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Warning. Useless comments that are deemed to be flame/troll bait = ban. If you have criticism, thats fine but you better have amazing support to back up your opinion. Otherwise ban. |
On February 16 2011 18:25 WhiteDog wrote:
Once again I think both Idra & artosis are wrong in their thinking process. Colossus Void Ray can be countered by roach hydra corruptor or muta corruptor if the protoss goes for colossus void ray ONLY with no gate units. Not to mention T3 units mix can be quite good against the protoss death ball (but I'm sure idra & artosis know that).
Of course they are wrong and you are right.
"Colossus void ray ONLY" may suck with no gate units. But.. they are not talking about bronze league play where players don't spend there minerals.
If you had even watched the video before flaming, you'll know they talked about including gateway units. If the zerg goes mass air units, the protoss can scout it with no problem and adapt.
T3 units are quite good, the problem is that they do so well against void rays. You know the whole thing about being massive and not shooting air. Again if you had watched the show, they talked about it.
You may not agree with what they say, and it's always possible that they might be wrong, but they have discusses all the point you mentioned, and with a deeper analysis that what you just did.
Personally, I don't really see much difference between this one and the first one... In the first one they talked about colossus+other protoss units, now they talk about colossus+void rays+other protoss units..
***
The other problem, I see with their show is that identifying something imbalanced will limit their show. For instance, now we can say there is nothing in the zerg army imbalanced against protoss, because the protoss can simply counter it by using the "imba colossus void rays".
Just as in TvP, some players talked about colossus + phoenix or other late game composition being extra strong against terran. While this may be true, it can not be imbalanced if the terran can counter it by ... winning in the early game...
So if they had said, TvP is imbalanced in early game, it would have completely discarded the possibility of late game protoss being imbalanced.
****
PS: if colossus+void rays are imba, it means Artosis can beat Idra almost every time ?!
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On February 16 2011 18:59 Chaosvuistje wrote:
This is one of the only things I genuinly believe is broken.
The thing I hate about this composition is that the games get boring really really fast. The protoss always turtles up in their 2 base while putting millions of cannons at their third and entrance. Then when they have enough voidray/collosi/gateway units they just 1a.
There is just one battle. No other engagements. Just me coping with a super macro protoss while I cannot attack into their defensive position because of cannons, voidrays, collosus and forcefields. I love regular ZvP, with lots of battles, harrassments and all that. But Collosus/voidray is just lame to fight against, because all the protoss has to do is defend and if I don't get the most perfect counter, they win regardless of my macro/scouting..
I also agree this is broken. I'm a toss and it just doesn't really feel right doing this composition. I do feel it's too strong. Normally I would never really complain about balance. But... yeah there that is.
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On February 16 2011 18:48 kawazu wrote:
Equal cost Chargelots/gateway does very well against bio ball if managed properly...
As a whole, this show keeps bringing up colossi in various forms. Maybe they should just accept that Colossi are part of some imbalanced in the game in some way because they force a very limited unit composition that is too easy to counter with the rest of the protoss force. It seems to be something that they bring up every episode, but only for PvZ even though it definitely applies to PvT as well.
In TvP high Colossi numbers not only mean no more bio but also no more hellions => Zealot/stalker portion can easily roll you because there aren't any units left that can defend against that comp.
They nerfed siege tank damage against light units so that the critical mass was much higher, maybe they will end up doing the something similar with colossi at some point. That would make colossi tech less of a determining factor for viable builds which might be necessary.
No just no, play toss and try gateway+chargelot only unit combo and watch charged lots get burned. If terran is losing to charged lots without any aoe support from toss that means his macro is terrible.
