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On July 18 2012 10:50 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2012 09:11 Heavenlee wrote:On July 18 2012 08:59 wcr.4fun wrote:On July 18 2012 08:55 Wombat_NI wrote:On July 18 2012 08:51 wcr.4fun wrote:On July 18 2012 07:58 TeamBreezy wrote:On July 18 2012 07:30 Big J wrote:On July 18 2012 06:46 Shiori wrote:On July 18 2012 06:25 Charon1979 wrote:As for pre-fast third against Terran, you guys were doing just fine. You don't need a third before 5 minutes against Terran to be competitive. You just don't. I can understand the terran pov, but I really cant stand you toss jumping on the bandwagon. PvZ ist stale, boring to watch and boring to play but its balanced. Blame Warp in mechanic. In TvZ Terra is at a slight disadvantage at the moment, maybe it needs a fix, maybe not. But I really really hate these bigot statements: "When the MU was balanced I had a 70% winrate against zerg, now it dropped to 30%... wtf! Zerg OP!" The same with progamers "There just a few top ZvT Players like DRG (51,6%) because zerg players suck in general and terran players just are naturally gifted, work harder, are more intelligent and handsome (worst winrate of the worst TvZ player still > 50%) And to be honest... I really enjoy the queen buff as it helped a ton to stabilize ZvZ. In no way is PvZ balanced when one race can only 2base all-in. And no, this isn't up for debate. Macro PvZ is incredibly Zerg favoured since every P pressure has been neutered to the point of uselessness. Everyone sees this except you, and you keep talking as if the matchup being balanced is something everyone should agree on. Either stop misrepresenting my point of view or stop replying to me. You have yet to make an actual argument with regard to anything I've said. You've stepped over into pointlessly Zerg biased whining. You mean it's retarded that Protoss can't take a third good enough, due to roaches? Yes it is! You mean it's retarded that Zerg is forced to go 3bases superearly to not get outmacroed by a FFE build but on the flipside can only hold 50% of the Protoss allins, because this greedy strategy makes it very hard to actually hold them? And don't come with "Zerg has to fuck up to not defend the allin". After all it's Protoss that have the possibility to "FF better" as well a lot of the times (which is not easy, but a lot of times it also comes down simply to FFs). you know why Protoss' started to FFE in the first place?? Because zerg's were taking an extra base regardless. Being down 2 bases to 3 is better than 1 base to 2. Zerg's only get 33 percent more income than protoss 3 bases to 2, where as Zerg's double Protoss' income 2 bases to 1. This is called meta game. Adapting to what works best against common zergs. If zerg's didn't expo 3 bases they would have more units therefore hold off Protoss All-in's even easier. What am i saying, 3 base Zerg's hold off any Protoss 2 base all-ins 85 percent of the time so nvm. You know it takes a lot of sentries to FF, and which they have no dps. The big difference, Zerg's can lose the 3rd base, re-expand and win the game. Protoss fail all-in is automatically lose. No; try taking a third against 3 gate expand. That'd be kinda dumb though, there's no need for the superfast 3rd which is a response to an FFE to pump out your economy when you're racing a relatively uneconomic opener I understand that. He was saying 'zergs can take third regardless what P is doing', but that's not true at all. I understand 3 gate expand came before 1 gate expand, but I never played during the time that 1 gate expand was popular so can't comment on that. But I know for sure that zergs weren't taking thirds versus 3 gate expand. I just had an issue with saying 'Z can take third regardless of what P is doing.' We see Stephano do the same opener every time---a surge of lings and maybe a few roaches for map control, then he is completely safe to do whatever he wants and god forbid the toss attempts to take a quick third or apply any light pressure. He is either safe to expand, drone, tech, or all three at once, while maintaining the possibility of denying the protoss third while going up to four base. We even see zergs have learned to be greedier than before in some cases, such as Ret v Puzzle on Cloud Kingdom where he held off a two base all-in while taking his fourth instead of a macro hatch, and teching up to infestors. Some toss are now doing 1 gate expands because zergs don't recall how to handle them, but after a couple games of practice and looking back a bit they will---make speed on your zerglings and delay your third and prevent them from ever taking an expansion. Again, the zerg will have an economic advantage if they play properly. Either way the zerg will have an economic advantage going into the midgame. Just because in the past zergs suicided a ton, didn't understand timings or scouting patterns, etc. and made the win ratio even or sometimes even toss favored when a new all-in came out, does not make them currently balanced. Yeah, we get it. Zerg players are too dumb to defend allins and it's not Stephano outclassing his opponents at NASL, but rather just abusing Zerg imbaness. When 2months ago all the whine was about Terrans "not having a chance in TvP" and "having to rely on allins and drops", it was just Protoss players being too dumb to defend them. And yeah, Stephano did the same opener in the NASL finals against Alicia (who btw played horrible). Guess what... MC won two GSL's by basically using 1 build for PvT and PvZ (6gate), and one build for PvP (4gate). Maybe the way stephano does is not really figuered out yet? Or maybe you just have to be on even level with him to win (MC took two games of him and has beaten him several times before).
