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4713 Posts
Ok, I believe Protoss are unable right now to compete at the highest levels because.
1st Their units cost too much and do too little.
2nd They rely too much on specialist units (HT, sentries), and once those are circumvented or countered their week armies fall.
3rd Protoss has difficulties pressuring zerg mid and late game because of cost effectiveness issues.
4rd Protoss have an appalling lack of mobile detection.
Now, to elaborate on each point and what I mean.
1st. Zealots, while they do a lot of DPS and don't cost an absurd amount they still perform poorly because, Zealots require targets to be standing still so they can DPS. Zealots can be easily kited by marauders with stim and concussive shells, even with charge. Zealots can be kited without charge by roaches, and once infestors are available, even with charge. While they could trade cost effectively with zerglings and marines, it feels like the problems I mentioned far outweigh the benefits.
Since zealots require standing targets to do the most DPS they require sentries, however sentry effects get easily countred by both terrans and zerg and I shall detail this more in part 2.
Stalkers, cost 125 minerals and 50 gas, 25 M and 25 G more then a marauder and 50 M, 25 G more then roaches, they take up the same supply. Stalkers do 10 damage and 14 to armored. Roaches do 16 flat out, Marauders do 10 and +20 to armored. Stalker HP is 80, shields 80. roach is 145 and marauder 125.
From these simple facts we can conclude that, without any upgrades it takes exactly 11 shots to kill a roach with a stalker, while a roach needs only 10 shots to kill a stalker. Stalkers need 9 shots to kill a marauder while marauders need only 8 shots. To balance this out stalkers are faster initially then both roaches and marauders. Stalkers also fire slightly faster then marauders and quite faster then roaches. To help with mobility stalkers also get to research blink.
However in situations where a protoss is forced to stand and fight, or can't kite fast enough against marauders and roaches, the stalkers lose out. With future upgrades marauders and roaches surpass stalkers even more.
Roaches become fast enough that they can hit catch up to stalkers without blink, even of creep, its worst on creep. It stands to reason then that stalkers need sentries, however again, sentries have a problem against zerg.
The worst offender however is the marauder. With the addition of stim, Marauders not only out DPS stalkers, but they also out race them, without blink stalkers lose flat out here, again they need sentries, but again it leads to problem number 2 with specialists. One more note, stalkers scale way better with weapon upgrades then both roaches and stalkers. While stalkers and roaches get +1 from each weapon tier. marauders against armored actually get +2 damage. So a protoss needs guardian shield and +2 armor/shields just to cancel the effect of marauder weapon 2, and with weapon + 3 the marauder overcomes those.
Now while I think I have constructed a good enough case, it wouldn't be complete if I didn't touch upon my next point, which, hopefully hits home.
2nd Problem, specialists.
As I have shown in part 1, zealots and stalkers in their own right are just flat out countered by the zerg and terran T1 units. To keep up and possibly win, the protoss needs to bring out the heavy guns, specialists. Sentries add extra survivability against armies via guardian shields and, more importantly can split up armies so that the protoss can pick them apart and deny kiting tactics.
The problem with guardian shield though is that, it can be out scaled by marauders because of +weapon damage upgrades, it can be out DPSed because of stim, and it can be out DPSed because the number of roaches a zerg can make since, roaches cost way less then stalkers.
Second problem is with force fields, while they can split up armies, against a zerg that researches burrow and tunneling claws that advantage can be negated. Worst the advantage is turned against the protoss since roaches escape while taking little damage and now the zealots can't DPS.
Against terran its even more grim since terrans can flat out counter sentries with EMP, no more guardian shield and no more FF. No more FF and the marauders and marines can kite the zealots all the way to the ends of the Earth (or the ends of Shakuras), and once the zealots die stalkers crumble. Without energy, you get no more guardian shields, no more guardian shields and the already flimsy stalkers flat out die to upgraded marauders, and zealots have no chance to tank when on equal upgrades.
The core reason while many protoss today get +2 armor is because they want to maximize the survivability of their troops in conjunction with guardian shield. The flaw in this plan is to assume the terran isn't getting his own upgrades and to assume terran won't get ghosts to EMP. Upgrades and ghosts flat out counter the +2 armor and sentry tactic.
Because their units deal so little damage, and because the enemy deals so much damage the Protoss have had to use their next specialist unit, the High Templar.
HT cost 50 M and 150 G, a very steep price to pay. In return the HT provides feedback, a theoretical way to counter specialists from the terran and zerg and storm and ability that deals massive damage and can turn the tide of a fight.
