Please do not flame without watching the episode first!! There were some great discussions last week, but also needless flaming, which really derailed the thread.
This week, we talk about TvP openings, and answer some community questions about the last episode. If you missed Episode 01, I strongly suggest you watch that first. We explain the show quite well, and if you miss that episode, the following episodes simply won't be as good for you! Here is episode 1 in spoiler tags: + Show Spoiler +
Trolls be warned, this isn't for the faint of heart!
I'm glad this show is more about balance discussion rather then calling stuff imbalanced, although there is room for that too 8] Glad to see you guys touching on terran and protoss though considering you both play zerg I'm surprised on how good it is so far (Not done yet, long episode).
Even if day9 hates this show I still <333 Keep it up!
IdrA completely glossed over phoenix colo unit mix in TvP... Yes rine/viking will do just fine against phoenix harass BUT at the time of engagement, before vikings can do any significant damage, the marines will melt to a significant number of colo. Then T has to make the choice to ignore phoenix and fire at the colo which may kill off 2-4 but at the cost of air dominance. Then the phoenix will simply lift up half of your remaining marauders and clean up.
My point is, after a certain point, colo/phoenix can't be cracked with simple mmm+viking.
On February 10 2011 11:13 infinity21 wrote: IdrA completely glossed over phoenix colo unit mix in TvP... Yes rine/viking will do just fine against phoenix harass BUT at the time of engagement, before vikings can do any significant damage, the marines will melt to a significant number of colo. Then T has to make the choice to ignore phoenix and fire at the colo which may kill off 2-4 but at the cost of air dominance. Then the phoenix will simply lift up half of your remaining marauders and clean up.
My point is, after a certain point, colo/phoenix can't be cracked with simple mmm+viking.
Terrans imo should try to mix in one or two thors. Pheonix are light units and tend to clump.
On February 10 2011 11:13 infinity21 wrote: IdrA completely glossed over phoenix colo unit mix in TvP... Yes rine/viking will do just fine against phoenix harass BUT at the time of engagement, before vikings can do any significant damage, the marines will melt to a significant number of colo. Then T has to make the choice to ignore phoenix and fire at the colo which may kill off 2-4 but at the cost of air dominance. Then the phoenix will simply lift up half of your remaining marauders and clean up.
My point is, after a certain point, colo/phoenix can't be cracked with simple mmm+viking.
Terrans imo should try to mix in one or two thors. Pheonix are light units and tend to clump.
Yes, most Terrans build 1-2 Thor to deter clumping but that doesn't stop P from spreading out his phoenix when engaging. That doesn't do anything to the result of the battle as the Thor should be attacking ground units rather than the spread out phoenixes. As an example, you should watch game 3 of GSTL day 1, Startale vs fOu.
On February 10 2011 11:13 infinity21 wrote: IdrA completely glossed over phoenix colo unit mix in TvP... Yes rine/viking will do just fine against phoenix harass BUT at the time of engagement, before vikings can do any significant damage, the marines will melt to a significant number of colo. Then T has to make the choice to ignore phoenix and fire at the colo which may kill off 2-4 but at the cost of air dominance. Then the phoenix will simply lift up half of your remaining marauders and clean up.
My point is, after a certain point, colo/phoenix can't be cracked with simple mmm+viking.
Phoenix collo has been figured out for months. Vikings do very well against both phoenix and colossus... make a lot of them.
Boxer vs Tester boxer puts on a phoenix/collo clinic.
Wonder if you could adjust the tech availability of the infantry upgrades like with the nitro packs for the reapers? Could have concussion grenades not available until the factory also.
On February 10 2011 11:13 infinity21 wrote: IdrA completely glossed over phoenix colo unit mix in TvP... Yes rine/viking will do just fine against phoenix harass BUT at the time of engagement, before vikings can do any significant damage, the marines will melt to a significant number of colo. Then T has to make the choice to ignore phoenix and fire at the colo which may kill off 2-4 but at the cost of air dominance. Then the phoenix will simply lift up half of your remaining marauders and clean up.
My point is, after a certain point, colo/phoenix can't be cracked with simple mmm+viking.
Phoenix collo has been figured out for months. Vikings do very well against both phoenix and colossus... make a lot of them.
I think the conclusion of it being easier for the Terran in this situation best describes it, it is not impossible to hold off, but there is a lot more pressure on the Protoss to not fuck up, one missed force field, not enough sentries, too many sentres, positioning, unit combination, choosing the right time to tech whilst getting pressured...
Outdated. Since the patch, 2stargate chrono phoenix = 2port reactor viking production. Used to work though.
Also, always enjoy artosis vods ~ thx yo
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He can't chronoboost Pheonix for ever, if so he will delay Colossus/upgrades, which isn't that great of a trade off, and it is not like the Pheonix cost any less, with a certain income he still can only get a certain amount of Phoenix/Colossus
On February 10 2011 11:51 Veil wrote: Could have concussion grenades not available until the factory also.
This should have been the reaper nerf in the first place, 5rax reaper was overpowered because the marauder transition made it not all-in. Making concussive shell require factory would have made a reaper all-in possible, but impossible to successfully transition out of.
On February 10 2011 11:51 Veil wrote: Could have concussion grenades not available until the factory also.
This should have been the reaper nerf in the first place, 5rax reaper was overpowered because the marauder transition made it not all-in. Making concussive shell require factory would have made a reaper all-in possible, but impossible to successfully transition out of.
Wasn't the problem mainly with Zerg? I don't think 5 rax reaper was much of a TvP strat. Marauders don't really need concusive to be effective against roaches, which was the most reliable response to that many reapers.
On February 10 2011 11:54 Dommk wrote: I think the conclusion of it being easier for the Terran in this situation best describes it, it is not impossible to hold off, but there is a lot more pressure on the Protoss to not fuck up, one missed force field, not enough sentries, too many sentres, positioning, unit combination, choosing the right time to tech whilst getting pressured...
Outdated. Since the patch, 2stargate chrono phoenix = 2port reactor viking production. Used to work though.
Also, always enjoy artosis vods ~ thx yo
...
He can't chronoboost Pheonix for ever, if so he will delay Colossus/upgrades, which isn't that great of a trade off, and it is not like the Pheonix cost any less, with a certain income he still can only get a certain amount of Phoenix/Colossus
Yes, but the terran army relies on low tier units, while the protoss unit relies on having high tier units, and keeping them alive, which they can effectively do with 2 stargates even if the terran can produce 4 vikings at a time. Producing 4 vikings at a time is a huge detriment to to army size of terran, which is important because terran relies on army size because it's low tier. Producing phoenix detracts from the protoss force also, but if they can get a good amount of colossi and keep them alive they have the advantage. Also vikings serve no other use than to kill colossi, on the other hand phoenix can harass and pick up tanks if they are used.
Also I don't agree with TvP being terran favored early game at all. Protoss has some of the most useful skills to stop early aggression. TT1 was doing a sentry heavy double expand against drewbie, and drewbie couldn't do anything at any stage in the game.
On February 10 2011 11:51 Veil wrote: Could have concussion grenades not available until the factory also.
This should have been the reaper nerf in the first place, 5rax reaper was overpowered because the marauder transition made it not all-in. Making concussive shell require factory would have made a reaper all-in possible, but impossible to successfully transition out of.
Wasn't the problem mainly with Zerg? I don't think 5 rax reaper was much of a TvP strat. Marauders don't really need concusive to be effective against roaches, which was the most reliable response to that many reapers.
It was imbalanced at the time, but now, it probably would not be.
The problem was that once a terran was able to mass reapers, and get around 5-10 of them, they could start kiting EVERY unit. Roaches were 3 rance, so it was possible to get 10 shots in, kite back, get 10 shots in, kite back, and never take a hit. 4 range roach would mean they would start losing reapers regardless of micro. Zerglings could catch the reapers, but once you hit a ball, the zerglings melted super fast, and on maps like Metalopolis with a cliff everywhere it was very tricky.
I'm going to go as far as to say this is the best starcraft II show available to the community at the moment. Enough drama (after all, the topic itself is about imbalanced) but even more professionalism to keep it very logical and fair. Enjoyed it tremendously.
I came in with a wrong view of imbalance, and now I've been persuaded (or rather, forced) to think otherwise.
You guys are doing a great job! Keep it up!
P.S. Idra just seems so happy while talking about imbalanced!
Just watched it. really like this topic because PvT seems impossible for me right now. I would have to agree with about almost everything they said on this topic, but I didn't like how in the end they said it's not imbalanced. Because everything they said leads to it being imbalanced. Terran can expand and pressure, while protoss is forced to fast robotics for an observer. If you are not getting a fast observer, you are blindly going something and hoping it works. Stim is way too strong for the beginning. A more cheap unit (the marauder) kills a stalker 1v1 WITHOUT stim. Protoss is forced into going mass sentry in the beginning in order to have some chance in holding the terran attacks. You also have to use forcefields without making any mistakes because a hole in your forcefields leads to the MM ball just getting near you and killing you. The terran is also guaranteed to do some damage and is never all-in when playing like that. I would say that getting fast high templars is impossible to use in order to stop this, so the only remaining unit is the colosus. However vikings are too good vs colosus, and colosus without range are even demolished by a simple focus fire from the marauders. All of this is pretty hard to form into words, you can only experience it by playing of course.
Im a random player and probably my best percentage from all my matchup is my TvP.. i just roflstomp all protosses with many different strategies ( well timed all ins and rax expand pressure builds ) ... I love playing random because when an opponent beats me with a strategy I think is too good, i then proceed to use it and then see how my next opponent will counter it. However in PvT I am really desperate... and TvP seems too easy for me.
Mech style TvP is not so good, I don't think I have many losses from terrans going siege tanks and/or hellions and/or thors combined with other units. Because Artosis and IdrA are right, when terran goes mech protoss has the Freedom to do whatever he wants (I usually mass expand and phoenix harass going into colosus zealot immortal and it demolishes mech terrans)
In conclusion I want to say that there needs to be some sort of tweak early game PvT that helps the protoss. If not, then terran will always control how the game goes.
This video turned out a lot better than the first one. I feel Artosis and Idra did a much better job of looking at all the possibilities and permutations for how this segment of the game can play out, as well as examining the motivations and concerns that affect play on both sides of the match-up. Much of this detail was missing from the first vid in the series.
Each time i hear how Protoss is poor i get ill. If you say that Protoss have hard time vs Terran in early game then what you will say about Terran life vs Protoss in late game? Super Hardocre Survival? (SHS). Force Fields are doing amazingly well vs early bio pushes and allows to win early minor battles just with gate units. Just throw MM ball without stim, shield and grenades on Protoss zeal/stalker/sentry ball and see what will happen. Terran need those upgrades to do anything early and Protoss dont need any upgrades beside warp tech for early game.
They're obviously biased towards Zerg wtf is this Zerg propoganda with Artosilini and Idralin?
Seriously though, great show. This one had a lot more depth to it, probably because your discussion covered an entire matchup rather than a specific unit.
People say protoss is stronger in the late game because most terrans go BIO like the WHOLE game which are tier 1 units, with some medivac viking support ( support units). The protoss race is said to be stronger because they use zealots, stalkers, sentries, colosus, immortals, HT, phoenix. It is absolutely normal when the limits hit from 150-200 in the late game, the marine marauder composition will lose. However a transition into Thors for example is very strong. Thors are actually really strong units in the late game terran.
Reaaaalllly enjoyed watching this. I feel you guys did a better job this time of clarifying the show's purpose, and the discussion was just really deep and high-level. Awesome stuff.
Still not convinced about the Colossus thing, though. Just saying "other strategies will be found" strikes me as a tad facetious, as people have tried these different unit comps before; the thing is, they tend to have fairly big weaknesses that are very exploitable (e.g. the time it takes to get Templar tech up and running leading to big weaknesses to timing attacks, general weakness of Gateway units, Immortals slow speed and low range making them easy to snipe). Colossi for Protoss provides a stable, powerful 'ground' to stabilize the weaknesses of the units they're paired with; and even the threat of Colossi makes the enemy do things that they wouldn't otherwise do, making it easier for other comps to succeed. But remove the Colossi or weaken it sufficiently, and you'll also lessen the ability of other comps to be successful.
Now, that's not to say that the Colossus isn't too powerful, or shouldn't be nerfed; in fact, I think that Protoss late-game is going to have to be significantly nerfed sooner or later, and the Colossus may be a way of doing that. But it is to say that any nerfs would have to be done very carefully, and shouldn't be drastic enough to remove Colossi as a significant part of Protoss strategy in every matchup; or at least, not without potentially disastrous results.
Or at least that's my gut reaction. We'll see how things play out, though.
Thanks again for putting this out there; really enjoyed it.
On February 10 2011 11:35 ThePurist wrote: 42:41 is fucking art seriously. LOL Love the show nice work guys ^^;
It's poetry.
I'm glad they went through and addressed some concerns/feedback from last week.
And our GIFs will block out the sun...
I'm getting less practice time because of all the VODs/podcasts/living room discussions up there, I have to watch them all and it takes all evening D: seriously though, keep up the awesome work.
Touched on a lot of opinions i have about tvp. A lot of time's I don't know if its a strong bio push coming or fast expand so I usually turtle up quite good while getting my obs to see whats going on. I don't feel it puts me behind too much but I play at a lower level. About the MC mass sentry style against a terran FE, he actually has a good follow up, or at least did when I watched his stream against nexbyun he forced so many bunkers and was able to take a 3rd while getting to templar tech. Is it possible for the next show to discuss the new map pool and how it could play into matchup's being that there so much larger.
Sidestepping the topic and giving some feedback on the format.
I feel the direction of the show would benefit from a clear conclusion being stated before the discussion takes place. For instance at the start of the Topic section, I think it would have a more structured feel if you were to state the concerns you're dealing with: "there is a trend to say that Terran bio is overpowered versus Protoss" and then state your conclusion. "No it isn't overpowered, and here's why". or "Yes, this is something that needs to be looked at" or "Only in some situations" etc.
Kinda like Snopes.com it should feel like you're dispelling a myth when you disagree that something is OP.
Alternatively, state the conclusion at very end of the show, but make it a more concise, firm conclusion, that can be stated in a couple of sentences. On a cheesy TV show it would be something like a big comedy foam thumb would be held up if you agreed or down if you disagree. Don't do this. Maybe you could hold up a ferret for agree and the cat for disagree. This would make little sense though.
Good episode. Although to be quite honest I zoned out a lot during it.
I know you don't want people complaining about the hosts, but I've watched both episodes, I'm not simply going to say "just gather like 3 pro gamers of all different races and get them together to record an hour of video instead of practicing" or anything. I really think putting aside the obvious solution of adding someone of a different race, maybe reworking the way you go about the discussions at least might help make the show more interesting.
You guys aren't biased or anything like some people constantly claim, it's just that for the most part whenever one of you says something, the other simply agrees with it and reiterates it. There isn't much real back and forth dialogue going on. (I mean, often one of you will say something that the other didn't think of, and the other will simply say "You're right I never thought of that, I agree completely.", and that's it.)
Perhaps if one of you tried to play devil's advocate a lot more and you guys could disagree with each other a bit from time to time, you'd think of ideas that you normally wouldn't, and the discussion would be a lot more fruitful. I think having one of you actually be raging and flying off the handle a lot might make the show better, because while one person is making really rash statements, the other would be thinking critically about those statements and trying to rationalize them. The community would be able to relate a lot better with our often over the top and exaggerated discussions, and the show would have a bit more entertainment value as well.
But I do like what you're doing with answering the user questions. That really does a good job at covering stuff you guys may not have thought of.
And even if you don't take this feedback into consideration, I can still appreciate the show as just you guys sharing your personal experiences with difficult situations in the game.
restrict colosuss range so that they cant shoot anything under the range of 4. Also reduce their movement speed. Everything that zerg has is even slower than the colosuss, except for the zergling. And zerg is suppose to be the "Mobile" race... so much for that... with blink stalker, zealot charge, warpgate, colosuss speed
On February 10 2011 12:52 compscidude wrote: restrict colosuss range so that they cant shoot anything under the range of 4. Also reduce their movement speed. Everything that zerg has is even slower than the colosuss, except for the zergling. And zerg is suppose to be the "Mobile" race... so much for that... with blink stalker, zealot charge, warpgate, colosuss speed
what? if im not mistaken every unit is faster except the hydra off creep.
guys you can't argue that stim takes less time to research than ling speed when it takes 30 seconds more. you guys need more people to get involved in these discussions so you can get the points of terran down correctly.
From my experience: terran "imbalance" stems almost entirely from 2 problems:
-marauder concussive shell making the counter to marauders actually not counter marauders, which forces a cost ineffective solution to marauder pressure (stalker zealot in greater numbers, or forcefields which force you to stay 1 base as P.)
-marines and mules. Marines are the most cost effective unit until colossus/ht are out, and terran 1 base gets more money than p or z 1 base by virtue of mules. Therefore, it's almost impossible to deal with mass marines until you get those colossus/hts out. You can use forcefield but that's iffy and near impossible on some maps (XC).
It's hard to justify any sort of buff to protoss though since they have their own allins that are ridiculous and any buffs for protoss vs zerg right now would be ludicrous. The only options would be to nerf Tbio, at least early on, so that protoss doesn't have to go so far out of the way to survive early pressure and perhaps have a little more flexibility in openings (diversity of the game is a good thing!).
Can you do that without taking into account that terran lategame vs protoss is very flimsy and arguably imbalanced the other way? If terran doesn't get the early advantages from rushes or free wins from protoss fumbles early on, can they still maintain an equal game to protoss? Will it swing TvP in the favor of protoss really heavily?
I think it might, but that's because T lategame needs some love and P lategame might even need some nerfs. However, you cannot have a matchup where 1 race has to allin to have the best chance of winning because their lategame isn't viable. That doesn't make for a balanced/interesting game.
i still don't get what they want to show here. are they searching imbalances, and if yes, how do they want to point them out? what's the actual definition of their point of imbalance?
i mean the stuff they are talking about is visible to everyone following the pro scene, where these scenarios happen often. do they want us to sensibilize us that actually not everything looking strong is imbalance?
On February 10 2011 13:17 Elefanto wrote: i still don't get what they want to show here. are they searching imbalances, and if yes, how do they want to point them out? what's the actual definition of their point of imbalance?
i mean the stuff they are talking about is visible to everyone following the pro scene, where these scenarios happen often. do they want us to sensibilize us that actually not everything looking strong is imbalance?
They give their definition of imbalance in the first episode along with some examples. That's probably why they kept on recommending you watch that one first if you hadn't already.
First of all, big credits for Artosis and Idra really lerning and thinking within your discussion.
On February 10 2011 12:15 Holdinga wrote: Just watched it. really like this topic because PvT seems impossible for me right now. I would have to agree with about almost everything they said on this topic, but I didn't like how in the end they said it's not imbalanced. Because everything they said leads to it being imbalanced. Terran can expand and pressure, while protoss is forced to fast robotics for an observer. If you are not getting a fast observer, you are blindly going something and hoping it works. Stim is way too strong for the beginning. A more cheap unit (the marauder) kills a stalker 1v1 WITHOUT stim. Protoss is forced into going mass sentry in the beginning in order to have some chance in holding the terran attacks. You also have to use forcefields without making any mistakes because a hole in your forcefields leads to the MM ball just getting near you and killing you. The terran is also guaranteed to do some damage and is never all-in when playing like that. I would say that getting fast high templars is impossible to use in order to stop this, so the only remaining unit is the colosus. However vikings are too good vs colosus, and colosus without range are even demolished by a simple focus fire from the marauders. All of this is pretty hard to form into words, you can only experience it by playing of course.
Really described my feelings in this matchup too. If you just compare the protoss t1 and terrant1 units with all their possible upgrades at t1 it's...hell yeah i have halluzination! Because of pvz you can't buff protoss t1 so just freakin nerv terran t1. I always thought in a logical sense that it's kinda stupid that marines/marauders can't die of stim. Why is that? Or just make them unable to stim if they're on 1hp! Maybe it would be better to nerf stim/grenades with more time/cost/whatever and see what happens in the game because of that. Like Idra and Artosis pointed out the gas managment ist so damn hard for protoss compared to the stim a-move.
You gotta do the show in a room without pets. Or maybe go to Idra's place.
HERESY! The pets were the best part. Just thinking about them made me all fuzzy inside.
Anyway, I think being forced to imagine cute little kittens and ferrets romping around would do a lot for the kind of people who frequently engage in balance discussions. It obviously worked for Idra.
I'd have to say this episode was a lot better than the introductory episode. I like the idea of focusing on a single MU per show since it allows for a much more in-depth analysis, whilst it minimizes the problems I had with the heavy Zerg POV last week. I really hope this level of objectivity and "two sides of the medaillon" type of discussion carries through when discussing Zerg matchups in future episodes.
If I get really nitpicky I'd say there's been too little discussion on the role of stim and concussive from the Terran side of the TvP MU. As without them, pure zealot would deal with bio pretty cost effectively. The 1 zealot, 1 Stalker poke really shows how gateway units can handle bio effectively when there's no concussive or stim in the picture. Since you touched upon concussive being cheap and fast to research, how would it effect Terran if it took double the time to research? Would they have trouble holding of heavy Zealot pressure? etc.
Doesn't take away from the fact though, that it was a well constructed and objective episode with just the right amount of kitten.
On February 10 2011 13:21 Finrod1 wrote: First of all, big credits for Artosis and Idra really lerning and thinking within your discussion.
On February 10 2011 12:15 Holdinga wrote: Just watched it. really like this topic because PvT seems impossible for me right now. I would have to agree with about almost everything they said on this topic, but I didn't like how in the end they said it's not imbalanced. Because everything they said leads to it being imbalanced. Terran can expand and pressure, while protoss is forced to fast robotics for an observer. If you are not getting a fast observer, you are blindly going something and hoping it works. Stim is way too strong for the beginning. A more cheap unit (the marauder) kills a stalker 1v1 WITHOUT stim. Protoss is forced into going mass sentry in the beginning in order to have some chance in holding the terran attacks. You also have to use forcefields without making any mistakes because a hole in your forcefields leads to the MM ball just getting near you and killing you. The terran is also guaranteed to do some damage and is never all-in when playing like that. I would say that getting fast high templars is impossible to use in order to stop this, so the only remaining unit is the colosus. However vikings are too good vs colosus, and colosus without range are even demolished by a simple focus fire from the marauders. All of this is pretty hard to form into words, you can only experience it by playing of course.
Really described my feelings in this matchup too. If you just compare the protoss t1 and terrant1 units with all their possible upgrades at t1 it's...hell yeah i have halluzination! Because of pvz you can't buff protoss t1 so just freakin nerv terran t1. I always thought in a logical sense that it's kinda stupid that marines/marauders can't die of stim. Why is that? Or just make them unable to stim if they're on 1hp! Maybe it would be better to nerf stim/grenades with more time/cost/whatever and see what happens in the game because of that. Like Idra and Artosis pointed out the gas managment ist so damn hard for protoss compared to the stim a-move.
Marines and Marauders can't stim when they're at 1 HP, do your research before making claims. It would also be pretty silly to have to sort through a 100 food bio army to individually stim units with more than 10 HP, it's just not a realistic thing to ask.
@Holdinga: Marauders beat Stalker without concussive since they're their counter ...
Basically, you're both having problems in the PvT MU and are just picking up every one of Artosis and IdrA's hints at imbalance whilst ignoring their claims that there's not a definite imbalance in higher levels of play.
On February 10 2011 13:17 Elefanto wrote: i still don't get what they want to show here. are they searching imbalances, and if yes, how do they want to point them out? what's the actual definition of their point of imbalance?
i mean the stuff they are talking about is visible to everyone following the pro scene, where these scenarios happen often. do they want us to sensibilize us that actually not everything looking strong is imbalance?
The show is about discussing topics in which readers and fans send to them which they believe may be imbalanced. Idra and Artosis are using their professional expertise to then discuss the topics that people have suggested to talk about.
Idra and Artosis discuss their thoughts on why they believe people may see XYZ is imbalanced and then not only give their professional opinion, but also suggest many ways in which the other player can deal with XYZ. They then follow a detailed discussion with what their conclusions are and if they believe XYZ is imbalanced or not. Which for the most part they will be reluctant to do.
EDIT: I also believe that one of the main reasons in which people think this show is better than the first one is because it does not contain any zerg. People are reluctant to believe anything Idra or Artosis say about zerg because they cannot believe they can analyze zerg play properly without being biased.
I liked this episode a lot and I think the more that you do these types of discussions, the more organic the conversations will be. The first episode felt kinda scripted and a little robotic at times, but this felt more like you were have a really nice fire-side chat about imbalance.
In fact, get two chairs, and put them in front of a fire place and wear fancy robes. It would be like Masterpiece Theater, but with Starcraft, and Imbalance.
On February 10 2011 11:54 Dommk wrote: I think the conclusion of it being easier for the Terran in this situation best describes it, it is not impossible to hold off, but there is a lot more pressure on the Protoss to not fuck up, one missed force field, not enough sentries, too many sentres, positioning, unit combination, choosing the right time to tech whilst getting pressured...
Adding to this, I think Artosis and Idra are mistaking the words imbalanced with invincible. Winnable situations can still be imbalanced. Just because protoss can hold of some terran rushes with certain sentry number, a specific build, doesn't mean it's fine. Then i can say to you go figure out the number of corruptors per colossus/stalker for them to be super effective. There must be a number, and therefore by your logic, it's not imbalanced.
Also saying that there must be some (which you don't know and have no idea which are) unit compositions that don't include colossus that are good vs zerg is a bit weak of an argument. You forgot that unlike protoss, zerg can tech switch. Colossus as you said, are both good vs roaches and hydras. But if you starts with a lot of roaches, the P doesn't go colossus, goes immortals + stalker, the zerg decides to switch to hydras +speedlings, sup protoss? Instantly all P's army is countered by the zerg's. You also seem to forget how long it really takes to get HT, and how much gas they cost. And a protoss fighting a zerg without colossus and HT is just painful to watch.
What they were talking about the BW PvT is either needing a tank to hold your wall against zealot+goon early attack or mass repair the front bunker after goon range kicks in.
@topic: I wish they talked about the reasons why some strategies just don't work, in this case, why are cannons or reapers not-so-useful tools in early game? How would it play out if those units/buildings took another role?
On February 10 2011 13:38 Torpedo.Vegas wrote: I liked this episode a lot and I think the more that you do these types of discussions, the more organic the conversations will be. The first episode felt kinda scripted and a little robotic at times, but this felt more like you were have a really nice fire-side chat about imbalance.
In fact, get two chairs, and put them in front of a fire place and wear fancy robes. It would be like Masterpiece Theater, but with Starcraft, and Imbalance.
Hahahahaha..
That would definitely be hilarious.
good episode this time guys, keep it up, i'm enjoying them.
hahahha the animals in the backround are making me laugh so hard
I feel that if you buffed corruptor range A LOT.. to that of vikings or so, and perhaps even there damage, that PvZ would be balanced. Sometimes it doesnt matter if you have 13 corruptors in a battle, the 6 colossus kill everything essentially before they die.
With 13 corruptors with a HUGE range, you can float over crevasses and try to snipe colossus like terrans do with vikings, so the protoss have to actually micro their colossus / blink stalkers.
Great episode and I agree that T v P is balanced at the moment. I hope you guys do T v Z next week, that one I feel is imbalanced in Terran's favor. Part of the problem with that matchup imo is how fast Terran can block off scouting, Terran can do it so much faster than Protoss because Protoss requires the cybernetics core before they have any mobile anti-air whereas Terrans get marines with just the barracks.
Okay so what's so bad about Terran's being able to block off scouting sooner than the other races? Well the fact that Terran is the most versatile race is what makes it so bad. They have so many strong and effective strategies such as mass marines, mass marauders, banshee rush, blue-flame hellion drops, marines + thors. Each of those strategies requires a different response from Zerg, and if you don't scout the Terran's strategy early enough you will lose.
Sometimes your scouting overlord dies before it gets to spot the Terran's strat, and if you lose that overlord you're screwed because overlords are so slow it'd take forever to get another one in there. Terran on the other hand just have to click one button to scan anywhere they want (it's true that a scan costs a mule which is about 300 minerals but you don't lose those minerals, the mule only gets you those minerals quicker).
So I think Zerg needs a better way to scout a Terran's base, and it has to be early in the game. How about an underground scouting unit (lives only underground, and can't attack) that can move underground sort of like Roaches can do?
The 2nd show was far more enjoyable than the 1st, where enjoyable is determined by "balanced". I think it's natural that a player with experience with one race will just have a skewed version of balance related to that class, even if they're trying to be objective. Even if they're trying to be academic about it. However, from this perspective, both players were very deferential about what they were describing. Brining in the emails and comments really gave their comments from episode 1 more perspective. I really found myself enjoying the conversation.
Again guys please consider a podcast / using replays as video aid. Watching you psyche out Greg with a High5 made my heart cry tears, felt so bad for Greg lol :D
BUT --> Early Ghosts ?!?!?!! <-- Didn't talk about it or did I miss it?
Again awesome show. I never realised but its soo true - everything Protoss has to deal with stuff is really gas heavy.
(3.2k Masters) I think the show would really benefit from a Terran perspective. While artosis and Idra do try to give terran a fair point of view, there are some things that they get wrong.
1. Phoenix/Colossus -the reason this is really hard to deal with is because colossus have insane range, and stalkers destroy vikings. So that really rules out any flanking by vikings. What Idra said about keeping marines w/ vikings is also not possible, b/c the time it takes for vikings/marines to kill the phoenix, the colossus have had ample time to destroy the bio.
2. Bio Openings early bio pressure isn't as strong as they make it out to be, esp. on maps like xel'naga or maps with ramps, toss forcefield destroy these bio pushes. 1gate FE can solidly hold off most bio pushes, and definitely holds off 2rax FE. I use 2rax FE often, and my goal is just to trade down armies here.
On February 10 2011 13:55 NExt wrote: Again guys please consider a podcast / using replays as video aid. Watching you psyche out Greg with a High5 made my heart cry tears, felt so bad for Greg lol :D
BUT --> Early Ghosts ?!?!?!! <-- Didn't talk about it or did I miss it?
Again awesome show. I never realised but its soo true - everything Protoss has to deal with stuff is really gas heavy.
♥
If you get ghost before vikings in your typical mmm+v+g army, you will get overrun by 1 robo colossus. ~3 colo sieging your bunker line and picking off your ghosts is never fun for terran.
On February 10 2011 11:13 infinity21 wrote: IdrA completely glossed over phoenix colo unit mix in TvP... Yes rine/viking will do just fine against phoenix harass BUT at the time of engagement, before vikings can do any significant damage, the marines will melt to a significant number of colo. Then T has to make the choice to ignore phoenix and fire at the colo which may kill off 2-4 but at the cost of air dominance. Then the phoenix will simply lift up half of your remaining marauders and clean up.
My point is, after a certain point, colo/phoenix can't be cracked with simple mmm+viking.
Just curious if you think adding a few Ghosts with EMP would make the difference in this engagement? Seem's like it would but I don't play Terran and theory-craft is easy compared to practical use.
Remember people, we don't need to be hostile when discussing this stuff. A friendly chat about balance is not difficult, just don't let your emotions get the best of you.
On February 10 2011 13:13 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:
It's hard to justify any sort of buff to protoss though since they have their own allins that are ridiculous and any buffs for protoss vs zerg right now would be ludicrous. The only options would be to nerf Tbio, at least early on, so that protoss doesn't have to go so far out of the way to survive early pressure and perhaps have a little more flexibility in openings (diversity of the game is a good thing!).
Can you do that without taking into account that terran lategame vs protoss is very flimsy and arguably imbalanced the other way? If terran doesn't get the early advantages from rushes or free wins from protoss fumbles early on, can they still maintain an equal game to protoss? Will it swing TvP in the favor of protoss really heavily?
I think it might, but that's because T lategame needs some love and P lategame might even need some nerfs. However, you cannot have a matchup where 1 race has to allin to have the best chance of winning because their lategame isn't viable. That doesn't make for a balanced/interesting game.
Perhaps nerfing bio without upgrades somewhat but making upgrades more powerful to make up for the nerf would help? It would stop early 3raxes and 2raxes from killing protoss but would still allow bio to be formidable into the mid and late-game. Another thing to consider in TvP lategame would be making battlecruisers a little more accessible (perhaps lowering their cost a bit as they seem prohibitively expensive right now for what they can do). It sounds crazy but Protoss doesn't have any really good ground-based anti-air units other than Stalkers. In my view, the BCs would be used to yamato colossi then act as a damage tank while the bio force cleans up everything. Psi storm sucks against BCs and feedback only puts a small dent in their huge amount of health, especially after they have shot off their yamato. Of course void rays would slaughter them but chances are the protoss will be too far down the robo path to switch into them in time, especially if they are maxed with their colossi/templar/gateway deathball.
I'm probably way off but I thought it would be an interesting idea to discuss.
Also, this show was much better than the last. The points were clearer and it felt much less biased. Keep up the good work guys.
On February 10 2011 14:06 McMonty wrote: You guys didnt mention EMP at all. If you rely on sentry energy to hold off an attack, and a single ghost EMPs your sentries, it is game over.
it's your fault then for letting him emp them all with a single ghost...
On February 10 2011 13:55 NExt wrote: Again guys please consider a podcast / using replays as video aid. Watching you psyche out Greg with a High5 made my heart cry tears, felt so bad for Greg lol :D
BUT --> Early Ghosts ?!?!?!! <-- Didn't talk about it or did I miss it?
Again awesome show. I never realised but its soo true - everything Protoss has to deal with stuff is really gas heavy.
♥
If you get ghost before vikings in your typical mmm+v+g army, you will get overrun by 1 robo colossus. ~3 colo sieging your bunker line and picking off your ghosts is never fun for terran.
early ghost - i.e. 8 - 10 minute bio push with ghosts. Show is about openings and ghost openings are quite strong imo and was curious on what they thought about it.
On February 10 2011 14:05 Moki.tv wrote: (3.2k Masters) I think the show would really benefit from a Terran perspective. While artosis and Idra do try to give terran a fair point of view, there are some things that they get wrong.
1. Phoenix/Colossus -the reason this is really hard to deal with is because colossus have insane range, and stalkers destroy vikings. So that really rules out any flanking by vikings. What Idra said about keeping marines w/ vikings is also not possible, b/c the time it takes for vikings/marines to kill the phoenix, the colossus have had ample time to destroy the bio.
2. Bio Openings early bio pressure isn't as strong as they make it out to be, esp. on maps like xel'naga or maps with ramps, toss forcefield destroy these bio pushes. 1gate FE can solidly hold off most bio pushes, and definitely holds off 2rax FE. I use 2rax FE often, and my goal is just to trade down armies here.
On February 10 2011 14:05 Moki.tv wrote: (3.2k Masters) I think the show would really benefit from a Terran perspective. While artosis and Idra do try to give terran a fair point of view, there are some things that they get wrong.
1. Phoenix/Colossus -the reason this is really hard to deal with is because colossus have insane range, and stalkers destroy vikings. So that really rules out any flanking by vikings. What Idra said about keeping marines w/ vikings is also not possible, b/c the time it takes for vikings/marines to kill the phoenix, the colossus have had ample time to destroy the bio.
2. Bio Openings early bio pressure isn't as strong as they make it out to be, esp. on maps like xel'naga or maps with ramps, toss forcefield destroy these bio pushes. 1gate FE can solidly hold off most bio pushes, and definitely holds off 2rax FE. I use 2rax FE often, and my goal is just to trade down armies here.
Just my 2 cents
I agree with 1.
But I would like to say that they did highlight Protoss does need to learn how to place forcefields well and good resource allocation to be able to deal with early bio pushes.
On February 10 2011 13:55 NExt wrote: Again guys please consider a podcast / using replays as video aid. Watching you psyche out Greg with a High5 made my heart cry tears, felt so bad for Greg lol :D
BUT --> Early Ghosts ?!?!?!! <-- Didn't talk about it or did I miss it?