Did you even read anything I said? I said they were too dumb to defend allins which is true. Look at how they defended gateway all-ins in the past and lost all the time, compared to how they almost never lose to them now. Compare how people were recently losing to immortal/sentry all-in and then the better players began to figure out how the engage, and then it made it easier to hold. So yes, they were too "dumb" to defend all-ins, that seriously just can't be argued if you watch this game.
Provide proof that Stephano outclassed his opponents instead of taking advantage of zerg being favored at the moment. Can you? No, there is no objective way to prove that he had better timings, map awareness, build orders, etc. or that his build is just a panacea. And I can't prove he didn't outclass his opponents. But we can look at every other game in the state of PvZ and how zerg always seems to magically have an advantage, then it becomes likely that that "outclassing" is because when both play a standard game the zerg has the advantage---since you kind of see them winning everything, zergs that were considered nobodies in the past taking games off great players of both protoss and terran, etc.
MC won two GSL's...over a year ago. That literally has nothing to do with anything, and if you really want to talk about that, he won with a decent variety of builds---including pretty much making everything on one base versus Rain. I also remember a macro game versus Rain including storm drops. He also deflected a one base tank/marine push with phoenix, gateway, and maybe immortals. There you go, that accounts for 3 out of his 4 wins in the finals versus Rain. Versus July I remember number 6 gate, DT expand into blink, standard blink + sentries into attempting to take a third but July handed him the game by pushing too aggressively with hydras, and nexus cancel four gate. His loss against July was him turtling on three bases and getting delayed colossi versus July going for hydra drops. Four different build orders for his four wins, and another for his loss. And everyone four gated in PvP at the time, what are you even talking about?
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On July 18 2012 10:50 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2012 09:11 Heavenlee wrote:On July 18 2012 08:59 wcr.4fun wrote:On July 18 2012 08:55 Wombat_NI wrote:On July 18 2012 08:51 wcr.4fun wrote:On July 18 2012 07:58 TeamBreezy wrote:On July 18 2012 07:30 Big J wrote:On July 18 2012 06:46 Shiori wrote:On July 18 2012 06:25 Charon1979 wrote:As for pre-fast third against Terran, you guys were doing just fine. You don't need a third before 5 minutes against Terran to be competitive. You just don't. I can understand the terran pov, but I really cant stand you toss jumping on the bandwagon. PvZ ist stale, boring to watch and boring to play but its balanced. Blame Warp in mechanic. In TvZ Terra is at a slight disadvantage at the moment, maybe it needs a fix, maybe not. But I really really hate these bigot statements: "When the MU was balanced I had a 70% winrate against zerg, now it dropped to 30%... wtf! Zerg OP!" The same with progamers "There just a few top ZvT Players like DRG (51,6%) because zerg players suck in general and terran players just are naturally gifted, work harder, are more intelligent and handsome (worst winrate of the worst TvZ player still > 50%) And to be honest... I really enjoy the queen buff as it helped a ton to stabilize ZvZ. In no way is PvZ balanced when one race can only 2base all-in. And no, this isn't up for debate. Macro PvZ is incredibly Zerg favoured since every P pressure has been neutered to the point of uselessness. Everyone sees this except you, and you keep talking as if the matchup being balanced is something everyone should agree on. Either stop misrepresenting my point of view or stop replying to me. You have yet to make an actual argument with regard to anything I've said. You've stepped over into pointlessly Zerg biased whining. You mean it's retarded that Protoss can't take a third good enough, due to roaches? Yes it is! You mean it's retarded that Zerg is forced to go 3bases superearly to not get outmacroed by a FFE build but on the flipside can only hold 50% of the Protoss allins, because this greedy strategy makes it very hard to actually hold them? And don't come with "Zerg has to fuck up to not defend the allin". After all it's Protoss that have the possibility to "FF better" as well a lot of the times (which is not easy, but a lot of times it also comes down simply to FFs). you know why Protoss' started to FFE in the first place?? Because zerg's were taking an extra base regardless. Being down 2 bases to 3 is better than 1 base to 2. Zerg's only get 33 percent more income than protoss 3 bases to 2, where as Zerg's double Protoss' income 2 bases to 1. This is called meta game. Adapting to what works best against common zergs. If zerg's didn't expo 3 bases they would have more units therefore hold off Protoss All-in's even easier. What am i saying, 3 base Zerg's hold off any Protoss 2 base all-ins 85 percent of the time so nvm. You know it takes a lot of sentries to FF, and which they have no dps. The big difference, Zerg's can lose the 3rd base, re-expand and win the game. Protoss fail all-in is automatically lose. No; try taking a third against 3 gate expand. That'd be kinda dumb though, there's no need for the superfast 3rd which is a response to an FFE to pump out your economy when you're racing a relatively uneconomic opener I understand that. He was saying 'zergs can take third regardless what P is doing', but that's not true at all. I understand 3 gate expand came before 1 gate expand, but I never played during the time that 1 gate expand was popular so can't