The problem with the HT though, especially in TvP is that, they are countered too easy by ghosts, the very unit the HT should have countered. EMP out ranges feedback, EMP is an aoe effect, feedback is a single target effect. Ghosts cost only 100 G, the terran has mules he can afford to spend the 200 M required to build one. Terrans now have also realized ghosts are a great unit in their own right dealing considerable damage to zealots, and with weapon upgrades the ghost counters zealots armor and guardian shields the same way marauders do to stalkers.
If a terran gets 16 of so ghosts, he can EMP the protoss army forever, if the protoss tries to keep up by making many templars then he hurts the rest of his army since HT cost a ton of gas. Lastly lets touch upon warp prism micro.
While it sounds great in theory, the problem is, an EMP will still destroy the WP shields, which leaves it with 100 effective HP, after that it takes only 5 vikings to snipe easily. Vikings are a usual part of the terran arsenal because they counter colossus. So while WP micro with HT inside sounds like a great way to solve the problem, it turns into a case of putting all your eggs in one basket.
Now, the problem with the protoss army is that, it requires all these specialists, and in large number, but the specialists can be countered way to easy. Also the specialists cost so much gas that it constricts protoss into making way to many zealots, which are countered way to easy by kiting marauders and marines. The terran bio does more DPS then the protoss so called "deathball" and even survives more thanks to medivacs (can't feedback them if your HT are EMPed).
Against such adversity the Protoss has only one more option, Colossus, the problem, again is that Colossus are very easily countered by Vikings, once the Colossus are eliminated the rest of the army crumbles. Vikings can DPS down Colossus faster then stalkers can DPS down Vikings since, Vikings scale so well, they deal 2 attacks of 14 damage each and, they can be mass produced much faster then colossus can be produced.
EMP deserves a special mention in this discussion because, not only does it neutralize specialist units with great ease, but it also obliterates shields, in the case of stalkers it reduces their effective HP by 50%, against zealots and colossus by 33%, it is so bad its not even worth researching shield upgrade for protoss. EMP should either not be AoE, or the shield destroying effect should have a smaller aoe radius then the energy destroying effect. Alternatively EMP should just not destroy shields.
Also, you can't counter EMP with positioning alone, at some point you are forced to fight, and when that happens your units cluster and EMP deals lethal damage. Even if you don't want to fight, the terran will force it upon you either by harassing you to death with drops, but also by harassing your army to death with snipes, EMPs, vikings and pokes.
From mid to late game zerg, the biggest problem is fungal growth, followed by burrow, baneling drops and brood lords.
Burrow helps roaches negate forcefields and dangerous situations, they can run away preventing zealots from doing DPS and burning precious sentry energy. In conjunction with fungal the protoss army has no way to escape. Zealots deal basically 0 DPS since they can't move, stalkers can't blink out, colossus can't kite all the while the army takes damage. The protoss ball also has a bad habit to clump up, which leaves it not only open to a huge fungals, but also to easy baneling drops. Baneling drops annihilate zealots, sentries, HT and weaken stalkers and colossus so much that they can easily be cleaned up by the remaining forces.
Its almost the same with brood lords, fungals keep the army pinned so that stalkers can't blink forward and snipe the BL, while the BL demolish the colossus, then the stalkers, all the while taking from roaches. Void rays can try to counter BL, but fungals keep them away and neural parasite actually helps VR contribute to the zerg force.
The problem isn't as bad as in TvP, control and position are much more important here, feedbacks can counter the the infestors and then the army can kite the baneling rain and snipe the BL, however, it is still very difficult, and if the zerg has creep and attacks from multiple angles it is nearly impossible for the protoss to respond effectively. And also, again the protoss has cost efficiency problems.
While the protoss can compete when maxed at 200/200, the zerg can get there much faster since, roaches are so cheep, and because of the way zerg works. If the protoss army gets shattered, the zerg can reinforce faster and cheaper then the protoss. So while the deathball might still hold some might, against pressure and good play its hard to get there.
So without further ado, lets move on to the other point.
3rd Economy.
The protoss has some real problems with pressuring a zerg. If a zerg goes for an 15 hatch, or even 14 pool and later hatch, it is very hard for protoss to stop it. They can't do almost any early attacks because by this point, they don't have warp, charge or blink. If the protoss tries to do any gateway attack without the upgrades I mentioned then zerglings can just go for a huge counter-attack, snipe and surround reinforcements or just plain deny the attack.
The protoss is forced to tech up, by the time he has the tech to mount an assault the zerg is already prepared. The 4 gate timings have been figured out.
If protoss responds with a fast expand, then the zerg can just straight up take a quick third. Now you have another problem, if the zerg takes a third how do you respond?
The protoss has two options, Stargate play or a 6 gate with or without robo.
If it is stargate play, it can easily be denied by building spore crawlers and more queens, something that all zerg players are now doing. If you go to SG play and don't do enough damage then counter from the zerg can outright kill.
