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*sigh* It's sad to me that the archon toilet is STILL being talked about. Even removing (or at least nerfing) it seemed pretty unnecessary. Against Zerg, it could kill things pretty quickly, but zerg is the quickest to remax anyway, so you'd expect Protoss armies to trade better. It wasn't really viable until the 200/200 mark, and a smart zerg would see a mothership and that many archons and either a) NP it, or b) not send their entire army into the vortex. And a Terran was unlikely to be as clumped up as a zerg, so it didn't do so much anyway. And against Protoss... what, they archon toilet each other? That would actually be a sight to see. I wonder if there's a game like that from before it got nerfed.
I'll admit that it seems like a good idea to make banelings not auto-target coming out of it, since their targets will be invulnerable. But seriously, if broodlords are the only thing the archon toilet is good for, then good for it. It forces zergs to split their broods if a mothership is in play, and more power to a protoss that is figuring out good responses to a broodlord-infestor mix.
Hell, with good timing, you can still nuke toilet as a TP team in 2v2. And if you pull that off, more power to you, too.
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On October 10 2011 16:22 positron. wrote:
At least Protoss and Zerg have a deathball to build. I don't think Terran has any. Everybody keeps complaining how Terran plays cheesy shit to win, but you kinda have to.
Any evidence for this?
On October 10 2011 16:22 positron. wrote:The same thing has been going on since beta. Early game T is strong and late game they kinda suck.
Hello, Mr. Baseless Assertion, how are you today?
DeMuslim thinks that lategame T is far stronger than lategame P (I'll root around for the interview sometime, it was around NASL time).
Maybe in early release time Protoss was considered stronger lategame, but there's no real reason to believe that now. Also, because Terran is probably stronger early game (I agree with you there), Terran lategame has not been explored a lot at all (it mostly stays at MMM+G/V, no BFH, no Reapers unless you are QXC, no Banshees etc), so it's ignorant to assert that Terran is definitely weaker lategame.
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I haven't played much as of late, (2 months  ). Can anyone describe why most protosses are failing so much in tournaments and GSL? Why exacly are they losing? What changed?
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On October 10 2011 19:39 SeaSwift wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2011 16:22 positron. wrote:
At least Protoss and Zerg have a deathball to build. I don't think Terran has any. Everybody keeps complaining how Terran plays cheesy shit to win, but you kinda have to. Any evidence for this? Show nested quote +On October 10 2011 16:22 positron. wrote:The same thing has been going on since beta. Early game T is strong and late game they kinda suck. Hello, Mr. Baseless Assertion, how are you today? DeMuslim thinks that lategame T is far stronger than lategame P (I'll root around for the interview sometime, it was around NASL time). Maybe in early release time Protoss was considered stronger lategame, but there's no real reason to believe that now. Also, because Terran is probably stronger early game (I agree with you there), Terran lategame has not been explored a lot at all (it mostly stays at MMM+G/V, no BFH, no Reapers unless you are QXC, no Banshees etc), so it's ignorant to assert that Terran is definitely weaker lategame.
Yes, that was before terrans realized ghosts are actually really, really, really good vs protoss.
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On October 10 2011 19:54 413X wrote:I haven't played much as of late, (2 months ). Can anyone describe why most protosses are failing so much in tournaments and GSL? Why exacly are they losing? What changed?
Obviously this is just my opinion and everything, but:
PvT:
1) Terrans rediscovered the 1-1-1 and started using it. It wins easily because it hits a timing before Protoss can get AoE to deal with Marines, and Tanks/Banshees negate Forcefields, and Marines are incredibly cost efficient, and Stalkers are incredibly cost inefficient. In addition, any blind counter to the 1-1-1 straight up dies to decent 2rax pressure, which Protoss can't scout fast enough to prepare for when FEing (best counter to 1-1-1).
2) Terrans realised how incredibly good Ghosts are. Along with the KA removal, the use of blanket EMPs removes a ton of health from the Protoss army with an effective range of 12, as well as completely removing the threat of Storms unless HTs are in a Warp Prism (fragile, requires a ton of micro, uses up Robo time etc).
3) The longer research time on Warp Gate makes lots of greedy Terran openers really hard to punish, especially if Protoss is preparing to defend a 1-1-1 or similar, so if Terran fast expands it can be really hard for Protoss to deal with.
PvZ:
1) Obvious one: the Deathball doesn't work at all any more (although there is a possibility of the Mothership being used for Vortex with Archons again), so Zerg has the advantage lategame with Infestor/Broodlord, particularly Infestor.
2) Fast Warp Gate pressure was, again, nerfed. There used to be 2 ways to play PvZ: Build up deathball or go for a Warp Gate all-in variation. Now, neither are particularly viable, so the current style for Code A Protosses (eg Liquid'Hero, Sage et al) is to harass with Warp Prism to deny bases.