Again awesome show. I never realised but its soo true - everything Protoss has to deal with stuff is really gas heavy.
♥
If you get ghost before vikings in your typical mmm+v+g army, you will get overrun by 1 robo colossus. ~3 colo sieging your bunker line and picking off your ghosts is never fun for terran.
early ghost - i.e. 8 - 10 minute bio push with ghosts. Show is about openings and ghost openings are quite strong imo and was curious on what they thought about it.
8-10 minute push sounds pretty late... off 1 base? Can you post a video/rep of the build?
Early ghost openings are pretty old, I remeber those being really popular at release, but nothing really beats the flexibilty of a 2 rax FE or a 3-4 rax all in. Both of those builds are very strong early game openers. The early ghost build is kind of in the middle, the ghosts just take too long to get so timings get thrown off and you cant go ghost/expo effectively because they eat so much gas you ahve to get 2 geysers so if toss FE's and your delayed ghost timing attack doesnt work you are miles behind the P.
On February 10 2011 14:23 infinity21 wrote: 8-10 minute push sounds pretty late... off 1 base? Can you post a video/rep of the build?
:'( just cleaned out my replays folder. But i dont know all i remember is i got ghosted made things very difficult in the early game.
But is it that late? earliest possible Colossus with a realistic Gateway support army comes at 9 minutes. One basing and all - so later if 2 base etc.. but that small window is pretty vulnerable to Ghosts.
iunno i've always wondered why don't T always get Ghosts (I don't play Terran) but how far does the Ghost tech set Terrans behind ? or sacrifice or whatever? as a Toss I believe their quite cost effective.
edit: and as I was typing my reply. this makes sense. but surely there are builds that allow you to get ghosts @ a nice timing.
Early ghost openings are pretty old, I remeber those being really popular at release, but nothing really beats the flexibilty of a 2 rax FE or a 3-4 rax all in. Both of those builds are very strong early game openers. The early ghost build is kind of in the middle, the ghosts just take too long to get so timings get thrown off and you cant go ghost/expo effectively because they eat so much gas you ahve to get 2 geysers so if toss FE's and your delayed ghost timing attack doesnt work you are miles behind the P.
now that i think about it - Are early ghosts considered all in? cause whenever i see ghosts if i dont lose I just race to Colossi.
Any terran saying bio with stim is not good versus toss due to forcefield is just not looking at the reality. Personally as a toss, I would like stim mm to be weaker in early game example: make stim factory required upgrade or cost more(like 200/200) or require another building like EE bay to build it. This way the stim timing comes a lot later. However, as a toss player I recognize late game TvP is almost unplayable unless you can somehow secretly go BC and get like 5 of them without toss noticing or are like 2-3 bases ahead of toss due to temp warpin. My suggestion is to make templar amulet more expansive(like 250/250 and increase gas cost of temps to 200 instead of 150. This way toss can't freely spam high temps+immortals as soon as he reach 3 bases but would require 4-5.
I think both Terrans and Protoss feel the other race is imbalanced. I, as a Terran, shit myself against a competent Protoss. But, I really think alot of what makes the matchup so scary is how small the maps are. This game has alot more hard counters, and without the Tank being the backbone it was, the game can literally end in 2 seconds flat.
With maps getting larger I think that will mend some of the issues both races face. AND, I think mech will be alot more powerful now than before. Terran will be able to have 3 bases. But the warp in mechanic is still troublesome for everyone against P.
They need to keep the definition of imbalance very clear. It is possible for one unit (colossus) to be so much better than that races' other units that its not worth getting anything else, and still have a balanced game.
One example is mass dott's vs orc in wc3.
If, for example, protoss can beat any zerg strat by just massing colossi, but zerg can also win, then the game is balanced even though protoss only make one unit.
I'm not saying that this massing of one unit strat would not be extremely boring. I also can't say it's not bad for the game, but it's not imbalance, since the matchup would be balanced.
People are always going to find the cheapest, easiest thing they can to get a win. That's how standard play is found.
I don't think one unit should get nerfed just to force people to consider using other units.
On February 10 2011 14:23 infinity21 wrote: 8-10 minute push sounds pretty late... off 1 base? Can you post a video/rep of the build?
:'( just cleaned out my replays folder. But i dont know all i remember is i got ghosted made things very difficult in the early game.
But is it that late? earliest possible Colossus with a realistic Gateway support army comes at 9 minutes. One basing and all - so later if 2 base etc.. but that small window is pretty vulnerable to Ghosts.
iunno i've always wondered why don't T always get Ghosts (I don't play Terran) but how far does the Ghost tech set Terrans behind ? or sacrifice or whatever? as a Toss I believe their quite cost effective.
edit: and as I was typing my reply. this makes sense. but surely there are builds that allow you to get ghosts @ a nice timing.
Early ghost openings are pretty old, I remeber those being really popular at release, but nothing really beats the flexibilty of a 2 rax FE or a 3-4 rax all in. Both of those builds are very strong early game openers. The early ghost build is kind of in the middle, the ghosts just take too long to get so timings get thrown off and you cant go ghost/expo effectively because they eat so much gas you ahve to get 2 geysers so if toss FE's and your delayed ghost timing attack doesnt work you are miles behind the P.
now that i think about it - Are early ghosts considered all in? cause whenever i see ghosts if i dont lose I just race to Colossi.
I definately consider it all in, it just eats so much gas, that theres no way you can transition to medivacs in a good amount of time because your expo is so delayed.
Ghosts are so much better when they are added later on in the game. EMP is much better when the Protss ball gets really big and I need EMPs to put a dent in it.
On February 10 2011 14:23 infinity21 wrote: 8-10 minute push sounds pretty late... off 1 base? Can you post a video/rep of the build?
:'( just cleaned out my replays folder. But i dont know all i remember is i got ghosted made things very difficult in the early game.
But is it that late? earliest possible Colossus with a realistic Gateway support army comes at 9 minutes. One basing and all - so later if 2 base etc.. but that small window is pretty vulnerable to Ghosts.
iunno i've always wondered why don't T always get Ghosts (I don't play Terran) but how far does the Ghost tech set Terrans behind ? or sacrifice or whatever? as a Toss I believe their quite cost effective.
edit: and as I was typing my reply. this makes sense. but surely there are builds that allow you to get ghosts @ a nice timing.
Early ghost openings are pretty old, I remeber those being really popular at release, but nothing really beats the flexibilty of a 2 rax FE or a 3-4 rax all in. Both of those builds are very strong early game openers. The early ghost build is kind of in the middle, the ghosts just take too long to get so timings get thrown off and you cant go ghost/expo effectively because they eat so much gas you ahve to get 2 geysers so if toss FE's and your delayed ghost timing attack doesnt work you are miles behind the P.
now that i think about it - Are early ghosts considered all in? cause whenever i see ghosts if i dont lose I just race to Colossi.
Yes early ghost is pretty much all-in as once P gets colo, mm+ghost is not a viable composition. Also, getting ghost is very gas heavy so your factory & starport tech will be way later. Expoing doesn't help as colo scales very well vs bio.
I don't think marine/maurader early game is imbalanced. I agree with them, it might be hard to hold it off with sentry's but that doesn't make it imbalanced.
As for late game pvt, I'm not sure thats imbalanced either. I think terran just has to explore more unit combinations vs the late game protoss army before I would say that its imbalanced. Sometimes when I play pvt it feels like there was nothing the terran could do to stop my army, but when I play vs a good player who is dropping me everywhere and has really good macro, it feels like there is nothing I can do. So I think pvt just really comes down to who plays the better game. Certain times it feels like my protoss deathball is unbeatable and certain times it feels like the terran deathball is unbeatable, and usually its just because one player just straight up out-plays the other one. The player that won is imbalanced, not the races themselves. But this is just from my own experience of playing this matchup a lot.
On February 10 2011 11:13 infinity21 wrote: IdrA completely glossed over phoenix colo unit mix in TvP... Yes rine/viking will do just fine against phoenix harass BUT at the time of engagement, before vikings can do any significant damage, the marines will melt to a significant number of colo. Then T has to make the choice to ignore phoenix and fire at the colo which may kill off 2-4 but at the cost of air dominance. Then the phoenix will simply lift up half of your remaining marauders and clean up.
My point is, after a certain point, colo/phoenix can't be cracked with simple mmm+viking.
On February 10 2011 14:05 Moki.tv wrote: (3.2k Masters) I think the show would really benefit from a Terran perspective. While artosis and Idra do try to give terran a fair point of view, there are some things that they get wrong.
1. Phoenix/Colossus -the reason this is really hard to deal with is because colossus have insane range, and stalkers destroy vikings. So that really rules out any flanking by vikings. What Idra said about keeping marines w/ vikings is also not possible, b/c the time it takes for vikings/marines to kill the phoenix, the colossus have had ample time to destroy the bio.
2. Bio Openings early bio pressure isn't as strong as they make it out to be, esp. on maps like xel'naga or maps with ramps, toss forcefield destroy these bio pushes. 1gate FE can solidly hold off most bio pushes, and definitely holds off 2rax FE. I use 2rax FE often, and my goal is just to trade down armies here.
I think this show is awesome! I never thought of a gas steal when I go DT. By the time you know what the early pressure is going to be like you can decide to go Zealot Legs, Blink, or HT if the DT is looking bad. I personally don't like Colossus and havent learned to use them well. But the problem I always run into is that I never have enough gas for Sentries.
On February 10 2011 14:08 Ben... wrote: Another thing to consider in TvP lategame would be making battlecruisers a little more accessible (perhaps lowering their cost a bit as they seem prohibitively expensive right now for what they can do). It sounds crazy but Protoss doesn't have any really good ground-based anti-air units other than Stalkers. In my view, the BCs would be used to yamato colossi then act as a damage tank while the bio force cleans up everything. Psi storm sucks against BCs and feedback only puts a small dent in their huge amount of health, especially after they have shot off their yamato. Of course void rays would slaughter them but chances are the protoss will be too far down the robo path to switch into them in time, especially if they are maxed with their colossi/templar/gateway deathball.
I'm probably way off but I thought it would be an interesting idea to discuss.
I think the reason that BCs received a 20% AtG DPS nerf a few patches ago was because Protoss has no ground based AA other than the Stalker, which is dies extremely fast to the ground units under the BC. Well, more than that, BCs, iirc, were actually cost effective against Hydralisks in a straight up fight, never find that BCs can use terrain to avoid a full on engagement. Void rays, btw, do the same damage now to massive units at full charge that they did before the patch 1.1.2 nerf to VRs fully charged damage. They're a moderate counter to BCs, because Yamato kills a Void Ray in one shot. 2 VRs have the same cost as 1 BC, but if the Terran can Yamato half of them... Also, you can feedback a BC that is charging a Yamato shot. The BC doesn't pay the energy until it fires. Feedback (or EMP) before then will cancel it. I'm assuming that Blizzard did this intentionally.
One thing I am surprised you guys didn't talk about, is simply getting charge on your way to HT to hold off stim pushes. You can get that pretty timely.. you will be getting a bunch of zealots so the 200 gas for the upgrade doesn't affect you THAT much on 2 bases. From my experience, a lot of chargelots can deal with MM very well with some stalkers / immortals.
Does anyone else think they should rename the series from "Imbalanced" to "difficult situations". The conclusion of this topic really didn't feel like they were saying anything was imbalanced, just it takes some skill/practice to counter other strategies.
Maybe it shouldn't be renamed, but the overall message was "there is always something you can do to beat X strategy"
All protoss late game units are vulnerable to air except high templar seems pretty easy to counter to me. What are the protoss going to pull the strong transfer from colossus to void ray. Vikings ftw.
Outdated. Since the patch, 2stargate chrono phoenix = 2port reactor viking production. Used to work though.
Also, always enjoy artosis vods ~ thx yo
So Protoss needs two production structures and continuous chronoboosts to match one production facility at normal speed?
You really didn't think that through, didn't you?
i think you're ignoring the reactor component of what he said there; that is, 2 stargate phoenix is equal to 2 starports with reactors pumping out vikings (so 3 or 4 vikings each).
They kind of glossed over the really big problem with this matchup. Terran is very strong with almost any type of build they choose to go with: whether it be bio, mech, or air (banshees) etc. Every one of these requires a pretty skewed response from Protoss to deal with, or Protoss is in a world of trouble. Because terran has so many strong build options, Protoss needs good scouting information to be able to respond. The problem is, Protoss has terrible scouting early game. Once the observers are out they are fine, but that requires a robo which takes a while, and early aggression builds are already hitting. Once the first rax is done and out, your probe is either dying or is gone, and a terran who walls off basically denies you even the opportunity to scout before observer. You 'can' scout with hallucinate, but the fact that they could be getting cloaked banshees means you NEED to get the robo and get observers anyway (throwing the robo down after hallucinate is done and you've scouted a cloaked banshee play is too late). You can scout up the ramp with a stalker, but if they have 'a' marauder with concussive shells, you could easily lose that unit.
So basically, Protoss is playing blind, and has to either get a build order win or loss most of the time. And it's very unfortunate that this is the case, because of how strong terran early aggression is.
And on the other end, if the protoss lives to the late game without being at a massive disadvantage, it's extremely hard for terran to keep up, because of how terran production facilities work. If you've got a ton of rax churning out bio, you pretty much have to keep going bio even after toss has storm/colossi out. Protoss tends to be very strong late game against terran, due to the AoE mechanics vs. bio and how easy it is to stop terran heavy air play. I think well executed mech is terran's best chance, but it's extremely difficult to play that well and most terrans I don't think have the ability or the patience (not that it's a balance issue, like IdrA and artosis said: some styles are just easier than others, but that doesn't make the tougher to play one weaker). In general, late game Protoss seems to be stronger than late game Terran, so the game either turns into protoss walking over terran or terran doing 1 million drops to try to force small engagements.
The race with lower aggression needs to have better scouting, and it's not the case in this matchup. It's fine in ZvP because of how easy it is to sacrifice an overlord (it's not free, but it's not difficult to do for the most part).
On February 10 2011 15:44 DONTPANIC wrote: I think this show is awesome! I never thought of a gas steal when I go DT. By the time you know what the early pressure is going to be like you can decide to go Zealot Legs, Blink, or HT if the DT is looking bad. I personally don't like Colossus and havent learned to use them well. But the problem I always run into is that I never have enough gas for Sentries.
Well you gas stealing a terran is encouraging them to go towards bio right? DTs are actually especially good against NON-bio builds from terran because bio is by far the most efficient way to play terran. Essentially a bio terran's infrastructure is set up to be build a high mineral low gas type army. As such, they are able to replace the army fairly quickly on the same production while teching towards a raven. Conversely, if they are going mech or 1/1/1 and you go DT's you know they will already be really strapped for gas or its likely they wont be able to constantly use all of their prodction/infrastructure effectively. Any damage you do with dts against such an opener is that much stronger because those types of units are harder to replace than the marine your dt one or two shot.
DT rush is a very map dependent build as well. You will likely take a build order loss if they do a raven opener on a map with only one real point of entry to their base. However on some maps, DTs can be effective despite a fast raven from the terran and fulfill its purpose of keeping them in their base. Just warp them in where their units arent or where their raven isnt. You will lose them, yes, but the effect of keeping them in their base is why you went DT's in the first place.
If I'm going DT's the last thing I want to see is some kind of rax heavy play so im not going to gas steal and encourage them to do it. This is also why the last place I would turn to PvT advice is a show hosted by two zergs that consider their shortcomings a flaw built into the game.
I actually learned a lot about how to play better protoss from this. I think I will be doing my 2 gate robo expand more often instead of 3 gate. Does anyone have good 2 gate robo builds for pvt that works for them?
I'm surprised the final verdict wasn't "Yes it's imbalanced", but it goes to show, they are not focusing on the lower level players.
As a shitty player myself, I despise how early and cheap the Terran upgrades are, and I don't think that being able to deal with it with a tremendous amount of skill makes it balanced, unless "dealing with it" is actually a clear victory. I believe that if the upgrades took longer, or if Stim simply didn't multiply the firing rate as much, you'd actually see more skill and fun from all levels of play. Much like the power of the Colossus.
I love your discussions, I can't help feeling like I want some production value behind it, some editing with title overlays for different topics, etc. If I was in your shoes I wouldn't be quick to do that either, but hopefully over time if your series doesn't succumb to the flaming, we can evolve that.
Two out of two shows coming to a conclusion of "I think not." when asking the question of imbalance about the topic in the end. If they continue like this there wont be many topics left very soon ... because imbalance is all about the very very very strong unit / tactic.
Personally I think the show needs to change the style and not talk about a matchup / tactic / unit with IMBALANCE in mind but rather looking for strengths and weaknesses and ways to improve either side in a battle. Just pick a matchup / tactic and look for strengths and weaknesses. "To be able to beat that you probably need ..." "Here is a nifty trick to improve your gameplay: ..." In the end they can still ask the question of imbalance, but it would sound much better if they asked something like "Is this beatable?" or "For which side is it harder to execute?" (easy-mode takes less of a toll on the player in a professional environment and thus it might make race X more successful).
Oh and obviously the impact of maps needs to be addressed more ...
Personally I think the show needs to change the style and not talk about a matchup / tactic / unit with IMBALANCE in mind but rather looking for strengths and weaknesses and ways to improve either side in a battle. Just pick a matchup / tactic and look for strengths and weaknesses. "To be able to beat that you probably need ..." "Here is a nifty trick to improve your gameplay: ..."
They are speaking about top-level play, where any advice you would give is ALREADY being used. The analysis is about what happens when you do everything right, and you still have a problem.
On February 10 2011 12:15 Holdinga wrote: Just watched it. really like this topic because PvT seems impossible for me right now. I would have to agree with about almost everything they said on this topic, but I didn't like how in the end they said it's not imbalanced. Because everything they said leads to it being imbalanced. Terran can expand and pressure, while protoss is forced to fast robotics for an observer. If you are not getting a fast observer, you are blindly going something and hoping it works. Stim is way too strong for the beginning. A more cheap unit (the marauder) kills a stalker 1v1 WITHOUT stim. Protoss is forced into going mass sentry in the beginning in order to have some chance in holding the terran attacks. You also have to use forcefields without making any mistakes because a hole in your forcefields leads to the MM ball just getting near you and killing you. The terran is also guaranteed to do some damage and is never all-in when playing like that. I would say that getting fast high templars is impossible to use in order to stop this, so the only remaining unit is the colosus. However vikings are too good vs colosus, and colosus without range are even demolished by a simple focus fire from the marauders. All of this is pretty hard to form into words, you can only experience it by playing of course.
Really described my feelings in this matchup too. If you just compare the protoss t1 and terrant1 units with all their possible upgrades at t1 it's...hell yeah i have halluzination! Because of pvz you can't buff protoss t1 so just freakin nerv terran t1. I always thought in a logical sense that it's kinda stupid that marines/marauders can't die of stim. Why is that? Or just make them unable to stim if they're on 1hp! Maybe it would be better to nerf stim/grenades with more time/cost/whatever and see what happens in the game because of that. Like Idra and Artosis pointed out the gas managment ist so damn hard for protoss compared to the stim a-move.
You also forgot that there analyzing the match-up on a "PRO" level, of course you guys arnt but as they said the builds can be either Easily executed by the terran and toss very hard to defend but on the pro level certain amounts of certain things can counter certain things on both sides of the matchup.
Sometimes, it sounds as if you guys wish for draws. Maybe I misunderstood but at one part in the episode, Idra was saying how mistakes give advantages. He made it sound as if gaining advantages from mistakes your opponent makes is a bad thing.
Nevertheless, I've enjoyed the episode, thank you.
I watched Ep1 and honestly, hated it. (Should probably mention I play P). I felt like it was all scripted, and you reached a foregone conclusion that Colossus were imbalanced. Decided to give it one more shot, and I was pleasantly surprised.
You guys went off script and actually had a very interesting discussion about the issue. I was amazed you were able to talk about it for so long, and still not cover everything, there was really depth and spontaneous insights that were missing in the first episode. Even though you sided against P again (bastards), I was totally fine with it, because it was backed up with some interesting and well thought out debate.
Also, your conclusion was exactly what my ladder experience has been. I was placed into Bronze at release, and just could not deal with Marine Marauder for the life of me. I concluded that Terran was overpowered, and proceeded to tell everyone so. I'm now in Masters, and PvT is my best matchup. MMM is something I've run into so many times that I know exactly how to respond to it, and am rarely losing to it early on.
On February 10 2011 14:05 Moki.tv wrote: (3.2k Masters) I think the show would really benefit from a Terran perspective. While artosis and Idra do try to give terran a fair point of view, there are some things that they get wrong.
1. Phoenix/Colossus -the reason this is really hard to deal with is because colossus have insane range, and stalkers destroy vikings. So that really rules out any flanking by vikings. What Idra said about keeping marines w/ vikings is also not possible, b/c the time it takes for vikings/marines to kill the phoenix, the colossus have had ample time to destroy the bio.
2. Bio Openings early bio pressure isn't as strong as they make it out to be, esp. on maps like xel'naga or maps with ramps, toss forcefield destroy these bio pushes. 1gate FE can solidly hold off most bio pushes, and definitely holds off 2rax FE. I use 2rax FE often, and my goal is just to trade down armies here.
Just my 2 cents
100% agreed.
I also 100% agree. I think saying any sort of 1 base terran aggression against protoss is even strong is wrong, not to mention overpowered. FF + immortals (depending on tech choice) make it so easy for protoss to turtle early game into the colossi/ht/vr death ball. Not to mention that 1 base protoss is extremely strong, especially when they are making pushes as seen in Seeds games in the GSTL, a terran couldn't ever hope to produce such a potent push off 1 base.
I find it extremely saddening that two such prominent figures in e-sports are even giving opinions on balance when neither play 2 of the 3 races. I know we are not supposed to say that it would be fairer to have 1 of each race discussing the issues because its "impractical", but at least someone who plays random/p/t at a high level could provide some insight. I dont mean to flame Artosis, who is one of my favorite casters, but in a pre-patch video, he didn't even know what flux veins was. How can someone that doesn't have an intimate knowledge of the classes they're talking about comment on imbalance.
The worst part is, i fear blizzard will take this sort of commentary into account when balancing the game. I for one, hope they do not.
Yeah because that was a completely serious comment ><
Sigh, some of these responses.. get over the name already. If anything they discuss where imbalance claims come from and the rights and wrongs of that. And yeah they could probably, as was said after the first episode as well, benefit from other viewpoints and I'm sure it's been noted. But the feedback thing can help there as well, please keep that in guys.
But maybe I just have an unhealthy obsession with hearing people talk Starcraft. Please keep that fed too!
I haven't watched this part yet (just part one up till now) but i have a suggestion anyhow:
Why don't you guys make a podcast out of this? I don't think that audio-only would take anything away from the discussion (unless you intend to analyze replays later in the show or something). It would be cool to be able to get this on a mp3-player and listen to it on the go.
On February 10 2011 12:19 anotherone wrote: Each time i hear how Protoss is poor i get ill. If you say that Protoss have hard time vs Terran in early game then what you will say about Terran life vs Protoss in late game? Super Hardocre Survival? (SHS). Force Fields are doing amazingly well vs early bio pushes and allows to win early minor battles just with gate units. Just throw MM ball without stim, shield and grenades on Protoss zeal/stalker/sentry ball and see what will happen. Terran need those upgrades to do anything early and Protoss dont need any upgrades beside warp tech for early game.
How much does concussive cost? How much does stim cost? How much does shield cost?
How much does a twilight cost? How much does charge cost? How much does blink cost? How much does robotic's bay + range cost? How much does storm + amulet cost?
On February 10 2011 22:11 x2mirko wrote: I haven't watched this part yet (just part one up till now) but i have a suggestion anyhow:
Why don't you guys make a podcast out of this? I don't think that audio-only would take anything away from the discussion (unless you intend to analyze replays later in the show or something). It would be cool to be able to get this on a mp3-player and listen to it on the go.
a video post cast i can put on iphone would be nice (like day9s dailies)
Honest question, is it really fair to have a new topic for each video? Something like state of the game is on its 27th (ish) episode and is still running off of one post.
EPIC, I thought the same thing about that part. Kinda embaressing! And you made the best gif ever of it ! Still laughing :D
About the conclusion, I think they are a bit to soft in the conclusion parts maybe be a bit more outspoken. Ofc bio can be dealt with, but you have to scout very well place near to perfect FF's etc etc. There are just so many openings for terran that have extremem pressure that sometimes its hard to geuss whats really hapening once they placed that bunker (which they can salvage anyway) and you can't scout past it. But ye obs are pretty mandatory against terran anyway but sending it to his base my cost you alot if they do hit with cloack banshees --> 2 obs = 150 gas Its all about gas gas gas in PvT
early bio pressure isn't as strong as they make it out to be, esp. on maps like xel'naga or maps with ramps, toss forcefield destroy these bio pushes. 1gate FE can solidly hold off most bio pushes, and definitely holds off 2rax FE. I use 2rax FE often, and my goal is just to trade down armies here.
That's really situational though: If its a 1 gate FE then you're going to be attacking his FE if he's hiding at his ramp. Bio pressure against an FE'ing protoss really comes down to micro though, regardless. A protoss with adequate micro can hold it fine. A terran can snipe the stalkers or sentries, and suddenly hes up the ramp destroying pylons powering the cybercore and forcing probes to pull;
It's an extremely volatile period for the protoss, though it's not crossing imbalance. A protoss has to really know his timings to balance teching and defense though, at least when it's not top level play.
I find it extremely saddening that two such prominent figures in e-sports are even giving opinions on balance when neither play 2 of the 3 races.
You can be an observer of e-sports and still know more than most players give them credit for. I'm semi-blowing this out of my ass, but that's like criticizing blizzard for balancing sc2 when none of their designers play every match-up competitively. (...or do they?) They watch and draw the same conclusions Artosis and Idra do.
just listened through again. I cant believe they said that getting fast stim and conc shells doesnt effect your economy. that is just so wrong. you have to get gas and you have to get a tech lab, this delays your scv building, your expansion timing and lowers your total income. im going to have to stop watching this podcast, ive gained nothing useful from it so far.
On February 10 2011 12:15 Holdinga wrote: Just watched it. really like this topic because PvT seems impossible for me right now. I would have to agree with about almost everything they said on this topic, but I didn't like how in the end they said it's not imbalanced. Because everything they said leads to it being imbalanced. Terran can expand and pressure, while protoss is forced to fast robotics for an observer. If you are not getting a fast observer, you are blindly going something and hoping it works. Stim is way too strong for the beginning. A more cheap unit (the marauder) kills a stalker 1v1 WITHOUT stim. Protoss is forced into going mass sentry in the beginning in order to have some chance in holding the terran attacks. You also have to use forcefields without making any mistakes because a hole in your forcefields leads to the MM ball just getting near you and killing you. The terran is also guaranteed to do some damage and is never all-in when playing like that. I would say that getting fast high templars is impossible to use in order to stop this, so the only remaining unit is the colosus. However vikings are too good vs colosus, and colosus without range are even demolished by a simple focus fire from the marauders. All of this is pretty hard to form into words, you can only experience it by playing of course.
Really described my feelings in this matchup too. If you just compare the protoss t1 and terrant1 units with all their possible upgrades at t1 it's...hell yeah i have halluzination! Because of pvz you can't buff protoss t1 so just freakin nerv terran t1. I always thought in a logical sense that it's kinda stupid that marines/marauders can't die of stim. Why is that? Or just make them unable to stim if they're on 1hp! Maybe it would be better to nerf stim/grenades with more time/cost/whatever and see what happens in the game because of that. Like Idra and Artosis pointed out the gas managment ist so damn hard for protoss compared to the stim a-move.
You can't stim on 1HP. Your units cannot stim when they get to 10/20 (marine/marauder respectively) HP.
I don't know if TvP openers are imbalanced, I know that protoss T1 requires alot more management than Terran T1. That's not necessarily imbalanced, but I do find it strange that blizzard wanted protoss to have to pull the proverbial "rabbit" out of the hat whenever they face a terran T1 opening.
Terran doesn't exactly 1a2a3a, but it's nowhere near the requirements for placing perfect forcefields, making sure zeals are going to get hits off, while keeping your stalkers from getting burned down by marauders, while warping in units.
I find Terran has a hard time being the aggressor and defender. If I go Marauder 1 rax slow pressure into expand, he can just stop it completely and then crush it. If I go 2 rax expand I need to make a bunch of bunkers because I wont have gas units for awhile, and MMM is so terrible in the late game(Colossi and HTs dominate) that Mech is the only viable comp unless I can force the game to be in Mid game all game. The only way to accomplish this is to keep the Protoss on 2 bases while I'm on 2 bases without letting up pressure.
I also don't get the whole idea of air dominance. In TvT I give up air dominance completely. I don't really need my Starport outside of making a Medivac or a Banshee. Sure the other Terran will have more Vikings than I do, but then I have more of a ground army and I don't need to MULE as much because 2 marines is cheaper than 1 viking. I feel all I need to is hold a Xel Naga and/or use Scans accordingly. I carry this philosophy in TvP and TvZ by making Banshees to compliment my army instead of Medivacs or Vikings. If my air units are going to die to Mutalisks or Phoenixes I may as well just make up for it by putting more into my ground army that can deal significant damage with as little cost as possible. I feel the whole Colossus+Phoenix thing can just get punched in the face by using 2 Thors + Vikings and what ever else I have on the ground. I feel people use Marines too much in every match up that they feel that the Marines are the strongest part when they're more of a unit you use to hit air when all else fails. It's evidence in TvZ where a Terran goes Marine Medivac Siege Tank and loses all his Marines. If you don't have air dominance you should just make up for it by having a larger ground army. I think the Thor is an underused Terran AA unit in all match ups. Sure it's not great against everything, but it forces units that Marines, Hellions, or Siege Tanks are great against.
Really I think there isn't any imbalanced openings. Everything just sets the game up for the later stages and if your opponent or you weren't prepared for something it's your fault, not the build or your build's fault. I could claim I can win every TvP by opening Hellion harass and claim it's OP because it works for me(NOTE: I don't actually open Hellion harass in TvP). It wouldn't make it imbalanced, it just shows I know more about handling this build than others. It's like the new TvT opening that's coming to light(2 fact 2 port), it's extremely hard to execute but extremely effective if done right. Does that make it imba? I don't think so. I just think most people are used to dealing with 'the norm' that they think anything that beats their build repeatedly is imba. TvT is my best match up and I always open the same build no matter what my opponent is going. Does this put me at a disadvantage if my opponent plays me and knows the build I'm going and exactly how to defend/counter it? Maybe. But I do this build so much that I know how to counter what they may or may not be doing.
If this discussion was only to be about TvP openings then I probably contributed a lot of garbage to this thread.
Terran need to start using ghosts vs phoenix play. For srs. Phoenix clump like a mofo and 1 flanked emp will almost always catch them.
And yeah early T pressure is very very difficult to stop but i wouldn't say imbalanced, hut its kinda silly when I have to pull probes to stop just a few marauders cuz of shells kiting.
On February 10 2011 22:45 KoKoRo wrote: I find Terran has a hard time being the aggressor and defender. If I go Marauder 1 rax slow pressure into expand, he can just stop it completely and then crush it. If I go 2 rax expand I need to make a bunch of bunkers because I wont have gas units for awhile, and MMM is so terrible in the late game(Colossi and HTs dominate) that Mech is the only viable comp unless I can force the game to be in Mid game all game. The only way to accomplish this is to keep the Protoss on 2 bases while I'm on 2 bases without letting up pressure.
I also don't get the whole idea of air dominance. In TvT I give up air dominance completely. I don't really need my Starport outside of making a Medivac or a Banshee. Sure the other Terran will have more Vikings than I do, but then I have more of a ground army and I don't need to MULE as much because 2 marines is cheaper than 1 viking. I feel all I need to is hold a Xel Naga and/or use Scans accordingly. I carry this philosophy in TvP and TvZ by making Banshees to compliment my army instead of Medivacs or Vikings. If my air units are going to die to Mutalisks or Phoenixes I may as well just make up for it by putting more into my ground army that can deal significant damage with as little cost as possible. I feel the whole Colossus+Phoenix thing can just get punched in the face by using 2 Thors + Vikings and what ever else I have on the ground. I feel people use Marines too much in every match up that they feel that the Marines are the strongest part when they're more of a unit you use to hit air when all else fails. It's evidence in TvZ where a Terran goes Marine Medivac Siege Tank and loses all his Marines. If you don't have air dominance you should just make up for it by having a larger ground army. I think the Thor is an underused Terran AA unit in all match ups. Sure it's not great against everything, but it forces units that Marines, Hellions, or Siege Tanks are great against.
Really I think there isn't any imbalanced openings. Everything just sets the game up for the later stages and if your opponent or you weren't prepared for something it's your fault, not the build or your build's fault. I could claim I can win every TvP by opening Hellion harass and claim it's OP because it works for me(NOTE: I don't actually open Hellion harass in TvP). It wouldn't make it imbalanced, it just shows I know more about handling this build than others. It's like the new TvT opening that's coming to light(2 fact 2 port), it's extremely hard to execute but extremely effective if done right. Does that make it imba? I don't think so. I just think most people are used to dealing with 'the norm' that they think anything that beats their build repeatedly is imba. TvT is my best match up and I always open the same build no matter what my opponent is going. Does this put me at a disadvantage if my opponent plays me and knows the build I'm going and exactly how to defend/counter it? Maybe. But I do this build so much that I know how to counter what they may or may not be doing.
If this discussion was only to be about TvP openings then I probably contributed a lot of garbage to this thread.
I agree with a little of what you said, but just to clarify, in TvT if you dont attempt to take the air at all, your opponent *should* make the minimum amount of vikings required to take the air, and then roll your tanks with banshees and battlecrusiers while his smaller amount of tanks take out your marines. If your playing bio in tvt, then a decent player should by now be able to finish you with mech on most maps. also with no air units you would be crushed by any sort of tank/viking early push, or any sort of hellion/banshee play. edit - In hindsight this is kindve offtopic, sorry
I have to say that I like this episode's discussion and conclusion way more than the introduction episode.....it just overall seemed more well thought out and reasonable, although I guess a large part of it is because it is so specific (just for the early minutes of a matchup)
Yes, early MM pressure is hard to stop, but it CAN be stopped. I just find it kind of funny how just by balancing sentries one player can go from annihilation to killing the other player.
Once again seemingly objective discussion, nice job and thanks for the content. I would've liked to hear something about Hallucination though. Tricking a Terran into retreating from your ramp by showing a bigger army might not only discourage his attack but force him to make Bunkers early game. That is unless he just scans and laughs at you.
thx Artosis and IdrA for the great discussion. You have pointed out alot of interesting things. My point of view for the TvP matchup remains the same (assuming bio):
On small Maps its earlygame T favored and lategame P favored. Early game the T can abuse the short rush distance to do these easy stim attacks. Lategame P basicly does the same thing but with his slow AoE units (+ air).
On big maps however P has enough time to respond to early stim pressure so its even. Later in the game it is much harder for P do be aggressive with his slower and less mobile units on the bigger maps. It is much more efficient for T to invest in mobility, so he can attack and drop all over the place and stall out big attacks and punish undefended expansions.
I like how they say burrow and ling speed takes soooo long to research (100 and 110 seconds respectively) while stimpack is relatively fast (140 seconds). :D
On February 10 2011 23:51 zakk wrote: I like how they say burrow and ling speed takes soooo long to research (100 and 110 seconds respectively) while stimpack is relatively fast (140 seconds). :D
this is why I see it as comedy, they were among the most prominent balance whiners in BW and they haven't disappointed in SC2 (i mean making a show called 'IMBALANCED' cmon..)
Thinking that of all people these 2 could make a show like this, objectively evaluating game balance (which they are obviously trying to do) is just a joke, I mean how can IdrA expect to be taken seriously when he ragequits his stream with the words "Terran is a fucking joke, fuck you Blizzard" and then hops on camera to talk about what is fair between the 3 races?
