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On April 19 2011 10:21 frucisky wrote:2. Another problem is that P can very cost efficiently cause a lot of damage while macro-ing. They can throw down a dark shrine anytime and send a DT each of Z's 4 or 5 bases. Z has to pre-empt by throwing spores and spines. The fact that Zerg has to be many bases up on a Protoss makes DTs all the more effective.
This was pretty much bw pvz, Savior was just breaking necks left and right because his greedy style worked so well. Then Bisu came out with a dark templar FE build and just destroyed Savior 3-0 by punishing his greediness.
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My opinion - P players simply got better at using Force Fields. That's completely upset the metagame and ruined the illusion of balance in PvZ. How many P did you see get crushed in S1-S2 by simple MM pushes up ramps, where P missed a FF and lost instantly? Players have improved so much that a blunder like that would be unthinkable now, in Code S-level play. Much stronger FF usage has dramatically altered the metagame, putting PvZ early, mid and late game all in P's favor. Whether he wants to crush you with a timing attack or turtle to a deathball, with sufficiently strong FFs he can completely set the tempo of the matchup.
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another reason the turtle protoss is different from the hard macro zerg play is that protoss doesn't need to take too many bases to get critical mass, so all the bases they need will be relatively close and thereby easier to protect. zerg can try to harass via nydus or drop or muta, but the protoss army isnt that far off from getting there to protect it. if any pressure is going to come at all, the needs to happen before collosi start coming out, and zerg tech windows just aren't that open.
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On April 19 2011 05:57 Noocta wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 05:54 Jerax wrote:On April 19 2011 05:49 Antedelerium wrote:
Definitely a copy-paste error. Regardless, OP does make an interesting point with the comparison of how macro Zergs used to be scary while the Protoss deathball strategy goes along the same lines. I highly doubt balance tweaks will be necessary to counter the deathball, but we'll see what happens in higher levels of play. That's how it always goes. Sooner or later, someone figures out how to counter a specific type of strategy. As good as MC is, sooner or later someone will figure out how to consistently stop his insane pushes. Sooner or later, someone will just figure out how to dismantle Cruncher in ZvP in convincing fashion (some pros probably can already and just haven't faced him). But balance tweaks have already been made. The infestor buff hard counters protoss death balls, being highly effective against pretty much the whole protoss composition. And yet every pro don't make them. Broodlords with infestors&anything support destroy any kind of stalkers/colossi deathball protoss can make. But everyone is still sticking to roaches hydra corruptor. :/
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=212857
At a point in the game units lost is shown and it is double for zerg (talk about cost efficiency) and then, at the end, a 20~ Broodlord + 20infestor army is obliterated by a stalker ball...... I don't know, but I think protoss cost efficiency MAY be a bit off, here....
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On April 19 2011 06:15 sekritzzz wrote:
First way to tackle this issue as a zerg player:
-Stop whining about everything and anything to destroy every single LR thread. Maybe if people dedicated 1/100th the effort they put in whining posts to something useful for their race, we'd had the zerg renaissance,
Sorry, but I don't know how a bunch of bronze/silver leaguers (most audience and QQ people) would help.
And lately you see a lot of: "And I even play protoss/terran" in QQ posts.
And, obviously, this is in itself a QQ post and troll bait and I'm really surprised there is no red text bellow it.
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I feel like zergs need more defensive nydus' and queens with their armies and they need spine crawlers with their attacking units instead of pooling 5k minerals in the late game. If they had the defensive nydus' at their far away expansions they could defend drops easier. More burrowed banes too...
Maybe they should make it that you cannot stack forcefields on top of each other and they have to be spread out by exactly 1 forcefield length. It makes the toss pay more attention to their ramps if they're defending or spamming FF on the ramp.
A queen actually out ranges an un-upgraded Colossus.
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I think Protoss has the best, or the core unit, Stalker.
Stalkers is just too good for any situation in PvZ, attack air and ground, armor, good range, mobile with fast speed and blinking. High damage. Stalkers can counter roaches, lings, hydras, mutal, ultras, broodlords, corruptors, even infestor if they could blink and snipe infestor before the FG.
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imo the biggest issue is P can set the tone.
They can defend ANYTHING if they scout, and can choose to macro on par w/the Z.
They dont even need to come out of their lovely defensive posture, and can come out of t here w/ANYTHING.