3) 3gate expand is too safe and Zerg can just drone like mad, FFE lets Zerg take a super fast 3rd base, Stargate/DT pressure can be beaten with just spores and spines on T1, so MC's 1gate Stargate build doesn't work so well any more. Protoss just doesn't have any really viable openers vs Zerg any more.
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On October 10 2011 03:30 Morphs wrote:
Problem: Difference in macro mechanic demands. Besides MULES and Chronoboost being forgiving while injects are not, there is another imbalance: MULES cost 50 energy. This means a Terran player only has to cast half the time compared to P and Z players as chrono and inject are 25 energy.
Solution: Reduce MULE cost to 25 energy. Half the duration of a MULE.
Side Effects: Actually this is a slight buff for Terran players income-wise, if their macro-skills are good. After 25 energy then can already collect half of the minerals a current MULE would gather. 75 energy means a scan and a "half-MULE".
You know nothing stops them from dropping two mules at the same time right?
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On October 10 2011 10:34 iamke55 wrote:
Yeah and a few infestors can kill an infinite amount of carriers and void rays. You can't seriously have watched Stephano's games this IPL and think Protoss has any chance in the late game without the archon toilet.
I watched the "archon toilet" game, I also watched the replay.
And you know what, having 91 probes vs 62 drones really hurts the late game when both are maxed.
I don't know with 7k minerals, I think it's worth considering the possibility of sacrificing probes before saying Protoss has no change in the late game without the archon toilet.
Also, if you allow the zerg to cover the whole map with creep, and put 10 spines crawler to cover the broodlors attacking your base, you may consider the possibility that the problem is not entirely the late game. Denying creep spread during the mid game might be part of the solution.
Finally, at the beginnning of the big fight the upgrades are:
3/1/2 ground and 1/1/0 air for protoss
2/3, 2/3 ground, and 1/0 air for zerg
+2 shield finished in the middle of the fight.
Kiwikaki was not using his chronoboost (while being maxed with 7k/4k), that's a huge mistake with a great impact in the late game. The upgrades are relatively low for both player (30min mark) because there has been a lot of exchanges. But when both players start banking ressources, Kiwikaki is really late to ressume the upgrades production and he doesn't chronobostt them.
Not saying Kiwikaki played bad, but there are definately many things that can be improved before saying Protoss has no chance late game without archon toilet.
The archon toilet is OP, I don't see how anyone can argue that it's normal to be able to obliterate an entire army with a single spell.
I'm not saying there are no problem in PvZ, but even if Protoss is currently struggling it doesn't change the fact that the archon toilet is retarded.
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On October 10 2011 12:34 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +Yeah and a few infestors can kill an infinite amount of carriers and void rays. You can't seriously have watched Stephano's games this IPL and think Protoss has any chance in the late game without the archon toilet. It wasn't like Kiwikaki was holding on to dear life the entire game. He did extremely well and then the entire map was mined out. Kiwikaki just lost too much in the army trades and a few of his recalls did not go so great. I can't believe you'd say that you think Protoss has no chance in late game when this game was proof that Protoss can stick around in end game. Now are they favored? That's debatable, and I think they are favored, but I wouldn't argue it. But they can definitely toe to toe with Zerg without having to archon toilet. We often see late game PvZ's where Protoss wins, and they don't need a mothership to do it. I am by no means saying that this means motherships aren't needed or are useless or are too strong, I'm simply saying that Protoss CAN stay viable in the lategame, and that archon toilet is not just OP, but broken. Show nested quote +And it saddens me every day that they buff the mothership before they buff the carrier Any buffing short of totally making it completely OP is useless. The carrier is a unit that can't really exist in this game, kind of like hydralisks (and just like hydras in TvZ). They were used to kill siege tank lines in BW, and right now we don't see late game siege tanks in PvZ because of the marauder, and because of the immortal. Get rid of the immortal, you may see more carriers as a response to the increased use of siege tanks. Get rid of the marauder, and you'd definitely see siege tanks, to which you'd definitely see carriers. It's not that carriers are useless, it's that why would Terran ever make mass siege tanks when they can make marauders and not have to deal with immortals. When Terran starts going MMM vs Zerg, you might see hydralisks in the match-up too. Show nested quote +The toilet does destroy brood lords, if they are clumped up, spread them out and don't let one vortex hit everything and it will be less effective It has an effective diameter/range of 6 wide. In the first example it was clumped, just a bit, but the other videos, and the game against Stephano, they were not clumped up. That's why "lol spread void rays" is a stupid thing for Zerg to say against Protoss, and that the answer to infestors or EMP is not "lol spread out" but HT, or in the case of EMP, imbalance (not my words, others. I don't care to comment on TvP). If you actually look at the scale of the win rates, you'd notice that they are always within 5% except for recently, which has been skewed by the GSL results and the metagame. A single month of