He obviously only cares about what affects his performance, his race and how he can win the most, which is something he cant be blamed for, every single-race gamer does that to a certain extent. IdrA lets his emotions cloud his judgment, but the thing that irks me is that he doesnt recognize this and then proceeds to make flat out _wrong_ statements about certain matchups that other people pick up and then regurgitate to no end. (like saying going vs a 1gas Protoss is a coinflip, because he will either FE or 4gate while not scouting his opponents front past the initial zergling poke)
They are so very obviously biased against Terran and unless they either get one on their show (which i dont see happening) or both start playing random, this is just utter garbage, giving leeway to the idiots that already scream imbalance at the slightest frustration.
On February 10 2011 12:19 anotherone wrote: Each time i hear how Protoss is poor i get ill. If you say that Protoss have hard time vs Terran in early game then what you will say about Terran life vs Protoss in late game? Super Hardocre Survival? (SHS). Force Fields are doing amazingly well vs early bio pushes and allows to win early minor battles just with gate units. Just throw MM ball without stim, shield and grenades on Protoss zeal/stalker/sentry ball and see what will happen. Terran need those upgrades to do anything early and Protoss dont need any upgrades beside warp tech for early game.
How much does concussive cost? How much does stim cost? How much does shield cost?
How much does a twilight cost? How much does charge cost? How much does blink cost? How much does robotic's bay + range cost? How much does storm + amulet cost?
How much does a barracks with addon cost? How much does a factory with addon cost? How much does a starport with addon cost?***
How much does a gateway cost? How much does a robo cost?
Not to mention that it takes 2x longer to build a barracks than building a gateway.
Not to mention that it takes 2x longer to build a barracks than building a gateway.
A gateway takes 5seconds longer to build than a barracks...
right.... Althou a barracks with a techlab takes 90 seconds and then you have to wait an additional 30 seconds for a marauder while a gateway takes 55 sec and you get a unit instantly.
So its roughly 120 seconds to get your unit with a barracks vs roughly 60 sec with a gateway. It takes about 2½ min to get units out of barracks with reactor but then you get 2 marines.
Not to mention that it takes 2x longer to build a barracks than building a gateway.
A gateway takes 5seconds longer to build than a barracks...
right.... Althou a barracks with a techlab takes 90 seconds and then you have to wait an additional 30 seconds for a marauder while a gateway takes 55 sec and you get a unit instantly.
So its roughly 120 seconds to get your unit with a barracks vs roughly 60 sec with a gateway. It takes about 2½ min to get units out of barracks with reactor but then you get 2 marines.
Comparing single unit initial time cost is stupid when it's something that gets used and produces things repeatedly over time.
Not to mention that it takes 2x longer to build a barracks than building a gateway.
A gateway takes 5seconds longer to build than a barracks...
right.... Althou a barracks with a techlab takes 90 seconds and then you have to wait an additional 30 seconds for a marauder while a gateway takes 55 sec and you get a unit instantly.
So its roughly 120 seconds to get your unit with a barracks vs roughly 60 sec with a gateway. It takes about 2½ min to get units out of barracks with reactor but then you get 2 marines.
Comparing single initial time cost is stupid when it's something that gets used and produces things repeatedly over time.
Its fucking retarded to compare any of this stuff unless its seriously broken. Its racial difference. If you look at my original post I was refering to a guy who compared price for getting stim/shield/concussive to getting blink/charge/collusus range/storm.
On February 10 2011 23:51 zakk wrote: I like how they say burrow and ling speed takes soooo long to research (100 and 110 seconds respectively) while stimpack is relatively fast (140 seconds). :D
You need lair for burrow, which makes it take a long time because if you lair too soon you won't have enough queens to stop a banshee rush.
If they plan on doing this on a regular basis they really have to start going WAY more into detail. I mean, on the one hand they emphazize that they are looking at things from a pro-gamer perspective, on the other hand they just randomly throw around build orders like "get a bunch of sentries against a bunch of units from 2 rax". This is even more important against timing-attacks, when 10-20 seconds can be gamedeciding. Nearly everything they talked about I think most of us have already known (that you kinda need something else but unupgraded gateway-units to fight vs MM). They didn't even mention how the "third M", medivacs, HUGELY contribute to the effectiveness of stimmed bio-units, also because of the synergy with drop-play. I would have liked them to analyze things more specificly.
Please discuss why 'random race' is unfair for other players, and the extent to which it is unfair - should it be changed?
The reason I'm asking is because it forces standard play out of your opponent if you go random race, denying race-specific builds such as forge expands on shakuras plateau PvZ, or perhaps 11gas 13rax reactor hellions TvZ, It does not deny such builds for the random player.
Not to mention that it takes 2x longer to build a barracks than building a gateway.
A gateway takes 5seconds longer to build than a barracks...
right.... Althou a barracks with a techlab takes 90 seconds and then you have to wait an additional 30 seconds for a marauder while a gateway takes 55 sec and you get a unit instantly.
So its roughly 120 seconds to get your unit with a barracks vs roughly 60 sec with a gateway. It takes about 2½ min to get units out of barracks with reactor but then you get 2 marines.
On February 11 2011 00:31 shell wrote: warp gates cost money also Armsved
And protoss has 1 set of upgrades for robo and gateway while terran needs to upgrade both mech and bio. Isnt it fun to call imbalance on racial difference...
I agree completely with what Artosis said regarding the role-reversal in TvP. In StarCraft 1 Terran started off on the back foot and had to tech up as the Protoss tier 1 units were very strong, but if Terran survived then he could build up an extremely powerful late-game army of tanks, Goliaths and Science Vessels which was difficult for Protoss to deal with. This is the opposite of StarCraft 2, where M&M controls the early game, but eventually gets owned by Colossi-Templar.
As a budding Terran player what I'm interested in is whether the StarCraft 1 approach can work for Terran in StarCraft 2. Obviously there've been a lot of threads on it and people claim mech isnt as good in SC 2, but then we saw Jinro beat the best Protoss in the world using it...
Not to mention that it takes 2x longer to build a barracks than building a gateway.
A gateway takes 5seconds longer to build than a barracks...
right.... Althou a barracks with a techlab takes 90 seconds and then you have to wait an additional 30 seconds for a marauder while a gateway takes 55 sec and you get a unit instantly.
So its roughly 120 seconds to get your unit with a barracks vs roughly 60 sec with a gateway. It takes about 2½ min to get units out of barracks with reactor but then you get 2 marines.
I was very surprised that there was 0 mention of med-evacs. I can't tell you how many times terrans have dropped and sniped my colossus tech before range is done (it takes forever to research and 2 medevacs of units snipe it extremely fast) and I am left with 1 colossus out and no range in sight. Also, the issue with drops is all the FF in the world doesn't help you, you have to have enough stalker/zealot to kill the drop (medevacs make them rauders tough!) and be able to hold your front from a simultaneous frontal assault. Then his marauder heavy push comes with a few medevacs and I'm toast. Also, no mention of how a terran can 1 rax OC and keep it inside his main, if the toss doesn't expo he will get ridiculously far behind because of double mules and mm requires so little gas (it all can goto medevacs/vikings) and terran can support a lot of barracks from 1 base double mule and has the option to take his expo at the drop of a hat. I was also surprised at no mention of emp, terrans can get it really early and if your relying on FF and sentries they get 1 good emp off = your dead. It does 20 more damage than storm to toss units, cannot be dodged, doesn't require research and ghosts are not even comparable on cost when you look at what it takes gas wise, to get storm and HT. It seems like in their mind toss just stays on 1 base until they get colossus just so they can get an expo. It also seemed like they think on metalopolis or xel naga toss, HAS to get 5+ sentries because of how wide the naturals are and still somehow have gas to tech. Terrans who 1 or 2 rax fe will be taking their 3rd by the time your natural is up and have the income to overproduce vikings and smash colossus. I'd also like to point out, if I see a tech lab starport I don't know if that means banshee or raven. Terrans have become very consistent in spotting obs and sniping them with scans. Or how about the fact that a 50 mineral marine with stim has higher dps vs anything, than a 175 resource stalker does (even when vs armored units where the stalker gets its bonus) There is still a lot to discuss in this matchup IMO. But the episode was much better than the first and I was pleased. I just feel a lot of subjects/issues that I've experienced in this matchup were missing from the discussion. Also, I'd like to hear their thoughts on how hard it is to deal with banshee/hellion/marine drops that target your economy after you take your natural. But damn all that noise was kinda distracting to Idra, artosis and me as the listener. This subject is worthy of another episode, so much left to talk about.
On February 10 2011 23:14 aka_star wrote: I don't think they should go into TvP since they are more zerg players, should only be from a Z perspective
Have you even watched the video yet?
I don't see why Zerg players cannot comment based on what they have observed in games played by their peers. Anyone who is amply observant would be able to analyse games and give a unbiased commentary.
I started laughing so hard after the first 10 seconds when artosis said " not for those with overinflated egos" I am sorry but thats just kinda funny coming from those two. The show itself has great analysis by two people who know what they are talking about but im still wishing they would call it something else and not imbalance. Why can't they just do matchup discussions and then point out the problems instead of calling it imbalance?
I kinda got the feeling you're afraid of talking about imbalances including Zergs because the community will give you so much shit for that (as in "lolol zergs complaining about other races haha!!").
Not to mention that it takes 2x longer to build a barracks than building a gateway.
A gateway takes 5seconds longer to build than a barracks...
right.... Althou a barracks with a techlab takes 90 seconds and then you have to wait an additional 30 seconds for a marauder while a gateway takes 55 sec and you get a unit instantly.
So its roughly 120 seconds to get your unit with a barracks vs roughly 60 sec with a gateway. It takes about 2½ min to get units out of barracks with reactor but then you get 2 marines.
On the flip side, regenerative shields are sick-good in the very early game, and Warpgates are awesome once you get them out.
Huh? Gateway+Core+ TC is 165 seconds. Barracks+techlab takes 85 seconds. Not to mention you generally don't immediately build a twilight council as soon as the CC is done because you need gas for warpgates and the rest of your income for units so you don't die. Gateway+Core is 115 seconds. All times are from liquipedia and Protoss building times were confirmed from the game.
Also, People aren't taking into effect warpgate research which costs 50/50 and takes 140 seconds to complete. Please keep that in mind when comparing times. Without it, protoss has to build units the same way a Terran player does.
Not to mention that it takes 2x longer to build a barracks than building a gateway.
A gateway takes 5seconds longer to build than a barracks...
right.... Althou a barracks with a techlab takes 90 seconds and then you have to wait an additional 30 seconds for a marauder while a gateway takes 55 sec and you get a unit instantly.
So its roughly 120 seconds to get your unit with a barracks vs roughly 60 sec with a gateway. It takes about 2½ min to get units out of barracks with reactor but then you get 2 marines.
On the flip side, regenerative shields are sick-good in the very early game, and Warpgates are awesome once you get them out.
Huh? Gateway+Core+ TC is 165 seconds. Barracks+techlab takes 85 seconds. Not to mention you generally don't immediately build a twilight council as soon as the CC is done because you need gas for warpgates and the rest of your income for units so you don't die. Gateway+Core is 115 seconds. All times are from liquipedia and Protoss building times were confirmed from the game.
Also, People aren't taking into effect warpgate research which costs 50/50 and takes 140 seconds to complete. Please keep that in mind when comparing times. Without it, protoss has to build units the same way a Terran player does.
i think he meant that gate + core + tc is the same techwise as a barracks + techlab. not build times
On February 11 2011 00:43 Spitfire wrote: I agree completely with what Artosis said regarding the role-reversal in TvP. In StarCraft 1 Terran started off on the back foot and had to tech up as the Protoss tier 1 units were very strong, but if Terran survived then he could build up an extremely powerful late-game army of tanks, Goliaths and Science Vessels which was difficult for Protoss to deal with. This is the opposite of StarCraft 2, where M&M controls the early game, but eventually gets owned by Colossi-Templar.
As a budding Terran player what I'm interested in is whether the StarCraft 1 approach can work for Terran in StarCraft 2. Obviously there've been a lot of threads on it and people claim mech isnt as good in SC 2, but then we saw Jinro beat the best Protoss in the world using it...
No, Starcraft 2 mech is substantially worse than Starcraft 1 mech.
Here's why: Mech sacrifices mobility for stability. However, all races have received an upgrade in damage against Terran mech, including Terran infantry, and Terran mech itself has lost its firepower AND its most critical unit: the vulture. That's why there is little reason not to go mainly infantry with mech support: because pure mech is simply not mobile enough to keep up with other compositions, and it is not robust enough to compensate for lack of mobility.
Positional play in general is undermined in Starcraft 2, which is why you can't see macro games where armies are spread across the map and engaging at multiple fronts. Armies cannot spread out over a distance because the opponent's army can attack you at a concentrated point with all of their units at the same time thanks to the clumping.
It used to be that the more mobile the unit, the more fragile it was. Protoss was unique in that its army was robust and mobile, and was simply limited by cost and build time.
Not true in Starcraft 2. Every single race now resembles Brood War Protoss in terms of the mobility/robustness ratio, without the build time penalties. Dragoon/Zealot bears a strong resemblance to Hydra/Roach, Marauder/Marine, and Zealot/Stalker.
Strangely enough, it is Starcraft 2 Protoss that bears the least resemblance to Brood War Protoss with the introduction of Warpgates and Sentries.
Early bio pressure SUCKKKKKKSSS. This is so old, any toss can absolutely crush it and win. That's basically what artosis says. Scout it and crush it. Early bio pressure relies on the protoss screwing up in his defence. Then we get to the midgame. Where the smart protoss won't atack, but chill behind his chokes wich the terran can't atack into because of forcefields. Late game. Terran is dead.
On February 10 2011 10:50 xza wrote: artosis needs to do 'is 4gate imbalanced?'
that would be amazing since idrA is zerg, and artosis is 1/2 zerg and 1/2 toss
Artosis is 2/2 Zerg.
Anyway, I actually managed to get through the first 10 minutes of this show so well done I suppose. You made some very valid points. Looking forward to next week's episode.
I felt a little better about this episode than the last one, but I'm not sure if that's due to my bias as one of the protoss-pieces. I feel that colossus breaks PvP way more than PvZ; corruptors are not a one-shot unit, as you can tech to brood lords and have a very effective lategame.
I didn't like your suggestion that you move contaminate back to corruptors. That would break at the very least PvZ and ZvZ; with contaminate on overseers, you have to sink money into a weak, non-combat unit to stop production. With contaminate on corruptors, you can sink money into several corruptors and not only be safe from colossi and air, but with 8 corruptors you can literally stop all combat unit production from a 2basing protoss. You would have to make the cooldown / corruption time on that INCREDIBLY weak for it not to utterly break the matchup, or have it be a slowly researched tech so that a protoss would have time to react to seeing the spire. Probably both. It would be even worse in ZvZ - you could invest in just a few corruptors and they could not only hunt overlords, but corrupt the hatches constantly, stopping ALL zerg production entirely; queens and spore crawlers simply do not kill them fast enough to stop this.
I do agree with you that the fact that a terran can use an eco build - 1 or 2 rax aggression into quick-ish expo - to pressure a protoss into a very defensive build or punish / outright kill another eco build is kind of imbalanced. I think putting the concussive shells on the same tech path as nitro packs would fix this pretty easily - terran need concussive shells in the lategame to be competitive, but it really does break early game eco builds.
First of all I would really like to thank both IdrA and Artosis so much for putting forward the Imbalanced series. It really feels good to know that progamers also assess balance problems so openly and directly towards the entire gaming community.
This is in response to IdrA saying that many strategies in many match-ups such as PvZ are underused due to certain units being way more useful than others(colossus).
What I would like to do is to brainstorm and collate ideas which depict types of play or aspects of the game almost never looked upon and underused greatly. I don't want long build queue style responses, instead, short and sweet direct statements reminding people "hey, you missed this part of SC2". I'll start with a few to start.
Zerg: 1) Mass contaminate unit denial 2) Using mass queens purely for creep spread and do early game creep pushes into enemy bases n small maps. No inject larva. 3) Burrow mind games? Lure enemy using pure hydra, then burrow the hydras at the same spot where you burrowed banelings. Boom. 4) Using Changelings to block?
Terran: 1) Using flying buildings to block opponent view of his own units to impede enemy micro? 2) Using flying CCs to lure and tank dmg while flanking the enemy with main army and repairing
Protoss: 1) Early stormless HTs for Queen feedback, deny Zerg macro 2) Mass FF to counter drops? You cannot drop units on an FF.
On February 11 2011 01:35 Endorsed wrote: Early bio pressure SUCKKKKKKSSS. This is so old, any toss can absolutely crush it and win. That's basically what artosis says. Scout it and crush it. Early bio pressure relies on the protoss screwing up in his defence. Then we get to the midgame. Where the smart protoss won't atack, but chill behind his chokes wich the terran can't atack into because of forcefields. Late game. Terran is dead.
A crude description of the matchup, but sums up my experience pretty well too. I suppose one thing is top level play, and another thing is how the matchup plays out in diamond and master games.
Personally I'm about 70% win against zerg and 30% win against protoss. This is very frustrating. It could easily be something only applying to my game, but based on a lot of posts I read, I feel many terrans have a similar experience.
I think it is very funny that this episode heavily focuses so much on Marine/Maurader strong openings when they tend to forget that most Terrans do not go for a strong MM opening to kill anymore, more to just gain map control and force certain predictable reactions.
Also Artosis states that you can scout any build with an observer build, which is simply not true. There are at least 4/5 different builds from a Terran player that require a very specific reaction from the Protoss player that come before an observer hits the field (even if you do the fastest Gateway/Robo/Gateway), and even if you can manage to either guess or see the build, you have to be able to defend against that build in the first place (which you likely won't have that many units because you expended so much in your tech early). This was mentioned, but I think that there wasn't a particular emphasis on how hard it is to hold when you are lacking on gas for Sentries to stall, when you expended so much to get that fast Robo out.
What Artosis did say about Sentries is true, but that even applies when you have Colossus. The Colossus is a great unit when you have Sentry energy, however that advantage is nullified significantly once your Sentries run out of energy, because even just a slight miscalculation of Colossus positioning means Mauraders will eat them up with one volley. With Sentries you can recorrect any mistake and simply FF and keep Mauraders away, but without that energy it means that any good flanking play or simple Maurader suicides can easily pick off your Colossus.
I think that Artosis was also a little bit dishonest (not intentionally of course) with how MC plays against T. The way MC plays against T was specifically tailored to punish T players for doing any kind of pressure expand builds into a mass Bio stim push, which at the time was incredibly hard (and still is very hard) to stop.
It's not that MC builds are now the new thing that beats Bio; a dedicated Bio army will still roll MC's Gateway army when we talk about equal size. It is just that MC hits at a critical timing window when most T's have just expanded and do not have a sizable force defending, and thus rely on bunkers (which are countered by sentries) to defend with most of the time. This means that the P has a unit number advantage against a smaller Terran force relying on bunkers to stave off any aggressive play.
However, I think that most people don't realize that once T players started adapting to this type of play (as in stopped playing so greedy), it didn't work as well anymore. So now we're back at step 1 where T players are holding a significant edge early to mid game with their massive Bio blob, that when controlled well, can even take on late game P units (with the right support).
I also wanted to mention that your analysis of Colossus is really, really, really biased, because the problem is NOT the Colossus, but how ridiculously cost effective the Sentry is against Zerg players. With enough Sentries on the field, they basically turn any fight in the early to mid game a free win for the P player as long as the P player has an army to support the Sentries. I don't think anyone is really complaining too much about Colossus without Sentries, I think the problem is that the walking deathball of Colossus with Sentry mid game means the Z literally cannot engage period no matter what since he'll just get walled off and die.
Well TvP openings may be a bit too much to handle for toss, the PvT endgame could also be too hot for terran. Terran is hard-pressed to find a effective unit composition against the endgame protoss composition of gateway units+some colossus+some void ray. Tank may be good but that's gambling on protoss does not have immortals. I guess we haven't seen enough late game TvP yet so we'd have to see how it play out.
Although I enjoy the show quite a bit, I believe some additional production value could be added to increase its quality 10 fold.
They need a solid terran or protoss players perspective when doing a show that isn't zerg centered. They aren't biased, they simply didnt hit some of the fine details of the TvP MU that I expected. It seemed more generic compared to the first episode.
The show would greatly benefit from some replay commentary, and having a few guests skype in for terran and protoss discussions. I know Artosis has apparently been playing some Protoss, but I believe having an incontrol or a huk comments on possible TvP imbalances would be a lot more interesting. Just seemed the first episode was much more in depth due to it being zerg focused.
Liked the show...but there were some moments that made me cringe as a protoss player...
Artosis is a huge fan of fast observer... The problem with this is that this takes 4 gate timing attacks out of your arsenal which is one of our best weapons. It also means your probably not going to produce stargates under 10 minutes which is another option off the table. Lot of top level Korean toss players don't go for fast observers.
Artosis was also a huge fan of forcefields, but these can be a little overrated vs terrain. As soon as terrain has a medivac/scan (or other spotter) your ability to defend chokes decreases dramatically because the range of MM can largely fire through FF's unless impeccably placed.
The idea that DT's can counter 3 racks made me cringe too... As Idra pointed it out it is too all-in in the early game as an investment and if scouted you are dead.
Would like to see more emphasis on how difficult it is for toss to defend against banshee's, the problems with mules, and the dominance of vikings.
Largely though, they need to revisit MM issue as it wasn't completely covered. Why are racks units more effective vs armored than thors/tanks? Why are terrain players sac'ing factorys away as scouts? Why should rauders only cost 25g and be able to kite almost everything in site and destroy buildings in almost no time? Can Toss survive vs Terrain without AOE in the mid/late game? They can't which raises other issues.
On February 10 2011 14:05 Moki.tv wrote: (3.2k Masters) I think the show would really benefit from a Terran perspective. While artosis and Idra do try to give terran a fair point of view, there are some things that they get wrong.
1. Phoenix/Colossus -the reason this is really hard to deal with is because colossus have insane range, and stalkers destroy vikings. So that really rules out any flanking by vikings. What Idra said about keeping marines w/ vikings is also not possible, b/c the time it takes for vikings/marines to kill the phoenix, the colossus have had ample time to destroy the bio.
2. Bio Openings early bio pressure isn't as strong as they make it out to be, esp. on maps like xel'naga or maps with ramps, toss forcefield destroy these bio pushes. 1gate FE can solidly hold off most bio pushes, and definitely holds off 2rax FE. I use 2rax FE often, and my goal is just to trade down armies here.
Just my 2 cents
2.9k master here and I just wanted to highlight this post because it sums up my experience in the matchup really well. Especially his 2nd point. His 1st point not so much have not really had any experience against it. You might say im bad (2.9 masters lulz u suck) but im confident I can pull off a 2 rax or 3 rax pressure build fairly well.
And I just got to say I dont get ANY of the whine about terran early game strenghts. You can actually 1 gate FE _SAFELY_ on any map larger than steppes of war and get away with it vs a 2rax pressure opening. But and this is very important you need to _micro_ your gateway units and use the _correct_ unit compisition, you might even need to bring in a few probes if things go bad or if he is bringing scvs with it. Probes are reaaallyy annoying when you have a small marine/marauder ball and p have stalkers in the back taking out all the marines so you do shitty dmg. Even if you loose a few probes it doesnt matter because then you took out all of his units and you have a larger army.
However this is not the case if your facing 3rax but if you are - simply cancel the nexus (cuz it will hit before its done or you should know it coming) and just go up your ramp. And boy do terrans hate going up the ramp... vs a good toss you never win a fight going up a ramp because of forcefields. From here you can go what the hell you want to ( 4gate, dt tech as artosis said, rush collu or whatever random 1 base allin or go 3gate and expand) and ROFLSTOMP the terran later on.
And now I have basically given up on these kinds of builds because most protoss I play against have figured them out.
The new build I find to be very good instead is going 1 rax 1 fact into expand and try to do some pressure, not to much!, with hellions and marauders then go into something like 3 fact tank hellion kind of play. Something like how IMMvP played during todays GSLTL game but i think his transition to mech came late and he could've focused more on mech upgrades and running around with hellions picking probes off instead of medivac drops that really didnt do to much. I have just started doing it and honestly im terribad because its different from rax play but I think its the new way of playing terran that we will see more and more.
On February 10 2011 14:05 Moki.tv wrote: (3.2k Masters) I think the show would really benefit from a Terran perspective. While artosis and Idra do try to give terran a fair point of view, there are some things that they get wrong.
1. Phoenix/Colossus -the reason this is really hard to deal with is because colossus have insane range, and stalkers destroy vikings. So that really rules out any flanking by vikings. What Idra said about keeping marines w/ vikings is also not possible, b/c the time it takes for vikings/marines to kill the phoenix, the colossus have had ample time to destroy the bio.
2. Bio Openings early bio pressure isn't as strong as they make it out to be, esp. on maps like xel'naga or maps with ramps, toss forcefield destroy these bio pushes. 1gate FE can solidly hold off most bio pushes, and definitely holds off 2rax FE. I use 2rax FE often, and my goal is just to trade down armies here.
Just my 2 cents
2.9k master here and I just wanted to highlight this quote because it sums up my experience in the matchup really well. Especially his 2nd point. His 1st point not so much have not really had any experience against it. You might say im bad (2.9 masters lulz u suck) but im confident I can pull off a 2 rax or 3 rax pressure build fairly well.
And I just got to say I dont get ANY of the whine about terran early game strenghts. You can actually 1 gate FE _SAFELY_ on any map larger than steppes of war and get away with it vs a 2rax pressure opening. But and this is very important you need to _micro_ your gateway units and use the _correct_ unit compisition, you might even need to bring in a few probes if things go bad or if he is bringing scvs with it. Probes are reaaallyy annoying when you have a small marine/marauder ball and p have stalkers in the back taking out all the marines so you do shitty dmg. Even if you loose a few probes it doesnt matter because then you took out all of his units and you have a larger army.
However this is not the case if your facing 3rax but if you are - simply cancel the nexus (cuz it will hit before its done or you should know it coming) and just go up your ramp. And boy do terrans hate going up the ramp... vs a good toss you never win a fight going up a ramp because of forcefields. From here you can go what the hell you want to ( 4gate, dt tech as artosis said, rush collu or whatever random 1 base allin or go 3gate and expand) and ROFLSTOMP the terran later on.
And now I have basically given up on these kinds of builds because most protoss I play against have figured them out.
The new build I find to be very good instead is going 1 rax 1 fact into expand and try to do some pressure, not to much!, with hellions and marauders then go into something like 3 fact tank hellion kind of play. Something like how IMMvP played during todays GSLTL game but i think his transition came to mech came late and he could've focused more on mech upgrades and running around with hellions picking probes off instead of medivac drops that really didnt do to much. I have just started doing it and honestly im terribad because its different from rax play but I think its the new way of playing terran that we will see more and more.
you dont know what you are saying...if terran 3 racks and forces you cancel the nexus he can just turtle outside your base, expand safely and contain you forever...plus 3 racks beats 4 gates and since you were doing a fe build your colossus and dts will come way too late to be efective
On February 11 2011 04:25 siri wrote: you dont know what you are saying...if terran 3 racks and forces you cancel the nexus he can just turtle outside your base, expand safely and contain you forever...plus 3 racks beats 4 gates and since you were doing a fe build your colossus and dts will come way too late to be efective
Hm I get your point but I have to disagree with it. 4 gates beats 3 racks generally however there a bunch of factors that can change this such as micro/bunkers/stim but when not taking those into consideration and everthing is a straight up fight 4 gates definitely beats 3 racks. I believe this very strongly as many many games of mine has proven and also all the vods I have watched. But I would love to be proven wrong and 3 rax play is actually really strong and not as gimped as I feel it is at the moment.
You said being contained, I would suspect this means he is building bunkers(2-3) below your ramp and doing a nice circle of units. If you see this there are many options you have to get basically a free win. I wouldnt recommend 4 gate in this perticular case. Instead I suggest going for 3 gate robo and note: your tech wont be late because in 1 gate FE you get your gas and cyber at the standard time.
So you have 3 gates 1 robo now while he has 3 raxes that are cutting units to get 2+ bunkers and a command center right? you basically know that since you see he is containing you. Now get a warp prism out and after that chrono immortals out. Use your warp prism do drop 3-4 zealots in his main base. Now he will have to make a decision either he has to back off if he doesnt have any units in his base and if he does this you can simply a move his base and take the win. Or he has units to deal with this and really you have to have like 5+ marines to deal efficiently with 3-4 zealots and in that case you can break out the cointain using the immortal to target the bunkers and ff to stop repairing if necessary.
Now if you have the counter for something like this please enlighten me.
We should have an imbalance playoff, all the terrans use protoss and all the protoss use terran. So we can truly see which race is easy mode in this matchup Would be a lot of fun and smack talking I'm sure.
I would love to see some thors and mech mixed into lategame army mix for terran to combat the ground army of Protoss. Thors should do decent against stacking phoenixes and assist the vikes and rines in dps. This match up is truly interesting and should keep continuing to evolve
On February 11 2011 04:49 Reborn8u wrote: We should have an imbalance playoff, all the terrans use protoss and all the protoss use terran. So we can truly see which race is easy mode in this matchup Would be a lot of fun and smack talking I'm sure.
Offracing Protoss is pretty easy actually...
I can beat players than I can't beat TvT with Protoss and pretty one sidely too
Am I the only one having trouble understanding Idra when he's reading?
I mean I'm not a native english speaker but I spent years in Ireland and I understand Artosis, Day9, Tasteless and all the casters but Idra's reading ... Tough deal!
And I agree with SushilS, a podcast would be better, the video actually adds nothing to the show except for awkwardness (which does make awesome comic videos though xD)
On February 11 2011 07:03 sssss wrote: Don't post a new thread everytime there is a new episode, make a main thread like everybody else, thanks.
Was it really worth it to register for that?
I'm really loving the show so far. Unexpectedly unbiased, or at least it seems that way. Very excited for the next episode. I've already feel like I've learned quite a bit from the show and the discussions started by it. I'm very excited for the next episode. And as always thanks to Idra and Artosis for all the content!
I keep on seeing messages like "bring 2 terrans / 2 protoss" players in there. Really, some messages are mean and lack depth and substance, but could you really INVITE some1? I mean IdrA and Artosis living in Korea could get some of the good progamers there, not necessarily Korean, so they can give their own insight to the game. This would bring more credibility to the show. Artosis and IdrA have been wrong before, so please understand my skepticism and other people's (yeah, i mean the dark templar vs terran imbalance discussions in BW) I'd like to see for the next show TLO and Jinro invited. Good luck and keep up the good work!
On February 10 2011 14:38 DooMDash wrote: FF is sick good vs bio... but I can understand Protoss's pain having to depend on such a thing to live so early.
At my lowly level of play (low diamond), I really struggle with keeping an eye peeled on an early incoming Terran push. Feels like if I'm looking at my nexus and not my choke or my ramp at the wrong instant and the stimmed bio ball rolls through, I lose. Further, if I lose my early sentries, I can't really replace them since new ones come in with enough energy for one FF.
On the other hand, if I get good FFs off against his attack, the Terran is usually boned, or at least really far behind. Either he bumrushes for Vikings at the cost of his ground army, leading to a bunch of dead colossi and a smashed Terran base, or he doesn't and my colossi fry all his bio – even if I don't manage to trap him in the field with FF, I can usually back him into his base and force a confrontation there. Anyway, I digress.
Also, to all the people asking for an MP3 version of the show, just do this.
Protoss macro definitely is easier than Terran macro
There are less upgrades you need to get and its A LOT easier managing warp gates than managing all the barracks/factory/starport add-ons
4 gating is really really strong, and just about any decent player Terran or Zerg could go to Protoss and 4 gate opponents their skill successfully.
I've played quite a few games as Protoss (main Terran, used to main Protoss until about 4 weeks ago) yet I feel I can manage my economy better with Protoss than I can with Terran despite not touching them in awhile. Chrono boosting probes feels better than MULEing as harvesting rate is consistent rather than the "spikes" you get from dropping MULEs which can cause you to over invest into structures that you can't support (obviously MULEs are better for economy, but you know what I mean). Since warp gate cool down is universal, its easier managing your army as all your warp gates (if you're warping in at the same time) will be available at the same time, rather than different build times meaning you have to be constantly checking your production facilities to ensure they're building.
On February 11 2011 08:06 Consummate wrote: Protoss macro definitely is easier than Terran macro
There are less upgrades you need to get and its A LOT easier managing warp gates than managing all the barracks/factory/starport add-ons
4 gating is really really strong, and just about any decent player Terran or Zerg could go to Protoss and 4 gate opponents their skill successfully.
I've played quite a few games as Protoss (main Terran, used to main Protoss until about 4 weeks ago) yet I feel I can manage my economy better with Protoss than I can with Terran despite not touching them in awhile. Chrono boosting probes feels better than MULEing as harvesting rate is consistent rather than the "spikes" you get from dropping MULEs which can cause you to over invest into structures that you can't support (obviously MULEs are better for economy, but you know what I mean). Since warp gate cool down is universal, its easier managing your army as all your warp gates (if you're warping in at the same time) will be available at the same time, rather than different build times meaning you have to be constantly checking your production facilities to ensure they're building.
Different mechanics =/= easier mechanics protoss buildings cant fly and a nexus cant turn into a murdering infrastructure that can be mass repaired by the workers, also you cant just scan cloaked units or ur opponents base, also you cant just press a button to get more supply if your blocked what i am trying to say is the mechanics are different, each race has its own advantages
as a protoss i feel what they are describing great show. Tip on close are use the whitera warp prison play to avoid early pressure (obs near ramp, move in with prison when he moves out, kill some scvs move out and keep doing that) i even love to delay warpgate research to get a extreme fast robo up since i dont feel like warp gate research helps alot if it comes 20 sec earlier against terran.
On February 11 2011 08:06 Consummate wrote: Protoss macro definitely is easier than Terran macro
There are less upgrades you need to get and its A LOT easier managing warp gates than managing all the barracks/factory/starport add-ons
4 gating is really really strong, and just about any decent player Terran or Zerg could go to Protoss and 4 gate opponents their skill successfully.
I've played quite a few games as Protoss (main Terran, used to main Protoss until about 4 weeks ago) yet I feel I can manage my economy better with Protoss than I can with Terran despite not touching them in awhile. Chrono boosting probes feels better than MULEing as harvesting rate is consistent rather than the "spikes" you get from dropping MULEs which can cause you to over invest into structures that you can't support (obviously MULEs are better for economy, but you know what I mean). Since warp gate cool down is universal, its easier managing your army as all your warp gates (if you're warping in at the same time) will be available at the same time, rather than different build times meaning you have to be constantly checking your production facilities to ensure they're building.
Different mechanics =/= easier mechanics protoss buildings cant fly and a nexus cant turn into a murdering infrastructure that can be mass repaired by the workers, also you cant just scan cloaked units or ur opponents base, also you cant just press a button to get more supply if your blocked what i am trying to say is the mechanics are different, each race has its own advantages
Apparently you missed the whole macro part of the post since only 1 of your several points are related to my post (the supply depot part).
I wasn't saying there is a problem with it, just stating that Protoss's macro mechanics are the easiest to manage.
On February 11 2011 08:06 Consummate wrote: Since warp gate cool down is universal, its easier managing your army as all your warp gates (if you're warping in at the same time) will be available at the same time, rather than different build times meaning you have to be constantly checking your production facilities to ensure they're building.
Not necessarily. If you chrono any warpgates, don't flip your gates over all at the same time, or build new ones "off cycle" (which happens in most games, I would wager), you'd have asynchronous warpgate cooldowns, with as many a different optimal timings as you have gates.
Also, protoss players don't always exclusively use gateways – stargates and robo facs work more like factories, barracks (barracksii? Barrackopodes?), and starports.
On February 11 2011 08:17 Consummate wrote: Apparently you missed the whole macro part of the post since only 1 of your several points are related to my post (the supply depot part).
