Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 181

On February 02 2012 01:59 HardlyNever wrote:
Complaint

Protoss sucks at the information war, especially against terran. It is incredibly easy for terran to both completely scout protoss, while completely deny scouting of their own base for the first 7-8 minutes of the game. Protoss have a similar problem against zerg, but it feels more balanced, as both sides have a reasonble opportunity to both scout and deny scouting.

Solution

There are two actually, for the scouting thing:

1. Let observers come out of the nexus, requiring either stargate, robo, or twilight. This idea has been floating around for a while, but it is still a good one and solves another issue of protoss being REQUIRED to go robo tech at some early stage in the game simply to have detection.

2. Reduce hallucination cost to 50/50, and reduce research time some. Hallucination is basically only used for scouting, and in its current form, doesn't come out fast enough. I don't think buffing it will change the metagame much in any other way, as the most "abusive" thing you could do with it is hallu earlier and maybe blink up somewhere. With the blink nerf though, I doubt the timing would change much.

Side effects

I don't think either of these changes would have very negative side affects for the game, and would result in less "build order losses" for protoss. Neither of these changes have very much aggressive/abusive potential, they just serve to get protoss closer to even footing in the information war, which I believe should be equal for all the races.

On February 02 2012 02:07 Shiori wrote:
Basically, when you see Mutas, do the following in your head: "Do I have a third? No? All-in. Yes? Defend and have a chance at macro."

On February 02 2012 02:07 AfricanPsycho wrote:


I agree it would solve alot of PvT problems if protoss had more scouting/detection options, It kinda sucks thats in TvP a robo and obs is always required even it realy limits PvT openers alot.

On February 02 2012 02:49 ZenithM wrote:


I don't know man. I'm a full Protoss player, and I think the need for a robo to be safe from cloak is one of the things that keep Terran in the game in PvT. Building a robo is a big investment, and it realistically constricts your builds and slows your teching (the standard nowadays strays away from colossus on 2 base and prefers twilight tech at first). With this assumption Terran essentially knows what you're doing in the first 7-8 minutes if you have a nexus and you're not some coin flipping newbie, so he doesn't have to figure out and waste scans everywhere to see what you're building.
Not building a robo is always a risk you're taking and you can be punished for it, the game is kinda balanced around that. If I was able to build an observer from the nexus after twilight or stargate, I would open 1 gate FE 4 gate pressure into twilight every game and fast tech to blink then charge, much faster than usual. This kind of build is way more powerful than building your obligatory robo before teching, but you can die to banshees.

I'm not saying the mandatory robo is a good design for the matchup, but I can guaranty that PvT would become much easier for P and trickier for Terran if you weren't forced to build the robo. Even trickier than it already is, and it would not be such a good thing apparently (many low level Terrans complain about TvP being impossible to win).

Edit: Oh yeah, I have the DT icon :D

On February 02 2012 00:18 DoubleReed wrote:


Are you seriously whining about him whining about all the whiners in this thread?

Oh crap I just added another layer didn't I?

On February 02 2012 03:12 AfricanPsycho wrote:


I must disagree with you, I think it is horrible game design that protoss if forced to take a later expansion than T in most occasion (15 nex not that viable IMO) and then follow it up with a robo, which gives a standard terran a huge advantage early game (even without factoring in mules). I think it would be a good change if terran were forced to react to a toss build every once in a while instead of always going MMM every single game and occasionally 111 and that 2 base thor stuff.

That build you said would be super good vs bio play, yet I think a terran could repond with blue flame marauder and crush that zealot heavy army with ease, however if he plays blind he will have trouble getting his third. I think diversity will be a good change for the matchup, so I disagree with you.

Also I felt some toss IMBA insinuation coming from you due to that "only thing that keeps terran in the game comment". Terran has a response to everything P does. Collusus = viking. Hightemp = ghost. Zealot = kiting or marine heavy or blue flame? there problem is they blindly MMM viking then complain if they had the wrong amount of viking/ghost when they get rolled. I have countless times seen a lategame P deathball get ROLLED by a good T composition.

On February 02 2012 04:41 roymarthyup wrote:
I must be the only toss that thinks mutas are completely balanced right now.