September with win rates 2% above the 5% margin of error does not prove imbalance or that "OMG Zerg so favored, Protoss screwed!". Show nested quote +Also the fact that you used the "everything is fine except among the people who actually know how to play" excuse (Just like Blizzard did!) pretty much undermines everything balance related you've ever said. My only statements in regards to balance is that Zerg is balanced against the other 2 races, except that archon toilet is broken. One very extreme, late game unit no one uses or has explored yet (mothership) that has just been buffed into viability and just had a huge, popular metagame counter nerfed (NP) has not made an impact in win rates. I know I'm QQing about the archon toilet, but I will say it has an extremely negligible impact on ZvP win rates or the game. It's an extremely rare situation in extreme late game with a unit that's very unpopular, but the OP still exists. Should it be on the top of the list of things-to-be-patched? Probably not. But it's still OP nonetheless. Besides the archon toilet, I haven't commented on anything else in regards to balance. I think a few things are questionable, but I don't know if they should be patched or worth speaking about. But god forbid I take the stance that I think the game is balanced, and we should wait it out or that the game is too early to tell or that a few players making huge blunders decides the state of the game. Show nested quote +You can't have two "unanswerable" compositions; that's immediately contradictory. What happens when BL/infestor meets the classic deathball? BL/infestor usually wins; that's why people are complaining. So the deathball has an answer, while BL/infestor is still being figured out... which is where the whole mothership discussion comes from. The deathball beats BL/Infestor, especially if HT are included. We saw in quite a few battles that Protoss beats it. Neither are 'unanswerable' compositions, but there is a discussion about how early the Protoss deathball comes vs the Zerg deathball, I suppose. I never really said the Protoss deathball was a problem. Show nested quote +but the point you drew from that - that forgiveness is irrelevant above diamond - is ridiculous.
Why do you say that? If you have Nestea vs MVP, to give an example, MVP forgetting MULEs or having to call down supplies hurts him, hard. Not as hard as Nestea getting supply blocked, but Nestea isn't going to get supply blocked. I don't know exactly what you mean, please elaborate. Even at the top level of play, can Terran be more forgiving and benefit from it? Sure, of course. Will they win games from it? It could keep them in it. But the Zerg could look at the game, see he got blocked, and if he hadn't vs the Terran who did calldown supplies, he would've won or been better off. We all know Zerg is the least forgiving, but that doesn't mean they are UP, at all. It helps. Don't get me wrong. But I don't think adding a cooldown like that is beneficial. Sure, some masters Terrans would go back to Diamond, but at the top level of play, with 2 players playing well, it won't matter. Even if it's such a small factor it doesn't decide games, if it is OP, then it should be removed. But my argument is that I don't think it's OP. I mean, say if they brought in auto-larva inject. I think lots of lower level Zergs would benefit, but at the top level of play, Zerg will still be the same. They may win some games, but it wouldn't make them OP, it would just make them very strong. This may be why Terran is winning so much - that they are forgiving, and not necessarily OP. So you know, whatever. Personally, I just think a race so reliant on micro needs a bit more forgiveness. Show nested quote +but at the same time you've assumed the local role of knowledgeable, neutral mediator of discussion with such gusto that you end up acting like you yourself are above bias and being wrong. I'll keep that in mind. I'm not trying to be presumptuous at all, I merely believe what I say is correct, which is of course what everyone thinks of their opinions. I'm not trying to be offensive at all, I just argue what I have to say and present what I believe backs it up. I'm definitely not above bias at all, I'm a Zerg player more than a Random player or Masters player, and everyone should keep that in mind, but I think what I've brought up in discussion has been valid, regardless of bias. I mean look at the GSL games. You could look at them, and it's obvious that MC lost because he lost all his stalkers when he blinked them forward in G3 against Monster, and in G2 he let lings run into his base twice. MC lost against an inferior opponent, who played superb nonetheless. I think actually looking at the games provides a better insight than the tournament results, although I think tournament results are still relevant. The tournament results raise the question of if Zerg is OP in ZvP. But I think the actual games answer with a definitive "NO".
you really really really need to stop posting. Firstly you've never won a single tournament, the balance of sc2 has little to no effect on your life at all. Secondly you have no idea how to play zerg, i know because we've played in an open before and because of all your posts (and there are very many). Thirdly, almost everything you say about sc2 is wrong so at least to a player that knows quite a bit about sc2 ur not discussing balance at all your just running a "anything that beats me is OP campaign blizzard plz nerf." Stephano lost because he got completely outplayed all game long but almost won because its actually BL/Infestor that is overpowered but he lost because he clumped up all his BL and let Kiwi get off the best Vortex's ever which is very easy to prevent to begin with. It's just unfortunate that Metalopolis is still in tournament pools screwing kiwi over g3.