I wasn't saying there is a problem with it, just stating that Protoss's macro mechanics are the easiest to manage.
Easiest to manage? Have you ever seen any protoss fully utilizing 3 nexus's worth of chrono and keep it down? No, even the best like MC still slip up. In fact, one of the games he was streaming he had full chrono on 2 nexuses at 12 sc2 minutes in.
hahaha now it's funny again!!! still rolfcoptering!
I'm wondering who will be the first to email them and ask: Idra how did you feel when artosis denied you the good old high five? But maybe his expression on his face tells enough
but on a serious note, people who say you need a terran and a protoss on the show really don't understand how good these guys are with their understanding of the game, just cause they both main zerg doesn't mean they don't know the other races, I mean common Artosis casts on GOMTV for godsakes, he knows all the builds even before those guys do it. So I think he knows pretty well whats good or bad in the game and what is imbalanced or not, ofc he sees things a bit more from the zerg point of view, but then again he has seen this stuff so many times that by now he knows every viable build thats out there (almost)
so please keep this in mind before ranting on about needing more people on the show, ofc that would be fun but it isnt mandatory.
Also I believe that in most levels below pro (also in masters etc me being a 2800 master) the mechanics and the relative ease of use of the terran army make terran a real strong race, I play terran on a friends account and im not yet very good at it but im starting to learn more and more of the race and I feel the mech path is really really strong (might call it imba) and with the MMM combo the dropping is so ridicelously strong from time to time, hey my opponent has 3 base --> lets drop in all three keep them hotkeyed Stim and snipe nexus or mineral line. GG
I play alot of random so i know the most sorrow of all the races, I hate 4gate toss i hate MMM terran I hate Hydra/Roach timing zerg. Its all part of the game, and most match-ups feel pretty even. Ofc there are maps that do suck (steppes of war terran anyone ?!)
On February 11 2011 08:06 Consummate wrote: Since warp gate cool down is universal, its easier managing your army as all your warp gates (if you're warping in at the same time) will be available at the same time, rather than different build times meaning you have to be constantly checking your production facilities to ensure they're building.
This is wrong. Different units put the warpgates on different cooldowns. Warp in a zealot - WG cooldown is 28sec. Warp in a stalker/sentry - WG cooldown is 32sec. Warp in HT/DT - WG cooldown is 45sec.
Therefore warpgate will only be available at the same time if you always warp in similiar unit types (which is almost impossible / ill advised).
On February 11 2011 08:39 DaBears57 wrote: Easiest to manage? Have you ever seen any protoss fully utilizing 3 nexus's worth of chrono and keep it down? No, even the best like MC still slip up. In fact, one of the games he was streaming he had full chrono on 2 nexuses at 12 sc2 minutes in.
Yeah...people underestimate how difficult it is to keep on top of CB's (or avoid getting 'energy blocked').
This actually indirectly would make a great show idea... What units and races are the most APM friendly and how does this affect balance between races and between units?
Important topic because APM even for the best pro's is scarce. Many protoss get energy blocked...many zerg (including Idra) miss injection cycles... Contrary to popular belief, warpgate micro for toss is a pain because you have to switch screens and lose your current selection which always multiples your actions per minute.
They could then talk about possible solutions... Auto-inject for queens? Hatchery icons (like the warpgate icon) where each hatchery changes a color when it can support more larvae. Auto-cb (where you 'rally' it to a building with a shift option for multiple 'rallies'/auto CB's)...a higher energy cap, so players don't get burned as much for getting energy blocked...maybe the key combo ALT-CB extends your chrono-boost for twice the time but cost twice the energy...perhaps even stackable CB's? To alleviate warp-gate APM (fellow toss know what I'm talking about) it would be nice if buildings could auto-append newly created units to a designated control group (so say my selected stargate automatically adds my new voids/phoenixes to say ctrl-group 3 which saves a TON on APM)...being able to warp units onto the mini-map would be cool too. Should overlords get their own rally option? Should creep tumors have an-auto spawn ability (just shift queue a highway destination and the tumors go into auto-cancer mode)? People forget how big APM is when it comes to discussions on race balance.
The format of this show would work better as a pod cast.
If they continue to to use a video format they can do a few things to improve the production value:
less head room
this is an uncomfortable amount of head room
this is an example of better framing
edit down the content
50+ minutes of content is a lot, especially during one continuous shot. I like how they broke the show up into two sections this time. unfortunately their opinions get lost in the overwhelming amount of content. Instead of talking for a hour using only train of thought as a guide why not make shorter videos with specific ideas.
add an extra camera
point one at Artosis and point the other at Idra. with two cameras you have the ability to edit a conversation and improve viewer engagement with shot reverse shot. With an extra camera you don't need someone to babysit the cameras; this show can stay a two man show.
"Artosis, how do you feel about vanilla ice cream?"
"You have no right to ask me about Vanilla ice cream..."
"Sorry to upset you, may we hi five?"
"kay"
On February 11 2011 10:48 wonderwall wrote: Perhaps it might be a better idea to turn it into a podcast. At the moment there is no distinct visual medium which requires the use of video. If you perhaps cut away to replays illustrating what you are saying it might improve the video medium.
As a simple example take the colossus episode.
Talk about the problem with corruptor's where either you kill all the colossi but you don't have a ground army left over and instead just have 10 corruptors wiggling about. *Show a replay of this happening in a PvZ engagement at high food with Artosis and Idra talking over it*
Or the problem where your corruptors just evaporate instantly and your ground army gets murdered by colossi. *Show a replay of this happening in a PvZ engagement at high food with artosis and idra talking over it*
These are just a few suggestions to cheaply improve the show.
Artosis you are absolutely the man. It's about time somebody addressed the almost taboo subject of balance. It's all over the forums, and there's a lot of bronze QQ, and complete silence from the players who really know what they are doing for fear of sounding like the bronze QQers.
It is amazing that you are being so professional about this show, and finally there is a place for truly top caliber players to make their opinions known in a productive manner. I know there are some people who are mindless dissenters, but rest assured that you can safely ignore them. The rest of us know you are not just QQing, this is something much deeper and more important.
On top of that the show is actually very educational about the mindset of the best players in the world about the structure of the game, which is something I have not seen anywhere else. Keep it up!
On February 11 2011 08:39 DaBears57 wrote: No, even the best like MC still slip up. In fact, one of the games he was streaming he had full chrono on 2 nexuses at 12 sc2 minutes in.
Sometimes, keeping CB is a part of your plan, in case of rush. That's not so hard to keep nexus mana low since you want to make colossus/vr or you have 2forges.
Back to the video, i feel that MM is quite balanced, BUT MMM is an other story imo. Since you have 4 medivacs you can multi drop, and that's really more scary than any mm push.
i think the MM is OP in begining and after if your collos are down you cant do nothing with gatewy unites agenst terran.,.. with force feald 2...
i am more for soft conters then for hard conters... i think that blizz should nerf hard conters...it will made gameplay more fun to play and it will need more skill 2 play...
also if they bring back (replace hard conters) with soft it will game where you have comeback...
I have no clue how terrans are bitching about their macro being more difficult.
You dont even have to look away from your army while you're macroing. We have other buildings that produce too. Plus chrono is every bit as intensive as mules/scan if not more. -.-
Really really curious about this 1 gate FE that is so safe. Love to see a rep that i can jack this from.
Perhaps it might be a better idea to turn it into a podcast. At the moment there is no distinct visual medium which requires the use of video. If you perhaps cut away to replays illustrating what you are saying it might improve the video medium.
As a simple example take the colossus episode.
Talk about the problem with corruptor's where either you kill all the colossi but you don't have a ground army left over and instead just have 10 corruptors wiggling about. *Show a replay of this happening in a PvZ engagement at high food with Artosis and Idra talking over it*
Or the problem where your corruptors just evaporate instantly and your ground army gets murdered by colossi. *Show a replay of this happening in a PvZ engagement at high food with artosis and idra talking over it*
Perhaps it might be a better idea to turn it into a podcast. At the moment there is no distinct visual medium which requires the use of video. If you perhaps cut away to replays illustrating what you are saying it might improve the video medium.
I absolutely agree. I think these episodes could incorporate a variety of in-game footage/replays to demonstrate visually the topic at hand. It would also make the viewing experience much more satisfying.
In terms of content, once again I thought this was a really great discussion and covered, in general, the complexity of the TvP match up. I would really love to see Blizzard mess around in the PTR with terran and protoss upgrades (their accessibility to be more specific). I have to agree with Idra though, I definitely think Terran has the early game MUCH, much easier compared to Protoss, however the strength of force fields and sentry + gateway play its more than possible to deal with. I really hope though for the sake of lower level play that the difficulty between early game Terran and Protoss is addressed because, to be honest, Terran early game is the reason why 3 racks all ins are so common at lower level play (and so successful). Closing this difficulty gap could possibly be an example of Blizzard balancing SC2 for lower level play, while not significantly damaging the TvP match-up.
Interesting stuff...i've now watched it - and can't unwatch it!
So i'll say this
1) It would be really cool if you got a terran player to sit with you guys and add their input too AND it would widen the discussion.
but my main point..
2) I've always said that C.shells and stim marauders are TOO good at what they do and believe that they should have one or the other...not both! but that aside do you think that the upgrade for either stim or C.shells should be obtainable once you've built a factory or an engineering bay?
Also you know what i would love to see?...Marines only able to shoot ground and need an upgrade to shoot ground AND air!!!...yes i play Zerg lol That would help an early scouting Overlord after the ramp is blocked so there's a little less guess work :p
On February 10 2011 14:06 McMonty wrote: You guys didnt mention EMP at all. If you rely on sentry energy to hold off an attack, and a single ghost EMPs your sentries, it is game over.
You do realize that teching up to ghosts costs200 gas and 80sec of game time. Not to mention the 3 less scvs on minerals because you will probably need a second geyser to get that ghost to go with one of your pushes. This equates to 3 less marauders in your push just for that one ghost and if the sentries aren't all bunched up then you have not done as much damage as you wanted to do. You can always use it on the clumped up ground forces but since you built ghosts you have a lower marauder count making guardian shield all the more affective.
Without IdrA, the SC2 community will not be the same... for real.
By the way, I think everybody is missing the point in trying to search for one unit or one unit mix that is or not "imbalanced". The feeling of imbalance that many are facing from SC2 as something to do with timings. The tech tree is loled, everybody can tech expand in the most safe fashion (except zerg), while taking a third or a fourth, like Lalush explained us, is risky AND don't give almost anything maccro wise.
Nerfing any unit will certainly mess up any late game match up. What people need to look at is how to make certain things harder to get in the game, and others easier (mutas go out after thor drop... warpgate is too easy researched, stim shield concussive are so overpowered and come so early, and so on...).
PS: Hey Jibba, what's the music you used for yor AmerIdrA Beauty Remix, seems great.
On February 11 2011 19:23 WhiteDog wrote: Without IdrA, the SC2 community will not be the same... for real.
I second that
I know he gets loads of flak ...but to be honest he's actually one of the only ones who understands A LOT about the mechanics behind the game....just wish there was nothing said about the Beta Roach lol
hahaha now it's funny again!!! still rolfcoptering!
I'm wondering who will be the first to email them and ask: Idra how did you feel when artosis denied you the good old high five? But maybe his expression on his face tells enough
but on a serious note, people who say you need a terran and a protoss on the show really don't understand how good these guys are with their understanding of the game, just cause they both main zerg doesn't mean they don't know the other races, I mean common Artosis casts on GOMTV for godsakes, he knows all the builds even before those guys do it. So I think he knows pretty well whats good or bad in the game and what is imbalanced or not, ofc he sees things a bit more from the zerg point of view, but then again he has seen this stuff so many times that by now he knows every viable build thats out there (almost)
so please keep this in mind before ranting on about needing more people on the show, ofc that would be fun but it isnt mandatory.
Also I believe that in most levels below pro (also in masters etc me being a 2800 master) the mechanics and the relative ease of use of the terran army make terran a real strong race, I play terran on a friends account and im not yet very good at it but im starting to learn more and more of the race and I feel the mech path is really really strong (might call it imba) and with the MMM combo the dropping is so ridicelously strong from time to time, hey my opponent has 3 base --> lets drop in all three keep them hotkeyed Stim and snipe nexus or mineral line. GG
I play alot of random so i know the most sorrow of all the races, I hate 4gate toss i hate MMM terran I hate Hydra/Roach timing zerg. Its all part of the game, and most match-ups feel pretty even. Ofc there are maps that do suck (steppes of war terran anyone ?!)
It appears that Idra needs to get some facts straight. At 20 mins he states that ling speed has a really long build time as has burrow and he also states that stim has a really short build time.
On February 11 2011 21:36 Thrombozyt wrote: Then they follow up with the 1 rax marauder expand that is soooo safe. Look at how much terran has to invest to stop a 4gate or 3gate void/robo.
yeah, but they win the game if they do. and its not really difficult to win against the 4gate, 3gate robo is more difficult
On February 11 2011 21:36 Thrombozyt wrote: It appears that Idra needs to get some facts straight. At 20 mins he states that ling speed has a really long build time as has burrow and he also states that stim has a really short build time.
Then they follow up with the 1 rax marauder expand that is soooo safe. Look at how much terran has to invest to stop a 4gate or 3gate void/robo.
Also: Good forcefield makes gateway units come ahead bio.
Talking relatively, Zergling speed is basically required to make lings useful.
Marines key upgrades can be gotten at the same time, and are incredibly powerful for the time required to get them. Stim is quite likely the best ability in the game by an incredibly large margin, requires only 100/100 and just over 2 minutes to research? There is something fundamentally wrong there.
I have played 3v3's with my buddys, I'm like 2800 Diamond but haven't laddered in awhile, my buddy is silver 1v1 and my other buddy had never played a full game before (I was just dicking around with him in customs). Him and I rolled as Terran (Because I flat out told him it was the easiest to be good) and my buddy rolled zerg. Sure enough we got rushed pretty early @6-7 minutes or so by all 3. In my drunken coaching rage, we not only managed to completely crush the Roach/Marine/Stalker push, but we crushed it badly, and that was with a bad engagement from my Zerg friend who sac'd all his lings, and my Tbuddy showing up late. I realize 3v3 isn't "competitive" but seriously, I can drunkenly coach people how to win vs. players with over 400 games played, because marines are incredibly powerful, I told him to only make marines the entire game, even when Protoss had Colossus, we rolled their face in with mass marine, the rage I got at the end was nothing short of hilarious.
Also, Forcefields required precise timing and energy, you can miss your forcefields, and if you do you will lose a lot. Terran basically has to completely overextend himself to get suckered into a force field. It is way easier to do stim micro, then sentry micro.
On February 11 2011 21:36 Thrombozyt wrote: It appears that Idra needs to get some facts straight. At 20 mins he states that ling speed has a really long build time as has burrow and he also states that stim has a really short build time.
Then they follow up with the 1 rax marauder expand that is soooo safe. Look at how much terran has to invest to stop a 4gate or 3gate void/robo.
Also: Good forcefield makes gateway units come ahead bio.
Talking relatively, Zergling speed is basically required to make lings useful.
Marines key upgrades can be gotten at the same time, and are incredibly powerful for the time required to get them. Stim is quite likely the best ability in the game by an incredibly large margin, requires only 100/100 and just over 2 minutes to research? There is something fundamentally wrong there.
I have played 3v3's with my buddys, I'm like 2800 Diamond but haven't laddered in awhile, my buddy is silver 1v1 and my other buddy had never played a full game before (I was just dicking around with him in customs). Him and I rolled as Terran (Because I flat out told him it was the easiest to be good) and my buddy rolled zerg. Sure enough we got rushed pretty early @6-7 minutes or so by all 3. In my drunken coaching rage, we not only managed to completely crush the Roach/Marine/Stalker push, but we crushed it badly, and that was with a bad engagement from my Zerg friend who sac'd all his lings, and my Tbuddy showing up late. I realize 3v3 isn't "competitive" but seriously, I can drunkenly coach people how to win vs. players with over 400 games played, because marines are incredibly powerful, I told him to only make marines the entire game, even when Protoss had Colossus, we rolled their face in with mass marine, the rage I got at the end was nothing short of hilarious.
Also, Forcefields required precise timing and energy, you can miss your forcefields, and if you do you will lose a lot. Terran basically has to completely overextend himself to get suckered into a force field. It is way easier to do stim micro, then sentry micro.
Yes your drunken anecdote of a retarded 3v3 did convince me that one of the races is totally overpowered, thanks for asking!
On February 11 2011 21:36 Thrombozyt wrote: It appears that Idra needs to get some facts straight. At 20 mins he states that ling speed has a really long build time as has burrow and he also states that stim has a really short build time.
Then they follow up with the 1 rax marauder expand that is soooo safe. Look at how much terran has to invest to stop a 4gate or 3gate void/robo.
Also: Good forcefield makes gateway units come ahead bio.
Talking relatively, Zergling speed is basically required to make lings useful.
Marines key upgrades can be gotten at the same time, and are incredibly powerful for the time required to get them. Stim is quite likely the best ability in the game by an incredibly large margin, requires only 100/100 and just over 2 minutes to research? There is something fundamentally wrong there.
I have played 3v3's with my buddys, I'm like 2800 Diamond but haven't laddered in awhile, my buddy is silver 1v1 and my other buddy had never played a full game before (I was just dicking around with him in customs). Him and I rolled as Terran (Because I flat out told him it was the easiest to be good) and my buddy rolled zerg. Sure enough we got rushed pretty early @6-7 minutes or so by all 3. In my drunken coaching rage, we not only managed to completely crush the Roach/Marine/Stalker push, but we crushed it badly, and that was with a bad engagement from my Zerg friend who sac'd all his lings, and my Tbuddy showing up late. I realize 3v3 isn't "competitive" but seriously, I can drunkenly coach people how to win vs. players with over 400 games played, because marines are incredibly powerful, I told him to only make marines the entire game, even when Protoss had Colossus, we rolled their face in with mass marine, the rage I got at the end was nothing short of hilarious.
Also, Forcefields required precise timing and energy, you can miss your forcefields, and if you do you will lose a lot. Terran basically has to completely overextend himself to get suckered into a force field. It is way easier to do stim micro, then sentry micro.
Yes your drunken anecdote of a retarded 3v3 did convince me that one of the races is totally overpowered, thanks for asking!
Easiest to be good =/= Overpowered. There is no other race in the game that you can spam your first units, take their upgrades, and literally dominate other players.
I think Terran is the most diverse, and most untapped race at the moment. Once people get even better then they are now, and can do smoother transitions out of bio and into mech or air play then we will start to see Terrans really shining.
On February 11 2011 21:36 Thrombozyt wrote: It appears that Idra needs to get some facts straight. At 20 mins he states that ling speed has a really long build time as has burrow and he also states that stim has a really short build time.
Then they follow up with the 1 rax marauder expand that is soooo safe. Look at how much terran has to invest to stop a 4gate or 3gate void/robo.
Also: Good forcefield makes gateway units come ahead bio.
The Stim/ Ling/ Burrow upgrade time is an honest mistake by him coming from ...experience with one race, i understand it
Also, as far as i know the one rax marauder can only really kill or do massive dmg if Protoss is greedy and does not make units early game. The attack, that i do, is 2 scvs 1 marine, 1 marauder. It is normal to be able to kill something...a zealot/ stalker etc as you will also lose units. It is similar to the one or 2 stalkers poke that can do a lot of dmg if you only have a few marines and no bunker.
Now this is all fine and dandy, but what about all these 1/2 base all ins protoss can do and rape you if you do 1/2 rax FE.
If you as terran decide to do 2 rauder 1 marine + reaper preasure into FE you are very likely to die to the 1 gas 4 gate.
When you have done your 1/2 rax FE you need to decide how many rax you want to go up to before teching to starport. If you tech to starport of 3 rax you are very likely to die to 3 gate robo (immortal) all in and the 2 base 6 gate all in. However if you go up to 4/5 barracks before teching to starport you are very likely to die to 3 gate robo (collusus) all in or the 2 base very fast collusus build because you are going to be too far behind in vikings and there will be a big timing window for toss.
EDIT: yes scouting helps a lot, but none the less we see this happen to terrans all the time on the pro level.
I watched and I must say the approach was a bit more reasonable this time around. looking at it as a result of minerals and thee burden of tech on protoss is an immersing approach
On February 11 2011 22:47 Armsved wrote: Now this is all fine and dandy, but what about all these 1/2 base all ins protoss can do and rape you if you do 1/2 rax FE.
If you as terran decide to do 2 rauder 1 marine + reaper preasure into FE you are very likely to die to the 1 gas 4 gate.
When you have done your 1/2 rax FE you need to decide how many rax you want to go up to before teching to starport. If you tech to starport of 3 rax you are very likely to die to 3 gate robo (immortal) all in and the 2 base 6 gate all in. However if you go up to 4/5 barracks before teching to starport you are very likely to die to 3 gate robo (collusus) all in or the 2 base very fast collusus build because you are going to be too far behind in vikings and there will be a big timing window for toss.
EDIT: yes scouting helps a lot, but none the less we see this happen to terrans all the time on the pro level.
YEA MAN, I died 1 gate FEing on steppes of war to a 4 rax. imba imba
On February 11 2011 23:02 ZeromuS wrote: I watched and I must say the approach was a bit more reasonable this time around. looking at it as a result of minerals and thee burden of tech on protoss is an immersing approach
I feel that the show is actually more about a theoretical approach to understand of the game than a balance discussion in a narrow sense.
One thing I could criticize is that Artosis keeps on opening new threads about the show. It would be more convenient if there was one thread for the whole show. That would clean up the overview and generate more attention I think.
Really enjoyed this video and keep it going IdrA and Artosis!
On February 11 2011 08:17 Consummate wrote: Apparently you missed the whole macro part of the post since only 1 of your several points are related to my post (the supply depot part).
I wasn't saying there is a problem with it, just stating that Protoss's macro mechanics are the easiest to manage.
Easiest to manage? Have you ever seen any protoss fully utilizing 3 nexus's worth of chrono and keep it down? No, even the best like MC still slip up. In fact, one of the games he was streaming he had full chrono on 2 nexuses at 12 sc2 minutes in.
honestly once u get 3 nexus up you really cant keep all the chrono down unless you constantly use on warpgates
On February 11 2011 08:17 Consummate wrote: Apparently you missed the whole macro part of the post since only 1 of your several points are related to my post (the supply depot part).
I wasn't saying there is a problem with it, just stating that Protoss's macro mechanics are the easiest to manage.
Easiest to manage? Have you ever seen any protoss fully utilizing 3 nexus's worth of chrono and keep it down? No, even the best like MC still slip up. In fact, one of the games he was streaming he had full chrono on 2 nexuses at 12 sc2 minutes in.
honestly once u get 3 nexus up you really cant keep all the chrono down unless you constantly use on warpgates
Warpgates, upgrades, more probes. There's always stuff to chrono. If keeping chrono up causes you to not use all your structures, probably too many structures.
That said, I don't see how you can argue that it is harder to manage than Inject Larva, and that's completely ignoring constant Creep Tumor which is just as vital in most situations. A bit harder than mules to be sure.
I feel that the show is actually more about a theoretical approach to understand of the game than a balance discussion in a narrow sense.
I agree, a lot of the initial confusion was that the naming of the show caused a lot of unintended obfuscation with regards to the content as their discussions are really far more substantive.
So some people have talked about auto-casting the Orbital, Queen, and Chrono Boost. I think this would not really be a great idea.
Making the queens auto cast larva injects would make zerg quite a bit easier to control. I think larva injects are actually the best marco machanic in the game if done perfectly. If done perfectly there would be just be a ton of larva (esp. in lower level games). I am a Zerg player and i think that one of the more necessary things a zerg needs to do is practice how they use their queens. When i lose a queen i start to feel very naked. The other macro mechanics, while important, can be pretty easy to catch up if you dont cast a chrono boost or drop a mule exactly when you get 50 energy because you can do it multiple times as soon as you realize it. "oh i have 100 energy, i better drop two mules (or chrono boost 2 buildings). The larva inject does not work like that since you have to wait for one to finish before doing another. So the game will punish you for not using queen energy asap where you can make up for it easily with the other races. Spreading creep is fine but do you really need more than 4 creep tumors? Anyway auto casting those things is going to make zerg much more simple to play and not have to manage their queens and just make units while spreading some creep around.
Someone mentioned APM earlier and i believe (not completely sure about this though) that Zerg requires the most APM, than Terran, then Protoss. Imo Protoss's gateway warp in allowed for a lower APM because all their main units come from one hotkey (W). While terran has to determine which buildings have what addon and build from there as well as using the factory on a different hotkey. Zerg has to manage, the larva inject, creep spread, overlord placement, and building as many units as possible since the zerg units are not as cost effective. I feel like upgrades require about the same APM for each race (maybe terran a little more cause they have air, vehicle and infantry).
But if you are going to play zerg an adjustment to the speed at which you play is needed or else your money will kinda start getting high and not have enough larva to spend it on cause of missed larva injects.
I think that zerg is getting the shaft right now (esp. in lower leagues) because it does take faster play and this takes longer to figure out. This is a relatively new game and no one is perfect with the mechanics yet. But from the GSTL we can see that Zerg players are getting alot better, im excited to see more of Losira's play personally as well as July_Zerg's improvement as he adjusts to this game. I think the pros are starting to really nail down the Zerg mechanics and after that we will start to see huge improvements in strategy through these players.
Is it just me? or do other protoss also think that PvZ is rather imbalanced or slightly broken. My main argument will be with colosuss.Im only going to compare it to SC:BW because it was such a balanced game between all 3 races. Why not go look at the answer if its right infront of you?
So... in sc:bw, anything remotely close to Colosuss was the reaver, it did a large splash damage but it was by no means any faster than a catapilar. Therefore, protoss was NOT suppose to be a mobile race. In addition, the true light shined when reaver was accompanied with the presence of shuttle, harassing between bases. [This made it exciting for the viewers as micro was very intensive] - This harass is doomed once spire goes up and soucrages fly out.
However, in SC2, i believe that colosuss was added to substitute reaver from the SC:bw. Do i think it was a good idea? Hell no. Eventhough i play Toss, I win games that im not suppose to.
Colosuss is like having a flying reaver that automatically comes with shuttle speed. It can hop on and off the cliff without any penalty to its speed. Back in SC:BW days, blizzard really had it right the first time.[ Hydra 1 supply] Zerg is suppose to swarm but as a protoss i dont feel that way anymore. If hydra and roach are given 2 supply each, which are equal to that of many ground armies of protoss, then they deserve a fair fight. If they have 200 and we have 200, give them atleast a remotely close fight that will result in either way, not just to the protoss which have 7 colosuss and 10 storms ready to engage.
My point is, the game needs to be more micro intensive, and in order to do so. Make these units harder to execute, handicap their abilities. If one unit is fast, make him weak. If the unit can hop and off the cliff, make it so that its speed is delayed for few seconds.
As of now, is see where the rage from zerg players are coming, and i feel the same way as a protoss. I want to play a game where its not just A move all time time.
If any protoss wants to come forward with their opinion, please feel free to add on.
On February 11 2011 22:47 Armsved wrote: Now this is all fine and dandy, but what about all these 1/2 base all ins protoss can do and rape you if you do 1/2 rax FE.
If you as terran decide to do 2 rauder 1 marine + reaper preasure into FE you are very likely to die to the 1 gas 4 gate.
When you have done your 1/2 rax FE you need to decide how many rax you want to go up to before teching to starport. If you tech to starport of 3 rax you are very likely to die to 3 gate robo (immortal) all in and the 2 base 6 gate all in. However if you go up to 4/5 barracks before teching to starport you are very likely to die to 3 gate robo (collusus) all in or the 2 base very fast collusus build because you are going to be too far behind in vikings and there will be a big timing window for toss.
EDIT: yes scouting helps a lot, but none the less we see this happen to terrans all the time on the pro level.
This is how I feel in TvP. I try to avoid FE as much as I can, even thou I'm a macro player. 2900 Masters.
On February 12 2011 00:24 compscidude wrote: My point is, the game needs to be more micro intensive, and in order to do so. Make these units harder to execute, handicap their abilities. If one unit is fast, make him weak. If the unit can hop and off the cliff, make it so that its speed is delayed for few seconds.
As of now, is see where the rage from zerg players are coming, and i feel the same way as a protoss. I want to play a game where its not just A move all time time.
If any protoss wants to come forward with their opinion, please feel free to add on.
I think what your saying there is right, just maybe from an angle that will make people go in the "harder = bad" corner.
I think it's about risk, reward, effort and tension. The reaver required great effort, took a good amount of risk (tech, getting sniped, slow without shuttle) while potentially gaining a huge reward if used properly. That creates tension.
These 4 points should make every unit special in its own field. An immortal fails at most of these points because once out, controlling it is like moving an oil tanker.
But at the same time 3 emps should not be the reason for your army to completely steamroll your opponent. Sentries should not allow your lategame army to come out of the battle with almost all your units left.
I think people enjoyed the MVP vs Squirtel match so much because we had our normal side attacks / harassment but multiple battles where 170+ armies clashed against each other smashing each other down to 100. And then the economy part of the game keeps being relevant and tension does not drop.
I don't get why a rush is considered not playing the game the right way. Those players may not have as much overall skill as some of the players that can play a long macro game, but if rushing is their best shot to win, more power to them in my opinion.
I suppose the general community hopes that we will reach the point where rushes don't work and only players that can play the long macro games win (especially opposed to rushes ALWAYS working), but personally, I hope there's a balance between the two - i.e. some rushes work against players who greedily work towards the long, macro game.
Other topic - as a P (vs T), sometimes throw up one cannon at the ramp in addition to a sentry, and that's been working well.
This high five thing is really funny, I guess Artosis is now a protoss at heart <3
I agree that the early marauder/marine pressure needs a lot of attention on the protoss side to stop versus the cost/risk ratio of the terran making the attack. I wouldn't mind increasing the time before terran can get consecutive shells and stim, since it's way to early compare to the other race upgrade that can deal with it (charge/blink).
Once you start playing vs zergs that really understand when you're fake pressuring and when not, and macro almost perfectly; colossi are pretty much the only way to survive midgame. They start attacking and remaxing really fast, suiciding on you army/your third base, and colossi are sort of your sole option to survive and get a 4th base up. When toss gets to 200/200 you can't win the first battle anymore as z, so you should focus on sniping colossi/void rays/sentries and getting hydra reinforcements. Most zergs really just lose because of macro mistakes, and not because voidray/colossi is supposedly imbalanced. A lot of zerg players just keep adding bases passively and don't use their midgame food advantage, unless you're macro was absolutely perfect you can't win then because the protoss just kills your amry with minimum losses and the reinforcements will be almost useless.
Too many people complain about zerg, and there is a good reason to do so. I am not biased by any means, i look at all three races equally and focus in aspects that lack each race's strength and personality.
We know that zerg is suppose to be the "swarm". They are suppose to have this gloomy and dark feeling to them. The moment you step out of your base, armies appear from all around and eat you alive.
But in SC2, this is not the case. If Blizzard decided to take a turn and introduce all these new units, why didnt they go ahead with zerg to make all 3 races more equal? Why not create a tier 2.5 unit that throws banelings ? you know where this is going.
Their best bet is to hire each prospective progamers from Korea to work with them for several months to balance the game. At this rate, blizzard wont be able to reverse some of the dramatic flaws found in the game today if this continues any longer.. Like SC2 colosuss. I play toss and i still dont like this unit. Incredible long range, incredibly faster than any zerg unit, incredibly strong, incredibly fast attack speed. No punishment for miss micro. A-attack move solves it all.
So my advice as far as balancing the game, hire progamers from Korea. As far as i know, some progammers in Korea are willing to balance the game for their own sake of enjoyment. I personally liked SC:BW better, it punished players very hard if you microed units in the wrong way, or if you didnt macro very well.
I couldnt come close to beating zerg players in SC:BW, but now, the story changed. The same player that i lost to almost 10 times in a row, i can beat him 10 times in a row.
This is the common theme in SC2, protoss is just far too easy to play and i do not like it. SC2 lacks too much micro component of the game.
yep protoss is easy, and the other races are very hard keep telling yourself that. Its tiring to read stuff like that. Protoss is pretty micro intensive if you want to be good. But maybe the whole game is to easy for you, you can beat like everyone 10 times in a row right?
In the collosus episode, the entire focus was on the 200/200 vs 200/200 army confrontation in the middle of the map. Sure, Protoss is favored in that fight, but there's so much more to the match-up. The standard Protoss opening right now is to expand off of gateways and then to tech to collosi on 2 bases. Protoss's goal is to take a third and then attack at 200/200 when he knows he's stronger, but there's a lot of game that happens between taking the natural and having 3 bases with 200/200 gateway+collosus.
For example, speed roaches with attack upgrades are just unbelievably stupidly cost-efficient against Protoss's composition until Protoss gets 3 or 4+ collosi. Zealots get kited and are bad against roaches anyway, a 75/25 roach with attack upgrades kills a 125/50 stalker (nearly twice the cost), sentries cost a ton and do virtually no damage, you can't get enough immortals if you want collosi, and 1 or 2 collosi doesn't make up the difference.
That leaves a huge timing window where Protoss's only hope of coming out close to even in any engagement is forcefields. And while forcefields are great for defending a frontal attack, they're not great for attacking (roaches choose to engage in an open area and can burrow move under forcefields to stay alive), they're bad for defending multiple positions so you can't take a third well, and they're awful for defending drops.
What this means is that Zerg holds a significant advantage between the time that Protoss expands at ~35 food and the time that Protoss hits ~150 food with 4 collosi. Zerg can abuse the roach's efficiency to take a fast third base knowing that he can safely defend with half of P's army cost, and then Zerg can get drops and/or nydus to trade roaches efficiently for stalkers, sentries and collosi. Roaches are efficient against almost everything Protoss has. Their only drawback is that they're weak at 200/200, so you need to abuse their cost efficiency to create an economic lead and then find ways to trade units so that you don't hit the 200/200 vs 200/200 problem.
This was a great watch. Nice to have non rant discussions on balance issues from people who know what they are talking about. Can't wait to see more videos. Perhaps they can have 3 people (One from each race) to have a truly balanced tribunal.
I'm really appreciating these so far. Really though invoking...I still have some trouble with early Marine/Marauder pressure, but this helped quite a bit. Very matter of fact, and *cough* professional. Keep 'em coming!
I think that you guys talked about the terran bio upgrades entirely from a protos POV and didnt discuss the terran POV of these upgrades. If suddenly stim and concussive shells were harder to obtain then aggressive/cheese protos builds such as in-base proxy gate(s) or 4 gate would be veeeeeeeeery hard to stop.
On February 12 2011 09:46 dryice135 wrote: I think that you guys talked about the terran bio upgrades entirely from a protos POV and didnt discuss the terran POV of these upgrades. If suddenly stim and concussive shells were harder to obtain then aggressive/cheese protos builds such as in-base proxy gate(s) or 4 gate would be veeeeeeeeery hard to stop.
I call BS on that. Proxy gates occur before u can even get a marauder out, and 4 gates are way later than concussive shell timing.
On February 12 2011 01:01 Arcanefrost wrote: Once you start playing vs zergs that really understand when you're fake pressuring and when not, and macro almost perfectly; colossi are pretty much the only way to survive midgame. They start attacking and remaxing really fast, suiciding on you army/your third base, and colossi are sort of your sole option to survive and get a 4th base up. When toss gets to 200/200 you can't win the first battle anymore as z, so you should focus on sniping colossi/void rays/sentries and getting hydra reinforcements. Most zergs really just lose because of macro mistakes, and not because voidray/colossi is supposedly imbalanced. A lot of zerg players just keep adding bases passively and don't use their midgame food advantage, unless you're macro was absolutely perfect you can't win then because the protoss just kills your amry with minimum losses and the reinforcements will be almost useless.
I agree to this. Also I almost never see hydra reinforcements. Imho a hydra / corruptor composition would be ideal for a zerg army. Maybe throw in some roaches in front, but honestly I think zergs are going too roach heavy against non collosus armies.