If the protoss goes 6 gate, then by the time the assault is ready to go the zerg is prepared with an abundance of ground units, while also having a strong econ.
If you don't believe me check out the recent game from IGN qualifiers. Check.Prime vs Tails, the game demonstrates perfectly the economic and cost effective problem the protoss has.
If the protoss, needs to have an equal number of bases as the zerg, a race that is build upon expanding easily, just to keep up, then we have a problem. If the zerg is greedy and takes a quick third there should be a way to pressure, for protoss it comes to late or it is too easy to counter, so we have a problem.
Terran can pressure the zerg from the very beginning with 2 rax bunker, he can follow it up with helions and drops. The protoss can't physically move out in time effectively to pressure the natural, doesn't have a fast enough and efficient enough hit and run unit, to do run by like helions, and has drops that aren't as effective. The only option is to just macro up and make a huge army to counter the zerg, but the zerg can just do it faster, cheaper and can re-max faster and cheaper if the army is destroyed.
Now it is time to go on to the last point in this very long post.
4th Detection.
Protoss only have observers, and while they are the cheapest detection they are also the most fragile and they are the only detection protoss has.
Terran has scans, which they get by default from building orbitals, they also have EMPs which reveal cloaked, and again ghosts are a standard part of the terran army, against both zerg and protoss now. Lastly terrans have ravens, which not only detect but have a lot of useful abilities, in essence they are the terran's second specialist and they can straight up deny DPS for some units, harass mineral lines/ contribute to DPS, or do burst DPS with seeker missile. Only downside with ravens is, they are quite gas expensive, which makes them not so widespread but, they are quickly catching up in popularity, and with the buff to seeker missile, they might catch up even more.
To rub salt into the wound the terran can even build auto-turrents since they don't have building restrictions, unlike protoss or zerg.
Zerg has overseers, which not only detect but, can scout a bit with changelings, and critically can delay a vital tech or deny reinforcements. Zerg also has fungals, and now that infestors are being used way more in zerg armies fungals are way more widespread for all roles.
The observer is the most specialized unit in the entire game, its only role is to detect cloaked and burrowed units. It might seem cheep but, when you consider how gas starved protoss already is the 75 gas is steep. It is also the most fragile unit in the game which sucks when it really is the only detection protoss has. One scan and a couple of marine/viking shots and they are gone, two fungals and they are gone.
Almost every other unit in the game now has two roles, overseers and ravens do all of the above mentioned, fungals are a key tactical weapon in the zerg arsenal, scans are a default feature. Heck, even the former shuttles and dropships have received two roles. Dropships are now medivacs, in charge with keeping the terran army alive, shuttles are now warp prism designed to act as a pylon if need be.
The worst problem about the observer though is that, it constricts the protoss choices. In some situations the protoss is forced to get a robo for obs, and this has never been more clear then in the case of notorious terran 1/1/1 family of strategies. Basically, if protoss doesn't get robo, cloaked banshees will end the game. If protoss gets robo, he falls into a easy to read pattern that can and will be countered. Immortals, fall much to easily against marines, the backbone of a 1/1/1, they don't have time to reach the tanks and kill them, the tanks out range the rest of the protoss army and deals massive damage, the banshee snipes key units like sentries. Even if the protoss gets 2 observers, one scan later they both could be gone.
Protoss can't even experiment with a stargate opening against terran because of the fear of cloaked banshees.
The observer should better cost 100 M, 50 G, have more HP and shields, and have a active ability to help them scout/detect better and without putting them in the line of fire so often. Alternatively one more form of detection needs to be incorporated into the protoss race, preferably from a unit at the SG so that Protoss can have more openings.
Finally, protoss doesn't have much room to innovate because of the restrictive costs of their units.
Terrans can get 1 barracks, 1 factory and 1 starport, and churn out a very cheep and very versatile combo of marines, tanks, medivacs and vikings. Protoss can't do the same because the cost of say void ray+ immortal would be way too big and would make it impossible for the protoss to get their specialist units. Phoenix, immortal is equally out of the question.
There are a lot of tweaks that need to be made to change this situation. The basic cost of some protoss units needs to be tweaked, a -25 gas from all units might be in order so that protoss has more leeway to experiment with different unit compositions. Protoss need a new method of detection so they can also try new openers.
The marauder needs a small tweak, it should deal at the most 19 damage to armored, in this way the + weapon damage upgrades don't make marauders out-scale stalkers with guardian shields.
EMP needs a change of some sort, especially with its interaction to shields.