My PvZ involves fast hallucination and constant scouting. I stopped doing FFE because its hard to get a perfect read and scout all the incoming all ins.

A FFE is only equal to a hatch-first econ-zerg if the protoss only gets one cannon. However if the protoss plays normal, the zerg can throw in all-ins anytime he wants that are impossible to scout and destroy the 1 cannon FFE. its so lame. regardless that is a discussion for FFE, i will discuss mutas

I believe if you go 2gate expand against a hatch first zerg your equal in economy to a hatch first zerg if you keep cranking out sentries. sentries allow you to defend against any pressure on your expo either lings, banes, or roaches.

Ive played against a few zerg practice partners ive told them to POWER OUT NONSTOP drones and dont even make zerglings, and my 2gate expo still is equal on economy to those zergs. By the time those zergs have 54 workers (2base saturation) I have 48 workers (not too far behind, you chrono out that difference quickly) plus a huge ball of sentries. Trust me ask any zerg player and they will tell you if they are at 54drones and the toss is at 48workers and they are both 2bases, the zerg is pretty fukked. The secret to this is you have to be CONSTANTLY chronoboosting probes even when your expansion is building, then when its done chrono probes out of 2 nexus. The beauty of this ive noticed is that because forcefield is so powerful, i can actually constantly chronoboost probes and STILL if the zerg cuts economy and tries to all-in me, 3gates worth of sentry/zealot/stalker popping completely crushes any all-in from the zerg and it also still allows you to make probes. So you can constantly make probes while also constantly producing off of 3gates. It requires no early scouting like FFE needs to do so it doesnt die to 7minute all-ins and is equal to anything the zerg does

I believe if you DONT FFE, then it becomes extremely easy to take your third as toss. all you need to do is constantly power out max economy chronoboosting probes, while making sentry/zealot/stalker off 3gates, while constantly hallucination scouting.

Now with your constant hallucination scouting, the MOMENT zerg takes a third you also take a third and guess what your army is so big you can easily defend 2 places easily. Taking a third against zerg is so easy if you just wait for him to take his, and as long as you didnt FFE your gateway army should be so big you defend nicely

As for the mutas, ive found this tactic to work best against mutas. I get double stargate when i see the spire, and i crank out 10 pheonix no matter what. If he gets muta i increase that to 15. Those 10 or 15 pheonix demand the zerg gets a bunch of spore crawlers, at least 3 per mineral line. If its 2 spores per mineral line you can fly in kill the queen and kill a bunch of drones then fly out with minimal losses. The pheonix are a EXPENSIVE counter to muta, however normally your gateway/forcefield army just crushes anything the zerg can do before he has broodlords, so the fact that you need to spend 2250 mineral on 15pheonix to become immune to mutalisks isnt a big deal.

So i get 10 pheonix if i see a spire, 15 pheonix if i see any mutas. To counter mutas you just spread all your pheonix around the map to scout where the mutas are and you pretty much are playing with a maphack because mutas cant get near your probes without your pheonix seeing it

There is one tactic a zerg could do against me that might work. If a zerg gets a spire, i will spend 1800 minerals and 1300gas to purchase 10pheonix+2stargates no matter what. This means if a zerg spends 200/200 on a spire, he essentially forces me to spend 1800/1300 to counter a 200/200 action. So if a zerg just made a spire, but then made zero air units and all-inn'ed me with a huge roach/ling/baneling/hydra attack, maybe that would work, however i believe even that would fail because FORCEFIELD/SENTRIES completely crush all zerg ground forces no matter what, and even if i have a smaller army than the zerg my FORCEFIELDS will just crush him anyway. And then once my pheonix pop out, the zerg is forced to spend 500 minerals on spore crawlers to not lose drones, so in the end i am down by 1100 minerals and 1100gas just because the zerg made that spire, however i think the trade off is worth it because FORCEFIELDS completely WRECK zerg ground forces and forcefields are much more valuable than 1100 minerals and 1100 gas

so if you see mutas, you have 15pheonix and use them like a maphack. Or if you see no mutas, you stop at 10pheonix and use them as a less-powerful maphack. you now have 3bases compared to the zergs 3. NEXT what you do is you take your fourth base the moment zerg takes his fourth because you are still constantly hallucination scouting, and because your gateway army is so big you can still defend 3places at once easily with forcefields and ALSO you spread your pheonix around the map constantly patrolling everywhere so because you have a semi-maphack it makes it easier to defend your 4bases against zerg harassment

With this constant hallucination-scouting playstyle, it makes it easy to always equal a zerg on bases. Which is the zergs worst nightmare. You usualy find enough money to add in 2-3 collossi, and heck maybe some voidrays/mothership/archons to counter broodlords.