Colossus is seriously the only way a toss can secure a fast second base. Many say "oh colossus too good; option like high templar exist". To those who don't play toss, please try to play toss and rush high temps against any half decent terran or zerg. It is not gonna work. Expo will be extremely delayed. Seriously give us better gateway units so we don't have to be so one dimenison. Artosis keep saying toss isn't exploring the full tech tree. I tried void rays, I tried pheonix, I tried immortal+gateway, I tried a lot. None of them are as good as colossus or as effective. They feel so much more gimmicky than solid. If they nerf colossus, the balance of this game will greatly shift. Upping damage on corruptors is mehish, Im not 100% sure but makes it feel like mid game colossus push get a lot weaker. I mean it is already very weak. I usually do 5 gate+immortal pressure over waiting for 2-3 colossus+range since zerg just outmacro me.
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On February 16 2011 19:05 Elean wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2011 18:25 WhiteDog wrote:
Once again I think both Idra & artosis are wrong in their thinking process. Colossus Void Ray can be countered by roach hydra corruptor or muta corruptor if the protoss goes for colossus void ray ONLY with no gate units. Not to mention T3 units mix can be quite good against the protoss death ball (but I'm sure idra & artosis know that). Of course they are wrong and you are right. "Colossus void ray ONLY" may suck with no gate units. But.. they are not talking about bronze league play where players don't spend there minerals. If you had even watched the video before flaming, you'll know they talked about including gateway units. If the zerg goes mass air units, the protoss can scout it with no problem and adapt. T3 units are quite good, the problem is that they do so well against void rays. You know the whole thing about being massive and not shooting air. Again if you had watched the show, they talked about it. You may not agree with what they say, and it's always possible that they might be wrong, but they have discusses all the point you mentioned, and with a deeper analysis that what you just did. Personally, I don't really see much difference between this one and the first one... In the first one they talked about colossus+other protoss units, now they talk about colossus+void rays+other protoss units.. *** The other problem, I see with their show is that identifying something imbalanced will limit their show. For instance, now we can say there is nothing in the zerg army imbalanced against protoss, because the protoss can simply counter it by using the "imba colossus void rays". Just as in TvP, some players talked about colossus + phoenix or other late game composition being extra strong against terran. While this may be true, it can not be imbalanced if the terran can counter it by ... winning in the early game... So if they had said, TvP is imbalanced in early game, it would have completely discarded the possibility of late game protoss being imbalanced. **** PS: if colossus+void rays are imba, it means Artosis can beat Idra almost every time ?!
I think you've not read what I said. I agree with you, but what I'm saying is that the source of imbalance is in the tech path leading to colossus/void ray so easy to achieve safely and yet opposed in the tech tree, while zerg's tech path is more SC1ish.
Basically, the protoss can make everything SAFE, while you are not safe if you don't make a bunch of roach, wasting your supply into units that will get melted if they are not correctly mixed.
That's what Idra & artosis are saying, but they are pointing on the colossus saying "IMBALANCED" while nerfing colossi can basically break the game. To fix it, something needs to change about SC2 tech route.
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The problem comes from Protoss units being supereffective once you reach a critical number. Colossus does that for ground units and Void Rays can do both air and ground once they are charged up. There are several ways to "fix this":
1. nerf the Protoss units
This is probably a bad idea for the reasons they mentioned: "nerfs make a game more fragile" (and I think they wouldnt fix the problem). Flat out nerfs tend to make a unit useless (see the Reaper) and that is a bad thing for the game.
The only way to "nerf" these two units without affecting their usefulness in lower numbers is to reduce the stacking of them. Colossi are quite large and they could require a large radius around them to be free of other "air units" (including Colossi). Thus the death ball would have to spread out a lot more and have less dps dealt to the outside. This is a minor adjustment though and I dont know if it would be enough.
2. change Zerg units
Here is a good chance to solve it, but which unit should get that buff? If the Corruptor gets buffed it becomes too powerful and might be imbalanced when not facing the bunch of Void Rays (i.e. a Terran opponent). So how about adding another effect to Fungal Growth? Give FG the ability to reset a Void Ray charge and to slow down its rate of fire for 5 secs? The Infestor is weak and you still have to be skilled to get into range of the Void Rays to use it, so it would not tilt the balance automatically but rather require some skill.