Zealots and stalkers need a very slight DPS or survivability buff so that they can stand toe to toe with terran and zerg armies without having to rely so heavily upon sentries and high templars. For stalkers in particular I'm thinking changing the damage to armored from 14 to 16, so they can both hold their own vs roaches and counter vikings a bit more easily, at the very least a buff from 14 to 15.
I know I have made a very long post, but I truly believe that a thorough analysis was in order to flesh out all the problems that protoss has against both terrans and zerg.
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On September 20 2011 06:23 Toadvine wrote:
I think I'm done with this game for now. I tried laddering today, and every single PvT I played, the Terran shows all signs of a 1/1/1, I 1 Gate FE, and then either they all-in and I usually hold, or they proceed with some sort of metagamey build designed to punish my 1 Gate FE, like hidden 2 rax, hellion drops, or marine/tank/medivac with stim. It's just not fun for me. It's like straight after release, with those stupid 1base vs 1base games on steppes of war.
Back then, I just told myself "It's ok, the game is young, the maps are terrible, it'll improve with patches, better maps and strategic development.". Yet here I am, more than a year later, spending most of my time on the ladder defending all-ins or all-ining myself in all three matchups. I guess I don't believe SC2 is a good game anymore, and watching OSL finals on Saturday made this really clear to me.
As my final contribution to this thread, and the failure of Protoss (and Zerg) design, which I have criticized way back when deathballs were a rollin', and even before MC's run in GSL 3, I'll submit the following:
1. Protoss has relatively crappy harass and no good means of establishing map control. Fine, buff the harass units then. I proposed making graviton beam cheaper, but any other Phoenix buff would be ok too. Remove Dark Shrine from the game, and make Templar Archives unlock DTs like in BW, so they can actually be used as a part of standard play, and not a cheese or lategame gimmick.
2. Protoss is very rigid, because the entry barrier into any tech path is very high. So, just make stuff cheaper. Why does Charge have to cost 200/200 and take 140 seconds to research, while a Ghost Academy costs 50 gas and builds in 50 seconds? Why does a Robo still cost 200/100 when Factories were reduced to 150/100? Why is Storm still 200/200 when EMP and Fungal don't even need research? Why does a Robo Bay cost 200 gas? Just make the stupid Colossus range upgrade more expensive if you must, but why do we have to spend so much gas just to access observer and warp prism speed? And so on... Seriously, just making shit cheaper would help Protoss so much.
3. Remove the additional 20 seconds from Warpgate Research. It's a stupid bandaid, but it helps solve almost all the problems Protoss is facing currently.
That all said, ladies and gentlemen, I'm off for greener pastures. Good luck, and have fun, if you still can.
Eh, luckily most people I face that 1-1-1 are garbage but when they are good at it it's the most annoying thing in the world. I feel bad for zergs who have to deal with takes in every matchup, they must be even worse than colossi and make you feel like you have no where to go. I might just 3 gate stargate all-inning every time I scout a gas.
btw funnily enough, protoss winrate sunk down to like 32% April didn't it? Khydarian amulet was removed in March. Then 1.3.3 hit in May, nerfed warpgate by 20 seconds and opened up a ton of early game bs against protoss. The winrate hasn't been above 50% since. I'd happily even take something like a slight colossi nerf if I can at least expand earlier without feeling like I'm fucked if I mess up some forcefields by reverting warpgate. That really fucked up 6 gate timings off of forge fast expand and allowed for super greedy play from zerg. Or removing colossi altogether and give me khydarian amulet and a slight snipe/EMP range nerf, while maybe buffing stalkers a bit.
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Personally I think the MMMG+V composition is a bit too all encompassing. It is literally good against everything. The key thing being the Ghost and it's ability to EMP things up to 12 range away. This means that Ghost along with their ability to cloak always have an edge over HT. It is this slight edge that I feel makes it slightly T favored in late game engagements in high level games.
I feel that late game everything revolves around hitting the EMPs. If you hit them without losing the Ghosts then the game is over. For Protoss it is all about killing the Ghosts before they can do anything.
One thing I would like to see is to make Feedback 10 range to lessen this edge.
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sC2stats released korean winrates for august :
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HvaeL.png)
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On September 20 2011 08:10 AzureD wrote:
Personally I think the MMMG+V composition is a bit too all encompassing. It is literally good against everything. The key thing being the Ghost and it's ability to EMP things up to 12 range away. This means that Ghost along with their ability to cloak always have an edge over HT. It is this slight edge that I feel makes it slightly T favored in late game engagements in high level games.
I feel that late game everything revolves around hitting the EMPs. If you hit them without losing the Ghosts then the game is over. For Protoss it is all about killing the Ghosts before they can do anything.
One thing I would like to see is to make Feedback 10 range to lessen this edge.