As long as you have 15pheonix, mutalisks are not a problem at all. Use your pheonix like a maphack and spread them all over your base perimeter, when you see mutas coming send over 3stalkers and warp in 3stalkers and 15pheonix+6stalkers will kill 25mutas if the zerg tries to engage or the zerg runs away and just buys you more time to maxout to 200/200. If the zerg has more mutas than that even better for you because you just increase your pheonix count to maybe 20 if you see so many mutas. However never go above 20 pheonix. Treat your 20pheonix as a air superiority force that isnt too great against corrupters/broodlords armor-wise but the rate of disadvantage pheonix have against corrupters/broodlords armor wise is nothing compared to the rate of disadvantage the zerg ground forces have against toss ground forces

On February 02 2012 04:41 roymarthyup wrote:
I must be the only toss that thinks mutas are completely balanced right now.

My PvZ involves fast hallucination and constant scouting. I stopped doing FFE because its hard to get a perfect read and scout all the incoming all ins.

A FFE is only equal to a hatch-first econ-zerg if the protoss only gets one cannon.

On February 02 2012 04:41 roymarthyup wrote:
I must be the only toss that thinks mutas are completely balanced right now.

My PvZ involves fast hallucination and constant scouting. I stopped doing FFE because its hard to get a perfect read and scout all the incoming all ins.

A FFE is only equal to a hatch-first econ-zerg if the protoss only gets one cannon. However if the protoss plays normal, the zerg can throw in all-ins anytime he wants that are impossible to scout and destroy the 1 cannon FFE. its so lame. regardless that is a discussion for FFE, i will discuss mutas

I believe if you go 2gate expand against a hatch first zerg your equal in economy to a hatch first zerg if you keep cranking out sentries. sentries allow you to defend against any pressure on your expo either lings, banes, or roaches.

Ive played against a few zerg practice partners ive told them to POWER OUT NONSTOP drones and dont even make zerglings, and my 2gate expo still is equal on economy to those zergs. By the time those zergs have 54 workers (2base saturation) I have 48 workers (not too far behind, you chrono out that difference quickly) plus a huge ball of sentries. Trust me ask any zerg player and they will tell you if they are at 54drones and the toss is at 48workers and they are both 2bases, the zerg is pretty fukked. The secret to this is you have to be CONSTANTLY chronoboosting probes even when your expansion is building, then when its done chrono probes out of 2 nexus. The beauty of this ive noticed is that because forcefield is so powerful, i can actually constantly chronoboost probes and STILL if the zerg cuts economy and tries to all-in me, 3gates worth of sentry/zealot/stalker popping completely crushes any all-in from the zerg and it also still allows you to make probes. So you can constantly make probes while also constantly producing off of 3gates. It requires no early scouting like FFE needs to do so it doesnt die to 7minute all-ins and is equal to anything the zerg does

I believe if you DONT FFE, then it becomes extremely easy to take your third as toss. all you need to do is constantly power out max economy chronoboosting probes, while making sentry/zealot/stalker off 3gates, while constantly hallucination scouting.

Now with your constant hallucination scouting, the MOMENT zerg takes a third you also take a third and guess what your army is so big you can easily defend 2 places easily. Taking a third against zerg is so easy if you just wait for him to take his, and as long as you didnt FFE your gateway army should be so big you defend nicely

As for the mutas, ive found this tactic to work best against mutas. I get double stargate when i see the spire, and i crank out 10 pheonix no matter what. If he gets muta i increase that to 15. Those 10 or 15 pheonix demand the zerg gets a bunch of spore crawlers, at least 3 per mineral line. If its 2 spores per mineral line you can fly in kill the queen and kill a bunch of drones then fly out with minimal losses. The pheonix are a EXPENSIVE counter to muta, however normally your gateway/forcefield army just crushes anything the zerg can do before he has broodlords, so the fact that you need to spend 2250 mineral on 15pheonix to become immune to mutalisks isnt a big deal.