Sadly this would not prevent the "death ball" to succeed at diamond-master league levels, but any flat nerf to the Protoss units would probably only a) increase the critical number you need and thus not change a thing or b) make the units totally useless. So the best solution might be a way for the opponent to break up the Protoss death ball.
3. maps
Maybe part of the reason is that the Protoss can accomplish all this on two bases? If that is the case a change to the first two bases might help and giving the natural bases only one gas geyser might force the Protoss to expand once more to get enough gas for his needs. Sure Zerg need a lot of gas as well, but they are expanding a ton anyways so it should not matter too much for them. This might turn out to be as important for game balance as those "please dont spawn close positions on Metalopolis"-prayers of Zerg players.
very close spawns = bad for Zerg
4 gas on two bases = sufficient for Protoss death ball
4. PvT?
Even for Terrans the Protoss death ball might pose problems, since a critical number of Void Rays can reasonably be countered only by Vikings and these are more or less as useless against ground as the Corruptors are. So if you are left with a bunch of "useless Vikings" after a fight the Protoss just gets an all gateway army and laughs at your Vikings. Being able to mass produce Vikings isnt as easy as getting a ton of Corruptors since you either need a lot of Starports or a few Reactors, which are a prime target for any sneak attack on a base due to their build time of 50 seconds. So for Terrans it might be a nice idea to add the "decharge Void Ray" ability to the EMP of a Ghost. Again you would be able to actively negate an advantage of the Protoss and it is all skill based.
Epilogue
Protoss does have another unit which can be quite imbalanced when you reach a critical mass: the Carrier. We are not seeing this unit so much in the game because it is pretty easy to kill in low numbers and costs too much to risk getting it for a serious fight.
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Colossus play can be countered, as any other strategy.
PvT, drop him as hell, buy time get Vikings, split his army by doing that transition into Mech.
(PvP so far is the matchup where Colossus are the biggest problem)
PvZ, engage before he gets Colossus with Range, while securing your 3.rd4.th
There is no point for Zerg in thinking what to to after the so called Deathball is finished and both armies are maxxed.
The so called imba cry isn't imba why? just look at the Army Tab of the "worth" of both Armies when they are Maxxed.
You will see
P>Z, and thats the reason why Zerg loses in those fights, so you either have to tech too to counter him, or you have to exploit that Techtiming of his.
Its so basic game understanding actually it hurts to have to type this.
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First video was alright until episode 2 and 3.. I mean seriously.. is this Imbalanced! or Protoss is Imbalanced!? Don't get me wrong, I like Artosis more than Tasteless but this is getting so wrong after each episode.
Since IdrA is going back to US, I hope that the next episode will be something else. Talk about TvZ more or TvP. If the next episode is about Protoss being imbalanced again, then too bad.. Artosis, you just lost one follower for Imbalanced!....
Sigh.
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Protoss players who are whining that this ball is balanced should play few games as zerg and see how hard this race is... I also think that ball is just too strong and this strategy is just too easy to execute.
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On February 16 2011 19:15 freetgy wrote:
Colossus play can be countered, as any other strategy.
PvT, drop him as hell, buy time get Vikings.
PvZ, engage before he gets Colossus with Range, while securing your 3.rd4.th
PvP so far is the matchup where Colossus are the biggest problem
You obviously didn't get the point.
Colossus has been discussed 2 weeks ago with the result that Colossus is not imbalanced.
This discussion is about the Colossus Void Ray Death Ball, which can not be easily countered.
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so when zerg turtles while taking bases and not even making offensive attempt until or sometimes even after maxed is justified, but when protoss does the same thing it's "boring"
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On February 16 2011 18:54 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2011 18:44 Ribbon wrote:
I still don't understand why it's apparently impossible for Zerg to get more bases and counter inefficiently/slow down the attack. It works against Terran on Shakuras for backdoor tank pushes. Why doesn't it work against Protoss? It's useless to expand if you can't saturate your bases... every zerg take the third early nowadays and if you take the time to fully saturate your third, most of the time you allow the protoss to make his death ball and he roll over you. Many times I have taken 5 bases against a 2 base turtletoss trying to go for a third, and i still get rolled over because of 200 useless suply. You have to be agressiv in the first 10 minutes and lower his army count, you can't play passiv.