Nerf EMP and snipe range instead to make it fair against infestors. There's no reason for it to be 10 range + 2 AOE, that's enormous. SelecT v. Alicia was just painful to watch snipes going off and making templar completely worthless no matter what. Imagine if top BW pros came to SC2, it would be a complete slaughter.
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After the patch, they should do a requalifier for Code S.
Because even if they make it so P=Z=T, we will nonetheless continue to have Code S with too many Terrans.
Either that, or Blizzard makes Terran the weakest race for a while so it evens out.
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Now, to elaborate on each point and what I mean.
1st. Zealots, while they do a lot of DPS and don't cost an absurd amount they still perform poorly because, Zealots require targets to be standing still so they can DPS. Zealots can be easily kited by marauders with stim and concussive shells, even with charge. Zealots can be kited without charge by roaches, and once infestors are available, even with charge. While they could trade cost effectively with zerglings and marines, it feels like the problems I mentioned far outweigh the benefits.
Discussing cost effectiveness isn't really a great way to discuss balance. While 10 Zerglings are very cost efficient against 2.5 zealots, they are very supply effective. It's also more strategic than that, as 5 zerglings may be very cost efficient against 1 zealot, 3 or even 4 zerglings isn't worth shit against a zealot. Due to economics of the game, P will be on the same supply as Z until something drastic happens like a big battle, a hidden expo, or roaches (they take up more supply than they are worth for balance reasons). Also, HT, Sentries, and Colossi raise the effectiveness of the protoss army by a lot. But given how supply will be even all game long until something happens, zealots are a helluva lot more cost efficient, practically. Theoretically, yea, 100 zerglings will be cost efficient against 1 zealot. But 25 zealots will own 100 zerglings, and micro and where the engagement occurs changes everything.
In the late game when zealots become free, as P is gas intensive, chargelots rape infestors. It's like saying EMP is fine because you can just rebuild the energy on sentries or HT - it's not, zerg doesn't want to be wasting FG on zealots, which take 5 FG to kill. It's also very improbable for Zerg to FG every chargelot, and with the usual accompaniment of zerglings, chargelots do very well against ling/infestor. Roach/infestor owns zealots, but of course that's because roaches own zealots (even though 1v1, unmicrod a zealot beats a roach).
As I have shown in part 1, zealots and stalkers in their own right are just flat out countered by the zerg and terran T1 units. To keep up and possibly win, the protoss needs to bring out the heavy guns, specialists. Sentries add extra survivability against armies via guardian shields and, more importantly can split up armies so that the protoss can pick them apart and deny kiting tactics.
Not true at all (about zerg). Blink, sentries, and charge rapes zerg t1, and for supply, as we already know supply stays even all game long until something changes it, zerg is at a disadvantage against P t1. Without upgrades (ling speed and roach speed), protoss t1 owns Zerg. When both sides have upgrades, P still owns zerg. There are dynamics and timings to this game that change everything, but when all is said and done, a straight up army of Zerg will always lose to a straight up army of protoss.
From mid to late game zerg, the biggest problem is fungal growth, followed by burrow, baneling drops and brood lords.
Feedback rapes infestors. Infestors are also very vulnerable to warp prism play, and due to how long they take to get out, it's easy for Protoss to gain map control long enough to grab a third and simply outmacro the Zerg. Baneling drops are easily dealt with using blink splitting or just Void Rays.
From lair to BL, it takes 4 minutes. So if you aren't pressuring Zerg and let him the opportunity to get BL, protoss has done something very wrong. Given how Zerg has to just throwaway armies just to stay alive, they are further delayed in getting hive/BL tech since they have to constantly rebuild their gas intensive armies. There is no way Zerg is going to just 'get' broodlords, and get 250 x 8 in gas for 8 broodlords (with corruptor), gotten those corruptors, and the 4 minutes with hive, all the while keeping an army to stay alive, without protoss getting at least 4 bases.
Too often people complain Zerg is OP, but in reality the game was way over when the T/P was unable to secure a third base, Zerg has 5 bases, and Zerg is just too pitiful to end the game. What may look like a close game, may often times be Zerg just crushing the opponent.
Burrow helps roaches negate forcefields and dangerous situations, they can run away preventing zealots from doing DPS and burning precious sentry energy. In conjunction with fungal the protoss army has no way to escape. Zealots deal basically 0 DPS since they can't move, stalkers can't blink out, colossus can't kite all the while the army takes damage. The protoss ball also has a bad habit to clump up, which leaves it not only open to a huge fungals, but also to easy baneling drops. Baneling drops annihilate zealots, sentries, HT and weaken stalkers and colossus so much that they can easily be cleaned up by the remaining forces.