So i get 10 pheonix if i see a spire, 15 pheonix if i see any mutas. To counter mutas you just spread all your pheonix around the map to scout where the mutas are and you pretty much are playing with a maphack because mutas cant get near your probes without your pheonix seeing it

There is one tactic a zerg could do against me that might work. If a zerg gets a spire, i will spend 1800 minerals and 1300gas to purchase 10pheonix+2stargates no matter what. This means if a zerg spends 200/200 on a spire, he essentially forces me to spend 1800/1300 to counter a 200/200 action. So if a zerg just made a spire, but then made zero air units and all-inn'ed me with a huge roach/ling/baneling/hydra attack, maybe that would work, however i believe even that would fail because FORCEFIELD/SENTRIES completely crush all zerg ground forces no matter what, and even if i have a smaller army than the zerg my FORCEFIELDS will just crush him anyway. And then once my pheonix pop out, the zerg is forced to spend 500 minerals on spore crawlers to not lose drones, so in the end i am down by 1100 minerals and 1100gas just because the zerg made that spire, however i think the trade off is worth it because FORCEFIELDS completely WRECK zerg ground forces and forcefields are much more valuable than 1100 minerals and 1100 gas

so if you see mutas, you have 15pheonix and use them like a maphack. Or if you see no mutas, you stop at 10pheonix and use them as a less-powerful maphack. you now have 3bases compared to the zergs 3. NEXT what you do is you take your fourth base the moment zerg takes his fourth because you are still constantly hallucination scouting, and because your gateway army is so big you can still defend 3places at once easily with forcefields and ALSO you spread your pheonix around the map constantly patrolling everywhere so because you have a semi-maphack it makes it easier to defend your 4bases against zerg harassment

With this constant hallucination-scouting playstyle, it makes it easy to always equal a zerg on bases. Which is the zergs worst nightmare. You usualy find enough money to add in 2-3 collossi, and heck maybe some voidrays/mothership/archons to counter broodlords.

As long as you have 15pheonix, mutalisks are not a problem at all. Use your pheonix like a maphack and spread them all over your base perimeter, when you see mutas coming send over 3stalkers and warp in 3stalkers and 15pheonix+6stalkers will kill 25mutas if the zerg tries to engage or the zerg runs away and just buys you more time to maxout to 200/200. If the zerg has more mutas than that even better for you because you just increase your pheonix count to maybe 20 if you see so many mutas. However never go above 20 pheonix. Treat your 20pheonix as a air superiority force that isnt too great against corrupters/broodlords armor-wise but the rate of disadvantage pheonix have against corrupters/broodlords armor wise is nothing compared to the rate of disadvantage the zerg ground forces have against toss ground forces

On February 02 2012 05:39 K3Nyy wrote:


Zergs take a 3rd normally when you take your natural expo. How are you supposed to throw a 3rd nexus down before you even have a 2nd one complete?

Zergs don't have to commit to Mutas if they scout you going double SG. They should be pumping out Corrupters to counter your Phoenixes, not Mutas. You'll also never be able to keep up with his Muta count if you go reactive double SG.

Mass Phoenixes are a bad idea vs Zerg in my opinion. A few is fine, probably upward to 5. They cost too much and don't actually do damage past a few overlord and drone kills, which doesn't matter when they replace it with 10 drones everytime and another hatchery. Also, if you get a lot of them, when they get Infestors and fungal your Phoenixes, you're screwed.

On February 02 2012 05:44 ZenithM wrote:
"I used to go mass phoenix against zerg, then I took a fungal in the knee."

Edit: I didn't even get the quote right lol. But still it's true. 2-3 infestors pop out at the hatchery you're harassing, and it's like your phoenixes have been archon-toiletted, feeling wise.