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Most players complaing about Mules seem to think they are the equivalent to about 15 workers, they mean that terran always has an economic advantage and if you wait till 200 energy to drop 4 mules it doesnt make any difference.So I think I can assume they have no idea how this game works.
Also I think we should stop pretending Zerg is hard when IPL has shown you dont even have to be korean to win tournaments, I mean wtf blizz they clearly need an additional macro mechanic or something
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I just saw Kiwi - Stephano on ST and my first thought was "omg Recall is amazing". I seriously don't know how you can talk only about Vortex.
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On October 10 2011 21:24 Big G wrote:
I just saw Kiwi - Stephano on ST and my first thought was "omg Recall is amazing". I seriously don't know how you can talk only about Vortex.
No recall is just fine.
It's actually what costed Kiwikaki the game.
Everytime he killed the 2 o-clock hatch, he traded evenly in ressources lost.
BUT, he traded gas heavy army units, against mineral only economy.
So this were actually very bad trades for Kiwikaki, at this point in the game economy didn't matter anymore. He actually did Stephano a favor, they both had roughly 90 workers, Kiwikaki just killed the workers Stephano needed to loose.
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On October 10 2011 20:51 VTPerfect wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2011 12:34 Belial88 wrote:Yeah and a few infestors can kill an infinite amount of carriers and void rays. You can't seriously have watched Stephano's games this IPL and think Protoss has any chance in the late game without the archon toilet. It wasn't like Kiwikaki was holding on to dear life the entire game. He did extremely well and then the entire map was mined out. Kiwikaki just lost too much in the army trades and a few of his recalls did not go so great. I can't believe you'd say that you think Protoss has no chance in late game when this game was proof that Protoss can stick around in end game. Now are they favored? That's debatable, and I think they are favored, but I wouldn't argue it. But they can definitely toe to toe with Zerg without having to archon toilet. We often see late game PvZ's where Protoss wins, and they don't need a mothership to do it. I am by no means saying that this means motherships aren't needed or are useless or are too strong, I'm simply saying that Protoss CAN stay viable in the lategame, and that archon toilet is not just OP, but broken. And it saddens me every day that they buff the mothership before they buff the carrier Any buffing short of totally making it completely OP is useless. The carrier is a unit that can't really exist in this game, kind of like hydralisks (and just like hydras in TvZ). They were used to kill siege tank lines in BW, and right now we don't see late game siege tanks in PvZ because of the marauder, and because of the immortal. Get rid of the immortal, you may see more carriers as a response to the increased use of siege tanks. Get rid of the marauder, and you'd definitely see siege tanks, to which you'd definitely see carriers. It's not that carriers are useless, it's that why would Terran ever make mass siege tanks when they can make marauders and not have to deal with immortals. When Terran starts going MMM vs Zerg, you might see hydralisks in the match-up too. The toilet does destroy brood lords, if they are clumped up, spread them out and don't let one vortex hit everything and it will be less effective It has an effective diameter/range of 6 wide. In the first example it was clumped, just a bit, but the other videos, and the game against Stephano, they were not clumped up. That's why "lol spread void rays" is a stupid thing for Zerg to say against Protoss, and that the answer to infestors or EMP is not "lol spread out" but HT, or in the case of EMP, imbalance (not my words, others. I don't care to comment on TvP). TLPD win rates. If you actually look at the scale of the win rates, you'd notice that they are always within 5% except for recently, which has been skewed by the GSL results and the metagame. A single month of September with win rates 2% above the 5% margin of error does not prove imbalance or that "OMG Zerg so favored, Protoss screwed!". Also the fact that you used the "everything is fine except among the people who actually know how to play" excuse (Just like Blizzard did!) pretty much undermines everything balance related you've ever said. My only statements in regards to balance is that Zerg is balanced against the other 2 races, except that archon toilet is broken. One very extreme, late game unit no one uses or has explored yet (mothership) that has just been buffed into viability and just had a huge, popular metagame counter nerfed (NP) has not made an impact in win rates. I know I'm QQing about the archon toilet, but I will say it has an extremely negligible impact on ZvP win rates or the game. It's an extremely rare situation in extreme late game with a unit that's very unpopular, but the OP still exists. Should it be on the top of the list of things-to-be-patched? Probably not. But it's still OP nonetheless. Besides the archon toilet, I haven't commented on anything else in regards to balance. I think a few things are questionable, but I don't know if they should be patched or worth speaking about. But god forbid I take the stance that I think the game is balanced, and we should wait it out or that the game is too early to tell or that a few players making huge blunders decides the state of the game. You can't have two "unanswerable" compositions; that's immediately contradictory. What happens when BL/infestor meets the classic deathball? BL/infestor usually wins; that's why people are complaining. So the deathball has an answer, while BL/infestor is still being figured out... which is where the whole mothership discussion comes from. The deathball beats BL/Infestor, especially if HT are included. We saw in quite a few battles that Protoss beats it. Neither are 'unanswerable' compositions, but there is a discussion about how early the Protoss deathball comes vs the Zerg deathball, I suppose. I never really said the Protoss deathball was a problem. but the point you drew from that - that forgiveness is irrelevant above diamond - is ridiculous.