Also, i think someone stated it perfectly.
Z has very few abilities/techs to use to improve, they just "play more fundamentally sound", which doesnt further their metagame much comparatively...
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Earlier theory-crafting that zerg wanted bigger maps with close defendable expansions....turned out to be incorrect. With the power of forcefields protoss have learned how to out-zerg the zerg. They make tech and infastructure and build an economy relatively safely with a relatively small army.
Then they go to the money units.
So the problem is manyfold--the maps promote turtling on 2-3 bases. 3 based is enough for a protoss to make whatever they like. Forcefields by expect users are extremely powerful. Warpins are excellent versus drops and harass. And the protoss deathball is very hard to beat once it is up.
We have seen zerg going with drops in recent tournaments with varied success. This doesn't always work and zerg are always at risk because they aren't quite sure what is going on behind the protoss wallin. It could well be a protoss timing attack rather than a 200/200 deathball.
Personally, I think zerg need an easier/cheaper/faster drop (or better nydus) tech path. The threat of drops has to be there, so that the protoss can't just build structures while using gas to make sentries. Of course, who really knows how it will shake out.
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On April 19 2011 13:02 skrzmark wrote:
I feel like zergs need more defensive nydus' and queens with their armies and they need spine crawlers with their attacking units instead of pooling 5k minerals in the late game. If they had the defensive nydus' at their far away expansions they could defend drops easier. More burrowed banes too...
Maybe they should make it that you cannot stack forcefields on top of each other and they have to be spread out by exactly 1 forcefield length. It makes the toss pay more attention to their ramps if they're defending or spamming FF on the ramp.
A queen actually out ranges an un-upgraded Colossus.
Defensive nyduses are terrible. They die in an instant, so any drop will just target them and annihilate the worm in the blink of an eye. Even if your opponent doesn't notice the giant worm spewing out units, it can only unload 2 units per second. That might sound decent, but in practice it's absolutely terrible. A dropship full of marines or two DTs can kill your units as fast as they can leave the nydus worm, so trying defensive nyduses just lets your opponent kill your entire army without taking a single casualty. And even if that weren't the case, the slow unloading means it's actually faster to just walk your army over to the expo. Finally, what does defensive nydusing do to help against Protoss deathballs? Protecting your expansions can be done much more efficiently and easily with spines and spores, but they still don't do jack shit when your opponent turtles to 200/200 and then rolls you, so I'm not sure why you even brought it up.
Burrowed banelings only work if the Protoss has no observers. They might catch someone off-guard once, but after you lose a single deathball to a massive baneling landmine you'll always have at least one when you move out, and any burrowed banelings are 50/25 and half a supply wasted. Queens outranging unupgraded collosus doesn't matter much when you only ever see upgraded collosus in the deathball, plus they melt against collosus fire anyways.
Sorry if I'm coming across a bit harsh, but it gets really annoying when every 'zerg is underpowered, what do?' thread is full of Terran and Protoss players saying "USE MORE NYDUS AND BANELINGS" as though it would somehow help.
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this thread is stupid and ridiculous. pro games show numerous styles being played vs protoss yet the same results. once blizzard swings the nerf bat then we will see a change, until then, i guess toss will just keep defending themselves on forums.
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On April 19 2011 13:23 Ezekyle wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 13:02 skrzmark wrote:
I feel like zergs need more defensive nydus' and queens with their armies and they need spine crawlers with their attacking units instead of pooling 5k minerals in the late game. If they had the defensive nydus' at their far away expansions they could defend drops easier. More burrowed banes too...
Maybe they should make it that you cannot stack forcefields on top of each other and they have to be spread out by exactly 1 forcefield length. It makes the toss pay more attention to their ramps if they're defending or spamming FF on the ramp.