On February 02 2012 05:50 roymarthyup wrote:


you really think zergs take a first third against gateway first / 2gate toss? hehehe.

maybe they do... how would i react, hmmm. id probably go 2gate/forge instead of 3gates (after my expo if i scouted a fast 3base zerg) so i can take a third at a fairly reasonable time compared to the zerg, and then pump out 2gate sentry/zealots while making cannons at my natural and my third, since you have to defend 2 fronts regardless at that point it wouldnt be a bad idea to put 3 canons at your natural and 3cannons at your third. now you are 3base toss vs 3base zerg and if you scout the zerg going spire (thanks to hallucination) its not a problem go with the 2stargate plan

On February 02 2012 05:50 roymarthyup wrote:


you really think zergs take a first third against gateway first / 2gate toss? hehehe.

maybe that do... how would i react, hmmm. id probably go 2gate/forge instead of 3gates (after my expo if i scouted a fast 3base zerg) so i can take a third at a fairly reasonable time compared to the zerg, and then pump out 2gate sentry/zealots while making cannons at my natural and my third, since you have to defend 2 fronts regardless at that point it wouldnt be a bad idea to put 3 canons at your natural and 3cannons at your third. now you are 3base toss vs 3base zerg and if you scout the zerg going spire (thanks to hallucination) its not a problem go with the 2stargate plan

On February 02 2012 01:59 HardlyNever wrote:
Complaint

Protoss sucks at the information war, especially against terran. It is incredibly easy for terran to both completely scout protoss, while completely deny scouting of their own base for the first 7-8 minutes of the game. Protoss have a similar problem against zerg, but it feels more balanced, as both sides have a reasonble opportunity to both scout and deny scouting.

Solution

There are two actually, for the scouting thing:

1. Let observers come out of the nexus, requiring either stargate, robo, or twilight. This idea has been floating around for a while, but it is still a good one and solves another issue of protoss being REQUIRED to go robo tech at some early stage in the game simply to have detection.

2. Reduce hallucination cost to 50/50, and reduce research time some. Hallucination is basically only used for scouting, and in its current form, doesn't come out fast enough. I don't think buffing it will change the metagame much in any other way, as the most "abusive" thing you could do with it is hallu earlier and maybe blink up somewhere. With the blink nerf though, I doubt the timing would change much.

Side effects

I don't think either of these changes would have very negative side affects for the game, and would result in less "build order losses" for protoss. Neither of these changes have very much aggressive/abusive potential, they just serve to get protoss closer to even footing in the information war, which I believe should be equal for all the races.

On February 02 2012 05:58 ZenithM wrote:


Wow, what's up with the wild theory-crafting there :D
* Day9's Jimmy voice* "And you see, if he takes a fast fourth, I make 4 cannons at my natural, 4 cannons at my third, and I take a fourth where I put, you see, 4 cannons."

Edit: Trolling aside, I don't think you can always answer a quick third from zerg with a quick third of your own. It's very map dependent. An extra hatch for zerg also means more production for him, while you're making nexus and cannons, which add no production at all. So you'll be low on units anyway for quite a long long time, leaving to Zerg the potential to suddenly attack you with whatever he wants.

I still think you must have an agressive stance after 2 bases in PvZ. At least feign agression if you want an early borderline cheesy third, but you can't feign shit with 2 gateways anyway.

Edit2: yeah, pretty much what the guy below me said, in fact.

On February 02 2012 06:16 roymarthyup wrote:


i would take a fast third against zerg who takes a fast third and drop the cannons but only 1cannon at each expo then with hallucination scouting see if i need more, see if the zerg is droning hard or not. ideally i wanna get to at least 3 cannons at my third and natural since im gonna have to defend 2 fronts eventually

most zergs i face never take a fast third against me so ill admit ive never really encountered it

however, if the zerg took a fast fourth, i would not take a fast fourth. instead i would just stay on 3bases because its still early game and my main has a long time before it dries out.

toss only need 3 minerals lines for max lategame production. the reason toses normally need a fourth is because their main dries out, but if the zerg takes a fast third im glad to take 3 bases and let the zerg take 10 if he wants, because all i care about is having 3 mineral lines, i dont care about the amount of bases.

3 mineral lines is a max economy lategame toss. I wont think about taking my fourth until my main mineral line is down to 10% money remaining. the zerg can take the whole map i dont care, because if i have the max economy of a lategame toss i am content. i will have my pheonix to counter mutas, my forcefields to wreck his ground army, and if he gets 100drones on 5bases and lets me have 73 workers on 3base and a 127food toss army vs his 100food zerg army... i predict things will go very well for me