Why do you say that? If you have Nestea vs MVP, to give an example, MVP forgetting MULEs or having to call down supplies hurts him, hard. Not as hard as Nestea getting supply blocked, but Nestea isn't going to get supply blocked. I don't know exactly what you mean, please elaborate. Even at the top level of play, can Terran be more forgiving and benefit from it? Sure, of course. Will they win games from it? It could keep them in it. But the Zerg could look at the game, see he got blocked, and if he hadn't vs the Terran who did calldown supplies, he would've won or been better off. We all know Zerg is the least forgiving, but that doesn't mean they are UP, at all. It helps. Don't get me wrong. But I don't think adding a cooldown like that is beneficial. Sure, some masters Terrans would go back to Diamond, but at the top level of play, with 2 players playing well, it won't matter. Even if it's such a small factor it doesn't decide games, if it is OP, then it should be removed. But my argument is that I don't think it's OP. I mean, say if they brought in auto-larva inject. I think lots of lower level Zergs would benefit, but at the top level of play, Zerg will still be the same. They may win some games, but it wouldn't make them OP, it would just make them very strong. This may be why Terran is winning so much - that they are forgiving, and not necessarily OP. So you know, whatever. Personally, I just think a race so reliant on micro needs a bit more forgiveness. but at the same time you've assumed the local role of knowledgeable, neutral mediator of discussion with such gusto that you end up acting like you yourself are above bias and being wrong. I'll keep that in mind. I'm not trying to be presumptuous at all, I merely believe what I say is correct, which is of course what everyone thinks of their opinions. I'm not trying to be offensive at all, I just argue what I have to say and present what I believe backs it up. I'm definitely not above bias at all, I'm a Zerg player more than a Random player or Masters player, and everyone should keep that in mind, but I think what I've brought up in discussion has been valid, regardless of bias. I mean look at the GSL games. You could look at them, and it's obvious that MC lost because he lost all his stalkers when he blinked them forward in G3 against Monster, and in G2 he let lings run into his base twice. MC lost against an inferior opponent, who played superb nonetheless. I think actually looking at the games provides a better insight than the tournament results, although I think tournament results are still relevant. The tournament results raise the question of if Zerg is OP in ZvP. But I think the actual games answer with a definitive "NO". you really really really need to stop posting. Firstly you've never won a single tournament, the balance of sc2 has little to no effect on your life at all. Secondly you have no idea how to play zerg, i know because we've played in an open before and because of all your posts (and there are very many). Thirdly, almost everything you say about sc2 is wrong so at least to a player that knows quite a bit about sc2 ur not discussing balance at all your just running a "anything that beats me is OP campaign blizzard plz nerf." Stephano lost because he got completely outplayed all game long but almost won because its actually BL/Infestor that is overpowered but he lost because he clumped up all his BL and let Kiwi get off the best Vortex's ever which is very easy to prevent to begin with. It's just unfortunate that Metalopolis is still in tournament pools screwing kiwi over g3.
Kiwikaki didn't completely ouplayed Stephano. His opening failed and he was really far behind after it.
Stephano gave his advantage away later in the game because he tried to attack with roach/hydra/corruptors which simply doesn't work. After that, Kiwi had a slight advantage but gave it away with the recall cuteness and the fact he was missing 30 supply in his army.
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On October 10 2011 21:31 Elean wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2011 21:24 Big G wrote:
I just saw Kiwi - Stephano on ST and my first thought was "omg Recall is amazing". I seriously don't know how you can talk only about Vortex.
No recall is just fine. It's actually what costed Kiwikaki the game. Everytime he killed the 2 o-clock hatch, he traded evenly in ressources lost. BUT, he traded gas heavy army units, against mineral only economy. So this were actually very bad trades for Kiwikaki, at this point in the game economy didn't matter anymore. He actually did Stephano a favor, they both had roughly 90 workers, Kiwikaki just killed the workers Stephano needed to loose.
I saw just one time the replay so I may be wrong... didn't he "trade armies" just because he was too greedy in those engagements before recall? I thought that he could had endlessly delay the hatch (maybe FFing the ramp and/or engage only for a few seconds) and immediately recall, but he chose to fight so much longer than he should.
