta, however if zerg is going something like mass mutas off 2 bases, protoss needs 2 stargates to catch up in air production. Overcommitting to phoenixes shouldn't really be a problem, because with phoenixes it's easy to check zerg's unit mix.
Well I said they work if you start early (which believe to be risky) not if you react. generally I notice zerg start off with about 4 muta when spire pops. also your quote on me kinda failed, might want to edit that.
edit: oh and thnx for the feedback.
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On May 29 2010 12:56 v3chr0 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2010 12:46 Arrian wrote:
I'm not sure I agree with you about designating "templar" and "colossus" and others as support units.
Look at BW PvZ. Basically, the Forge FE was a great way for Protoss to both build econ and tech safely. What were they teching to? Storm. Because Storm was the anathema to zerg. Storm in PvZ wasn't the support to the protoss army, it was the tip of the spear, the leading attack, the backbone and the most important aspect of the mid through late game PvZ army. Once a toss army runs out of storm and if the zerg is still coming, the toss army retreats.
It is in fact the units around the templar that are the support, the meatshields, the distractors. This is pretty much the same as the colossus and the immortal and storm again. Those are the lead attackers and the most important parts.
A sentry is a support unit. It doesn't do much damage, but its spells help other units be more effective, which is the definition of support. The guardian shield and the forcefield both make other protoss units more effective or opposing units less effective, not lead the attack.
Kind of flips a whole bunch of your argument around imo. It really only reverses my comments about whatever units I said were support actually, which isn't most of my argument. My argument is that these units are so weak at their job alone they need to be there with other units and Protoss has too many units that rely on another or such late, or specific tech, this is the problem, lack of versatility drops the overall diversity that Protoss HAS but can't unlock unless you fast expand which currently isn't always possible. Regardless this changes nothing saying units are support or not, fact is they are used as 'support' because they do poorly alone at their role.
ahm... maybe you should not be fast expanding and instead spend your minerals on the 2 geysers in your main and tech harder?
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I really like the idea of putting the zealot speed on Cyber Core.
I actually didn't know the charge upgrade tweaked the zealot movement speed outside of charge usage.
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On June 02 2010 12:15 Anon06 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2010 08:52 Cerion wrote:
Phoenixes do work against muta, however if zerg is going something like mass mutas off 2 bases, protoss needs 2 stargates to catch up in air production. Overcommitting to phoenixes shouldn't really be a problem, because with phoenixes it's easy to check zerg's unit mix.
Well I said they work if you start early (which believe to be risky) not if you react. generally I notice zerg start off with about 4 muta when spire pops.
They do work as a reaction, but your ground forces will have to hold the fort while you get enough phoenixes up
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Im no BW pro but didnt protoss rely heavily on dragoons and zealots in most matchups? Honestly im fine with the other units not being the core of most armys, so long as they are still viable and interesting, which I think most of them are.
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If I where to play protoss I would definately go for HT every MU. Twilight council makes your already formidable groundunits even more formidable through bling(k) and charge! Add HT to that and youve got a sick army, and rather quickly. Its stupdily strong to be able to warp a HTs from a proxy-pylon that can instacast storm with that medallion upgrade.
The only useful thing you would miss out on from the other techtree except of collossus, would be observers. But a robotics facility is only 200/100 and you should be able to afford that at somepoint, even though the observers would be a bit delayed, or if you fear banshees, get the facility first, then the twilight council into templars archive.
That ground army should be able to handle any terran bio, and if terran mechs up, add VRs to your army mix and he will have to keep producing marines that your HTs will kill off. AND you can harass him, outexpo him etc.
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EPT