Zealots aren't the damage dealer, Colossi, storm, and Void rays are. Burrowing roaches is horrible for Zerg, because they are doing.... zero dps! How is sentry energy 'precious' but at the same time apparently FG'ing 'free' zealots a huge blow to the protoss? Come on now. And Protoss ball having a bad habit to clump up is a micro issue, not a balance issue. Don't make VR/Colossi deathballs against Zerg, and instead make Zealot/Colossi/HT armies that are huge and spread out instead.
Baneling drops annihilate zealots, sentries, and HT, but is weak against stalkers and void rays, things Protoss is usually making anyways. There have been many recent GSL games that showed how pitifully bad baneling rain is against a Protoss who is playing completely normal.
If protoss responds with a fast expand, then the zerg can just straight up take a quick third. Now you have another problem, if the zerg takes a third how do you respond?
The protoss has two options, Stargate play or a 6 gate with or without robo.
If it is stargate play, it can easily be denied by building spore crawlers and more queens, something that all zerg players are now doing. If you go to SG play and don't do enough damage then counter from the zerg can outright kill.
If the protoss goes 6 gate, then by the time the assault is ready to go the zerg is prepared with an abundance of ground units, while also having a strong econ.
Then stop all-inning, there's a thought. Gee, a 6 gate +1 all-in fails, this means the game is imbalanced!
If Zerg takes a fast third, you can still apply a helluva lot of pressure with a 5 gate robo. Expand against Zerg who takes a third, and suddenly Zerg is in a crappy position where they have 100 supply, had to make a ton of units to hold just a mild 5 gate robo pressure, has the same number of bases as protoss, and doesn't even have lair tech.
It amazes me how many Protoss think the 6 gate all-in is the appropriate response in this game. THIS is exactly why Protoss is failing, because they resort to all-inning so much. Try macro for once.
I know other protoss may disagree with what I'm saying, but this particular protoss obviously has some problems if he think all-inning is the correct response.
Also, stargate is somewhat gimmicky. That's like complaining your 1 base DT expands are failing and leaving you behind against an opponent who is playing pure macro.
While the protoss can compete when maxed at 200/200, the zerg can get there much faster since, roaches are so cheep, and because of the way zerg works. If the protoss army gets shattered, the zerg can reinforce faster and cheaper then the protoss. So while the deathball might still hold some might, against pressure and good play its hard to get there.
Zerg gets there faster with roaches, because they are extremely supply costly for balance issues. There's also the issue that the Protoss army doesn't exactly get shattered once it's up and running, and it's impossible to kill a turtling Protoss if the protoss doesn't want to die.
Protoss can also pressure, but if they always resort to 2 base all-in or opening some predictable harassment, then they are going to lose. Try going a more macro oriented build, 6 gate is just like 4 gate, it only works against bad opponents. It's not like if you only make 5 gates, suddenly Zerg is going to overwhelm you. If Zerg gets a fast third, get 5 gate robo going, apply pressure, and take a third at the same time.
Zerg has overseers, which not only detect but, can scout a bit with changelings, and critically can delay a vital tech or deny reinforcements. Zerg also has fungals, and now that infestors are being used way more in zerg armies fungals are way more widespread for all roles.
Then Protoss should get HT more. The whole FG>FB is ridiculous, you only need 2-3 HT in your army and the army of 10 infestors will suddenly die. All infestor spells put them in the range of fire, and if you have 3 HT spread about your army, there is no way Zerg can get more than 1 FG off without losing quite a few infestors. It's not about using the HT to kill every infestor, it's that just having 1 HT get some feedbacks off and suddenly Zerg is losing - just like Protoss make more than 5 sentries for a reason, Zerg makes more than 10 infestors for a reason against a Protoss who refuses to get HT.
A good stalker/Colossi army with HT support ravages infestor play. White-Ra has some excellent VODs of where he goes 3 gate sentry or FFE, gets his 5 gate robo, and when he sees the infestors he immediately expands and get HT tech. With good micro, you can get some great FB off, and with just half decent positioning you make it impossible for Zerg to deny your third while you get a large enough army.
Once you have storm, it's impossible for Zerg to engage with just ling/infestor, and will need to go to roach/banelingrain/infestor, which costs a lot of supply and will always lose to a maxed out stalker/colossi/HT ball. In this case, Zerg has to just throw units away at Protoss until he can get hive tech out, but if Protoss can get a fourth it's a losing battle.
You mostly talk about Terran, so whatever. But ZvP is fine. Protoss just continue to 6 gate and all-in or open stargate, and then wonder why they lost. Play a macro game, it took months before Jinro was the first macro Terran and began an era of Terran domination.
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4713 Posts
Yes I talked a lot about TvP since that is it is in the worst state right now, however I don't believe ZvP is quite fine.