On February 12 2011 09:46 dryice135 wrote: I think that you guys talked about the terran bio upgrades entirely from a protos POV and didnt discuss the terran POV of these upgrades. If suddenly stim and concussive shells were harder to obtain then aggressive/cheese protos builds such as in-base proxy gate(s) or 4 gate would be veeeeeeeeery hard to stop.
I call BS on that. Proxy gates occur before u can even get a marauder out, and 4 gates are way later than concussive shell timing.
yes the proxy gate comes before marauders are out but the game doesnt just end there. the most common responses to proxy gate involve good simcity with 2-3 rax and getting very quick concusive shells. If we couldnt get shells very quickly then the protos would make a few stalkers and that is GG, the stalkers will micro all day against the marines and scv's.
regarding the 4 gate, if you notice the comment was regarding stim as well.stim timing is generally around 4 gate timing depending on the build.
On February 12 2011 01:01 Arcanefrost wrote: Once you start playing vs zergs that really understand when you're fake pressuring and when not, and macro almost perfectly; colossi are pretty much the only way to survive midgame. They start attacking and remaxing really fast, suiciding on you army/your third base, and colossi are sort of your sole option to survive and get a 4th base up. When toss gets to 200/200 you can't win the first battle anymore as z, so you should focus on sniping colossi/void rays/sentries and getting hydra reinforcements. Most zergs really just lose because of macro mistakes, and not because voidray/colossi is supposedly imbalanced. A lot of zerg players just keep adding bases passively and don't use their midgame food advantage, unless you're macro was absolutely perfect you can't win then because the protoss just kills your amry with minimum losses and the reinforcements will be almost useless.
I agree to this. Also I almost never see hydra reinforcements. Imho a hydra / corruptor composition would be ideal for a zerg army. Maybe throw in some roaches in front, but honestly I think zergs are going too roach heavy against non collosus armies.
Hydras are veeery slow off creep. You can't put any pressure on a protoss with hydras without commiting to the attack. There is no way to retreat with hydras off creap. With to many hydras it will be even easier for protoss to force an engagement in a very unforgiving position.
On February 12 2011 03:37 kcdc wrote: In the collosus episode, the entire focus was on the 200/200 vs 200/200 army confrontation in the middle of the map. Sure, Protoss is favored in that fight, but there's so much more to the match-up. The standard Protoss opening right now is to expand off of gateways and then to tech to collosi on 2 bases. Protoss's goal is to take a third and then attack at 200/200 when he knows he's stronger, but there's a lot of game that happens between taking the natural and having 3 bases with 200/200 gateway+collosus.
For example, speed roaches with attack upgrades are just unbelievably stupidly cost-efficient against Protoss's composition until Protoss gets 3 or 4+ collosi. Zealots get kited and are bad against roaches anyway, a 75/25 roach with attack upgrades kills a 125/50 stalker (nearly twice the cost), sentries cost a ton and do virtually no damage, you can't get enough immortals if you want collosi, and 1 or 2 collosi doesn't make up the difference.
That leaves a huge timing window where Protoss's only hope of coming out close to even in any engagement is forcefields. And while forcefields are great for defending a frontal attack, they're not great for attacking (roaches choose to engage in an open area and can burrow move under forcefields to stay alive), they're bad for defending multiple positions so you can't take a third well, and they're awful for defending drops.
What this means is that Zerg holds a significant advantage between the time that Protoss expands at ~35 food and the time that Protoss hits ~150 food with 4 collosi. Zerg can abuse the roach's efficiency to take a fast third base knowing that he can safely defend with half of P's army cost, and then Zerg can get drops and/or nydus to trade roaches efficiently for stalkers, sentries and collosi. Roaches are efficient against almost everything Protoss has. Their only drawback is that they're weak at 200/200, so you need to abuse their cost efficiency to create an economic lead and then find ways to trade units so that you don't hit the 200/200 vs 200/200 problem.
all i can say is play zerg and take advantage of this timing window, ive started to play some protoss too and even though i thought it was all pretty easy from the Z perspective, playing P is different from what i imagined.
im sure youll experience the same thing and youll come out of it with a far better understanding of the MU and what each race can do. Until then, you will, as almost every other player that only plays 1 race, hold a biased opinion of what advantages Zerg has and how difficult it is for Protoss.
I'm not so sure i agree with buffing the Archon. while i agree with Artosis that it is weak against terran, i dont agree that it isn't cost efficient. you get 2 high templar with storm or 2 dark templar to use before you combine them.
On February 12 2011 12:16 RushBoxer! wrote: I'm not so sure i agree with buffing the Archon. while i agree with Artosis that it is weak against terran, i dont agree that it isn't cost efficient. you get 2 high templar with storm or 2 dark templar to use before you combine them.
... yeah and given that in BW, you could kill Archons with Vultures which was ocmpletely sad.
On February 10 2011 11:13 infinity21 wrote: IdrA completely glossed over phoenix colo unit mix in TvP... Yes rine/viking will do just fine against phoenix harass BUT at the time of engagement, before vikings can do any significant damage, the marines will melt to a significant number of colo. Then T has to make the choice to ignore phoenix and fire at the colo which may kill off 2-4 but at the cost of air dominance. Then the phoenix will simply lift up half of your remaining marauders and clean up.
My point is, after a certain point, colo/phoenix can't be cracked with simple mmm+viking.
The only time they can ever get to this point usually is when I see them using it as a twobase allin, otherwise, I don't have a problem whatsoever with this combo. I don't know how you engage vs colossus, but I always engage, then select all my marines and pull them back so Colossus are targeting the Marauders.
All jokes aside I was sure this show was some elaborate troll, or at the very least nobody would take it seriously. Obviously I was wrong.
That aside, making mistakes about stim timing or cost or viking/phoenix range is fine, but when you base your entire logic on the fact that you know way more about the game than everyone else so what you say goes, you'd better do your research. The nonsense about Terran bio upgrades literally had me laughing hysterically at my computer. Good game!
Edit: I'm also completely convinced that Artosis started playing Protoss for the sole reason of trying to gain credibility when talking about protoss imbalance.
Haven't finished EP02 yet, but it seems too long for a 2 people discussion. May be you guys need to have a hard outline and then follow that strictly. The show is cool overall though. And the background noise from whatever animal Artosis is raising is hilarious. I guess its a guinea pig :D?
This is such a great series, can't wait for the next episode. Day[9] might hate the dirty imbalance word but when discussed by artosis and idra it leads to some very high level strategy talk. I think they should expand the show a bit and get a world class terran on there, maybe keep the 3rd person as a guest appearance thing to keep it fresh.
On February 12 2011 12:16 RushBoxer! wrote: I'm not so sure i agree with buffing the Archon. while i agree with Artosis that it is weak against terran, i dont agree that it isn't cost efficient. you get 2 high templar with storm or 2 dark templar to use before you combine them.
... yeah and given that in BW, you could kill Archons with Vultures which was ocmpletely sad.
On May 01 2008 00:36 NonY[rC] wrote: To paraphrase Grandmaster Artosis, the entirety of Terran strategy for every matchup can be summarized as waiting to get enough tanks to kill an entire army in one volley. Even the short-sighted and simple Terran players can recognize such a great imbalance. But I have to admit, having the fastest unit in the game on only the 2nd tier of tech with a short build time, that can shoot fragmentation grenades capable of vaporizing all peons, zerglings, zealots, defilers, and high and dark templar in seconds, and can even shoot these grenades backwards without losing acceleration, AND can shit out three mini-nukes that burrow into the ground only to pop out at the perfect time and seek out an enemy unit at an inescapable speed, gives siege tanks and their arclite cannons quite a run for their money.
Ah, how could I forget their cost? Let's make a list of units (excluding peons) that are cheaper than vultures: --Zergling --Marine
I watched both of these episodes all the way through. I love this show. Their discussion is very logical and insightful. Great work, and PLEASE keep making more episodes. You have inspired me to play some Starcraft 2 right now, and to think about my protoss game more throughly.
Different mechanics =/= easier mechanics protoss buildings cant fly and a nexus cant turn into a murdering infrastructure that can be mass repaired by the workers, also you cant just scan cloaked units or ur opponents base, also you cant just press a button to get more supply if your blocked what i am trying to say is the mechanics are different, each race has its own advantages
Uh, just because they are different mechanics doesn't inherently imply easier mechanics, correct, that doesn't change the fact that it can easily be the case. Different mechanics leaves open the possibility of one mechanic being easier. So far you haven't done anything to say that they're equal in difficulty, you just said what they can do. We know what they can do.
On February 10 2011 21:33 ThunderJim wrote: These two guys saying that this show is "not for those with over inflated egos" must be a new world record in irony.
There is a difference between a professional world-top player having an ego and some platinum level guy having the same ego regarding the game.
Well balance needs to be discussed more indepth overall. And by indepth I mean by people with knowledge and that bring different aspects to the discussion.
Example: I love Day9 but he's overall positive, he always tries to see the raisins in the turd. I love IdrA, but IdrA is negative, usually sees the bad stuff and sometimes makes them abit bigger than they are, or just gives up about it.
I'd like discussions to be had. Problem is, giving it open space like this and naming it "IMBALANCE" will bring shitloads of bad attention from the trolls.
On a side note, the whole video loaded for me and I scrolled the player from left to right. You see Idra just turn his head a few times but artosis is all moving his hands and it makes it seem like hes the only one talking lol. I have confirmed it.... artosis is the one talking 90% of the time. Interesting lol.
should forcefield need to be researched at the CBC for say... 100/100?
edi: just got a new idea, what if FFs were affected by the psychics of units. if a group of units is pushing against a FF, the FF will move accordingly.
On February 12 2011 02:55 compscidude wrote: But in SC2, this is not the case. If Blizzard decided to take a turn and introduce all these new units, why didnt they go ahead with zerg to make all 3 races more equal?
Yes, why didn't Blizzard make all three wildly different races perfectly balanced right out of the box?
Sure, that's never been done before by any game (SC1 took years to balance), but the only reason Blizzard's not doing it now is because they are less wise than we, right?
You chose to mention a lot of ridiculously outrageous balance statements such as Colossi having frienly fire damage to make it like your biased opinions were not pro-Zerg...
Particulary, you didn't discuss about speed-roaches, which I think is the real reason why Colossi+sentries have been made that good. Speed roaches cost 75-25, an immortal 250-100, so you have 4 roaches for 1 immortal, but let me tell you that 5 immortals barely holds, if it holds I'm not even sure, 20 well micro-ed speed roaches, even though immortals are supposed to be the hard counter of them and suck against every other single Zerg units exept Ultras, and even though Zerg is usually economically ahead in this MU since their units are so called "not cost efficient" ! So instead of 20 roaches against 5 immortals it would more likely be something like 25-30 speed roaches against Immortals or 20 speed roaches + 15-20 Zerglings thus the immortals would be wrecked ! And storm isn't particulary efficient against speed roaches/zerglings... let's not even mention the gaz issue since immortals/HT are both gaz-costy units and only work well with sentries (also costing a lot of gaz), thus the strategy would require a third base, even though ht/immortals in small numbers wouldn't be able to repell any serious Zerg assault...
This is why the unit composition you portraid as an alternative to Colossi/stalkers : immortals/HT wouldn't work, and this is why any nerf to colossi would basically force the Protoss players to go all-in all the time.
On February 12 2011 17:24 Krehlmar wrote: I'd like discussions to be had. Problem is, giving it open space like this and naming it "IMBALANCE" will bring shitloads of bad attention from the trolls.
I actually think the name of the show is rather interesting! I feel that you can view the name as a form of sarcasm at the people who cry "IMBALANCE!" whenever they cannot deal with a match up or a specific set of units or strategy. Nonetheless, I agree that the name is a troll magnet and I really pity Greg and Dan for having to weed through all the senseless and useless posts made.
On February 11 2011 00:32 the p00n wrote: Please discuss why 'random race' is unfair for other players, and the extent to which it is unfair - should it be changed?
The reason I'm asking is because it forces standard play out of your opponent if you go random race, denying race-specific builds such as forge expands on shakuras plateau PvZ, or perhaps 11gas 13rax reactor hellions TvZ, It does not deny such builds for the random player.
I have also sent an e-mail about this.
Randomrace is not imbalanced, it requires the random-player to know all 3 races well, while the opponent only have to be good at playing his main-race. I think this negates the advantage of playing random pretty much, and any ways, you really should scout early vs random.
What I think IS unfair is playing random in a tournament and then suddenly for the later stages setting on a specific race, especially in a set of games, say a bo5 where you play random at first and then decide on one race in the later games if the earlier ones go bad.
In that case the random player can choose to have all the benefits of beeing random, and the moment he meets an opponent good enough to punish him if he gets one of his "lesser"-races, he can negate that disadvantage by choosing his best race.
I dont like that; although I dont see it as a big problem.
Artosis, I played you on ladder today. The 3 main mistakes I made was A. Waited 1.5 min after getting 200/200 to attack, B. I didn't get hive fast enough, C. when I engaged, I engaged in a closed corriter (forced too.....?).
I know I should have gotten brood lords, but does being FORCED to make brood lords versus a protoss composition the only way to play ZvP?
On February 12 2011 21:46 L.F.Haunt wrote: should forcefield need to be researched at the CBC for say... 100/100?
I don't think that would solve the problem. I think what forcefield needs is to either have its size reduced by about 50% or so, have its mana cost increased, have the sentry max mana pool decreased, or have forcefields be killable.
#1 It's obvious that they don't play terran, with colossi + phoenix being fine just by "the vikings can just stand under the rines and be covered from there". I don't really think colossi+phoenix is imba/too strong in TvP, but the vikings can most certainly not just hide under the rines. The reason why terran requires vikings is to kill/reduce the number/soften the colossi before the fight aswell as kite the toss while the vikings handle the colossi.
#2 It'd be interested to get the corruption spell back on the corruptor. It'd still prob need to be nerfed a bit, since the duration is pretty long, but still... Dunno though, good idea atleast.
#3 I don't really see the issue with ultra vs zlot, you have blings... Immos are prob a bigger deal, but to me, ultras really aren't an issue, rather the colossi.
#4 With dropping on colossi that have friendly fire on, I don't really see anything wrong with it... I mean the colossi can actually move, so drops will be a lot harder to pull off and stalkers can keep sniping the ovies while they are moving over(for terran, drops would be pretty suicidal) and make it cost the opponent a ton more than the FF would do. Still dont really think the colossi needs to do friendly fire to balance it.
#5 bigger maps > 1 rax rauder expand... In any case, I don't really see the issue with it, you can counter it if you are ready for it.
#6 sentry = awesome. I really don't think it's smart to be asking a zerg player about Tvp :/ I mean it's disgusting how good sentry is at stopping rine/rauder aggression(before toss expos) Also about MCs playstyle, i feel they kind of ignore that if the attack isn't going well enough, you can retreat and with 10 sentries, you can still get those forcefields back really fast, a new forcefield every 10 seconds. I mean if the terran holds his attacks off, he's most likely MMM, so those forcefields will still be painful.
TL:DR I think TvP really is fine. It'd still make the MU a lot more fun if they nerfed MMM a bit and buffed mech to compensate(or nerfed hts somehow).
I really like the discussions so far, especially the part about tvp switching roles from bw. That offers some new perspective, and is making me think that the mu could really evolve from here into something much more dynamic than it is now. Being able (as t) to play both the attacking and defending roles early game gives them tons of options, but if it is balanced well i hope we will see a lot of build diversity
On February 13 2011 04:20 Sicky wrote: The show is really promising. What annoys me as that this might get less views than a crappy H to the usky Husky god awful videos. Keep it up though!
On February 12 2011 03:37 kcdc wrote: In the collosus episode, the entire focus was on the 200/200 vs 200/200 army confrontation in the middle of the map. Sure, Protoss is favored in that fight, but there's so much more to the match-up. The standard Protoss opening right now is to expand off of gateways and then to tech to collosi on 2 bases. Protoss's goal is to take a third and then attack at 200/200 when he knows he's stronger, but there's a lot of game that happens between taking the natural and having 3 bases with 200/200 gateway+collosus.
For example, speed roaches with attack upgrades are just unbelievably stupidly cost-efficient against Protoss's composition until Protoss gets 3 or 4+ collosi. Zealots get kited and are bad against roaches anyway, a 75/25 roach with attack upgrades kills a 125/50 stalker (nearly twice the cost), sentries cost a ton and do virtually no damage, you can't get enough immortals if you want collosi, and 1 or 2 collosi doesn't make up the difference.
That leaves a huge timing window where Protoss's only hope of coming out close to even in any engagement is forcefields. And while forcefields are great for defending a frontal attack, they're not great for attacking (roaches choose to engage in an open area and can burrow move under forcefields to stay alive), they're bad for defending multiple positions so you can't take a third well, and they're awful for defending drops.
What this means is that Zerg holds a significant advantage between the time that Protoss expands at ~35 food and the time that Protoss hits ~150 food with 4 collosi. Zerg can abuse the roach's efficiency to take a fast third base knowing that he can safely defend with half of P's army cost, and then Zerg can get drops and/or nydus to trade roaches efficiently for stalkers, sentries and collosi. Roaches are efficient against almost everything Protoss has. Their only drawback is that they're weak at 200/200, so you need to abuse their cost efficiency to create an economic lead and then find ways to trade units so that you don't hit the 200/200 vs 200/200 problem.
all i can say is play zerg and take advantage of this timing window, ive started to play some protoss too and even though i thought it was all pretty easy from the Z perspective, playing P is different from what i imagined.
im sure youll experience the same thing and youll come out of it with a far better understanding of the MU and what each race can do. Until then, you will, as almost every other player that only plays 1 race, hold a biased opinion of what advantages Zerg has and how difficult it is for Protoss.
I've played a good bit of Zerg. I'd probably be low Masters level with Zerg overall, but my ZvP was much better than my ZvZ and ZvT.
LOLz. This is hilarious. I think its great that you thought to make this video about Idra's disappointment, after all of the serious content they talk about. Please keep making stuff like this.
cat ruined this episode...i couldnt listen wholl time all those noises...
also i dont agree with idra simply you cant go out of base if terran comes with mm stimed...+terran can expends at that time....
all those upgreads comes to early simly stim pack ,shilds,slow granades...to meny upgreads..
and stim in beginign early game and late game is too good.. but hope blizz wil eventualy fix it..
also buff some mech simply mid and late game terran sucks hard...on larger maps they cant do nothing...they are broken.. (maby ravens difense drone buff will do good for terrans late game..)
On February 10 2011 11:13 infinity21 wrote: IdrA completely glossed over phoenix colo unit mix in TvP... Yes rine/viking will do just fine against phoenix harass BUT at the time of engagement, before vikings can do any significant damage, the marines will melt to a significant number of colo. Then T has to make the choice to ignore phoenix and fire at the colo which may kill off 2-4 but at the cost of air dominance. Then the phoenix will simply lift up half of your remaining marauders and clean up.
My point is, after a certain point, colo/phoenix can't be cracked with simple mmm+viking.
there is a unit called a THOR that does aoe dps that has a + dmg modifier to light i would suggest you use it.. But yea, emp the pheonix works too just don't think 1 dimensionally you have to tools to deal with it so i would suggest you use them. Btw pheonix can't lift with 0 energy i hope this hints at what i suggest...
On February 12 2011 00:13 TheXenocide1 wrote: So some people have talked about auto-casting the Orbital, Queen, and Chrono Boost. I think this would not really be a great idea.
Do these people realize the sole addition of these mechanics was to make the player have more to do? Blizzard reacted to feedback saying it was overall too easy macro so added these features. If you made them autocast you might as well just remove them, because the whole fucking point is, that its extra work.
I think you guys would have had a warmer welcome if you had made this your first show instead of QQ ing about zerg being under powered. Since you neither of you play T or P(yes I know Artosis played P one time) you are able to sound much more objective, and objectivity is what people want in such a charged up conversation.
Pretty fair analysis, lets see if you can keep it up. I bet you can't.
On February 13 2011 16:30 Rabbet wrote: I think you guys would have had a warmer welcome if you had made this your first show instead of QQ ing about zerg being under powered. Since you neither of you play T or P(yes I know Artosis played P one time) you are able to sound much more objective, and objectivity is what people want in such a charged up conversation.
Pretty fair analysis, lets see if you can keep it up. I bet you can't.
Hostile much? Do you think these players aren't able to analyze their own race, that they play the most of, objectively - especially considering Artosis has been playing more and more of protoss lately - considering they've been indepth with starcraft 1 and 2 for so long? And it wasn't a huge QQ fest if you actually watched the whole thing - rather it was a critical opinion on the current state of the game and their interactions with it - giving a supported opinion isn't the equivalent of QQing.
I think these players can review whatever aspects of the game and still have merit in their opinion.
On February 10 2011 14:37 xbankx wrote: Any terran saying bio with stim is not good versus toss due to forcefield is just not looking at the reality. Personally as a toss, I would like stim mm to be weaker in early game example: make stim factory required upgrade or cost more(like 200/200) or require another building like EE bay to build it. This way the stim timing comes a lot later. However, as a toss player I recognize late game TvP is almost unplayable unless you can somehow secretly go BC and get like 5 of them without toss noticing or are like 2-3 bases ahead of toss due to temp warpin. My suggestion is to make templar amulet more expansive(like 250/250 and increase gas cost of temps to 200 instead of 150. This way toss can't freely spam high temps+immortals as soon as he reach 3 bases but would require 4-5.
Okay, what's the reality? FF is very strong, and makes it possible to just hulk smash bio stim or no stim. There is no question of that. Delaying stim would most likely just kill terrans. It's not hard to kill bio without stim, and this is so that we cannot use a timing attack that's still easily defendable if you realize it's coming. Sure 3 rax is a strong push, but tbh I can't use 3 rax past mid diamond because players just kill me when I do it. I may not be MKP, but my micro isn't too shabby. So in return you give HTs a slight nerf so that people will just choose to collosus first always and HT second?
I really liked IdrA's statement that stim's strong in the lower levels but at a certain point it's nullified.
have anyone mentioned bunkers + salvage yet or is it just me that think salvage is a BS mechanic and needs to be removed entirely?
you can build 3 to 4 bunkers to wall off a fast expanding zerg at no cost or risk at all. the 400 minerals u invested in the bunkers can be 100% refunded as if it never happened. in SC1 you could do the exact same thing but there was a cost/risk on the terran player for doing it. its fucking ridiculous.
now i dont have a problem with terran building so many bunkers to stop a fast expand. what i DO have a problem with is that w/e money they invest into the bunkers is refunded in full, making the bunker rush basically free. THATS what i have a problem with. once the bunker rush is done they can salvage the 3-4 bunkers and immediately expand or build extra barracks/w/e.
not only does this stop a fast expand zerg in there tracks but it forces extra units just to break it. and again, there is no lost on the terrans part unless he actually forgets to salvage. can ANYONE explain to me why salvage exist in this game? having 100% of ur money refunded for ANY structure in a RTS game like this is ridiculous.
im a zerg player that highly favors fast expand builds as zerg. now it may sound like QQ but again, i dont have a problem with the bunker rush itself. what SHOULD happen is terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand zerg and that would bring them about event. but what happens instead is a terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand, salvages the bunkers, gets 200-400 minerals BACK as a refund, and the terran player is now a head by a LARGE margin.
i honestly do not think that shit is fair seriously. and the fact that these maps are so small and the rush distances are so short makes these kinds of things a no brainer.
Take Colossus out, bring reaver back. Reaver is slow and hard to control while colosus is an uninteresting 1-a unit. Either that, or limit the number of colossus that can be built in a game to 4 or 5.
On February 14 2011 01:52 Ballistixz wrote: have anyone mentioned bunkers + salvage yet or is it just me that think salvage is a BS mechanic and needs to be removed entirely?
you can build 3 to 4 bunkers to wall off a fast expanding zerg at no cost or risk at all. the 400 minerals u invested in the bunkers can be 100% refunded as if it never happened. in SC1 you could do the exact same thing but there was a cost/risk on the terran player for doing it. its fucking ridiculous.
now i dont have a problem with terran building so many bunkers to stop a fast expand. what i DO have a problem with is that w/e money they invest into the bunkers is refunded in full, making the bunker rush basically free. THATS what i have a problem with. once the bunker rush is done they can salvage the 3-4 bunkers and immediately expand or build extra barracks/w/e.
not only does this stop a fast expand zerg in there tracks but it forces extra units just to break it. and again, there is no lost on the terrans part unless he actually forgets to salvage. can ANYONE explain to me why salvage exist in this game? having 100% of ur money refunded for ANY structure in a RTS game like this is ridiculous.
im a zerg player that highly favors fast expand builds as zerg. now it may sound like QQ but again, i dont have a problem with the bunker rush itself. what SHOULD happen is terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand zerg and that would bring them about event. but what happens instead is a terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand, salvages the bunkers, gets 200-400 minerals BACK as a refund, and the terran player is now a head by a LARGE margin.
i honestly do not think that shit is fair seriously. and the fact that these maps are so small and the rush distances are so short makes these kinds of things a no brainer.
Spoilered for length. Let's take a step back from bunkers and take a peak at all of the defensive structures. So there's the spine crawler, spore, photon cannon and bunker. Spine Crawler: can attack ground, can't attack air but can move which is key. Spore is the same just it can attack air. Photon cannon: can attack both air and ground but cannot move. Bunker: doesn't do anything until I put anywhere between 50-200 minerals of units at least and 1-4 food and doesn't give them any bonuses past the additional overall 400 HP. Salvage was designed to give bunkers movement akin to spine crawlers. I can salvage one, and move it forward. Part of the reason I can salvage it is also it's absolutely worthless unless I put units into it which costs money and food. Please go back to the o-boards where I first read this whine. Being greedy and getting punished for it is how the game works.
The loss by the way is in the inital investment. If bunkers were free, I could just expand right then and there while killing you. I'm delaying my tech, my units, my expansion by pressuring you and forcing you to delay yours. It's also entirely possible to catch a bunker rush and destroy it if you defend it properly. Watch 12 weeks with the pros on 2 rax.
On February 14 2011 01:52 Ballistixz wrote: have anyone mentioned bunkers + salvage yet or is it just me that think salvage is a BS mechanic and needs to be removed entirely?
you can build 3 to 4 bunkers to wall off a fast expanding zerg at no cost or risk at all. the 400 minerals u invested in the bunkers can be 100% refunded as if it never happened. in SC1 you could do the exact same thing but there was a cost/risk on the terran player for doing it. its fucking ridiculous.
now i dont have a problem with terran building so many bunkers to stop a fast expand. what i DO have a problem with is that w/e money they invest into the bunkers is refunded in full, making the bunker rush basically free. THATS what i have a problem with. once the bunker rush is done they can salvage the 3-4 bunkers and immediately expand or build extra barracks/w/e.
not only does this stop a fast expand zerg in there tracks but it forces extra units just to break it. and again, there is no lost on the terrans part unless he actually forgets to salvage. can ANYONE explain to me why salvage exist in this game? having 100% of ur money refunded for ANY structure in a RTS game like this is ridiculous.
im a zerg player that highly favors fast expand builds as zerg. now it may sound like QQ but again, i dont have a problem with the bunker rush itself. what SHOULD happen is terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand zerg and that would bring them about event. but what happens instead is a terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand, salvages the bunkers, gets 200-400 minerals BACK as a refund, and the terran player is now a head by a LARGE margin.
i honestly do not think that shit is fair seriously. and the fact that these maps are so small and the rush distances are so short makes these kinds of things a no brainer.
Spoilered for length. Let's take a step back from bunkers and take a peak at all of the defensive structures. So there's the spine crawler, spore, photon cannon and bunker. Spine Crawler: can attack ground, can't attack air but can move which is key. Spore is the same just it can attack air. Photon cannon: can attack both air and ground but cannot move. Bunker: doesn't do anything until I put anywhere between 50-200 minerals of units at least and 1-4 food and doesn't give them any bonuses past the additional overall 400 HP. Salvage was designed to give bunkers movement akin to spine crawlers. I can salvage one, and move it forward. Part of the reason I can salvage it is also it's absolutely worthless unless I put units into it which costs money and food. Please go back to the o-boards where I first read this whine. Being greedy and getting punished for it is how the game works.
The loss by the way is in the inital investment. If bunkers were free, I could just expand right then and there while killing you. I'm delaying my tech, my units, my expansion by pressuring you and forcing you to delay yours. It's also entirely possible to catch a bunker rush and destroy it if you defend it properly. Watch 12 weeks with the pros on 2 rax.
Without question the new terran mechanic is the largest upgrade compared with BW. Protoss didn't get a real upgrade in cannon mechanic (although they do have defensive warpgate mechanic), zergs moving spines is useful, but risky, but the unit itself is not as good. and Terrans is a clear 100% improvment both in that there are better units to put in it (reaper, marauder), but also in it's salvage. Don't talk about additional investment because 1 bunker >> 1 spine or one cannon and can be repaired to increase it's effectiveness. This isn't a balance whine, the game can still be balanced with different mechanics, but bunkers are BETTER than spines or cannons without question and if you don't think so, you probably never built a bunker in BW or watched a replay in SC2 where a protoss player destroyed his own cannon to move out.
On February 14 2011 01:52 Ballistixz wrote: have anyone mentioned bunkers + salvage yet or is it just me that think salvage is a BS mechanic and needs to be removed entirely?
you can build 3 to 4 bunkers to wall off a fast expanding zerg at no cost or risk at all. the 400 minerals u invested in the bunkers can be 100% refunded as if it never happened. in SC1 you could do the exact same thing but there was a cost/risk on the terran player for doing it. its fucking ridiculous.
now i dont have a problem with terran building so many bunkers to stop a fast expand. what i DO have a problem with is that w/e money they invest into the bunkers is refunded in full, making the bunker rush basically free. THATS what i have a problem with. once the bunker rush is done they can salvage the 3-4 bunkers and immediately expand or build extra barracks/w/e.
not only does this stop a fast expand zerg in there tracks but it forces extra units just to break it. and again, there is no lost on the terrans part unless he actually forgets to salvage. can ANYONE explain to me why salvage exist in this game? having 100% of ur money refunded for ANY structure in a RTS game like this is ridiculous.
im a zerg player that highly favors fast expand builds as zerg. now it may sound like QQ but again, i dont have a problem with the bunker rush itself. what SHOULD happen is terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand zerg and that would bring them about event. but what happens instead is a terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand, salvages the bunkers, gets 200-400 minerals BACK as a refund, and the terran player is now a head by a LARGE margin.
i honestly do not think that shit is fair seriously. and the fact that these maps are so small and the rush distances are so short makes these kinds of things a no brainer.
Spoilered for length. Let's take a step back from bunkers and take a peak at all of the defensive structures. So there's the spine crawler, spore, photon cannon and bunker. Spine Crawler: can attack ground, can't attack air but can move which is key. Spore is the same just it can attack air. Photon cannon: can attack both air and ground but cannot move. Bunker: doesn't do anything until I put anywhere between 50-200 minerals of units at least and 1-4 food and doesn't give them any bonuses past the additional overall 400 HP. Salvage was designed to give bunkers movement akin to spine crawlers. I can salvage one, and move it forward. Part of the reason I can salvage it is also it's absolutely worthless unless I put units into it which costs money and food. Please go back to the o-boards where I first read this whine. Being greedy and getting punished for it is how the game works.
The loss by the way is in the inital investment. If bunkers were free, I could just expand right then and there while killing you. I'm delaying my tech, my units, my expansion by pressuring you and forcing you to delay yours. It's also entirely possible to catch a bunker rush and destroy it if you defend it properly. Watch 12 weeks with the pros on 2 rax.
Without question the new terran mechanic is the largest upgrade compared with BW. Protoss didn't get a real upgrade in cannon mechanic (although they do have defensive warpgate mechanic), zergs moving spines is useful, but risky, but the unit itself is not as good. and Terrans is a clear 100% improvment both in that there are better units to put in it (reaper, marauder), but also in it's salvage. Don't talk about additional investment because 1 bunker >> 1 spine or one cannon and can be repaired to increase it's effectiveness. This isn't a balance whine, the game can still be balanced with different mechanics, but bunkers are BETTER than spines or cannons without question and if you don't think so, you probably never built a bunker in BW or watched a replay in SC2 where a protoss player destroyed his own cannon to move out.
Yes bunkers have the potential to be the best of the 3. But you're completely forgetting cost. I'm putting 300 minerals (or 300 min 50 gas/300 min 200 gas) and 4 food into one bunker vs 100 minerals in a spine. Plus it's an offensive bunker. For it to be in range you can already have a spine done. It's the only defense of the 3 that costs food. I'm not trying to say that bunkers are bad. I'm saying people whine about bunkers being this overwhelming thing, but forget what it takes to go into a bunker and what it takes out of the terran player.
On February 14 2011 01:52 Ballistixz wrote: have anyone mentioned bunkers + salvage yet or is it just me that think salvage is a BS mechanic and needs to be removed entirely?
you can build 3 to 4 bunkers to wall off a fast expanding zerg at no cost or risk at all. the 400 minerals u invested in the bunkers can be 100% refunded as if it never happened. in SC1 you could do the exact same thing but there was a cost/risk on the terran player for doing it. its fucking ridiculous.
now i dont have a problem with terran building so many bunkers to stop a fast expand. what i DO have a problem with is that w/e money they invest into the bunkers is refunded in full, making the bunker rush basically free. THATS what i have a problem with. once the bunker rush is done they can salvage the 3-4 bunkers and immediately expand or build extra barracks/w/e.
not only does this stop a fast expand zerg in there tracks but it forces extra units just to break it. and again, there is no lost on the terrans part unless he actually forgets to salvage. can ANYONE explain to me why salvage exist in this game? having 100% of ur money refunded for ANY structure in a RTS game like this is ridiculous.
im a zerg player that highly favors fast expand builds as zerg. now it may sound like QQ but again, i dont have a problem with the bunker rush itself. what SHOULD happen is terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand zerg and that would bring them about event. but what happens instead is a terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand, salvages the bunkers, gets 200-400 minerals BACK as a refund, and the terran player is now a head by a LARGE margin.
i honestly do not think that shit is fair seriously. and the fact that these maps are so small and the rush distances are so short makes these kinds of things a no brainer.
Spoilered for length. Let's take a step back from bunkers and take a peak at all of the defensive structures. So there's the spine crawler, spore, photon cannon and bunker. Spine Crawler: can attack ground, can't attack air but can move which is key. Spore is the same just it can attack air. Photon cannon: can attack both air and ground but cannot move. Bunker: doesn't do anything until I put anywhere between 50-200 minerals of units at least and 1-4 food and doesn't give them any bonuses past the additional overall 400 HP. Salvage was designed to give bunkers movement akin to spine crawlers. I can salvage one, and move it forward. Part of the reason I can salvage it is also it's absolutely worthless unless I put units into it which costs money and food. Please go back to the o-boards where I first read this whine. Being greedy and getting punished for it is how the game works.
The loss by the way is in the inital investment. If bunkers were free, I could just expand right then and there while killing you. I'm delaying my tech, my units, my expansion by pressuring you and forcing you to delay yours. It's also entirely possible to catch a bunker rush and destroy it if you defend it properly. Watch 12 weeks with the pros on 2 rax.
Without question the new terran mechanic is the largest upgrade compared with BW. Protoss didn't get a real upgrade in cannon mechanic (although they do have defensive warpgate mechanic), zergs moving spines is useful, but risky, but the unit itself is not as good. and Terrans is a clear 100% improvment both in that there are better units to put in it (reaper, marauder), but also in it's salvage. Don't talk about additional investment because 1 bunker >> 1 spine or one cannon and can be repaired to increase it's effectiveness. This isn't a balance whine, the game can still be balanced with different mechanics, but bunkers are BETTER than spines or cannons without question and if you don't think so, you probably never built a bunker in BW or watched a replay in SC2 where a protoss player destroyed his own cannon to move out.