A queen actually out ranges an un-upgraded Colossus. Defensive nyduses are terrible. They die in an instant, so any drop will just target them and annihilate the worm in the blink of an eye. Even if your opponent doesn't notice the giant worm spewing out units, it can only unload 2 units per second. That might sound decent, but in practice it's absolutely terrible. A dropship full of marines or two DTs can kill your units as fast as they can leave the nydus worm, so trying defensive nyduses just lets your opponent kill your entire army without taking a single casualty. And even if that weren't the case, the slow unloading means it's actually faster to just walk your army over to the expo. Finally, what does defensive nydusing do to help against Protoss deathballs? Protecting your expansions can be done much more efficiently and easily with spines and spores, but they still don't do jack shit when your opponent turtles to 200/200 and then rolls you, so I'm not sure why you even brought it up. Burrowed banelings only work if the Protoss has no observers. They might catch someone off-guard once, but after you lose a single deathball to a massive baneling landmine you'll always have at least one when you move out, and any burrowed banelings are 50/25 and half a supply wasted. Queens outranging unupgraded collosus doesn't matter much when you only ever see upgraded collosus in the deathball, plus they melt against collosus fire anyways. Sorry if I'm coming across a bit harsh, but it gets really annoying when every 'zerg is underpowered, what do?' thread is full of Terran and Protoss players saying "USE MORE NYDUS AND BANELINGS" as though it would somehow help.
Well said.
Jumping off the Nydus thought, during the past few months the other accompanying comment was "Harass more! Use your mobility!".
Harassing, using mobility, and general trickery does NO GOOD when you simply cannot stand up to a 200/200 army and win. So many games I've seen where the Zerg gets a brilliant base backstab, and his opponent simply attacks and either wins the base race, or forces the Z player back, who then loses his army to the more cost-efficient ball.
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I would love to win by harrass or throwing units at zerg with constant rate, but the thing is...protoss can't do that. Our units are very expensive. We can't afford re-building our army constantly. Kill a protoss army and it'll take several minutes to re-build it. Unless it's end-game and protoss has like 20 gateways and a 5k trust fund, but still.
Take away "deathballing" from protoss and I don't know what I would do (vs Zerg). On other hand, I'm a low diamond and I have nowhere near the imagination of a pro or masters leaguer.
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On April 19 2011 13:10 hitman133 wrote:
I think Protoss has the best, or the core unit, Stalker.
Stalkers is just too good for any situation in PvZ, attack air and ground, armor, good range, mobile with fast speed and blinking. High damage. Stalkers can counter roaches, lings, hydras, mutal, ultras, broodlords, corruptors, even infestor if they could blink and snipe infestor before the FG.
No, the stalker is has one of the worst stats / cost ratio in the game.
They are terrible by themselves, the only 2 points speaking for them is their mobility and range.
Their dmg is bad and scales bad.
The problem doesn't lie in the stalker, it's the colossus / sentry combination or either one of them right now, but certainly NOT the stalker.
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On April 19 2011 13:42 Greentellon wrote:
I would love to win by harrass or throwing units at zerg with constant rate, but the thing is...protoss can't do that. Our units are very expensive. We can't afford re-building our army constantly. Kill a protoss army and it'll take several minutes to re-build it. Unless it's end-game and protoss has like 20 gateways and a 5k trust fund, but still.
Take away "deathballing" from protoss and I don't know what I would do (vs Zerg). On other hand, I'm a low diamond and I have nowhere near the imagination of a pro or masters leaguer.
San has shown that exact style working spectacularly in both PvT and PvZ. He's constantly harassing, picking away at his enemy, and taking casualties, but in the end he comes out on top, even against players like Nestea. Losing amulet did certainly hurt, but that's mainly a PvT thing, since warp-in storms were only necessary to mitigate EMPs. Against Zerg there's nothing wrong with sitting around for fourty seconds building up energy. Yes, it requires excellent multi-tasking, macro and micro skill to win with San-style play, but isn't that what you should need to win a game of Starcraft? It's certainly what people seem to expect of Zerg players, who, if you read what some people are saying, need to be expanding all over the map while nydusing in three places at once, dropping banelings on every Protoss mineral line and spamming transfuse from their mass queens on a wall of spine crawlers whenever they get attacked.
EDIT: I'm pretty sure the main reason San's style works is because he never goes for those big expensive units such as collosus and void rays. Because he relies on the cheaper gateway units that are perfectly usable in small numbers rather than going for super expensive units such as collosus that are only really efficient in large numbers he's capable of constantly throwing units away as long as he gains an economic advantage out of it. Pure gateway has always been considered weak since it dies to both hydras and marauders, but recently we've been seeing improvements in FFs, blink micro and general playstyle that have allowed mass gateway armies to take these units on rather efficiently. It's something to consider, at least.