I find it wrong that while both Zerg and Terran have ways to pressure expansions in some way, Protoss don't, stargate play has been figured out and was the only way to do some harass on a zerg.
A 5 gate robo can still easily be held of while the zerg sits on a one base advantage. And while you are trying to expand behind the 5 gate robo the zerg can just do a run by with zerglings on the natural and the 3rd of the protoss, and the protoss has to scramble to defend it.
You also seem to be assuming that all the zerg's fungals will go to the chargelots, or that there will be no roaches to kill the, or for that matter no roaches or zerglings to attempt to snipe the HT.
You assume that the fight will go perfectly and you won't lose any HT, you get only 1 fungal, you don't get any banelings dropping on your head, and you get to feedback almost all the infestors.
I'm sorry but that just doesn't happen.
Also there is a problem if a Protoss can only play a macro game and can't deal any pressure, it makes Protoss predictable and it leads to large fights with shady chances of success for the Protoss as mentioned above.
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You know what has always really bothered me?
How can SCVs repair floating buildings?
How the hell do they reach it with their tiny hands?
Wouldn't it give the game more strategic value of buildings need to land before being repaired?
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On September 20 2011 19:52 neoghaleon55 wrote:
You know what has always really bothered me?
How can SCVs repair floating buildings?
How the hell do they reach it with their tiny hands?
Wouldn't it give the game more strategic value of buildings need to land before being repaired?
Dont try to apply "real life logic" to a game like Starcraft; it never works.
- BCs and Carriers should cover the whole map once they are built
- BCs and Carriers should be out of range of puny ground forces
- Colossi should be MUCH taller than they are
- Siege Tank splash should do bonus damage to LIGHT and not to armored (and maybe bonus damage to armored for the primary target)
- Siege Tanks should be able to just run over all unburrowed Zerg units except Ultralisks
- Protoss should have Shield batteries, Reavers, Arbiters and Dark Archons (after all they have used them only recently)
- Terrans should have Spider Mines, .............
The list of "X should not work" or "Y should work" is endless and should not be brought up in a balance discussion thread.
@Destructicon
You focus in your "long" post on specific units and compare them with other units. That is BAD simply because you usually fight with a mixed army for maximum efficiency. Just picking one unit is not going to work to prove it as being imbalanced.
The "usual" Marauder vs Zealot comparison doesnt really work, because most of the time the 10 Marauders dont each slow their own Zealot, but rather focus fire on 2-4 of the 10 fleeing Zealots. These are killed then, but thats it. If the Marauders are fleeing from the Zealots and the Zealots have charge the situation is the same, so no side is mor powerful than the other.
You also forgot STORM in the Protoss arsenal for Stealth detection and it is much easier to spot those missiles being shot from cloaked Banshees than those DTs which have to be detected by their damage and a shimmer. The whole comment about Terrans being able to build turrets "without restrictions" (well you need to take one SCV off of mining to build it) just sounds sooo wrong because Protoss cannons can also shoot those DTs which the Terran turrets only detect. Its about as easy to defend a base with static detectors for every race; I would even say Protoss has an advantage because cannons shoot air and ground (very useful against drops).
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On September 20 2011 23:21 Rabiator wrote:
You also forgot STORM in the Protoss arsenal for Stealth detection and it is much easier to spot those missiles being shot from cloaked Banshees than those DTs which have to be detected by their damage and a shimmer. The whole comment about Terrans being able to build turrets "without restrictions" (well you need to take one SCV off of mining to build it) just sounds sooo wrong because Protoss cannons can also shoot those DTs which the Terran turrets only detect. Its about as easy to defend a base with static detectors for every race; I would even say Protoss has an advantage because cannons shoot air and ground (very useful against drops).
Storm hits but does NOT reveal cloacked units.
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On September 20 2011 08:20 MrCon wrote:
sC2stats released korean winrates for august :
Those are still as useless as ever.
Way too few games.
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Since blizzard doesn't like NP used vs protoss they could just give it to a protoss unit. It would then be the best ability protoss has because they could then control terran units =).
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4713 Posts
All that I have said in my long post is relevant especially the unit comparison part, because, once the HT, Colossus and Sentries have been neutralized its basically a fight between the bio ball of marines, marauders and medivacs vs zealots and stalkers. And the bio ball wins all the time, yes the marauders don't all chose their individual zealot to slow, but they still slow a very large number of them, plus the slowed zealots get in the way of the non slowed ones, and in combination with hit and run stim micro and the DPS from marines the zealots dissolve and once those are down the stalkers die even faster.