That's a good answer.
Considering how tight the protoss is stretching his gas, maybe more harassment is the answer, then? To try to prevent the protoss from getting the Deah Ball in the first place, or at least slow it down a lot? MrRicewife's post is interesting, though I can't watch the replays at this time. I will in a few hours.
If you went for Mutas and did a lot of damage, that'd stop the build cold. If he saw and countered with 2-gate Phoenix....then he's cutting VRs from the eventual Deathball and spending a ton of gas.
Hm. Maybe if you did something wacky, like 30 mutas or infestor play, something interesting would happen....
Contaminate? :3
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On February 16 2011 19:19 Bocian wrote:
Protoss players who are whining that this ball is balanced should play few games as zerg and see how hard this race is... I also think that ball is just too strong and this strategy is just too easy to execute.
Playing one game offrace is not a good indicator for balance issues. You'll need much more experience to judge that.
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On February 16 2011 19:15 freetgy wrote:
PvZ, engage before he gets Colossus with Range, while securing your 3.rd4.th
So how do you engage the Protoss while he is sitting inside his base and defends? 6-pooling isnt really an answer. The Protoss loses a lot less than the Zerg most likely and once the Thermal Lance upgrade is out he is in great shape to defend his entries. Forcefields and blocked ramps are pretty useful to minimize the losses of the Protoss and he might even block his ramps with buildings and cannons which only cost him minerals but serve their purpose of blocking the Zerg out. You have to take into account that the Zerg needs to be building up an economy while pressuring the Protoss and that you do not have the full tech tree available at that time.
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On February 16 2011 19:20 TigerKarl wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2011 19:15 freetgy wrote:
Colossus play can be countered, as any other strategy.
PvT, drop him as hell, buy time get Vikings.
PvZ, engage before he gets Colossus with Range, while securing your 3.rd4.th
PvP so far is the matchup where Colossus are the biggest problem You obviously didn't get the point. Colossus has been discussed 2 weeks ago with the result that Colossus is not imbalanced. This discussion is about the Colossus Void Ray Death Ball, which can not be easily countered.
actually it could, if Zerg would use everything at their disposal.
Again i understand that when the DB is finished it is extremly hard for Zerg.
Voidrays/Colossus don't pop out magically, they actually take almost all your Gas of 2 Bases.
and both of those units take ages to build. which would leave him with mostly zealots as core ground army unit.
- Contaminate comes into my mind, blocking Production of important Techbuildings is a huge cut into Protoss Army. Robotime as Stargatetime is defacto a ressource for Protoss.
- Gas Steal comes in mind.
everything that slows down the production of those T3 units will do it.
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If this strat really is unstoppable by Zerg, putting only one geyser in the natural would make it literally impossible to do, as just the VRs and Colos w/Thermal Lance take 2 geysers worth of Vespene. Taking a geyser out of the nat would stretch gas to the point where the protoss player can't do almost anything else, making mutas a viable counter strategy (as 2 gate phoenix would eat too much gas).
Crevasse does this now. If this build dominates all the maps except Crevasse throughout GSL 5, then we'll know.
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+ Show Spoiler +On February 16 2011 18:40 MrRicewife wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On February 16 2011 14:47 rS.Sinatra wrote:
However, since they specifically said they are talking about balance at the very top, lets see some games at the very top. On February 16 2011 14:50 Durp wrote:
I'm not sure why Mutalisks aren't considered here. A protoss seeing spire tech may assume corruptor and continue void rays, which are decimated by mutalisks. The investment into phoenixs and/or stalkers required to counter mutalisks would make massing sufficient voidrays/colossi off of two bases almost impossible.