Yes bunkers have the potential to be the best of the 3. But you're completely forgetting cost. I'm putting 300 minerals (or 300 min 50 gas/300 min 200 gas) and 4 food into one bunker vs 100 minerals in a spine. Plus it's an offensive bunker. For it to be in range you can already have a spine done. It's the only defense of the 3 that costs food. I'm not trying to say that bunkers are bad. I'm saying people whine about bunkers being this overwhelming thing, but forget what it takes to go into a bunker and what it takes out of the terran player.
Why do you think that putting units in is a bad thing?
Bunkers take units that you already have and makes them stronger, then they can be salvaged to get their money back once their advantage wears off and placed again somewhere else where they are more advantageous.
Cannons don't make your current units any stronger, they are just an additional stalker that can't move. They don't help your army at all after the brief period where terran attacks.
The only time cannons pull ahead of bunkers is when you have multiple spread out bases that can be defended without having your army there. But even still you need 10+ cannons because of the size of your opponents army at that point in the game. Thats a 1500 mineral investment that may never pay off if your opponent decides to ignore the expansion.
Bunkers are never a bad investment, that's what makes them so strong.
On February 14 2011 01:52 Ballistixz wrote: have anyone mentioned bunkers + salvage yet or is it just me that think salvage is a BS mechanic and needs to be removed entirely?
you can build 3 to 4 bunkers to wall off a fast expanding zerg at no cost or risk at all. the 400 minerals u invested in the bunkers can be 100% refunded as if it never happened. in SC1 you could do the exact same thing but there was a cost/risk on the terran player for doing it. its fucking ridiculous.
now i dont have a problem with terran building so many bunkers to stop a fast expand. what i DO have a problem with is that w/e money they invest into the bunkers is refunded in full, making the bunker rush basically free. THATS what i have a problem with. once the bunker rush is done they can salvage the 3-4 bunkers and immediately expand or build extra barracks/w/e.
not only does this stop a fast expand zerg in there tracks but it forces extra units just to break it. and again, there is no lost on the terrans part unless he actually forgets to salvage. can ANYONE explain to me why salvage exist in this game? having 100% of ur money refunded for ANY structure in a RTS game like this is ridiculous.
im a zerg player that highly favors fast expand builds as zerg. now it may sound like QQ but again, i dont have a problem with the bunker rush itself. what SHOULD happen is terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand zerg and that would bring them about event. but what happens instead is a terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand, salvages the bunkers, gets 200-400 minerals BACK as a refund, and the terran player is now a head by a LARGE margin.
i honestly do not think that shit is fair seriously. and the fact that these maps are so small and the rush distances are so short makes these kinds of things a no brainer.
Spoilered for length. Let's take a step back from bunkers and take a peak at all of the defensive structures. So there's the spine crawler, spore, photon cannon and bunker. Spine Crawler: can attack ground, can't attack air but can move which is key. Spore is the same just it can attack air. Photon cannon: can attack both air and ground but cannot move. Bunker: doesn't do anything until I put anywhere between 50-200 minerals of units at least and 1-4 food and doesn't give them any bonuses past the additional overall 400 HP. Salvage was designed to give bunkers movement akin to spine crawlers. I can salvage one, and move it forward. Part of the reason I can salvage it is also it's absolutely worthless unless I put units into it which costs money and food. Please go back to the o-boards where I first read this whine. Being greedy and getting punished for it is how the game works.
The loss by the way is in the inital investment. If bunkers were free, I could just expand right then and there while killing you. I'm delaying my tech, my units, my expansion by pressuring you and forcing you to delay yours. It's also entirely possible to catch a bunker rush and destroy it if you defend it properly. Watch 12 weeks with the pros on 2 rax.
Without question the new terran mechanic is the largest upgrade compared with BW. Protoss didn't get a real upgrade in cannon mechanic (although they do have defensive warpgate mechanic), zergs moving spines is useful, but risky, but the unit itself is not as good. and Terrans is a clear 100% improvment both in that there are better units to put in it (reaper, marauder), but also in it's salvage. Don't talk about additional investment because 1 bunker >> 1 spine or one cannon and can be repaired to increase it's effectiveness. This isn't a balance whine, the game can still be balanced with different mechanics, but bunkers are BETTER than spines or cannons without question and if you don't think so, you probably never built a bunker in BW or watched a replay in SC2 where a protoss player destroyed his own cannon to move out.
Yes bunkers have the potential to be the best of the 3. But you're completely forgetting cost. I'm putting 300 minerals (or 300 min 50 gas/300 min 200 gas) and 4 food into one bunker vs 100 minerals in a spine. Plus it's an offensive bunker. For it to be in range you can already have a spine done. It's the only defense of the 3 that costs food. I'm not trying to say that bunkers are bad. I'm saying people whine about bunkers being this overwhelming thing, but forget what it takes to go into a bunker and what it takes out of the terran player.
Why do you think that putting units in is a bad thing?
Bunkers take units that you already have and makes them stronger, then they can be salvaged to get their money back once their advantage wears off and placed again somewhere else where they are more advantageous.
Cannons don't make your current units any stronger, they are just an additional stalker that can't move. They don't help your army at all after the brief period where terran attacks.
The only time cannons pull ahead of bunkers is when you have multiple spread out bases that can be defended without having your army there. But even still you need 10+ cannons because of the size of your opponents army at that point in the game. Thats a 1500 mineral investment that may never pay off if your opponent decides to ignore the expansion.
Bunkers are never a bad investment, that's what makes them so strong.
Because of cost? Because of food? Because it takes away their mobility to make them stronger thereby turning them into the stalker that can't move as you put it? If I'm at 200/200, and the zerg/protoss is 200/200, they can just lay down some minerals and strengthen with spines/photons, and spines can move. I've seen many games where they just drop 10 spines because they can. Most P put like 5+ cannons at expos so they don't have to defend them with their main army. Bunkers I need to shave units off in order to maintain. Food costs money too, you can add 50 minerals to all of those previous numbers. I personally don't think there is any imbalance, but I'm being told that because bunkers are "free", I can just build a bunch and instawin against zerg. Sure they're great, and I can get my minerals back eventually but I need to buck up initially or else I can't even use them. It isn't a free ride for the terran, he has to delay himself in order to kill or delay the zerg. Which is why it isn't imbalanced.
On February 13 2011 23:56 goodvibes wrote: "Corruption" on corruptor would give zerg win in any match.
Replenish army after kill is a little hard when all buildings are under corruption = gg.
I do agree that colossus is "too" powerful.
My suggestion: -> Reduce damage to 15 + 2 per up (not +4).
-> Stalker 10(4) and +1 per up. TO 10(4) + (1 light) (2arm) per up.
Making Stalker stronger vs. arm isn't good, it would be stronger vs. viking.
They mentioned a good point - in late game, unless you want to break a siege tank line without going stargate colossus works better than immortal. So colossus should deal less dmg vs. arm, making marauders and roaches less squishy.
"Colossi are the real damage dealers in the Protoss ball." - Artosis
On nerfing colossi: Let's "hold off on buffing other units [if we nerf colossi]... wait and see what happens... because personally I think [Protoss] could be just fine." - IdrA
One of those statements can't be true.
As for having corruptors flying all over the place corrupting buildings, void rays can't even catch corruptors and stalkers/phoenix take 150 years to shoot one down - how would you stop mass corruption?
On February 14 2011 09:39 jgelling wrote: "Colossi are the real damage dealers in the Protoss ball." - Artosis
On nerfing colossi: Let's "hold off on buffing other units [if we nerf colossi]... wait and see what happens... because personally I think [Protoss] could be just fine." - IdrA
One of those statements can't be true.
As for having corruptors flying all over the place corrupting buildings, void rays can't even catch corruptors and stalkers/phoenix take 150 years to shoot one down - how would you stop mass corruption?
Slightly raise the price and/or spawn time of the corruptors? meaning any that do die would have more significant economic impact on the Zerg. Or place Corrupt on a lengthy cool down timer?
Slightly raise the price and/or spawn time of the corruptors? meaning any that do die would have more significant economic impact on the Zerg. Or place Corrupt on a lengthy cool down timer?
Good ideas - and the corruptor is a bit of an anomaly as the only flying unit in the game that has no capability of harassing ground. On the other hand, the brood lord morph eventually does give corruptors a role beyond pure AA, so corruptors are never wasted.
We'd have to see - to me it seems roach/corruptor into brood lords is already great against Protoss. Allowing corruptors a free "shut down the robo facility" ability - when robo is absolutely essential to handling roach/hydra - on its face looks like an easy win button.
Overseers are a dedicated investment. Corruptors are the very unit that counters the robo facility's production. If corruptors both countered colossi as they do now AND could indefinitely delay colossi production, you'd make the corruptor a double-counter.
It doesn't seem workable with Protoss ground-based AA DPS so poor, and the airborne counters ineffective against hit and run corruption tactics. And from a gameplay perspective, granting one race a combat unit that can control the skies AND halt enemy production would be more than a little annoying.
On February 14 2011 01:52 Ballistixz wrote: have anyone mentioned bunkers + salvage yet or is it just me that think salvage is a BS mechanic and needs to be removed entirely?
you can build 3 to 4 bunkers to wall off a fast expanding zerg at no cost or risk at all. the 400 minerals u invested in the bunkers can be 100% refunded as if it never happened. in SC1 you could do the exact same thing but there was a cost/risk on the terran player for doing it. its fucking ridiculous.
now i dont have a problem with terran building so many bunkers to stop a fast expand. what i DO have a problem with is that w/e money they invest into the bunkers is refunded in full, making the bunker rush basically free. THATS what i have a problem with. once the bunker rush is done they can salvage the 3-4 bunkers and immediately expand or build extra barracks/w/e.
not only does this stop a fast expand zerg in there tracks but it forces extra units just to break it. and again, there is no lost on the terrans part unless he actually forgets to salvage. can ANYONE explain to me why salvage exist in this game? having 100% of ur money refunded for ANY structure in a RTS game like this is ridiculous.
im a zerg player that highly favors fast expand builds as zerg. now it may sound like QQ but again, i dont have a problem with the bunker rush itself. what SHOULD happen is terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand zerg and that would bring them about event. but what happens instead is a terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand, salvages the bunkers, gets 200-400 minerals BACK as a refund, and the terran player is now a head by a LARGE margin.
i honestly do not think that shit is fair seriously. and the fact that these maps are so small and the rush distances are so short makes these kinds of things a no brainer.
Spoilered for length. Let's take a step back from bunkers and take a peak at all of the defensive structures. So there's the spine crawler, spore, photon cannon and bunker. Spine Crawler: can attack ground, can't attack air but can move which is key. Spore is the same just it can attack air. Photon cannon: can attack both air and ground but cannot move. Bunker: doesn't do anything until I put anywhere between 50-200 minerals of units at least and 1-4 food and doesn't give them any bonuses past the additional overall 400 HP. Salvage was designed to give bunkers movement akin to spine crawlers. I can salvage one, and move it forward. Part of the reason I can salvage it is also it's absolutely worthless unless I put units into it which costs money and food. Please go back to the o-boards where I first read this whine. Being greedy and getting punished for it is how the game works.
The loss by the way is in the inital investment. If bunkers were free, I could just expand right then and there while killing you. I'm delaying my tech, my units, my expansion by pressuring you and forcing you to delay yours. It's also entirely possible to catch a bunker rush and destroy it if you defend it properly. Watch 12 weeks with the pros on 2 rax.
Without question the new terran mechanic is the largest upgrade compared with BW. Protoss didn't get a real upgrade in cannon mechanic (although they do have defensive warpgate mechanic), zergs moving spines is useful, but risky, but the unit itself is not as good. and Terrans is a clear 100% improvment both in that there are better units to put in it (reaper, marauder), but also in it's salvage. Don't talk about additional investment because 1 bunker >> 1 spine or one cannon and can be repaired to increase it's effectiveness. This isn't a balance whine, the game can still be balanced with different mechanics, but bunkers are BETTER than spines or cannons without question and if you don't think so, you probably never built a bunker in BW or watched a replay in SC2 where a protoss player destroyed his own cannon to move out.
Yes bunkers have the potential to be the best of the 3. But you're completely forgetting cost. I'm putting 300 minerals (or 300 min 50 gas/300 min 200 gas) and 4 food into one bunker vs 100 minerals in a spine. Plus it's an offensive bunker. For it to be in range you can already have a spine done. It's the only defense of the 3 that costs food. I'm not trying to say that bunkers are bad. I'm saying people whine about bunkers being this overwhelming thing, but forget what it takes to go into a bunker and what it takes out of the terran player.
Why do you think that putting units in is a bad thing?
Bunkers take units that you already have and makes them stronger, then they can be salvaged to get their money back once their advantage wears off and placed again somewhere else where they are more advantageous.
Cannons don't make your current units any stronger, they are just an additional stalker that can't move. They don't help your army at all after the brief period where terran attacks.
The only time cannons pull ahead of bunkers is when you have multiple spread out bases that can be defended without having your army there. But even still you need 10+ cannons because of the size of your opponents army at that point in the game. Thats a 1500 mineral investment that may never pay off if your opponent decides to ignore the expansion.
Bunkers are never a bad investment, that's what makes them so strong.
Because of cost? Because of food? Because it takes away their mobility to make them stronger thereby turning them into the stalker that can't move as you put it? If I'm at 200/200, and the zerg/protoss is 200/200, they can just lay down some minerals and strengthen with spines/photons, and spines can move. I've seen many games where they just drop 10 spines because they can. Most P put like 5+ cannons at expos so they don't have to defend them with their main army. Bunkers I need to shave units off in order to maintain. Food costs money too, you can add 50 minerals to all of those previous numbers. I personally don't think there is any imbalance, but I'm being told that because bunkers are "free", I can just build a bunch and instawin against zerg. Sure they're great, and I can get my minerals back eventually but I need to buck up initially or else I can't even use them. It isn't a free ride for the terran, he has to delay himself in order to kill or delay the zerg. Which is why it isn't imbalanced.
i think the biggest issue with bunkers is the salvage mechanic. Not that they can be salvaged but that they can be salvaged no matter what. I think if they put in something where it cant be salvaged within 5 seconds of being dmgd or with 1-2mins of being built it would be so much better and would stave off some of the whining
and dont try to pull the oh we need the bunkers to stop harras ive never seen a bunker being dropped to defend a mineral line. YOu have turrets, the majority of harass is going to be from air so any harass you have to deal with(not vs t) is stopped by turrets. soooooo yeah and i could go on how your miss representing the use of each tower but theres no point since these debates on tl will rarely accomplish anything so im going to stop wasting my time now.
On February 14 2011 01:52 Ballistixz wrote: have anyone mentioned bunkers + salvage yet or is it just me that think salvage is a BS mechanic and needs to be removed entirely?
you can build 3 to 4 bunkers to wall off a fast expanding zerg at no cost or risk at all. the 400 minerals u invested in the bunkers can be 100% refunded as if it never happened. in SC1 you could do the exact same thing but there was a cost/risk on the terran player for doing it. its fucking ridiculous.
now i dont have a problem with terran building so many bunkers to stop a fast expand. what i DO have a problem with is that w/e money they invest into the bunkers is refunded in full, making the bunker rush basically free. THATS what i have a problem with. once the bunker rush is done they can salvage the 3-4 bunkers and immediately expand or build extra barracks/w/e.
not only does this stop a fast expand zerg in there tracks but it forces extra units just to break it. and again, there is no lost on the terrans part unless he actually forgets to salvage. can ANYONE explain to me why salvage exist in this game? having 100% of ur money refunded for ANY structure in a RTS game like this is ridiculous.
im a zerg player that highly favors fast expand builds as zerg. now it may sound like QQ but again, i dont have a problem with the bunker rush itself. what SHOULD happen is terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand zerg and that would bring them about event. but what happens instead is a terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand, salvages the bunkers, gets 200-400 minerals BACK as a refund, and the terran player is now a head by a LARGE margin.
i honestly do not think that shit is fair seriously. and the fact that these maps are so small and the rush distances are so short makes these kinds of things a no brainer.
Spoilered for length. Let's take a step back from bunkers and take a peak at all of the defensive structures. So there's the spine crawler, spore, photon cannon and bunker. Spine Crawler: can attack ground, can't attack air but can move which is key. Spore is the same just it can attack air. Photon cannon: can attack both air and ground but cannot move. Bunker: doesn't do anything until I put anywhere between 50-200 minerals of units at least and 1-4 food and doesn't give them any bonuses past the additional overall 400 HP. Salvage was designed to give bunkers movement akin to spine crawlers. I can salvage one, and move it forward. Part of the reason I can salvage it is also it's absolutely worthless unless I put units into it which costs money and food. Please go back to the o-boards where I first read this whine. Being greedy and getting punished for it is how the game works.
The loss by the way is in the inital investment. If bunkers were free, I could just expand right then and there while killing you. I'm delaying my tech, my units, my expansion by pressuring you and forcing you to delay yours. It's also entirely possible to catch a bunker rush and destroy it if you defend it properly. Watch 12 weeks with the pros on 2 rax.
Without question the new terran mechanic is the largest upgrade compared with BW. Protoss didn't get a real upgrade in cannon mechanic (although they do have defensive warpgate mechanic), zergs moving spines is useful, but risky, but the unit itself is not as good. and Terrans is a clear 100% improvment both in that there are better units to put in it (reaper, marauder), but also in it's salvage. Don't talk about additional investment because 1 bunker >> 1 spine or one cannon and can be repaired to increase it's effectiveness. This isn't a balance whine, the game can still be balanced with different mechanics, but bunkers are BETTER than spines or cannons without question and if you don't think so, you probably never built a bunker in BW or watched a replay in SC2 where a protoss player destroyed his own cannon to move out.
Yes bunkers have the potential to be the best of the 3. But you're completely forgetting cost. I'm putting 300 minerals (or 300 min 50 gas/300 min 200 gas) and 4 food into one bunker vs 100 minerals in a spine. Plus it's an offensive bunker. For it to be in range you can already have a spine done. It's the only defense of the 3 that costs food. I'm not trying to say that bunkers are bad. I'm saying people whine about bunkers being this overwhelming thing, but forget what it takes to go into a bunker and what it takes out of the terran player.
Why do you think that putting units in is a bad thing?
Bunkers take units that you already have and makes them stronger, then they can be salvaged to get their money back once their advantage wears off and placed again somewhere else where they are more advantageous.
Cannons don't make your current units any stronger, they are just an additional stalker that can't move. They don't help your army at all after the brief period where terran attacks.
The only time cannons pull ahead of bunkers is when you have multiple spread out bases that can be defended without having your army there. But even still you need 10+ cannons because of the size of your opponents army at that point in the game. Thats a 1500 mineral investment that may never pay off if your opponent decides to ignore the expansion.
Bunkers are never a bad investment, that's what makes them so strong.
Because of cost? Because of food? Because it takes away their mobility to make them stronger thereby turning them into the stalker that can't move as you put it? If I'm at 200/200, and the zerg/protoss is 200/200, they can just lay down some minerals and strengthen with spines/photons, and spines can move. I've seen many games where they just drop 10 spines because they can. Most P put like 5+ cannons at expos so they don't have to defend them with their main army. Bunkers I need to shave units off in order to maintain. Food costs money too, you can add 50 minerals to all of those previous numbers. I personally don't think there is any imbalance, but I'm being told that because bunkers are "free", I can just build a bunch and instawin against zerg. Sure they're great, and I can get my minerals back eventually but I need to buck up initially or else I can't even use them. It isn't a free ride for the terran, he has to delay himself in order to kill or delay the zerg. Which is why it isn't imbalanced.
are you serious? terrans can just throw down PFs at any expansion they want and they are relatively safe from most ground units. and turrets protect them from air. so why are u acting as if bunkers are the main defense the terran has? sure a zerg can throw down spines. sure a toss can throw down cannons. but NONE of them are nearly as good as a PF.
now add bunkers to that and u have a almost impenetrable defense. add the fact that bunkers can be salvaged and used offensively and then go straight into defense and u have a race with some of the best defense in the game. so good that there defense can be used as offense at times.they even have a upgrade to INCREASE all of there buildings armor by 2. salvage is simply NOT needed for terrans period. its not even a matter of debate that terrans have awesomely good defense. i mean if you think about it a terran can fast expand anytime he wants by simply throwing down a PF at his early nat instead of a OC. but watch what happens when a zerg or toss fast expands against a terran.
so again i ask, why is salvage needed for terran despite how good there defense is without it?
ive played a few games where the terran would favor PFs over OCs. despite his low mule count he would still come out ahead because a zerg player in particular needs to invest so much minerals to take down a PF that has been fortified by bunkers and turrets. and guess what? ANY time he wants to actually make a push all he would do is salvage and go straight from a Defense mode to a offense mode. and if his atk/push fails? make more bunkers and turtle at his PFs. why not? u get ur money back in full anyway.
a zerg can mass spine crawlers. a zerg can even keep those spine crawlers alive with transfuse. but there is one big diffrense between a spine crawler and a bunker. they cant be salvaged and they are limited to creep. and they are fairly weak in general. any good bio army or siege tanks would walk over spine crawlers as if they were weeds.
On February 14 2011 01:52 Ballistixz wrote: have anyone mentioned bunkers + salvage yet or is it just me that think salvage is a BS mechanic and needs to be removed entirely?
you can build 3 to 4 bunkers to wall off a fast expanding zerg at no cost or risk at all. the 400 minerals u invested in the bunkers can be 100% refunded as if it never happened. in SC1 you could do the exact same thing but there was a cost/risk on the terran player for doing it. its fucking ridiculous.
now i dont have a problem with terran building so many bunkers to stop a fast expand. what i DO have a problem with is that w/e money they invest into the bunkers is refunded in full, making the bunker rush basically free. THATS what i have a problem with. once the bunker rush is done they can salvage the 3-4 bunkers and immediately expand or build extra barracks/w/e.
not only does this stop a fast expand zerg in there tracks but it forces extra units just to break it. and again, there is no lost on the terrans part unless he actually forgets to salvage. can ANYONE explain to me why salvage exist in this game? having 100% of ur money refunded for ANY structure in a RTS game like this is ridiculous.
im a zerg player that highly favors fast expand builds as zerg. now it may sound like QQ but again, i dont have a problem with the bunker rush itself. what SHOULD happen is terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand zerg and that would bring them about event. but what happens instead is a terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand, salvages the bunkers, gets 200-400 minerals BACK as a refund, and the terran player is now a head by a LARGE margin.
i honestly do not think that shit is fair seriously. and the fact that these maps are so small and the rush distances are so short makes these kinds of things a no brainer.
Spoilered for length. Let's take a step back from bunkers and take a peak at all of the defensive structures. So there's the spine crawler, spore, photon cannon and bunker. Spine Crawler: can attack ground, can't attack air but can move which is key. Spore is the same just it can attack air. Photon cannon: can attack both air and ground but cannot move. Bunker: doesn't do anything until I put anywhere between 50-200 minerals of units at least and 1-4 food and doesn't give them any bonuses past the additional overall 400 HP. Salvage was designed to give bunkers movement akin to spine crawlers. I can salvage one, and move it forward. Part of the reason I can salvage it is also it's absolutely worthless unless I put units into it which costs money and food. Please go back to the o-boards where I first read this whine. Being greedy and getting punished for it is how the game works.
The loss by the way is in the inital investment. If bunkers were free, I could just expand right then and there while killing you. I'm delaying my tech, my units, my expansion by pressuring you and forcing you to delay yours. It's also entirely possible to catch a bunker rush and destroy it if you defend it properly. Watch 12 weeks with the pros on 2 rax.
Without question the new terran mechanic is the largest upgrade compared with BW. Protoss didn't get a real upgrade in cannon mechanic (although they do have defensive warpgate mechanic), zergs moving spines is useful, but risky, but the unit itself is not as good. and Terrans is a clear 100% improvment both in that there are better units to put in it (reaper, marauder), but also in it's salvage. Don't talk about additional investment because 1 bunker >> 1 spine or one cannon and can be repaired to increase it's effectiveness. This isn't a balance whine, the game can still be balanced with different mechanics, but bunkers are BETTER than spines or cannons without question and if you don't think so, you probably never built a bunker in BW or watched a replay in SC2 where a protoss player destroyed his own cannon to move out.
Yes bunkers have the potential to be the best of the 3. But you're completely forgetting cost. I'm putting 300 minerals (or 300 min 50 gas/300 min 200 gas) and 4 food into one bunker vs 100 minerals in a spine. Plus it's an offensive bunker. For it to be in range you can already have a spine done. It's the only defense of the 3 that costs food. I'm not trying to say that bunkers are bad. I'm saying people whine about bunkers being this overwhelming thing, but forget what it takes to go into a bunker and what it takes out of the terran player.
Why do you think that putting units in is a bad thing?
Bunkers take units that you already have and makes them stronger, then they can be salvaged to get their money back once their advantage wears off and placed again somewhere else where they are more advantageous.
Cannons don't make your current units any stronger, they are just an additional stalker that can't move. They don't help your army at all after the brief period where terran attacks.
The only time cannons pull ahead of bunkers is when you have multiple spread out bases that can be defended without having your army there. But even still you need 10+ cannons because of the size of your opponents army at that point in the game. Thats a 1500 mineral investment that may never pay off if your opponent decides to ignore the expansion.
Bunkers are never a bad investment, that's what makes them so strong.
Because of cost? Because of food? Because it takes away their mobility to make them stronger thereby turning them into the stalker that can't move as you put it? If I'm at 200/200, and the zerg/protoss is 200/200, they can just lay down some minerals and strengthen with spines/photons, and spines can move. I've seen many games where they just drop 10 spines because they can. Most P put like 5+ cannons at expos so they don't have to defend them with their main army. Bunkers I need to shave units off in order to maintain. Food costs money too, you can add 50 minerals to all of those previous numbers. I personally don't think there is any imbalance, but I'm being told that because bunkers are "free", I can just build a bunch and instawin against zerg. Sure they're great, and I can get my minerals back eventually but I need to buck up initially or else I can't even use them. It isn't a free ride for the terran, he has to delay himself in order to kill or delay the zerg. Which is why it isn't imbalanced.
are you serious? terrans can just throw down PFs at any expansion they want and they are relativelysafe from any ground units. and turrets protect them from air. so why are u acting as if bunkers are the main defense the terran has? sure a zerg can throw down spines. sure a toss can throw down cannons. but NONE of them are nearly as good as a PF.
now add bunkers to that and u have a almost impenetrable defense. add the fact that bunkers can be salvaged and used offensively and then go straight into defense and u have a race with some of the best defense in the game. so good that there defense can be used as offense at times. salvage is simply NOT needed for terrans period.
I'm comparing bunkers to everything else because that's kind of what I have to do. I can say PF helps nullify harass at everything past my 2nd base and solidify their spot but that's about it. Losing a PF is a lot easier if your army isn't nearby then you think. If I plan my defense out and my attack path then yes I can have the best defense out of all 3 races due to the nature of my units and race in general. Tanks, bunkers, sensor tower, PF, turrets.
So salvage. What does it do? It allows me to either move a bunker or remove it without penalty. That's about it.
Now you have two points. One: it allows for a terran to bunker rush and then salvage so it's not nearly as big of a mineral hit. Two: it allows to reinforce expos and then salvage and do slow tank pushes with them. You can do that with spine crawlers too, it's called root and unroot only that's faster because of the build time of bunkers. If salvage weren't in the game it would just make slow tank pushes more mineral heavy. Bunker rush I've already explained multiple times, and you simply ignored it.
At any rate, I'm done debating this. I might have overstressed my point of initial cost, but that's simply because people completely ignore it and whine incessantly about bunkers because they're "free". Even though I normally lose bunkers all the time and they're only free if I choose to remove them.
On February 14 2011 01:52 Ballistixz wrote: have anyone mentioned bunkers + salvage yet or is it just me that think salvage is a BS mechanic and needs to be removed entirely?
you can build 3 to 4 bunkers to wall off a fast expanding zerg at no cost or risk at all. the 400 minerals u invested in the bunkers can be 100% refunded as if it never happened. in SC1 you could do the exact same thing but there was a cost/risk on the terran player for doing it. its fucking ridiculous.
now i dont have a problem with terran building so many bunkers to stop a fast expand. what i DO have a problem with is that w/e money they invest into the bunkers is refunded in full, making the bunker rush basically free. THATS what i have a problem with. once the bunker rush is done they can salvage the 3-4 bunkers and immediately expand or build extra barracks/w/e.
not only does this stop a fast expand zerg in there tracks but it forces extra units just to break it. and again, there is no lost on the terrans part unless he actually forgets to salvage. can ANYONE explain to me why salvage exist in this game? having 100% of ur money refunded for ANY structure in a RTS game like this is ridiculous.
im a zerg player that highly favors fast expand builds as zerg. now it may sound like QQ but again, i dont have a problem with the bunker rush itself. what SHOULD happen is terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand zerg and that would bring them about event. but what happens instead is a terran invests 200-400 minerals to stop a fast expand, salvages the bunkers, gets 200-400 minerals BACK as a refund, and the terran player is now a head by a LARGE margin.
i honestly do not think that shit is fair seriously. and the fact that these maps are so small and the rush distances are so short makes these kinds of things a no brainer.
Spoilered for length. Let's take a step back from bunkers and take a peak at all of the defensive structures. So there's the spine crawler, spore, photon cannon and bunker. Spine Crawler: can attack ground, can't attack air but can move which is key. Spore is the same just it can attack air. Photon cannon: can attack both air and ground but cannot move. Bunker: doesn't do anything until I put anywhere between 50-200 minerals of units at least and 1-4 food and doesn't give them any bonuses past the additional overall 400 HP. Salvage was designed to give bunkers movement akin to spine crawlers. I can salvage one, and move it forward. Part of the reason I can salvage it is also it's absolutely worthless unless I put units into it which costs money and food. Please go back to the o-boards where I first read this whine. Being greedy and getting punished for it is how the game works.
The loss by the way is in the inital investment. If bunkers were free, I could just expand right then and there while killing you. I'm delaying my tech, my units, my expansion by pressuring you and forcing you to delay yours. It's also entirely possible to catch a bunker rush and destroy it if you defend it properly. Watch 12 weeks with the pros on 2 rax.
Without question the new terran mechanic is the largest upgrade compared with BW. Protoss didn't get a real upgrade in cannon mechanic (although they do have defensive warpgate mechanic), zergs moving spines is useful, but risky, but the unit itself is not as good. and Terrans is a clear 100% improvment both in that there are better units to put in it (reaper, marauder), but also in it's salvage. Don't talk about additional investment because 1 bunker >> 1 spine or one cannon and can be repaired to increase it's effectiveness. This isn't a balance whine, the game can still be balanced with different mechanics, but bunkers are BETTER than spines or cannons without question and if you don't think so, you probably never built a bunker in BW or watched a replay in SC2 where a protoss player destroyed his own cannon to move out.
Yes bunkers have the potential to be the best of the 3. But you're completely forgetting cost. I'm putting 300 minerals (or 300 min 50 gas/300 min 200 gas) and 4 food into one bunker vs 100 minerals in a spine. Plus it's an offensive bunker. For it to be in range you can already have a spine done. It's the only defense of the 3 that costs food. I'm not trying to say that bunkers are bad. I'm saying people whine about bunkers being this overwhelming thing, but forget what it takes to go into a bunker and what it takes out of the terran player.
Why do you think that putting units in is a bad thing?
Bunkers take units that you already have and makes them stronger, then they can be salvaged to get their money back once their advantage wears off and placed again somewhere else where they are more advantageous.
Cannons don't make your current units any stronger, they are just an additional stalker that can't move. They don't help your army at all after the brief period where terran attacks.
The only time cannons pull ahead of bunkers is when you have multiple spread out bases that can be defended without having your army there. But even still you need 10+ cannons because of the size of your opponents army at that point in the game. Thats a 1500 mineral investment that may never pay off if your opponent decides to ignore the expansion.
Bunkers are never a bad investment, that's what makes them so strong.
Because of cost? Because of food? Because it takes away their mobility to make them stronger thereby turning them into the stalker that can't move as you put it? If I'm at 200/200, and the zerg/protoss is 200/200, they can just lay down some minerals and strengthen with spines/photons, and spines can move. I've seen many games where they just drop 10 spines because they can. Most P put like 5+ cannons at expos so they don't have to defend them with their main army. Bunkers I need to shave units off in order to maintain. Food costs money too, you can add 50 minerals to all of those previous numbers. I personally don't think there is any imbalance, but I'm being told that because bunkers are "free", I can just build a bunch and instawin against zerg. Sure they're great, and I can get my minerals back eventually but I need to buck up initially or else I can't even use them. It isn't a free ride for the terran, he has to delay himself in order to kill or delay the zerg. Which is why it isn't imbalanced.
are you serious? terrans can just throw down PFs at any expansion they want and they are relativelysafe from any ground units. and turrets protect them from air. so why are u acting as if bunkers are the main defense the terran has? sure a zerg can throw down spines. sure a toss can throw down cannons. but NONE of them are nearly as good as a PF.
now add bunkers to that and u have a almost impenetrable defense. add the fact that bunkers can be salvaged and used offensively and then go straight into defense and u have a race with some of the best defense in the game. so good that there defense can be used as offense at times. salvage is simply NOT needed for terrans period.
I'm comparing bunkers to everything else because that's kind of what I have to do. I can say PF helps nullify harass at everything past my 2nd base and solidify their spot but that's about it. Losing a PF is a lot easier if your army isn't nearby then you think. If I plan my defense out and my attack path then yes I can have the best defense out of all 3 races due to the nature of my units and race in general. Tanks, bunkers, sensor tower, PF, turrets.
So salvage. What does it do? It allows me to either move a bunker or remove it without penalty. That's about it.
Now you have two points. One: it allows for a terran to bunker rush and then salvage so it's not nearly as big of a mineral hit. Two: it allows to reinforce expos and then salvage and do slow tank pushes with them. You can do that with spine crawlers too, it's called root and unroot only that's faster because of the build time of bunkers. If salvage weren't in the game it would just make slow tank pushes more mineral heavy. Bunker rush I've already explained multiple times, and you simply ignored it.
At any rate, I'm done debating this. I might have overstressed my point of initial cost, but that's simply because people completely ignore it and whine incessantly about bunkers because they're "free". Even though I normally lose bunkers all the time and they're only free if I choose to remove them.
if salvage wasnt in the game it wouldn't effect a slow tank push in any way. and i dont know why you constantly compared bunkers to cannons/crawelers as if they were the same thing. they are not the same. first off cannons cant move. 2ndly the build time for a spine crawler is painfully long and the reburrow of it is painfully long. a terran can simply savage a bunker before it dies and they will not loose money. spine crawler does not compare to a bunk. a cannon does not compare to a bunk.
So salvage. What does it do? It allows me to either move a bunker or remove it without penalty. That's about it.
exactly. cannons cannot do that. spine crawlers can move but its limited to creep and can be sniped off in the middle of a reburrow. not to mention it takes insanely long to move a spine crawler. and if that spine crawler dies because you moved it to a more vulnerable location (lets say a offensive spine crawler push) then you loose alot of invested minerals. bunkers? salvage, all your money is back. no risk at all in doing it. unload units and salvage bunk before it dies. and salvage takes a very short period of time to complete.
So salvage. What does it do? It allows me to either move a bunker or remove it without penalty. That's about it.
No. Salvage allows Terran to Bunker rush an opponent very early in the game for a high reward situation and should it fail, salvaging returns most of the resources spent for that attack and hardly sets them back . Low Risk - High Reward This early in the game, No race can do that without suffering huge set backs if they fail. That's the problem with Bunker salvaging. Terran can throw 150 minerals early game with no consequences.
So salvage. What does it do? It allows me to either move a bunker or remove it without penalty. That's about it.
No. Salvage allows Terran to Bunker rush an opponent very early in the game for a high reward situation and should it fail, salvaging returns most of the resources spent for that attack and hardly sets them back . Low Risk - High Reward This early in the game, No race can do that without suffering huge set backs if they fail. That's the problem with Bunker salvaging. Terran can throw 150 minerals early game with no consequences.