Yes individual strength of units shouldn't matter in a composition with many different units, but the terran can neutralize the other units way too easy, colossus die faster then the stalkers can kill the vikings and ghosts EMP out-ranges HT and sentries, so those are neutralized even faster, at this point the composition becomes zealot and stalker, and those are very weak.
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On September 21 2011 00:05 Maghetti wrote:
Since blizzard doesn't like NP used vs protoss they could just give it to a protoss unit. It would then be the best ability protoss has because they could then control terran units =).
It's not because they don't like NP vs toss, it's because they accidentally made the infestor somewhat of a counter to every protoss unit. I guess they figured the range nerf would make usage of the infestor a little more dangerous against collosi rather than rendering them completely useless (like the original NP revision was when it didn't work on massive units).
I think infestors deserve a health buff, though. I wouldn't mind if they were bumped back up to 120 to compensate for the loss of range.
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On September 21 2011 07:22 hejakev wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2011 00:05 Maghetti wrote:
Since blizzard doesn't like NP used vs protoss they could just give it to a protoss unit. It would then be the best ability protoss has because they could then control terran units =). It's not because they don't like NP vs toss, it's because they accidentally made the infestor somewhat of a counter to every protoss unit. I guess they figured the range nerf would make usage of the infestor a little more dangerous against collosi rather than rendering them completely useless (like the original NP revision was when it didn't work on massive units). I think infestors deserve a health buff, though. I wouldn't mind if they were bumped back up to 120 to compensate for the loss of range.
I agree, I don't think Blizzard meant to make Infestor as good as it was. People didn't even know that Infested Terrans / Neural were good before Fungal got buffed.
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Has anyone considered the idea of diversifying the protoss early game lineup? For example, dropping the requirement to have a cyber core in order to build a robo bay? You could open up a number of warp gate-less early pressure builds simply by dropping the cybernetics core entirely - equivalents of the 111 terran early drop play but with warp prisms/immortals instead of marines/marauders.
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One thing I never really understood about protoss is why there is no incentive to leaving your gateways as gateways, instead of automatically upgrading them to warpgates every game. I personally feel (and I am sure people will disagree) that it would be a lot more interesting if warpgate research was more of a mid-game upgrade as an option for protoss players to harass. Combine the dark shrine with the templar archives, and make warpgate researched from the twilight council. Buff stalkers and zealots slightly but make force-fields cost more mana. I just feel like the warpgate mechanic in general promotes people all-inning early on, especially because you get it so early. I don't think it is imbalanced, I just feel like it leads to less inspired play.
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Hey guys, I fixed Protoss:
- Zealot Charge cost reduced from 200/200 to 200/175
- Zealot Charge research time reduced from 140 to 120
- Dark Shrine cost reduced from 200/250 to 200/225
- Storm research cost reduced from 200/200 to 200/150
- Khaydarin Amulet upgrade added to the Templar Archives:
---- cost: 150/150 (+15 starting energy for High Templar)
- Stalker base damage vs. armored increased from 14 to 16
- Observer cost changed from 25/75 to 50/50
- Mothership removed from the game
- Carrier shields increased from 150 to 250
- Void Ray cost reduced from 250/150 to 225/125
- Hallucination research cost reduced from 100/100 to 100/50
- Hallucination research time reduced from 80 to 60
- Hallucination energy cost reduced from 100 to 75
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On September 21 2011 07:28 QTIP. wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2011 07:22 hejakev wrote:On September 21 2011 00:05 Maghetti wrote:
Since blizzard doesn't like NP used vs protoss they could just give it to a protoss unit. It would then be the best ability protoss has because they could then control terran units =). It's not because they don't like NP vs toss, it's because they accidentally made the infestor somewhat of a counter to every protoss unit. I guess they figured the range nerf would make usage of the infestor a little more dangerous against collosi rather than rendering them completely useless (like the original NP revision was when it didn't work on massive units). I think infestors deserve a health buff, though. I wouldn't mind if they were bumped back up to 120 to compensate for the loss of range. I agree, I don't think Blizzard meant to make Infestor as good as it was. People didn't even know that Infested Terrans / Neural were good before Fungal got buffed.
I don't think blizz realized how shitty the corruptor and hydra would be either. I can't imagine they are too thrilled that Zerg is 'supposed' to go roach/hydra/corruptor and play it the exact same as terran going marine/marauder/viking.
I think Blizz's point of the NP nerf was to make mass thor more viable and stop NP being so good on carriers, BCs, and motherships, but no one really countered mass thor with infestors and there's other reason those units are bad, although maybe this will make capital ships a good 'counter' to someone going infestor. You could always snipe infestors with colossi, and this nerf change doesn't change that. Targetting priority will always go towards the closer range lings and roaches, so the NP change won't change anything - you either target fired the infestor or you didn't.
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EPT