I mean, that game shows the power of Recall... I didn't mean that Kiwi used it in a perfect way.
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4713 Posts
On the topic of Stephano vs Kiwikaki game 2.
I believe that Stephano let Kiwi get too much leeway which lead to Kiwi's win.
Kiwi gave it his all, tried a very new thing with the MS recall, and I admire his bravery for trying in such a high prestige tournament. But the fact of the matter is it still feels like Stephano let him, and if you analyze the game Stephano did some questionable things.
First things first, when Stephan was maxing out, he chose to do several Roach, Hydra, Corrupter busts against Kiwi, with no infestors backing it up. We all know how that went, its a terrible idea to try against a GW army backed up by Sentries and Colossus, the forcefields just split the army allowing the colossus to easily murder lots of units and for the stalkers to inflict terrible damage upon corrupters.
I find it very, very hard to believe that a player of Stephano's caliber would do such a fundamental mistake. And he didn't do it once, he did it several times which is very odd to say the least.
The other really dubious part was Stephano doing very little or very ineffective harass. He very few ling run by's and the very few roach drops where sloppy, weren't microed, died easily didn't kill many probes or destroy any nexuses. This seems in stark contrast to his games vs HuK or TheSTC where his counter-attacks and harass where deadly, well microed and well timed.
The last part however really made me fell like something was amiss. Stephano actually annihilated Kiwi's army two times. One of those times he was right outside of Kiwi's main base, he knew Kiwi had very little to defend with, he knew he had the opportunity to win the game right there by destroying Kiwi's production but then he just backed of and let Kiwi re-max several times.
I don't want to bash on either player, Kiwi tried tried his best and did something new and unique, he did snipe several hatches, but it still seems irrelevant when right after he lost 75% of his army and was close to losing his production too. And Stephano is an absolutely monster of a player, super solid, probably a Code S player in the making, if he isn't already one.
However G2 just felt odd, and it felt like Stephano was just toying with Kiwi and letting him get back up so he could punch him down again. I don't understand why exactly, perhaps Stephano was so confident of his own skill that he didn't care if he would lose that game and knew he could win the 3rd game anyway.
Perhaps Stephano desires to steal Thorzain's spoon killer nick name, maybe he likes the sound of it.
I don't know exactly what it was, but G2 just felt really, really odd and out of place to me. It was also quite boring actually because it felt dragged out, Kiwi would do a push, recall and wait, while Stephano was just content to not do almost anything.
However, how does this tie into PvZ?
Well to be quite frank it shows that PvZ late game is really in a very rough spot. In G1 and G3 vs Kiwi, Stephano showed that if he wants to he won't even allow Protoss to reach late game, and in G2 vs HuK and to some extent G2 vs Kiwi, he showed that almost no matter what the protoss does he can just destroy it flat out. Fungal the army in place, neural high value units, and swarm with roaches, brood lords and corrupters. What difference does it make if the Protoss can snipe 2 hatches when in a straight up fight the zerg will still win the fight and then proceed to demolish the Protoss main.
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Russian Federation899 Posts
On October 10 2011 20:40 shockaslim wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2011 03:30 Morphs wrote:
Problem: Difference in macro mechanic demands. Besides MULES and Chronoboost being forgiving while injects are not, there is another imbalance: MULES cost 50 energy. This means a Terran player only has to cast half the time compared to P and Z players as chrono and inject are 25 energy.
Solution: Reduce MULE cost to 25 energy. Half the duration of a MULE.
Side Effects: Actually this is a slight buff for Terran players income-wise, if their macro-skills are good. After 25 energy then can already collect half of the minerals a current MULE would gather. 75 energy means a scan and a "half-MULE". You know nothing stops them from dropping two mules at the same time right?
Except timings getting delayed
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On October 10 2011 21:41 Big G wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2011 21:31 Elean wrote:On October 10 2011 21:24 Big G wrote:
I just saw Kiwi - Stephano on ST and my first thought was "omg Recall is amazing". I seriously don't know how you can talk only about Vortex.
No recall is just fine. It's actually what costed Kiwikaki the game. Everytime he killed the 2 o-clock hatch, he traded evenly in ressources lost. BUT, he traded gas heavy army units, against mineral only economy. So this were actually very bad trades for Kiwikaki, at this point in the game economy didn't matter anymore. He actually did Stephano a favor, they both had roughly 90 workers, Kiwikaki just killed the workers Stephano needed to loose. I saw just one time the replay so I may be wrong... didn't he "trade armies" just because he was too greedy in those engagements before recall? I thought that he could had endlessly delay the hatch (maybe FFing the ramp and/or engage only for a few seconds) and immediately recall, but he chose to fight so much longer than he should. I mean, that game shows the power of Recall... I didn't mean that Kiwi used it in a perfect way.