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Protoss seems really solid the entire time that they build the deathball and the other players typically try tricky things like drops/nydus/harass to hurt them. I am fine with Zerg players being forced to play much better in ZvP by leaving Colossus unchanged. I'm a Terran player and I think I've kinda "figured out" Bio TvP. The deathball is beatable, but Zerg players are going to have to micro like Terran to beat it.
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On April 19 2011 13:42 Greentellon wrote:
I would love to win by harrass or throwing units at zerg with constant rate, but the thing is...protoss can't do that. Our units are very expensive. We can't afford re-building our army constantly. Kill a protoss army and it'll take several minutes to re-build it. Unless it's end-game and protoss has like 20 gateways and a 5k trust fund, but still.
Take away "deathballing" from protoss and I don't know what I would do (vs Zerg). On other hand, I'm a low diamond and I have nowhere near the imagination of a pro or masters leaguer.
This is a pretty big design flaw in the race when it comes to e-sports, which they claim to care a lot about. A large percentage of Protoss games are either early heavy warpgate pressure(4/6gate), or deathballs. Neither is entirely fun to watch. Would anyone disagree? Playing 15 min only to have everything ride on 1 bigass game deciding fight determined by if the deathball lives or dies just seems dumb ;/
TvP had a pretty similar dynamic in BW didn't it? What made it fun to watch? Just seeing if the P can break the T before it's too late? How is it different than what we have now?
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On April 19 2011 13:20 Malpractice.248 wrote:
imo the biggest issue is P can set the tone.
They can defend ANYTHING if they scout, and can choose to macro on par w/the Z.
They dont even need to come out of their lovely defensive posture, and can come out of t here w/ANYTHING.
Also, i think someone stated it perfectly.
Z has very few abilities/techs to use to improve, they just "play more fundamentally sound", which doesnt further their metagame much comparatively...
Everything you said is wrong. Watch almost any PvZ and you see that all protoss does is sit back on 2-3 bases until they get a deathball going. Until that point, zerg has total map control, vision, and freedom is expand. Zerg can set tone they choose to.
And "few abilities/techs" is ridiculous. Compared to what? The choice for protoss is whether they get stalker/sentry/colossi or stalker/sentry/colossi/void ray. Zerg has the most diverse options as far as unit composition.
Edit: May be one thing that happened after 1.3 is that the few players who favored HT over colossi have been forced to use colossi, which is (imo) the superior choice anyway. So the nerf may have been a blessing in disguise for HT users.
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Well after reading this thread It looks like current pro zerg players tried pretty much everything. They have uncanny Starsense, perfect macro, perfect micro, perfect multi-tasking, and perfect decision making. However that's seemingly not enough to make Z successful in ZvP. I guess Zerg definitely needs a patch. I believe that Blizzard needs to buff Zerg just like they buffed the Death knights in world of warcraft.
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On April 19 2011 14:01 Tachion wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 13:42 Greentellon wrote:
I would love to win by harrass or throwing units at zerg with constant rate, but the thing is...protoss can't do that. Our units are very expensive. We can't afford re-building our army constantly. Kill a protoss army and it'll take several minutes to re-build it. Unless it's end-game and protoss has like 20 gateways and a 5k trust fund, but still.
Take away "deathballing" from protoss and I don't know what I would do (vs Zerg). On other hand, I'm a low diamond and I have nowhere near the imagination of a pro or masters leaguer. TvP had a pretty similar dynamic in BW didn't it? What made it fun to watch? Just seeing if the P can break the T before it's too late? How is it different than what we have now?
TvP has had a game in the game if you want.
There were 2 battles occuring nearly at the same time.
Once protoss has to get high economy to deal with the super efficient terran units.
They had to delay / slow / wear down the terran ball from getting to big.
Yet terran also couldn't just sit on their fat ass and trying to get to their ball.
They had to prevent protoss from becoming to big and get too much ahead in macro, by harassing or timing attacks.
Both players had to prevent the other from reaching their goal.
It was extremely tense, spells interacting with each other, who has the better map control / positioning.
It's not to compare to ZvP when the protoss aims for the deathball.
There it's bascially
Protoss: I don't care if he gets 8 expansion, as long as i get my ball and 2 bases, at best 3, it's fine.
Everything relies on zerg, and that's not really fair.
(I'm protoss btw)
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EPT