Food for thought. On February 16 2011 14:52 Zealot Lord wrote:
... There's no replays no nothing... On February 16 2011 14:55 Beef Noodles wrote:Well, mutalisks are a ton of gas. Also, they are not that great in a straight up fight. They are very useful for harrass or in huge numbers (due to mobility). Randomly switching to mutas with the protoss going stargate seems like a very bad idea. They only have to warp in 1-2 rounds of stalkers and start pheonix, and they will be countering your mutas while using less min/gas. Also their army will perfectly counter yours to a point that zerg econ advantage probably wont keep up  But I'm no pro. 2200 master league On February 16 2011 15:10 Obaten wrote:
But isn't is possible to just lead him off the techpath of the voidray/colossus with enough mutas to harass, and kill the stalkers with a good number of lings? On February 16 2011 15:38 OptimusYale wrote:
Would mass Muta/corrupter work? I mean as they said,. they're investing so much gas are they really going to have that many stalkers in their army? Mutas to destroy the voids, corrupters to kill the collosi? I mean I'm only a lowly silver level player but thats the only thing I can think of. On February 16 2011 16:48 redux46 wrote:
Stalkers will definitely beat mutas cost for cost, but if the protoss has invested most of his gas into collosi and void rays (both weak against mutas) I don't think he'll have the gas left to make a switch in time to more stalkers/phoenixes.
I mean, if toss is sitting back on two bases, zerg can be on 3 if not 4, more than enough to get mass mutas.
Also, upgraded mutas are not that weak against stalkers in the first place. On February 16 2011 17:03 GQz wrote:
I don't understand why people are saying that going mutas is viable against a protoss that has double stargate up. It sounds ridiculous because it is. First off, if you consider resource for resource, a void ray will completely dominate a mutalisk. Only POSSIBLY in large numbers will mutas have any real effect, but you're already spending so much more than him. That's not even considering the possibility that he mixes a few phoenixes in there and the stalkers from his gateway army aren't firing at you the whole time. Lol... so this is the quality of Teamliquid.net now, huh? Don't bother thinking or providing evidence. Don't even bother reading a thread before posting - just type... I guess I will quote myself and repost, with some extra information. In this replay, it shows a decent macro game heading into the infamous death ball. This is without any mutalisk harass, just a nice decent macro game where protoss pushes around zerg until the heavy units come in. I think zerg thought he could outmacro protoss by expanding many times - in the end, that unit composition is EXTREMELY difficult to kill. Something to note: the mothership is the cherry on top that makes this 'unbeatable', and without the vortex, I think zerg, with practice and defining build orders, can beat this build, like dimaga displayed on scrap station. Here is a replay of beautiful mutalisk harass, stopping the build dead in its tracks:http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/140199-1v1-protoss-zerg-metalopolisIn this replay, the mutalisk timing was very good and forced protoss to build stalkers, or else risk being taken over with mutalisks. I believe Liquid'Tyler was commenting on this - not this specific replay - but about mutalisk harass, and with practice, 'unbeatable' builds can quickly fall apart. Again, something to note: the mothership unit looks like a unit that can hard counter any army, just by using the vortex spell. I've seen the mothership drop a vortex on all races, all unit compositions, and then poop their own colossus, archons, and even voidrays into the vortex - coming out without losing a unit, while decimating whatever was in that vortex. It would be nice if someone who is at least master or understands the game to comment on the mothership vortex spell, especially after watching the second replay. I understand the vortex was already modified by Blizzard once because of the FF glitch ( for those who don't know - before a patch, toss could FF around a vortex and 1 colossus would roast anything inside when they popped out). Well - it seems that with certain units, this can still happen - instead of FF you just shove all your crap in their with the zerg units. I really like the vortex and I don't want it to go away, but it would be nice to hear more about it, especially since the mothership is a common unit in top level play.Show nested quote +On February 16 2011 14:54 Go0g3n wrote:
Like several people pointed out - watch the latest Go4SC weekly Dimaga vs White-Ra games, Dimaga dealt with the 10-ray 4-Colossi + gate army fairly easy with ~12-14 corruptors +R/H and won the game., he lost the other two because he over-committed to 20+ corruptors. Plus, he never even tried to harass the Colo/Ray with his corruptors, which would've helped a bit.