Well, it's true it would have been better to recall 5s sooner almost everytime. But if you recall too soon, you ultimately do a only 500 mineral damage in a late game situation, that's not really imbalanced.
Also, the problem of always attacking on the side is that you never deny creep.
In this game, Kiwikaki had the smaller army (in term of army value) in litterally every fight, not to mention that they fought in proxymity of spine crawlers.
Despite that, he managed to stay cost effectif during the entire game against Stephano's late game composition (with roach/hydra/corruptors, Stephano wasn't even close to be cost effective even with the bigger army). It just shows how much stronger Protoss army is.
If he didn't overproduced probes, he would have won easily.
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Ah, but you can't say for sure that this is not because of balance.
Is the reason why there are so few Protoss progamers being successful in Korea because of luck or because the game is imbalanced and Protoss is underpowered? Not only would this make it hard to become successful with Protoss, but it would also deter people from choosing Protoss as a race when becoming pro, so it has side effects like that.
Yes you can, watch the f*n games.
There seems to be a notion going round at the moment that Zerg and especially Terran players are just a lot better than Protoss players at the moment. This idea is absolutely laughable - while the Protoss President and Artosis' old love child, Alicia, are slumping, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest - and therefore absolutely no reason to believe - that Terran players are somehow innately better at the game than Protoss players.
I don't think that's just it.
First off, look at the group selections in the last 2 GSLs. You just had the best Protoss players NOT fighting Zergs. The 'best' Toss to die to a Zerg last GSL, was Alicia, and the game opened with failed DTs and went downhill from there, with a really bad move on Alicia's part to follow up a bad opening into a 2 base all-in. In this game, Zerg did no aggression or showed any imbalance with roaches or lings or any Zerg unit, then proceeded to take a fourth after DTs, and then got infestor/ling against blink stalkers.
Then, you had a lot of really shitty Protoss players, like Hongun and Anypro and Tassadar and some no name guy, people who have been in the GSL for 4 gating and double proxy stargates and 3 gate VR allins vs terran, matched up against the likes of Losira, Nestea, etc. Furthermore, these guys displayed horrible play recently - Tassadar ACTUALLY 4 gated when he was down a match, Anypro ACTUALLY went double stargate, and Hongun ACTUALLY lost to 6 pool.
The rest of the gaps were filled in by Terran and PvP, so I think a lot of people vented and said Protoss is in the shithole, omg this is so bad! but in reality it's a combination of:
1. PvT Imbalance (If this is just a metagame imbalance or actual balance, I'm not here to argue. PvT may very well be balanced but we all know that at least right now, the metagame isn't).
2. Huge blunders by otherwise top-performing Protoss players in a few games against Zerg.
3. Groups, where lower level Protoss were matched up against higher level Zerg, and higher level Protoss didn't play against Zerg, and lower level Zerg weren't matched up against Protoss.
So it looks like Protoss is getting their ass kicked, when in reality they are getting beaten in PvT, and doing just fine in PvZ.
Also, on the subject of the percentages. Blizzard has already made patches to the Infestor and nerfing Protoss deathball when the percentages were well within their allowed limits. They patched because they thought from looking at games that Protoss was winning too easily vs Zerg. Now look what's happened - the percentages are on the edge of going into the BAD zone, but Blizzard doesn't want to issue a major buff like they did for Zerg.
Blizzard doesn't go by TLPD stats, sorry (lol). They go by ladder stats, for the most part, and ladder stats for both all leagues, and for Masters+, showed that Protoss has always been favored against Zerg, even after the infestor buff. The only difference is, of course, Masters+ KR, which showed 47%, which is well within the 5% margin of error.
Also, the TLPD looks a lot more dramatic than it really is. Despite HUGE leaps and curves and sitting right next to the PvT graph that shows +10% changes, the PvZ graph is never more than 5% either way on the TLPD win rates except for the sole month of September, which could be explained by what aksfjh said.
I don't mean to be insulting, but look at the graph more closely and it's not as dramatic as the curvy lines suggest.
Anyways, it doesn't make much sense with the infestor nerfs. Blizzard stated that PvZ was perfectly balanced after the infestor buffs, but said that feedback was why they gave it a nerf. Which sounds kind of goofy, because FG was the problem, yet they didn't really nerf it (everything Protoss dies in same number of FG still, the issue people complained about was rooting anyways), not NP.
After playing more on this new patch, I actually wished they just made it so you can't NP massive units instead. 7 range is so useless on anything, at least with no massive you could NP immortals and Void rays. Can't anymore 
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It forces zergs to split their broods if a mothership is in play, and more power to a protoss that is figuring out good responses to a broodlord-infestor mix.