The consequence is that we are out 100 minerals + mining time for the time being. This isn't a huge consequence, but it is definitely a consequence (i.e. it could have been a barracks).
It gives our defenses some mobility in that we can "move" bunkers, but it isn't cost free and it's simply an advantage a bunker has over other buildings. Note that the disadvantage is that it costs us supply to use it (4-6 supply).
So salvage. What does it do? It allows me to either move a bunker or remove it without penalty. That's about it.
No. Salvage allows Terran to Bunker rush an opponent very early in the game for a high reward situation and should it fail, salvaging returns most of the resources spent for that attack and hardly sets them back . Low Risk - High Reward This early in the game, No race can do that without suffering huge set backs if they fail. That's the problem with Bunker salvaging. Terran can throw 150 minerals early game with no consequences.
The consequence is that we are out 100 minerals + mining time for the time being. This isn't a huge consequence, but it is definitely a consequence (i.e. it could have been a barracks).
It gives our defenses some mobility in that we can "move" bunkers, but it isn't cost free and it's simply an advantage a bunker has over other buildings. Note that the disadvantage is that it costs us supply to use it (4-6 supply).
building a spine crawler or building extra lings to dry and stop that bunker rush is a extra queen or extra drone loss and larva loss for zerg. 100 minerals u invested in a bunker rush may have been a consequence "for the time being" but you just cost a zerg long term damage. a zerg cannot get the larva/money he has spent into lings to stop the bunker rush back. a zerg cannot get the extra minerals he spent into a spine crawler to hold off the bunker rush back. a zerg cannot get the minerals that he loss from a queen dying back.
sure that bunker could have been a barracks. but i think any terran would just rater block off a zergs ramp with bunkers, have the zerg invest a large amount of minerals to prevent it, and then salvage the bunkers and terran gets 100% of his money back and falls back to his base. at that point terran will obviously be in the lead unless he failed to salvage.
and how does a bunker cost you supply? that is just ridiculous. it cost no supply. you are building marines ANYWAY so why not put them into a bunker, have them safe and sound, and then unload them and salvage the bunker when the pressure is to great? saying a bunker costs supply is just lol.
On February 14 2011 14:01 Ballistixz wrote: building a spine crawler or building extra lings to dry and stop that bunker rush is a extra queen or extra drone loss and larva loss for zerg. 100 minerals u invested in a bunker rush may have been a consequence "for the time being" but you just cost a zerg long term damage. a zerg cannot get the larva/money he has spent into lings to stop the bunker rush back. a zerg cannot get the extra minerals he spent into a spine crawler to hold off the bunker rush back. a zerg cannot get the minerals that he loss from a queen dying back.
sure that bunker could have been a barracks. but i think any terran would just rater block off a zergs ramp with bunkers, have the zerg invest a large amount of minerals to prevent it, and then salvage the bunkers and terran gets 100% of his money back and falls back to his base. at that point terran will obviously be in the lead unless he failed to salvage.
and how does a bunker cost you supply? that is just ridiculous. it cost no supply. you are building marines ANYWAY so why not put them into a bunker, have them safe and sound, and then unload them and salvage the bunker when the pressure is to great? saying a bunker costs supply is just lol.
Well technically, to have a bunker be effective you have to fill it with supply, which is in juxtaposition to the other races static defenses, and whether you would like to believe it or not... building a bunker is an investment of minerals which you could've spent to get an earlier CC or Barracks (as an example) and therefore could be a worker or army loss as well as you have less unit producing structures.
On February 14 2011 14:01 Ballistixz wrote: building a spine crawler or building extra lings to dry and stop that bunker rush is a extra queen or extra drone loss and larva loss for zerg. 100 minerals u invested in a bunker rush may have been a consequence "for the time being" but you just cost a zerg long term damage. a zerg cannot get the larva/money he has spent into lings to stop the bunker rush back. a zerg cannot get the extra minerals he spent into a spine crawler to hold off the bunker rush back. a zerg cannot get the minerals that he loss from a queen dying back.
sure that bunker could have been a barracks. but i think any terran would just rater block off a zergs ramp with bunkers, have the zerg invest a large amount of minerals to prevent it, and then salvage the bunkers and terran gets 100% of his money back and falls back to his base. at that point terran will obviously be in the lead unless he failed to salvage.
and how does a bunker cost you supply? that is just ridiculous. it cost no supply. you are building marines ANYWAY so why not put them into a bunker, have them safe and sound, and then unload them and salvage the bunker when the pressure is to great? saying a bunker costs supply is just lol.
Well technically, to have a bunker be effective you have to fill it with supply, which is in juxtaposition to the other races static defenses, and whether you would like to believe it or not... building a bunker is an investment of minerals which you could've spent to get an earlier CC or Barracks (as an example) and therefore could be a worker or army loss as well as you have less unit producing structures.
Your point about the opportunity cost is correct, but the part about needing to fill the bunkers doesn't carry much weight. There isn't a single Terran who won't make marines or marauders so it's not like that's really an issue
I understand that there is an oppurtunity cost since you spend the minerals now and dont get them back until later, but Z and P don't ever get the minerals back... We cant turn that cannon into an extra stalker after we're done with it.
On February 14 2011 14:01 Ballistixz wrote: building a spine crawler or building extra lings to dry and stop that bunker rush is a extra queen or extra drone loss and larva loss for zerg. 100 minerals u invested in a bunker rush may have been a consequence "for the time being" but you just cost a zerg long term damage. a zerg cannot get the larva/money he has spent into lings to stop the bunker rush back. a zerg cannot get the extra minerals he spent into a spine crawler to hold off the bunker rush back. a zerg cannot get the minerals that he loss from a queen dying back.
sure that bunker could have been a barracks. but i think any terran would just rater block off a zergs ramp with bunkers, have the zerg invest a large amount of minerals to prevent it, and then salvage the bunkers and terran gets 100% of his money back and falls back to his base. at that point terran will obviously be in the lead unless he failed to salvage.
and how does a bunker cost you supply? that is just ridiculous. it cost no supply. you are building marines ANYWAY so why not put them into a bunker, have them safe and sound, and then unload them and salvage the bunker when the pressure is to great? saying a bunker costs supply is just lol.
Well technically, to have a bunker be effective you have to fill it with supply, which is in juxtaposition to the other races static defenses, and whether you would like to believe it or not... building a bunker is an investment of minerals which you could've spent to get an earlier CC or Barracks (as an example) and therefore could be a worker or army loss as well as you have less unit producing structures.
building a barracks/cc or shutting down a zerg FE with a bunker rush, then salvaging and getting 100% of minerals back and forcing him into a 1 base build. most terrans will choose the ladder. you just effectively shut down a zerg FE and forced him to waste larva and minerals on zerglings that could have otherwise been drones. terran can then immediately do w/e he wants after that from the minerals he has gotten back from salvage.
you are right that it delays a cc or some barracks. but it shuts down zerg FEs so hard that it doesnt matter cuz a terran can salvage and expand immediately himself. the bunkers done its job. now all he has to do is follow up with the minerals from the salvage. zerg in the meantime will be forced to cope with what just happened.
in other words, terran has control over that FE build and decides what happens just by a simple bunker rush. that shouldn't happen.
So salvage. What does it do? It allows me to either move a bunker or remove it without penalty. That's about it.
No. Salvage allows Terran to Bunker rush an opponent very early in the game for a high reward situation and should it fail, salvaging returns most of the resources spent for that attack and hardly sets them back . Low Risk - High Reward This early in the game, No race can do that without suffering huge set backs if they fail. That's the problem with Bunker salvaging. Terran can throw 150 minerals early game with no consequences.
Pretty much sums up the only real problem people have with bunkers.
It's really not that hard to understand guys, it's a cannon rush/contain where if you get stopped you still come out ahead since you got your resources back from the bunker and the other player didn't get them back from breaking it.
Make salvage require a factory. It stops the semi-free nature of bunker rushes, it allows you to still bunker up outside a FE and salvage them long before you move out, it still allows you to bunker rush, but puts a real cost risk on it. I think that would, quite easily, stop almost all complaints about bunkers people have.
Photon Cannons are many times more powerful early game than Bunkers, against Zerg. You don't need to build any unit producing structure and can pretty much get a free FE, whilst denying the Zergs FE to some extent, if you go forge first, unless the zerg manages to execute a 1base all-in against you. All the while, you are actually forcing the zerg to spend more minerals dealing with it, than you invested... yet the qq is about bunkers, which actually require a unit producing structure, some amount of micro ability, and require units to be effective. Not to mention that Protoss is stronger off 2 base against Z than Terran is, for sure....
yet the qq is about bunkers, which actually require a unit producing structure, some amount of micro ability, and require units to be effective.
You really can't understand the difference between a cannon contain and a bunker rush?
Cannons require a forge first; bunkers require a barracks. Going forge first means not having mobile offensive units in any number. So the forge allows for a defensive structure (the cannon), but prevents any offense. You don't have to sacrifice offense to build bunkers - it's granted right with the rax you were building anyway.
Cannons cost a firm 150 minerals, and require a pylon. It's 250 to get even 1 cannon down, and thereafter, cannons are REALLY slow. It's like they don't even move Bunkers cost 100, you can halt construction and it costs 25, or salvage and it costs 0. Whilst it cannot cause any damage on its own, it turns your marines from 45 HP units to 350 HP units through bunker hopping.
TLDR: Bunkers are much, much, much, cheaper, don't require a divergence from your unit-producing structures, and allow for a hit-and run mobile offense, whilst cannons do not. A forge FE is a defensive macro strategy; a bunker rush is an aggressive rush. A cannon contain is also far easier to deal with than a bunker rush in light of patch 1.2.
TLDR the TLDR: Bunkers = risk-free rush. Cannons = super-expensive.
On February 14 2011 16:05 bennyaus wrote: I don't really get this.
Photon Cannons are many times more powerful early game than Bunkers, against Zerg. You don't need to build any unit producing structure and can pretty much get a free FE, whilst denying the Zergs FE to some extent, if you go forge first, unless the zerg manages to execute a 1base all-in against you. All the while, you are actually forcing the zerg to spend more minerals dealing with it, than you invested... yet the qq is about bunkers, which actually require a unit producing structure, some amount of micro ability, and require units to be effective. Not to mention that Protoss is stronger off 2 base against Z than Terran is, for sure....
you are right, you DONT get it.
also the qq isnt about the bunkers themselves. bunker rushing a FE is not a issue ppl have. its the fact that after the rush is over or if the rush fails you can get 100% of your minerals back from salvage and thus no risk would have been involved. if it fails then good for you, you still forced zerg to make more units that could have been drones and maybe even forced some spines.
if it succeeds then thats even better since the zerg just lost 300 minerals worth in of a hatch and is forced to 1 base. that puts terran in a even better spot since he lost no money at all because he can just salvage the bunks.
and i think jgelling explained the cannon rush vs bunker rush thing. oh and lets not forget, cannons dont have salvage. and did i mentioned that bunkers can be repaired making lings nearly useless to take them out if a terran blocked off your ramp with them? that means you will have to get roaches or banelings to break the bunker contain because lings just wont cut it. theres not enough surface area for the lings to atk if the bottom ramp is blocked off.
It's pretty clear that Bunker salvaging needs to be revised. It gives an unfair advantage to Terrans early game.
Also I have problems with the MULE. Its a macro mechanic (like chrono boost and larva inject) that doesn't have consequences if forgotten. You can't double inject a hatchery, and you cant double chrono boost a building. Yet if you miss a mule, you can just drop 2. Also they allow a Terran to send out most of his SCV and using mules he can stay in the game and not be set back.
I'm not saying remove mules, but I think some kind of cooldown should be in place.
On February 14 2011 23:39 Kindred wrote: It's pretty clear that Bunker salvaging needs to be revised. It gives an unfair advantage to Terrans early game.
Also I have problems with the MULE. Its a macro mechanic (like chrono boost and larva inject) that doesn't have consequences if forgotten. You can't double inject a hatchery, and you cant double chrono boost a building. Yet if you miss a mule, you can just drop 2. Also they allow a Terran to send out most of his SCV and using mules he can stay in the game and not be set back.
I'm not saying remove mules, but I think some kind of cooldown should be in place.
you miss the fact that chrono and inject are way more flexible than mules.
I also do not agree with the statement that chrono is less forgivable than mules. The fact that players intentionally save chronoboosts for production/upgrades shows how flexible and forgivable chrono boost is compared to mules because leaving out a mule is pretty much the same thing as banking minerals which is considered as a very bad thing.
the only two circumstances where ppl save OC energy is for
a) scans to simply not die to baneling bombs/DTs/banshees or to support tanks b) if they get a gold base up very very soon.
The only little issue I have with mules is the fact that you have to use it 1/2 times as much as chrono/inject per base but that is probably balanced out with the fact that it really only provides minerals which makes it a more predictable mechanic and because its harder to balance out intel with economy as terran, while Z and P have cheaper (over time) and probably also more effective ways to scout during the mid and lategame (observers, overseers, creep, lings, hallus)
But Zerg can build a hatchery for 300 minerals vs the 400 of other races, and regardless of what you think the 'true' cost of a hatchery is, that means Zerg can throw it down faster than any other race possibly can. In response, the other 2 races have a greater means to prevent expansions than Zerg does. In a way, Zerg is more defensive.
As for the viability of 1 base builds, there have been great videos of Zerg counter-attacking failed contains but I don't know whether or not Zerg's 1 base play is gimped or not in total.
On February 10 2011 16:41 Whitewing wrote: They kind of glossed over the really big problem with this matchup. Terran is very strong with almost any type of build they choose to go with: whether it be bio, mech, or air (banshees) etc. Every one of these requires a pretty skewed response from Protoss to deal with, or Protoss is in a world of trouble. Because terran has so many strong build options, Protoss needs good scouting information to be able to respond. The problem is, Protoss has terrible scouting early game. Once the observers are out they are fine, but that requires a robo which takes a while, and early aggression builds are already hitting. Once the first rax is done and out, your probe is either dying or is gone, and a terran who walls off basically denies you even the opportunity to scout before observer. You 'can' scout with hallucinate, but the fact that they could be getting cloaked banshees means you NEED to get the robo and get observers anyway (throwing the robo down after hallucinate is done and you've scouted a cloaked banshee play is too late). You can scout up the ramp with a stalker, but if they have 'a' marauder with concussive shells, you could easily lose that unit.
So basically, Protoss is playing blind, and has to either get a build order win or loss most of the time. And it's very unfortunate that this is the case, because of how strong terran early aggression is.
And on the other end, if the protoss lives to the late game without being at a massive disadvantage, it's extremely hard for terran to keep up, because of how terran production facilities work. If you've got a ton of rax churning out bio, you pretty much have to keep going bio even after toss has storm/colossi out. Protoss tends to be very strong late game against terran, due to the AoE mechanics vs. bio and how easy it is to stop terran heavy air play. I think well executed mech is terran's best chance, but it's extremely difficult to play that well and most terrans I don't think have the ability or the patience (not that it's a balance issue, like IdrA and artosis said: some styles are just easier than others, but that doesn't make the tougher to play one weaker). In general, late game Protoss seems to be stronger than late game Terran, so the game either turns into protoss walking over terran or terran doing 1 million drops to try to force small engagements.
The race with lower aggression needs to have better scouting, and it's not the case in this matchup. It's fine in ZvP because of how easy it is to sacrifice an overlord (it's not free, but it's not difficult to do for the most part).
These two things you brought up seem critical:
Terran is very strong with almost any type of build they choose to go with: whether it be bio, mech, or air (banshees) etc. Every one of these requires a pretty skewed response from Protoss to deal with, or Protoss is in a world of trouble.
The race with lower aggression needs to have better scouting, and it's not the case in this matchup.
Watching this for the first time, IdrA calls the Colossus fast, when it's the same speed as Hydra off creep. I've never understood complaining about hydra speed.
On February 17 2011 20:18 ComusLoM wrote: Watching this for the first time, IdrA calls the Colossus fast, when it's the same speed as Hydra off creep. I've never understood complaining about hydra speed.
Colossus is "quicker" in the way that it just walks over smaller units and terrain.
Thats an actual factor that matters a lot, as you rarely have a big free field and zerg has tons of units that block each other / colossus will just freely walk around in your "ball of death".
So while its not true that Colossus is faster (its 2.25 speed, the same as hydra off creep) its still "faster" in terms of mobility on the terrain (Cliffwalking).
*But Hydras are for sure super slow; it just plays out that way.
On February 14 2011 23:39 Kindred wrote: It's pretty clear that Bunker salvaging needs to be revised. It gives an unfair advantage to Terrans early game.
Also I have problems with the MULE. Its a macro mechanic (like chrono boost and larva inject) that doesn't have consequences if forgotten. You can't double inject a hatchery, and you cant double chrono boost a building. Yet if you miss a mule, you can just drop 2. Also they allow a Terran to send out most of his SCV and using mules he can stay in the game and not be set back.
I'm not saying remove mules, but I think some kind of cooldown should be in place.
The problem with mules is IMO another, while chronobost and larva are there to support, enhance the speed of producing workers/units/tech, mules are totally different. For Z / P, without workers / ressources, you cant use your macro mechanic.
The T macro mechanic gives you free income, means you enhance your mineral income. (be it with the mules or supply calldown) Z / P macro mechanics become obsolte without ressources, while terran is completely independent of actual ressources to use theirs (apart from transforming a cc into an orbital)
That's what should be fixed, not the cooldown IMO.
On February 10 2011 16:41 Whitewing wrote: They kind of glossed over the really big problem with this matchup. Terran is very strong with almost any type of build they choose to go with: whether it be bio, mech, or air (banshees) etc. Every one of these requires a pretty skewed response from Protoss to deal with, or Protoss is in a world of trouble. Because terran has so many strong build options, Protoss needs good scouting information to be able to respond. The problem is, Protoss has terrible scouting early game. Once the observers are out they are fine, but that requires a robo which takes a while, and early aggression builds are already hitting. Once the first rax is done and out, your probe is either dying or is gone, and a terran who walls off basically denies you even the opportunity to scout before observer. You 'can' scout with hallucinate, but the fact that they could be getting cloaked banshees means you NEED to get the robo and get observers anyway (throwing the robo down after hallucinate is done and you've scouted a cloaked banshee play is too late). You can scout up the ramp with a stalker, but if they have 'a' marauder with concussive shells, you could easily lose that unit.
So basically, Protoss is playing blind, and has to either get a build order win or loss most of the time. And it's very unfortunate that this is the case, because of how strong terran early aggression is.
And on the other end, if the protoss lives to the late game without being at a massive disadvantage, it's extremely hard for terran to keep up, because of how terran production facilities work. If you've got a ton of rax churning out bio, you pretty much have to keep going bio even after toss has storm/colossi out. Protoss tends to be very strong late game against terran, due to the AoE mechanics vs. bio and how easy it is to stop terran heavy air play. I think well executed mech is terran's best chance, but it's extremely difficult to play that well and most terrans I don't think have the ability or the patience (not that it's a balance issue, like IdrA and artosis said: some styles are just easier than others, but that doesn't make the tougher to play one weaker). In general, late game Protoss seems to be stronger than late game Terran, so the game either turns into protoss walking over terran or terran doing 1 million drops to try to force small engagements.
The race with lower aggression needs to have better scouting, and it's not the case in this matchup. It's fine in ZvP because of how easy it is to sacrifice an overlord (it's not free, but it's not difficult to do for the most part).
These two things you brought up seem critical:
Terran is very strong with almost any type of build they choose to go with: whether it be bio, mech, or air (banshees) etc. Every one of these requires a pretty skewed response from Protoss to deal with, or Protoss is in a world of trouble.
The race with lower aggression needs to have better scouting, and it's not the case in this matchup.
So the Terran is always "better" and has more options compared to the Protoss? Really? Protoss can be aggressive early on as well and if the Terran is trying to tech he is in trouble. Both sides can be aggressive or passive.
Early scouting is called "Xel'Naga tower(s)" and Probe / SCV. Obviously Terrans will spend their first energy on scans in the Protoss base to see whatever he has hidden anywhere on the map, oh and obviously the dumb Robo Factory is useless after making that one Observer. I hope you noticed the sarcasm here. Neither race can complain about the other having too much, because either can screw up with a bad build order.
Bunker rushing definitely has a risk associated with it. If you don't do much damage with it, even if you salvage, you can still end up behind vs a competent zerg that knows how to macro.
Terran cannot produce economy at the rate a zerg can. This is why terran overcompensates with unit effectiveness (marine/tank) vs low tier zerg units (ling/roach/baneling).
I've done TONS of practice games TvZ and typically its "safer" to not even build the bunker, and just to micro marines properly. If you fail the bunker rush, your production is behind, your CC is late, and zerg will just drone whore.
On February 17 2011 23:43 Masq wrote: Bunker rushing definitely has a risk associated with it. If you don't do much damage with it, even if you salvage, you can still end up behind vs a competent zerg that knows how to macro.
Terran cannot produce economy at the rate a zerg can. This is why terran overcompensates with unit effectiveness (marine/tank) vs low tier zerg units (ling/roach/baneling).
I've done TONS of practice games TvZ and typically its "safer" to not even build the bunker, and just to micro marines properly. If you fail the bunker rush, your production is behind, your CC is late, and zerg will just drone whore.
After reading some comments on this page, I was going to post something to this effect. I support this very much. Sometimes it's not right to look at a situation and say, "oh I can salvage minerals from the failed rush that means there is no risk associated with it", wrong.
Think about it this way. If all you do is force more combat units then yes, the zerg has not droned. However, he has regained map control and can now put pressure on you with the units he has out while he can drone freely because at this point you can spend the 400 minerals you still don't have on either tech to reapply pressure at which point you're dead if it doesn't work or on a command center which means you'll be behind on econ going into the mid game.
Just as an experiment, and to help round out the opinions, I'd love for IdrA and Artosis to privately roll Terran for like a week.
I'm not saying they don't have the ability to put themselves in Terran's shoes, to some extent, but to say it is "easier" for the Terran to execute a Marauder -> Expand, or a Stim Timing Push, or a technical Raven All-in would suggest that they've done these things, and have found it to be easier than what it takes to stop it.
I feel like for them to roll Terran for a bit, and try some of these things, they will probably gain a little bit more respect for the Terran players.
Stim is too early and too cheap?
• Ling speed is just as early, and just as cheap, and just as useful. • Warpgate costs the same as concussive shell. But c-shells, a single-target slow spell, might be imba? • The Cyber Core unlocks Warpgate, Stalker, Hallucination, Air Upgrades, and one of the most useful spell-casters in the game - the Sentry, but the Barrack's tech lab might be imba?
I honestly just don't see it. Warpgate finishes at 5:30-6:00 ish (Speed-first also finishes right around 5:30 ish, right?), and Stim finishes at like 7 minutes, usually.
I'm enjoying the show, but I sincerely feel like there is a lack of understanding from the Terran perspective.
Well TimeSpiral can you put yourself in the Protoss shoes? ;o)
Protoss can't fight MM with Gateway units. You can't engage a fight with an equal expansive army. Protoss needs Forcefield Micro or higher Tech units. [EDIT] by that I mean equal expansive gateway army (zealot stalker), you need good forcefields or higher tech supporting.
Yes, you can force field the ramp and stop the Terran Bio. But then he can still contain you at your ramp and build his expo. If the area around the Expo is wide, Protoss get's it harder to do good Force-Field work. With Stim Terran might run around force Fields. Making it hard for Protoss to move out of their base and build their expo. It feels like you need the colossus ultra fast and can get your expo only very late. With that Terran get get a economical advantage and tech to Viking or Mech, blindly in expectation of colossus play.
Terrans army is very effective in small numbers. You can Stim run away when you see that the Toss army is much bigger. Or you can Stim snipe Immortals/Colossi if there are only a few support units. You can drop ship 4 Marauders and snipe Pylons or even a Nexus. And the forcefields don't help against good drop ship play.
On February 18 2011 01:29 TimeSpiral wrote: Stim is too early and too cheap?
I honestly just don't see it. Warpgate finishes at 5:30-6:00 ish (Speed-first also finishes right around 5:30 ish, right?), and Stim finishes at like 7 minutes, usually.
The Warpgate alone doesn't help you. What is warping anywhere help you against a contain at your ramp? It only allows you to make units faster. Just like having more Gateways. Stim makes the small MM groups even stronger. Like mentioned above: that makes the MM strong in the early game or for drops as example.
It surely is not hardcore imbalanced. The video actually covers the topic very good.
On February 20 2011 09:29 MESeidel wrote: Well TimeSpiral can you put yourself in the Protoss shoes? ;o)
Protoss can't fight MM with Gateway units. You can't engage a fight with an equal expansive army. Protoss needs Forcefield Micro or higher Tech units.
Yes, you can force field the ramp and stop the Terran Bio. But then he can still contain you at your ramp and build his expo. If the area around the Expo is wide, Protoss get's it harder to do good Force-Field work. With Stim Terran might run around force Fields. Making it hard for Protoss to move out of their base and build their expo. It feels like you need the colossus ultra fast and can get your expo only very late. With that Terran get get a economical advantage and tech to Viking or Mech, blindly in expectation of colossus play.
Terrans army is very effective in small numbers. You can Stim run away when you see that the Toss army is much bigger. Or you can Stim snipe Immortals/Colossi if there are only a few support units. You can drop ship 4 Marauders and snipe Pylons or even a Nexus. And the forcefields don't help against good drop ship play.
On February 18 2011 01:29 TimeSpiral wrote: Stim is too early and too cheap?
I honestly just don't see it. Warpgate finishes at 5:30-6:00 ish (Speed-first also finishes right around 5:30 ish, right?), and Stim finishes at like 7 minutes, usually.
The Warpgate alone doesn't help you. What is warping anywhere help you against a contain at your ramp? It only allows you to make units faster. Just like having more Gateways. Stim makes the small MM groups even stronger. Like mentioned above: that makes the MM strong in the early game or for drops as example.
It surely is not hardcore imbalanced. The video actually covers the topic very good.
Protoss can't fight MM with Gateway units. Wrong.
You can't engage a fight with an equal expansive army. Very Wrong. With that Terran get get a economical advantage and tech to Viking or Mech, blindly in expectation of colossus play. Don't go colossus every single game and this becomes an advantage. You can Stim run away when you see that the Toss army is much bigger.
Congrats, the terran just like ~25% of his total army hitpoints (army DPS remains the same but loses longevity, so the DPS drops rapidly during engagement), which he cannot fix until medivacs. Enjoy temporary map control.
And the forcefields don't help against good drop ship play. Wrong.
On February 20 2011 09:39 PaleBlueDot wrote: Protoss can't fight MM with Gateway units. Wrong.
You can't engage a fight with an equal expansive army. Very Wrong. [b]
I meant you can't beat MM with zealot stalker for the same cost. You need force fields or higher tech support. Think that wasn't expressed too good in these two sentences. But in the fact that the whole Episode 2 topic is around early game, it should be clear.
It is possible to fight MM with pure Zealot+Stalker. But you need a perfect balance and very good control. As soon as you get a little low on one of both the MM kills it super easy.
On February 20 2011 09:29 MESeidel wrote: Well TimeSpiral can you put yourself in the Protoss shoes? ;o)
Protoss can't fight MM with Gateway units. You can't engage a fight with an equal expansive army. Protoss needs Forcefield Micro or higher Tech units.
Yes, you can force field the ramp and stop the Terran Bio. But then he can still contain you at your ramp and build his expo. If the area around the Expo is wide, Protoss get's it harder to do good Force-Field work. With Stim Terran might run around force Fields. Making it hard for Protoss to move out of their base and build their expo. It feels like you need the colossus ultra fast and can get your expo only very late. With that Terran get get a economical advantage and tech to Viking or Mech, blindly in expectation of colossus play.
Terrans army is very effective in small numbers. You can Stim run away when you see that the Toss army is much bigger. Or you can Stim snipe Immortals/Colossi if there are only a few support units. You can drop ship 4 Marauders and snipe Pylons or even a Nexus. And the forcefields don't help against good drop ship play.
On February 18 2011 01:29 TimeSpiral wrote: Stim is too early and too cheap?
I honestly just don't see it. Warpgate finishes at 5:30-6:00 ish (Speed-first also finishes right around 5:30 ish, right?), and Stim finishes at like 7 minutes, usually.
The Warpgate alone doesn't help you. What is warping anywhere help you against a contain at your ramp? It only allows you to make units faster. Just like having more Gateways. Stim makes the small MM groups even stronger. Like mentioned above: that makes the MM strong in the early game or for drops as example.
It surely is not hardcore imbalanced. The video actually covers the topic very good.
Protoss can't fight MM with Gateway units Wrong.. Wrong.
You can't engage a fight with an equal expansive army Very Wrong.. Wronger. With that Terran get get a economical advantage and tech to Viking or Mech, blindly in expectation of colossus play. Don't go colossus every single game and this becomes an advantage. You can Stim run away when you see that the Toss army is much bigger.
Congrats, the terran just like ~25% of his total army hitpoints (army DPS remains the same but loses longevity, so the DPS drops rapidly during engagement), which he cannot fix until medivacs. Enjoy temporary map control.[/i].[/b]
Congrats, you just got a P army that was much bigger than the T's (which means terran has already had time to expand and get medvacs), which means you lose map control again due to drops.
And the forcefields don't help against good drop ship play. Wrong. Wrong.
Am I doing it right?
Sorry if this is out of line, just thought combatting statements with no reasoning with similar statements would help show how weak the argument is (and also wrong IMO, gateway units lose to equal amounts of MM, which means if both expand and both have the same units then the second point is incorrect, and FF's do nothing against GOOD drop ship play).
Gateway units get crushed by MM - because zealots don't do any damage getting kited all day long and stalkers get wrecked by marauders,therefore protoss are forced to get collosus/ht to fight mm.
I would rather lose 25 percent of health of my army as terran than losing half of army units as protoss because concussive shell makes it impossible to run away.
On February 20 2011 09:29 MESeidel wrote: Well TimeSpiral can you put yourself in the Protoss shoes? ;o)
Protoss can't fight MM with Gateway units. You can't engage a fight with an equal expansive army. Protoss needs Forcefield Micro or higher Tech units.
Yes, you can force field the ramp and stop the Terran Bio. But then he can still contain you at your ramp and build his expo. If the area around the Expo is wide, Protoss get's it harder to do good Force-Field work. With Stim Terran might run around force Fields. Making it hard for Protoss to move out of their base and build their expo. It feels like you need the colossus ultra fast and can get your expo only very late. With that Terran get get a economical advantage and tech to Viking or Mech, blindly in expectation of colossus play.
Terrans army is very effective in small numbers. You can Stim run away when you see that the Toss army is much bigger. Or you can Stim snipe Immortals/Colossi if there are only a few support units. You can drop ship 4 Marauders and snipe Pylons or even a Nexus. And the forcefields don't help against good drop ship play.
On February 18 2011 01:29 TimeSpiral wrote: Stim is too early and too cheap?
I honestly just don't see it. Warpgate finishes at 5:30-6:00 ish (Speed-first also finishes right around 5:30 ish, right?), and Stim finishes at like 7 minutes, usually.
The Warpgate alone doesn't help you. What is warping anywhere help you against a contain at your ramp? It only allows you to make units faster. Just like having more Gateways. Stim makes the small MM groups even stronger. Like mentioned above: that makes the MM strong in the early game or for drops as example.
It surely is not hardcore imbalanced. The video actually covers the topic very good.
Protoss can't fight MM with Gateway units. Wrong.
You can't engage a fight with an equal expansive army. Very Wrong. With that Terran get get a economical advantage and tech to Viking or Mech, blindly in expectation of colossus play. Don't go colossus every single game and this becomes an advantage. You can Stim run away when you see that the Toss army is much bigger.
Congrats, the terran just like ~25% of his total army hitpoints (army DPS remains the same but loses longevity, so the DPS drops rapidly during engagement), which he cannot fix until medivacs. Enjoy temporary map control.
And the forcefields don't help against good drop ship play. Wrong.
you sir are fucking retarded. bronze league? mmm > gateway units. PERIOD.
i hate how artosis in every single tvx match, and a lot of P/Z complain about the bunker resell. of course it makes no sense. neither do a lot of things: battlecruisers and void rays being much slower than marines on the freaking ground and being able to target a single unit on the ground with 100% accuracy, MAGIC, how every starting base magically has a choke point, how only phoenixes can attack while moving (I think), nukes doing far less damage than in real life. because if they were realistic the game would suck ass. there would be no spells, terrans would turtle and rush to NUKES, vikings would take 2 minutes to transform from air to ground, cloaked units would either pointless (because you can SEE them) or INVISIBLE, etc. if bunkers are IMBA it's not because they aren't realistic or their mechanic doesn't "make sense."
terrans have scans, protoss have observers (cloaked cloak detectors!), zerg can...sac an overlord. sucks most for zerg as ovies can be killed before they see anything. but who said that all races have to have equal every single aspect of the game? obviously terran is the worst at replenishing their army in the late game. but terran can also sac most of his scvs and can have the biggest late game army.
if every single aspect of the game were balanced, the game would end up being boring. lots of people hate mirror matchups for one thing. also, minor point, but the "team league" format would be boring as hell too.
also the mass MULE QQing is stupid silly. that's like building up a trust fund. P/Z, feel free to do the same thing if you want! oh, and Z can actually use a trust fund to remax their army later with their stockpiled larva. any time someone calls down 12 MULEs at once, that means that his army could've been that much bigger before that point. you might've died before that point if he didn't forget about or actually stockpiled his MULEs.
It would probably be better balance discussions if it was limited to masters or something. All you get now is either very angry people making up stuff that just doesn't work outside of a lower league or just in general do not know what they are talking about. Sure you can get bad advice from anywhere, but it is a lot less likely.
"Sorry if this is out of line, just thought combatting statements with no reasoning with similar statements would help show how weak the argument is (and also wrong IMO, gateway units lose to equal amounts of MM, which means if both expand and both have the same units then the second point is incorrect, and FF's do nothing against GOOD drop ship play). "
Its not out of line, its just also wrong. The argument is never necessarily wrong because of the person not explaining why. Just go look at every single pro replay out there (get mine from sc2reps, but it doesnt matter where) for TvP and try to tell me that most of those are wrong. Also gateway units do not lose to equal cost MM if you use your sentries right, so yeah.
"Gateway units get crushed by MM - because zealots don't do any damage getting kited all day long and stalkers get wrecked by marauders,therefore protoss are forced to get collosus/ht to fight mm.
I would rather lose 25 percent of health of my army as terran than losing half of army units as protoss because concussive shell makes it impossible to run away.
Please explain how FF helps against drop play?"
Zealots do damage if you forcefield correctly. This is even worse early game considering they are just tanking so the stalkers can fire from cover. Zealots do get kited, if you don't forcefield. Stalkers DO get wrecked by marauders, which is why you have zealots as a mobile wall and sentries as a literal wall. Concussive shells make it impossible to run away? I wonder what forcefields do.....
Odd how much sentries are brought up, maybe they are important or something.
On February 20 2011 10:39 PaleBlueDot wrote: Zealots do damage if you forcefield correctly. This is even worse early game considering they are just tanking so the stalkers can fire from cover. Zealots do get kited, if you don't forcefield. Stalkers DO get wrecked by marauders, which is why you have zealots as a mobile wall and sentries as a literal wall. Concussive shells make it impossible to run away? I wonder what forcefields do.....
Odd how much sentries are brought up, maybe they are important or something.
Yes Force Fields help. The whole talk on this pages is around that. Your single quote does not involving the discussion, that went to this point.
The whole point of the video is why TvP looks inbalanced to players because Protoss needs FF play or rush for higher tech units. While Terran can go 1/2/3 racks MM, expand or time push and more. Please watch the video and what the person you quoted was referring too. It was not about general discussion of Terran vs. Protoss units. But about special situations, like the game opening or drop ship play.
In the early game you likely have too few sentries to fight on a wide area to secure your Expo. And similar are the problems against good drop ship play.