Also, Dimaga ordered those Corruptors in one bulk, right after ho scouted a mass of rays, rather than the 2-3 rays White-Ra was harassing ovies for the entire game. So, there's an economic mobility for Zerg. Good post. Here are the replays for those games: http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/replays/43248 Dimaga loses over committing corrupter.http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/replays/43247 Dimaga owning the alleged 'Death Ball'http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/replays/43246 Regular game, irrelevant to discussionp.s. the bold text is to 'pop out' the important information, as I know it is a chore to read large bodies of text; I don't mean to use bold text in bm in anyway.
This is a great writeup. Why make a show about imbalance if you don't show the whole picture. Both Artosis and Idra show a defeatist attitude, they deem this as imbalanced instead of waiting for players to figure out how to stop a certain strat. IF you create a show like this you need to stay very, very objective and keep a open mind. I feel that these two guys really aren't. Might have to do with their playstyle. Both seem to be a bit static, favoring same build orders every game (Idra is known for this and Artosis said he does the same Toss opening every game).
Many new tactics in both SC/SC2 and other games look undefeatable but in the end people worked out how to deal with it. I remember zerg looking a bit OP in GSL season 2. Ling+bling+muts at the 13-15 minute mark decimating terrans left and right. Looked OP but turned out that marine spreading and tank positioning solved that problem.
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On February 16 2011 19:25 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2011 19:15 freetgy wrote:
PvZ, engage before he gets Colossus with Range, while securing your 3.rd4.th So how do you engage the Protoss while he is sitting inside his base and defends? 6-pooling isnt really an answer. The Protoss loses a lot less than the Zerg most likely and once the Thermal Lance upgrade is out he is in great shape to defend his entries. Forcefields and blocked ramps are pretty useful to minimize the losses of the Protoss and he might even block his ramps with buildings and cannons which only cost him minerals but serve their purpose of blocking the Zerg out. You have to take into account that the Zerg needs to be building up an economy while pressuring the Protoss and that you do not have the full tech tree available at that time.
What's funny is that most of the protoss just forget sentries. You have to be agressiv, but sentries are just too good defense wise, and most of the time i win against protoss in lategame is when they just make colossus stalker and don't refill their sentries count. Well, I can understand this move gaz wise obviously.
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On February 16 2011 19:21 shinku) wrote:
so when zerg turtles while taking bases and not even making offensive attempt until or sometimes even after maxed is justified, but when protoss does the same thing it's "boring"
LOL have you taken the game out of the box yet?
User was warned for this post
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How about the zerg shouldn't be so macro oriented as they are now. when im laddering most zergs i play dont harass me at all. they just let me macro up my death ball, dont scout whether im going heavy collosi /VR/whatever and just assume they need their standard 200/200 roach/hydra/corrupt. wich is pretty much their dead if they dont have the exact right mix. its so easy to set back a toss with just speedling haras/bane drops or whatever.
toss used to have a hard time against Z because they let em macro, now every toss makes sure they put some pressure, so the Z cant macro, imo its Z's turn to return the favour and dont let the P macro up that easy
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if you manage to kill those sentrys early which should be top priority as Zerg always, you have done already half winning the game. replenishing those Sentrys is again a huge cut into Gas for Techunits.
and without forcefield P dies as we all know on open field.
Since we are talking about a 2 Base Scenario here, Protoss won't be able to just hide behind his ramp this makes him always vulnerable since hydras outrange everything except Ranged colossus.
(except may be for Shakuras where the ramp is useful at your natural)
Terrans understand this, and abuse this alot, why not Zergs?
Dropping seems for me to become alot more popular these days for Zergs.
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EPT