I don't think you quite understand how archon toilet works. It has an effective width of 6 range. This means that 12 magic boxed Broodlords will all get caught in the vortex.
It's like giving an AoE spell that one shots all units in it's range. It's just way too much.
Blizzard even said it was completely broken. How is it even an argument that archon toilet is OP or not?!? The whole point of BL/Infestor is that it's SUPPOSED to be difficult to deal with, and in the end-game remaxing on lings or roaches isn't useful against a Protoss deathball. There HAS to exist a composition that kills any kind of army, and VR/Colossi/HT easily deals with it, and yea, it's supposed to be hard to deal with.
It's really obnoxious when people say "zerg is supposed to lose, just remax yo" because you have to actually do LOTS of damage with your first army or otherwise you'll be rolled over by an unstoppable force.
you really really really need to stop posting. Firstly you've never won a single tournament, the balance of sc2 has little to no effect on your life at all. Secondly you have no idea how to play zerg, i know because we've played in an open before and because of all your posts (and there are very many). Thirdly, almost everything you say about sc2 is wrong so at least to a player that knows quite a bit about sc2 ur not discussing balance at all your just running a "anything that beats me is OP campaign blizzard plz nerf." Stephano lost because he got completely outplayed all game long but almost won because its actually BL/Infestor that is overpowered but he lost because he clumped up all his BL and let Kiwi get off the best Vortex's ever which is very easy to prevent to begin with. It's just unfortunate that Metalopolis is still in tournament pools screwing kiwi over g3.
I never contended that Stephano should have won the game, it was a very close series. If BL/Infestor is OP, then it needs to be nerfed.
Vortex has a huge effective range, there is no way you can dodge it (with slow broodlords at that) or magic box against it.
No, balance has no impact on my life, it really doesn't. I very rarely come across archon toilets in my own games. But this is a discussion thread, and 99% of the people here aren't semi-pro like you, so unless you want to limit this thread to only posters with 'Liquid'' in their name, it's just going to be a bunch of 'scrubs' discussing shit that doesn't even matter.
I think the game is pretty well balanced for a Zerg, and I think archon toilet is OP. That's all I'm really here to say. Archon toilet isn't going to make or break Zerg win rates, it isn't going to affect me, and it probably shouldn't be on the top of the list of things-to-patch. But it's OP, and well, this IS the OP discussion thread.
I'm sorry you have such a negative opinion of me. You can PM me if you want, or you can just post in this thread. I enjoyed our game, even if you didn't.
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I think the combination of the fungal and neural changes make ZvP way too hard right now, there is nothing that you can get to in a reasonable amount of time that fights a collosus ball effectively. Maybe I need to work a faster hive into my build I dunno.
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On October 10 2011 22:00 Elean wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2011 21:41 Big G wrote:On October 10 2011 21:31 Elean wrote:On October 10 2011 21:24 Big G wrote:
I just saw Kiwi - Stephano on ST and my first thought was "omg Recall is amazing". I seriously don't know how you can talk only about Vortex.
No recall is just fine. It's actually what costed Kiwikaki the game. Everytime he killed the 2 o-clock hatch, he traded evenly in ressources lost. BUT, he traded gas heavy army units, against mineral only economy. So this were actually very bad trades for Kiwikaki, at this point in the game economy didn't matter anymore. He actually did Stephano a favor, they both had roughly 90 workers, Kiwikaki just killed the workers Stephano needed to loose. I saw just one time the replay so I may be wrong... didn't he "trade armies" just because he was too greedy in those engagements before recall? I thought that he could had endlessly delay the hatch (maybe FFing the ramp and/or engage only for a few seconds) and immediately recall, but he chose to fight so much longer than he should. I mean, that game shows the power of Recall... I didn't mean that Kiwi used it in a perfect way. Well, it's true it would have been better to recall 5s sooner almost everytime. But if you recall too soon, you ultimately do a only 500 mineral damage in a late game situation, that's not really imbalanced. Also, the problem of always attacking on the side is that you never deny creep. In this game, Kiwikaki had the smaller army (in term of army value) in litterally every fight, not to mention that they fought in proxymity of spine crawlers. Despite that, he managed to stay cost effectif during the entire game against Stephano's late game composition (with roach/hydra/corruptors, Stephano wasn't even close to be cost effective even with the bigger army). It just shows how much stronger Protoss army is. If he didn't overproduced probes, he would have won easily.
Roach-Hydra-Corruptor is ridiculously cost-ineffective against Protoss. The Corruptors just don't kill Colossi fast enough for it to be worthwhile. Hydras are really only good for specific timing attacks against Protoss and kinda useless everywhere else, very similar to Marauders in TvZ.
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EPT