Really looking forward to the next few shows, I think Idra mentioned that they would up the production value by adding in replays and such on SoTG so that will be really interesting.
On February 20 2011 10:39 PaleBlueDot wrote: Zealots do damage if you forcefield correctly. This is even worse early game considering they are just tanking so the stalkers can fire from cover. Zealots do get kited, if you don't forcefield. Stalkers DO get wrecked by marauders, which is why you have zealots as a mobile wall and sentries as a literal wall. Concussive shells make it impossible to run away? I wonder what forcefields do.....
Odd how much sentries are brought up, maybe they are important or something.
Yes Force Fields help. The whole talk on this pages is around that. Your single quote does not involving the discussion, that went to this point.
The whole point of the video is why TvP looks inbalanced to players because Protoss needs FF play or rush for higher tech units. While Terran can go 1/2/3 racks MM, expand or time push and more. Please watch the video and what the person you quoted was referring too. It was not about general discussion of Terran vs. Protoss units. But about special situations, like the game opening or drop ship play.
In the early game you likely have too few sentries to fight on a wide area to secure your Expo. And similar are the problems against good drop ship play.
No offence meant ;o)
Couldn't take offense because I wasn't sure what I was reading. The part about not having enough sentries is BS as well, i've seen some pretty damn sentry heavy openings. Sure it takes away gas for tech, but you can't tell me you don't have enough when the problem is you don't make enough.
On February 20 2011 11:43 PaleBlueDot wrote:Couldn't take offense because I wasn't sure what I was reading. The part about not having enough sentries is BS as well, i've seen some pretty damn sentry heavy openings. Sure it takes away gas for tech, but you can't tell me you don't have enough when the problem is you don't make enough.
If you have enough sentries n time depends on the map. - how short is the rush distance. - how wide is the area to defend (on natural expo)
Like I said I'm nowhere near top skill level. But I just got 2 rax pure marauder pushed at close ground pos on meta. First one was in my base before I had a sentry. No matter how perfect you execute the opening I doubt you have a sentry to block the ramp earlier. (some pros actually skit the zealot and would be screwed as well).
And then again. If you can hold the ramp to your main base is worth nothing if the Terran can expand.
On February 18 2011 01:29 TimeSpiral wrote: Just as an experiment, and to help round out the opinions, I'd love for IdrA and Artosis to privately roll Terran for like a week.
I'm not saying they don't have the ability to put themselves in Terran's shoes, to some extent, but to say it is "easier" for the Terran to execute a Marauder -> Expand, or a Stim Timing Push, or a technical Raven All-in would suggest that they've done these things, and have found it to be easier than what it takes to stop it.
I feel like for them to roll Terran for a bit, and try some of these things, they will probably gain a little bit more respect for the Terran players.
Stim is too early and too cheap?
• Ling speed is just as early, and just as cheap, and just as useful. • Warpgate costs the same as concussive shell. But c-shells, a single-target slow spell, might be imba? • The Cyber Core unlocks Warpgate, Stalker, Hallucination, Air Upgrades, and one of the most useful spell-casters in the game - the Sentry, but the Barrack's tech lab might be imba?
I honestly just don't see it. Warpgate finishes at 5:30-6:00 ish (Speed-first also finishes right around 5:30 ish, right?), and Stim finishes at like 7 minutes, usually.
I'm enjoying the show, but I sincerely feel like there is a lack of understanding from the Terran perspective.
You should be aware that pro players often off-race for fun in their downtime. IdrA has said before that he and other zerg players sometimes pick Terran against eachothers zergs and win.
Do they have super absurd understands of every Terran niche like Jinro does? No, but I'd be willing to bet that they know Terran better than a lot of Master Terrans. You need an understanding of the other races to know how to beat them.
On February 20 2011 10:18 underdawg wrote: i hate how artosis in every single tvx match, and a lot of P/Z complain about the bunker resell. of course it makes no sense. neither do a lot of things: battlecruisers and void rays being much slower than marines on the freaking ground and being able to target a single unit on the ground with 100% accuracy, MAGIC, how every starting base magically has a choke point, how only phoenixes can attack while moving (I think), nukes doing far less damage than in real life. because if they were realistic the game would suck ass. there would be no spells, terrans would turtle and rush to NUKES, vikings would take 2 minutes to transform from air to ground, cloaked units would either pointless (because you can SEE them) or INVISIBLE, etc. if bunkers are IMBA it's not because they aren't realistic or their mechanic doesn't "make sense."
terrans have scans, protoss have observers (cloaked cloak detectors!), zerg can...sac an overlord. sucks most for zerg as ovies can be killed before they see anything. but who said that all races have to have equal every single aspect of the game? obviously terran is the worst at replenishing their army in the late game. but terran can also sac most of his scvs and can have the biggest late game army.
if every single aspect of the game were balanced, the game would end up being boring. lots of people hate mirror matchups for one thing. also, minor point, but the "team league" format would be boring as hell too.
also the mass MULE QQing is stupid silly. that's like building up a trust fund. P/Z, feel free to do the same thing if you want! oh, and Z can actually use a trust fund to remax their army later with their stockpiled larva. any time someone calls down 12 MULEs at once, that means that his army could've been that much bigger before that point. you might've died before that point if he didn't forget about or actually stockpiled his MULEs.
Bc/vr movement speed is silly. flying units targeting a ground unit with 100% accuracy happens today, instead of magic think MATH. Every starting area has a choke point because that would a good place to land, on the game side of things it would make Zerg super imba. Every unit that doesn't have an attack animation (mutas eg) can attack while moving.
Bunkers aren't necessarily imba, they just have too much synergy with the rest of T. The way I have come to look at this game is that T is refined and polished whereas P and especially Z aren't so much. This would make sense in a developers pov because this game is about T.
Late game T can have better production of more efficient units than P and Z. while it is odd to get there you can make 15 reactor rax (which I heard a pro talk about recently, not sure where) and just overpower many unit comps w/ marine/tank/medivac. Mule QQ is because it is so much more powerful than p or z options, If Z didn't have queens they would make more hatcheries and be like bw, if P didn't have chronoboost it would slow them down marginally, but T can practically build a cc off of 1 mule, it spikes production by 5 scv's or so and you can oversaturate bases because they don't take up a mineral patch. The problem with your argument is that you are basing it off of what if the terran didn't do it whereas it really is what if the terran didn't have it. That being said this game is really close to being balanced but everyone including korean pros knows that terran is the strongest race and that zerg is the weakest.
On February 18 2011 01:29 TimeSpiral wrote: Just as an experiment, and to help round out the opinions, I'd love for IdrA and Artosis to privately roll Terran for like a week.
I'm not saying they don't have the ability to put themselves in Terran's shoes, to some extent, but to say it is "easier" for the Terran to execute a Marauder -> Expand, or a Stim Timing Push, or a technical Raven All-in would suggest that they've done these things, and have found it to be easier than what it takes to stop it.
I feel like for them to roll Terran for a bit, and try some of these things, they will probably gain a little bit more respect for the Terran players.
Stim is too early and too cheap?
• Ling speed is just as early, and just as cheap, and just as useful. • Warpgate costs the same as concussive shell. But c-shells, a single-target slow spell, might be imba? • The Cyber Core unlocks Warpgate, Stalker, Hallucination, Air Upgrades, and one of the most useful spell-casters in the game - the Sentry, but the Barrack's tech lab might be imba?
I honestly just don't see it. Warpgate finishes at 5:30-6:00 ish (Speed-first also finishes right around 5:30 ish, right?), and Stim finishes at like 7 minutes, usually.
I'm enjoying the show, but I sincerely feel like there is a lack of understanding from the Terran perspective.
I'm sure artosis is at least a diamond/master T and IdrA used to play terran and there was some speculation back in november that he could main terran. Without a doubt both of these players are better terran than the majority of terrans (non-pros) in the game.
feeling that this show shouldn't speak about mm early game but mid game. Protoss have a big weakness vs terran around 14:00 (late expo; they have colossus but no HT) or 9:00 - 11:00 with fast expo. (no t3 yet).
On February 20 2011 16:47 ccHaZaRd wrote: lol but they have said before they are only talking about balance at the pro level, they certainly aren't pro level terrans
Neither are almost all of the posters in this thread. If you use that logic, this thread shouldn't even exist, so few people would be able to post in it.
They don't say anything about Terran really besides that were more powerful. Well they dont say more powerful but they kind of suggest it IMO. Also they play protoss and zerg.... their is no terran their speaking with them so that might be why. Their heavily favoring how their races have problems but forgetting that their is 3 races.
I Just believe they need a Terran pro in this to "balance" the conversation. Since their show is currently imbalanced.
Besides my disappointment when more Terran bashing in this show... I do enjoy it.
On February 20 2011 19:44 Hane wrote: feeling that this show shouldn't speak about mm early game but mid game. Protoss have a big weakness vs terran around 14:00 (late expo; they have colossus but no HT) or 9:00 - 11:00 with fast expo. (no t3 yet).
Protoss doesn't have a weakness at 14 minutes. Protoss does feel weak when they have one collosis on two base, but you just need to be defensive and have good forcefields.
The only build I have trouble with is 1 base banshee, raven, marine marauder. Theres just nothing to kill the banshees in the answer. I may just be a noob but I feel like its pretty easy to execute considering how hard its to deal with.
On February 18 2011 01:29 TimeSpiral wrote: Just as an experiment, and to help round out the opinions, I'd love for IdrA and Artosis to privately roll Terran for like a week.
I'm not saying they don't have the ability to put themselves in Terran's shoes, to some extent, but to say it is "easier" for the Terran to execute a Marauder -> Expand, or a Stim Timing Push, or a technical Raven All-in would suggest that they've done these things, and have found it to be easier than what it takes to stop it.
I feel like for them to roll Terran for a bit, and try some of these things, they will probably gain a little bit more respect for the Terran players.
Stim is too early and too cheap?
• Ling speed is just as early, and just as cheap, and just as useful. • Warpgate costs the same as concussive shell. But c-shells, a single-target slow spell, might be imba? • The Cyber Core unlocks Warpgate, Stalker, Hallucination, Air Upgrades, and one of the most useful spell-casters in the game - the Sentry, but the Barrack's tech lab might be imba?
I honestly just don't see it. Warpgate finishes at 5:30-6:00 ish (Speed-first also finishes right around 5:30 ish, right?), and Stim finishes at like 7 minutes, usually.
I'm enjoying the show, but I sincerely feel like there is a lack of understanding from the Terran perspective.
I'm sure artosis is at least a diamond/master T and IdrA used to play terran and there was some speculation back in november that he could main terran. Without a doubt both of these players are better terran than the majority of terrans (non-pros) in the game.
Are you sure?
The reason I bring up things like this is because they say things like Stim is cheaper and faster than ling speed, both of which are just incorrect, and that Stim and C-Shells are more useful than other early game techs, like Warpgates, Sentries, Ling Speed, etc ... which is obviously not an objective statement.
They say things like, to beat the Gateway/Colossus/Phoenix ball just park your vikings over your marines, when obviously your marines die instantaneously to the Colossus.
They say things like pulling off the c-shell marauder pressure expand is easier to execute than it is for the Protoss to defend.
Obviously they are both raw-dogs at this game. My OP is simple; roll Terran for like a week and see if it is really as easy as you think it is to deal with these things in the manner in which you think a Terran can deal with them.
Clearly I'm a non-progamer scrub, but I am a patron of the show, so my input matters in some small way. I'd be willing to bet there are a few Terran fans who can sympathize with or share my suggestion.
They say things like pulling off the c-shell marauder pressure expand is easier to execute than it is for the Protoss to defend.
rofl? do you honestly think this is wrong?
have you played Terran before? Remember while were battling you we also have to macro at our own base at the same time which is somewhere else on the map. Which seems harder to me than macroing and microing in the same area.
I'm going to go play some protoss vs my friends and have them do this rush to see if it still true after ive seen it on both sides.ill edit it with my opinion after.
OK . First lets say I am a master league Terran player and have not played Protoss pretty much EVER. I played a friend who is also a master league Terran player and I had difficulty holding his push but I still held it.... and even was breaking even by mid game and late game. SO wait a player who rarely plays a race (if i ever have which I dont think I have) held a player who is in the master league off and has a lot of experience playing his race. I found Protoss incredibly easier to macro and micro than Terran also... but that is besides the point.
They say things like pulling off the c-shell marauder pressure expand is easier to execute than it is for the Protoss to defend.
rofl? do you honestly think this is wrong?
have you played Terran before? Remember while were battling you we also have to macro at our own base at the same time which is somewhere else on the map. Which seems harder to me than macroing and microing in the same area.
I'm going to go play some protoss vs my friends and have them do this rush to see if it still true after ive seen it on both sides.ill edit it with my opinion after.
what are you talking about? terran can macro and micro at the same spot on the map because you just select the hotkeyed production facilities (which are already rallied into the battle) and just press d and a for marauders/marines or whatever else youre making. toss has to warp in units where the pylons are (and most of the time they are not IN the battle, even if they are proxy) AND go back to the warpgates to chronoboost whilst terran has the reactor for that purpose.
They say things like pulling off the c-shell marauder pressure expand is easier to execute than it is for the Protoss to defend.
rofl? do you honestly think this is wrong?
have you played Terran before? Remember while were battling you we also have to macro at our own base at the same time which is somewhere else on the map. Which seems harder to me than macroing and microing in the same area.
I'm going to go play some protoss vs my friends and have them do this rush to see if it still true after ive seen it on both sides.ill edit it with my opinion after.
what are you talking about? terran can macro and micro at the same spot on the map because you just select the hotkeyed production facilities (which are already rallied into the battle) and just press d and a for marauders/marines or whatever else youre making. toss has to warp in units where the pylons are (and most of the time they are not IN the battle, even if they are proxy) AND go back to the warpgates to chronoboost whilst terran has the reactor for that purpose.
Im assuming their talking about the marudor push into a FE? which means you do have to return to your base for building buildings. If your just pushing a and d and not making any buildings within your base such as FE supply's factory or something your gonna get owned by the protoss and rightfully so. I'm not saying its hard I'm just saying I believe it requires more work than you think. As a protoss shouldnt you have a pylon at your ramp? where most of the fighting is going to be anyways? Terran units have to run over to the battle while protoss can warp into the battle giving the protoss the essentially defender boost where their reinforcements are almost instant. (also i dont know the bane of chrono boosting but couldnt you just hot key your nexus and hit c)(is this the hotkey?) and click on the warpgate which is gonna be near the fighting anyways?)
They say things like pulling off the c-shell marauder pressure expand is easier to execute than it is for the Protoss to defend.
rofl? do you honestly think this is wrong?
have you played Terran before? Remember while were battling you we also have to macro at our own base at the same time which is somewhere else on the map. Which seems harder to me than macroing and microing in the same area.
I'm going to go play some protoss vs my friends and have them do this rush to see if it still true after ive seen it on both sides.ill edit it with my opinion after.
what are you talking about? terran can macro and micro at the same spot on the map because you just select the hotkeyed production facilities (which are already rallied into the battle) and just press d and a for marauders/marines or whatever else youre making. toss has to warp in units where the pylons are (and most of the time they are not IN the battle, even if they are proxy) AND go back to the warpgates to chronoboost whilst terran has the reactor for that purpose.
Im assuming their talking about the marudor push into a FE? which means you do have to return to your base for building buildings. If your just pushing a and d and not making any buildings within your base such as FE supply's factory or something your gonna get owned by the protoss and rightfully so. I'm not saying its hard I'm just saying I believe it requires more work than you think. As a protoss shouldnt you have a pylon at your ramp? where most of the fighting is going to be anyways? Terran units have to run over to the battle while protoss can warp into the battle giving the protoss the essentially defender boost where their reinforcements are almost instant. (also i dont know the bane of chrono boosting but couldnt you just hot key your nexus and hit c)(is this the hotkey?) and click on the warpgate which is gonna be near the fighting anyways?)
Well i wasnt talking about defending your friggin ramp - thats of course easier for the defender whatever race you have, not only protoss. I was compairing the offensive mechanics of protoss vs the terrans. of course I am not complaining about the way warping technology works, i am just pointing out the differences. btw the reference about building depots and buildings was unnecessary as protoss has to do that as well.
They say things like pulling off the c-shell marauder pressure expand is easier to execute than it is for the Protoss to defend.
rofl? do you honestly think this is wrong?
have you played Terran before? Remember while were battling you we also have to macro at our own base at the same time which is somewhere else on the map. Which seems harder to me than macroing and microing in the same area.
I'm going to go play some protoss vs my friends and have them do this rush to see if it still true after ive seen it on both sides.ill edit it with my opinion after.
what are you talking about? terran can macro and micro at the same spot on the map because you just select the hotkeyed production facilities (which are already rallied into the battle) and just press d and a for marauders/marines or whatever else youre making. toss has to warp in units where the pylons are (and most of the time they are not IN the battle, even if they are proxy) AND go back to the warpgates to chronoboost whilst terran has the reactor for that purpose.
Im assuming their talking about the marudor push into a FE? which means you do have to return to your base for building buildings. If your just pushing a and d and not making any buildings within your base such as FE supply's factory or something your gonna get owned by the protoss and rightfully so. I'm not saying its hard I'm just saying I believe it requires more work than you think. As a protoss shouldnt you have a pylon at your ramp? where most of the fighting is going to be anyways? Terran units have to run over to the battle while protoss can warp into the battle giving the protoss the essentially defender boost where their reinforcements are almost instant. (also i dont know the bane of chrono boosting but couldnt you just hot key your nexus and hit c)(is this the hotkey?) and click on the warpgate which is gonna be near the fighting anyways?)
Well i wasnt talking about defending your friggin ramp - thats of course easier for the defender whatever race you have, not only protoss. I was compairing the offensive mechanics of protoss vs the terrans. of course I am not complaining about the way warping technology works, i am just pointing out the differences. btw the reference about building depots and buildings was unnecessary as protoss has to do that as well.
Your right I was assuming that players do what I do which is wrong lol... I do a 2 rax FE and keep the protoss contained in their base as long as I can to saturate my 2nd and keep the protoss off a 2nd.
They say things like pulling off the c-shell marauder pressure expand is easier to execute than it is for the Protoss to defend.
rofl? do you honestly think this is wrong?
That sentence you quoted supports the primary point I was making in that post. While you've pulled it out of context, your question is still a valid one.
Yes. I think they're incorrect.
Have you ever tried to pressure a Protoss with one tech lab rax? Lol. It is light years away from being IMBA. It punishes any early game inefficiencies, sure, but there are plenty of plays like that.
It's kinda like Protoss walking the first Stalker over to the Terran's base, or maybe they Chrono'd two out. If there is just Marines, even if it is like 4 or 5, the Stalker(s) can actually kill every Marine and then start wailing on the SCVs. If the Terran has a bunker, or a Marauder w/ c-shell support, that play is defended.
If a Terran player is able to apply 1rax pressure to a Protoss while expanding, macroing his base, and doing c-shell micro in Protoss territory then ... uhm, he's a bad ass. It's not imba.
They say things like pulling off the c-shell marauder pressure expand is easier to execute than it is for the Protoss to defend.
rofl? do you honestly think this is wrong?
If a Terran player is able to apply 1rax pressure to a Protoss while expanding, macroing his base, and doing c-shell micro in Protoss territory then ... uhm, he's a bad ass. It's not imba.
Yeah, for every bronze player, that might be a good achievement, but for every decent player its a cake.
The problem lies that the protoss has to commit so much to defense, and teching to be able to deflect that, while the terran has an established oc with bunkers to defend any incoming attacks. While protoss sits on 1 base, with a halfway done tech, if he deflects it, he might outright die there if he messes up, cause you cant micro against concussive.
It wouldn't be that big of a deal if the second Oc wouldn't be such a HUGE increase of income to the terran thanks to mule. Terran gets an auto economic boost only thanks to their additional expansion, without any workers.
Protoss is behind from that point on the whole game.
They say things like pulling off the c-shell marauder pressure expand is easier to execute than it is for the Protoss to defend.
rofl? do you honestly think this is wrong?
If a Terran player is able to apply 1rax pressure to a Protoss while expanding, macroing his base, and doing c-shell micro in Protoss territory then ... uhm, he's a bad ass. It's not imba.
Yeah, for every bronze player, that might be a good achievement, but for every decent player its a cake.
The problem lies that the protoss has to commit so much to defense, and teching to be able to deflect that, while the terran has an established oc with bunkers to defend any incoming attacks. While protoss sits on 1 base, with a halfway done tech, if he deflects it, he might outright die there if he messes up, cause you cant micro against concussive.
It wouldn't be that big of a deal if the second Oc wouldn't be such a HUGE increase of income to the terran thanks to mule. Terran gets an auto economic boost only thanks to their additional expansion, without any workers.
Protoss is behind from that point on the whole game.
Idk what to say to such a silly response. Are you serious?
Protoss is just a freak of nature, its the strongest, most flexible and hardest, nearly impossible to beat race. We can all agree that ZvP has lately transformed into direct "gg", as from the start of the game you can get cannon rushed with 3 pylons on the ramp leaving you on 1 base long enough so there isn't really any point to continue the game. Because zerg units are a lot less cost efficient than protosses, zerg can never really get ahead and win a game, once he has less income or bases than his opponent .In this manner we can just say that all the zerg units are easy detectable, easy to kill and counter with protoss, which leads us to such game scenarios like the one where protoss just goes mass immortals and voidrayes vs mass roaches and hydras, and because both protoss units are hard counter to the roaches and kill them instantly, there isn't anything left to take the dmg and the hydras die despite their high dps. Another interesting thing to think about if you don't get cannon rushed, or 4th gated is "How can Protoss kill an expansion in seconds and freely walk away without losing anything with the help of couple of FF, blink, or of course the help of 1 hidden pylon and Dark or High Templar. Both protoss units can destroy your economy or tech just in a couple of seconds,so if u are not prepared for it you are probably going to struggle a little bit more, until again you realize what is going be the final outcome.No matter what do you do,you are always going to be behind in nearly every aspect of the game, which the protoss can always exploit and use to finish you(like killing your liar or hive and going for mothership, or blinked stalkers dark templar) Somehow all these units complete one another quite perfectly( sniping overseers with blink and warping DTs or going Mothership with storm or archon toilet destroyes every singe unit right after the vortex is finished. So if you don't think that the amount of protoss units that slice zerg into little pieces in a matter of seconds is not ridiculous(if u think about it all zerg ground units are useless vs Colosus, Voirays and Sentries ) , think twice about the unit spells and additional upgrades, which makes them not only superior to the same level units of other races, but transforms them into a perfect counter for much more expensive and hard to produce units like mutas, broodlords, ultralisk, infestors). And when protoss combines all the spells during battle it doesn't matter if you are prepared, because protoss can instantly put new units on the battlefield and use their spells and abilities to finish faster the opponent, thus after a big battle protoss could have used a lot bigger army composition and has been so fast in switching into different unit composition that other races can't really produce a counter unit so fast and they die.. Zerg doesn't really have a single unit that can put an early pressure on the protosll, leaving our dear friend to comfortably macro and upgrade his units in preparation for the last battle So basically the scenario is like this, when protoss comes out and gets good FF u are dead or you have just lost a sizable army count for the cost of 3 FF. Putting this in context I at higher level, where people know their build orders and timing, there isn't really a chance for zerg to beat protoss. Once he has that amount of sentry when he can come,kill your expand, block you and leave you on the same amount of bases as him, which zerg doesn't have any chance surviving and thats how most games work. Protoss can always sneak put FF or blink away and win the game because of a single spell or upgrade. While terran has EMP and can directly deal with everything protoss has, zerg doesn't really have a unit which lives a couple of second after the start of the fight. Ye this is not wc3 but it' feels kinda strange dying b4 you have really started the fight . In this manner zerglings, roaches, hydras and all other ground units are becoming useless in late game vs protoss as they cannot put any real damage to army of the protoss. Ye some people will say hydras and roaches are lower tech units, but all tier1 protoss units have an additional upgrade, that is game changing and most of the time game wining. We have all seen p army of zealots,stalkers and colosus dancing teleporting, charging and basically leaving nothing for you as there isn't really something that can be done in a couple of seconds, except roll your tale and run away with the hope that you can still beat him. With all these special abilities and hero units Blizzard has made the game dull and uninteresting to play.The pace of the game is dictated by protoss and it's strategies and has turned zerg into a statik, defensive race, which has no means of harassment except mutas and which has to make the same unit composition in order to just survive( basically you always go speedling , roaches, hydras and then somehow the game slows down because there isn't any any logical way to continue ur tech tree, u can go ultras or broodlords but the truth is that these are the most expensive and most fragile units in the zerg army and here we can talk about cost efficiency , because as higher u go in the zerg tech tree units are the least cost effective(in large fights most zerg units doesnt even have a chance to deal dmg, having 4-5 immortals, just melts any kind of ultras, blinked stalkers destroy ultras, voirayes are the same , its almost ridiculous how protoss can choose how to deal, and not only do it but do it effectively, because the truth is if we only look at the voidray as a unit that it direcly counter every single zerg unit, and its a hard counter to roaches,ultras,broodlords and corruptors, not to mention that 20voids vs 20 mutas finishes with 2-3 dead voidrayes. So taking into account statistics and the fact that when the voidray kills sth it moves direcly to another unit , I can freely conclude that every idiot who can press the F,B,T buttons will be pretty much able to win mostly vs the other races. Again blizzard showed how much they lack quality employees, who can invent something new and interesting instead of slightly modify old starcraft and brood war units, and then use them into the new game. Like the concept of baneling: they say it should serve as a lurker. Mb they dont understand really how the game works but lurkers were a unit than can put pressure on the mineral line or on the wall, forcing the opponent to slow his tech or income. While baneling in late game just die before they reach their target, cause you cant really use them vs protoss or terran without fungal and be cost effective. Because now tanks dont overkill, but all of them shoot at a different unit in the same time, they can basically 2-3 shot your whole zerg army, cause again if you think about it tanks 1 shot zerglings with +1, hard counter to roaches, destroy hydras and make soap from ultras. How can the creation of 1 unit as terran, automatically denies the usage of 4 zerg unit.if u think about it if u play vs mech as zerg, there isnnt any unit zerg can make possible ground unit zerg can make. The only counter for tanks is mutas and again if mutas die you cant replenish them instantly, because they are too gas heavy , while steamed marines and steamed marines drop are a complete joke , because with upgrades and medivac, marines will do their fool dmg till the moment they die are your workers or expand dies mostly. And again even terran can split army cause he can defend expand only with planetary and be safe.its so fuckin ridiculous when u think about the basics of the game and how they put on protoss warpgate and all these special units with special atack and armor, they gave terran free bunker and mule, so even when he is bunker rushing you, with witch if he succeeds u have 99% lost , while if he fails he doesn't really pay any prize.Just ridiculous strategies like bkue flame hellion, where you just need to get them behind min line for 1 max 2 shots to clear everything and there are idiots doing this non stop all game cause sooner or later they know they gona be ahead of you. That's why all these hard counters doesnt do anything else than force players go the same strategie over and over again . Cause you can't defend blue flame without roaches even if you do you will loose so many zerglings and so much larva that it wont even matter.I just hope they take care of sc2, because they should really balance out some things, its normal one race to have more upgrades or different play style or some speaci upgrades but i dont understand why protos has all these units that seem like they all have special power in late game and why terran can upgrade building armor tourest range and zerg is is just unit and speed upgrade for later game ye speed helps but all these units witouth upgrade are really glarbage not even wortth to go, so they just try to make ur garbage units better for the mid game while the make p upgrades hard counter to every heavy armored unit the zerg has. As a whole zerg seems a lot of undersigned, there are many gaps where zerg cant atack because units are useless vs sentries cand expand cause it cannot hold pressure basicly u are just stuck with some army composition waiting for the push where you just need to build enough roaches In the end iI feel zerg race has been damaged the most and it hasnt really got any edge over the other races like protos with warp and terran with all this tech switches tech labs and reactors nowadays protoss seems much more flexible than both terran and zerg. with couple of pilon over the map protoss can have map control and units in each corne this makes protoss a joke i can say because everybody can imagine 25 warpgate on macro map with blink charge ht dt there is -it doesnt matter if zerg has limit zer or hydras or roaches cause basically you can storm and gg and 1 more thing is that the state of the roach as a tank unit has made them the best unit for many situation now zvz is all about the bigger roach count and the faster +1 with speed all these timings which if u get in good timing and atack u just know u gona win,cause as zerg u know it , which again is all about the strategy its just that some units beat others and it doesnt matter how good micro you have you have to make the ones that are cost efficient and everybody goes and does the same strategy that it only looks a little different like zvp and tvp both z and t play vs colosus the same way tier 1 ground army with air units for colosus this is like the most simple play in the world ur air units even shooot only air so u dont have to control them really so much The game at the moment is EZ and doesn't really involve any type of skill there are things that do so much dmg in later stages that people are feeling comfortable enough doing them and not anything else since the beta we haven't seen something different than marine tanks or colosus there are too many hard-counters that doesn't do anything else except ruin the game for the people who wanna be innovative and create their play style most of the game in battle net seem one sided from the start to the end not to say there isn't a singe mirror match that you can get any pleasure playing and that there isn't any way to hold if u dont play exactly like ur opponents which forces people to play pointless, 8 minute all in games , where everything is decided from from who will make a mistake earlier but thats the most disgusting thing that when u know ur opponents is goign one strat if u go high tech he just comes and kills you I hope blizzard change most of their ridiculous creations and put them realy into play like reaper this unit is tottaly useless zerglings in late game they are just so stupid unit in the end game and like ultras and broodlords is only used when he is already dead or u are just finishing him if you are beinh az zerg but make 5 ultras omg marines kill so fast ultras u even cant see the hp bar going down its like they blow instantly i cant imagine how can unit with 5 amor i dont know how much hp but basically owned by every single terran unit from tier 1 and tier 2 while zerg tier one and tier 2 can even make it to the batle ground cause they can get 1 or 2 shot Thats my insights guys... had many things to say, dont know if somebody will read though gl hf and enjoy the game :D
They say things like pulling off the c-shell marauder pressure expand is easier to execute than it is for the Protoss to defend.
rofl? do you honestly think this is wrong?
That sentence you quoted supports the primary point I was making in that post. While you've pulled it out of context, your question is still a valid one.
Yes. I think they're incorrect.
Have you ever tried to pressure a Protoss with one tech lab rax? Lol. It is light years away from being IMBA. It punishes any early game inefficiencies, sure, but there are plenty of plays like that.
It's kinda like Protoss walking the first Stalker over to the Terran's base, or maybe they Chrono'd two out. If there is just Marines, even if it is like 4 or 5, the Stalker(s) can actually kill every Marine and then start wailing on the SCVs. If the Terran has a bunker, or a Marauder w/ c-shell support, that play is defended.
If a Terran player is able to apply 1rax pressure to a Protoss while expanding, macroing his base, and doing c-shell micro in Protoss territory then ... uhm, he's a bad ass. It's not imba.
Man sry but you probably don't understand how protoss workes exactly. You see there is one thing called forcefield which stopes all early pressure and there is another thing called warpgate i just make warpgate and go and kill him cause he can make units faster also guardian shield cut the dmg of marines in half and for maroders also so main protoss the easiest race no apm required i just need good forcefields here and there to keep u alive and u can always protect urself with forcefield if u dont wanna engage its so fuckin easy that i dont understand how every protoss is not feeling ashamed that he is playing the one button win into mega cheese gogo win transition race Its just ridiculous cause u never know what to expect with protos he can go blink stalker and fuck you charge zeloaats and fuck you 3 gate robo stargate warprism colosu haras so many things that are crazy for haras and are direct transition from ur normal units like blink stalkers kill expo blink back gg no expo its even not EZ its retarded how they can make it so ez for one race and in the same time u cant even go tier 3 with zerg cause units doesnt really do more dmg and die faster because of armor hard counter mega stupid wc3 stategie
On February 23 2011 04:55 Djinx wrote: Protoss is just a freak of nature, its the strongest, most flexible and hardest, nearly impossible to beat race. We can all agree that ZvP has lately transformed into direct "gg", as from the start of the game you can get cannon rushed with 3 pylons on the ramp leaving you on 1 base long enough so there isn't really any point to continue the game. Because zerg units are a lot less cost efficient than protosses, zerg can never really get ahead and win a game, once he has less income or bases than his opponent .In this manner we can just say that all the zerg units are easy detectable, easy to kill and counter with protoss, which leads us to such game scenarios like the one where protoss just goes mass immortals and voidrayes vs mass roaches and hydras, and because both protoss units are hard counter to the roaches and kill them instantly, there isn't anything left to take the dmg and the hydras die despite their high dps. huge wall of text
You made an account just for this wall? :D
Anyway, anyone know if there will be more episodes with IdrA leaving?
They say things like pulling off the c-shell marauder pressure expand is easier to execute than it is for the Protoss to defend.
rofl? do you honestly think this is wrong?
That sentence you quoted supports the primary point I was making in that post. While you've pulled it out of context, your question is still a valid one.
Yes. I think they're incorrect.
Have you ever tried to pressure a Protoss with one tech lab rax? Lol. It is light years away from being IMBA. It punishes any early game inefficiencies, sure, but there are plenty of plays like that.
It's kinda like Protoss walking the first Stalker over to the Terran's base, or maybe they Chrono'd two out. If there is just Marines, even if it is like 4 or 5, the Stalker(s) can actually kill every Marine and then start wailing on the SCVs. If the Terran has a bunker, or a Marauder w/ c-shell support, that play is defended.
If a Terran player is able to apply 1rax pressure to a Protoss while expanding, macroing his base, and doing c-shell micro in Protoss territory then ... uhm, he's a bad ass. It's not imba.
Man sry but you probably don't understand how protoss workes exactly. You see there is one thing called forcefield which stopes all early pressure and there is another thing called warpgate i just make warpgate and go and kill him cause he can make units faster also guardian shield cut the dmg of marines in half and for maroders also so main protoss the easiest race no apm required i just need good forcefields here and there to keep u alive and u can always protect urself with forcefield if u dont wanna engage its so fuckin easy that i dont understand how every protoss is not feeling ashamed that he is playing the one button win into mega cheese gogo win transition race Its just ridiculous cause u never know what to expect with protos he can go blink stalker and fuck you charge zeloaats and fuck you 3 gate robo stargate warprism colosu haras so many things that are crazy for haras and are direct transition from ur normal units like blink stalkers kill expo blink back gg no expo its even not EZ its retarded how they can make it so ez for one race and in the same time u cant even go tier 3 with zerg cause units doesnt really do more dmg and die faster because of armor hard counter mega stupid wc3 stategie
Wow, horrible post imo! If you think that protoss is all about 1A I suggest you go ahead and main protoss. This race bashing and whining is ridiculous, if you don't like Starcraft, perhaps Starcraft isn't for you?
Man sry but you probably don't understand how protoss workes exactly. You see there is one thing called forcefield which stopes all early pressure and there is another thing called warpgate i just make warpgate and go and kill him cause he can make units faster also guardian shield cut the dmg of marines in half and for maroders also so main protoss the easiest race no apm required i just need good forcefields here and there to keep u alive and u can always protect urself with forcefield if u dont wanna engage its so fuckin easy that i dont understand how every protoss is not feeling ashamed that he is playing the one button win into mega cheese gogo win transition race Its just ridiculous cause u never know what to expect with protos he can go blink stalker and fuck you charge zeloaats and fuck you 3 gate robo stargate warprism colosu haras so many things that are crazy for haras and are direct transition from ur normal units like blink stalkers kill expo blink back gg no expo its even not EZ its retarded how they can make it so ez for one race and in the same time u cant even go tier 3 with zerg cause units doesnt really do more dmg and die faster because of armor hard counter mega stupid wc3 stategie
when i first read this, i read it as if you were rapping and just being silly.
then i realized you were serious and that you were just whining.
EPT
can't wait to get back to do so!![[image loading]](http://www.carameldream.net/Starcraft/idra&artosishighfive.jpg)
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