comment on that. But I know for sure that zergs weren't taking thirds versus 3 gate expand. I just had an issue with saying 'Z can take third regardless of what P is doing.' We see Stephano do the same opener every time---a surge of lings and maybe a few roaches for map control, then he is completely safe to do whatever he wants and god forbid the toss attempts to take a quick third or apply any light pressure. He is either safe to expand, drone, tech, or all three at once, while maintaining the possibility of denying the protoss third while going up to four base. We even see zergs have learned to be greedier than before in some cases, such as Ret v Puzzle on Cloud Kingdom where he held off a two base all-in while taking his fourth instead of a macro hatch, and teching up to infestors. Some toss are now doing 1 gate expands because zergs don't recall how to handle them, but after a couple games of practice and looking back a bit they will---make speed on your zerglings and delay your third and prevent them from ever taking an expansion. Again, the zerg will have an economic advantage if they play properly. Either way the zerg will have an economic advantage going into the midgame. Just because in the past zergs suicided a ton, didn't understand timings or scouting patterns, etc. and made the win ratio even or sometimes even toss favored when a new all-in came out, does not make them currently balanced. Yeah, we get it. Zerg players are too dumb to defend allins and it's not Stephano outclassing his opponents at NASL, but rather just abusing Zerg imbaness. When 2months ago all the whine was about Terrans "not having a chance in TvP" and "having to rely on allins and drops", it was just Protoss players being too dumb to defend them. And yeah, Stephano did the same opener in the NASL finals against Alicia (who btw played horrible). Guess what... MC won two GSL's by basically using 1 build for PvT and PvZ (6gate), and one build for PvP (4gate). Maybe the way stephano does is not really figuered out yet? Or maybe you just have to be on even level with him to win (MC took two games of him and has beaten him several times before).
You're being disingenuous here. Nobody is discounting Stephano's performance. We're saying it's too easy for what you have to do. Even Stephano himself says ZvP is easy. Yes, he's an excellent player, but he's not a class above people like Hero or MC; not by a longshot. For him to lazily walk over them is evidence of some deeper problems, especially when all the Protoss players were varying their strategies. You can say what you want about Alicia playing badly, but that's what it looks like when a Zerg reacts smartly to what Protoss is doing. All Protoss pressure openings suck if they are handled correctly, and all of them leave the Protoss in an awful position.
MC beat Stephano by all-inning him, and basically only won when Stephano made a major error and somehow let units into a position they shouldn't be in. Every game that MC lost was a game in which Stephano made the correct response, executed it decently (but not with any godly micro or mechanics required since the standard response doesn't require these things) and rolled over MC.
MC may have won a GSL with timing attack builds, but that was over a year ago. You can't do that shit anymore, which is why MC went through a long slump and came back with a varied macro style. Stephano has shown us that you literally don't need to do anything other than Roach/Ling against Protoss because it defends every single tech.
It's also not fair how you use the example of MC all-inning his way to GSL titles to defend Stephano opening the same macro style to walk over Protoss. The two are not the same. All-ins are basically rushes that either win you the game or lose you it. Opening with a versatile Roach/Ling style puts you in a good position to do everything--including macro. It's not like an all-in at all. Its the furthest thing away from being an all-in in that it's a catch-all response to everything.
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Northern Ireland23745 Posts
On July 18 2012 11:01 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2012 10:50 Big J wrote:On July 18 2012 09:11 Heavenlee wrote:On July 18 2012 08:59 wcr.4fun wrote:On July 18 2012 08:55 Wombat_NI wrote:On July 18 2012 08:51 wcr.4fun wrote:On July 18 2012 07:58 TeamBreezy wrote:On July 18 2012 07:30 Big J wrote:On July 18 2012 06:46 Shiori wrote:On July 18 2012 06:25 Charon1979 wrote:
[quote]
I can understand the terran pov, but I really cant stand you toss jumping on the bandwagon. PvZ ist stale, boring to watch and boring to play but its balanced. Blame Warp in mechanic.
In TvZ Terra is at a slight disadvantage at the moment, maybe it needs a fix, maybe not. But I really really hate these bigot statements: "When the MU was balanced I had a 70% winrate against zerg, now it dropped to 30%... wtf! Zerg OP!"
The same with progamers "There just a few top ZvT Players like DRG (51,6%) because zerg players suck in general and terran players just are naturally gifted, work harder, are more intelligent and handsome (worst winrate of the worst TvZ player still > 50%)
And to be honest... I really enjoy the queen buff as it helped a ton to stabilize ZvZ. In no way is PvZ balanced when one race can only 2base all-in. And no, this isn't up for debate. Macro PvZ is incredibly Zerg favoured since every P pressure has been neutered to the point of uselessness. Everyone sees this except you, and you keep talking as if the matchup being balanced is something everyone should agree on. Either stop misrepresenting my point of view or stop replying to me. You have yet to make an actual argument with regard to anything I've said. You've stepped over into pointlessly Zerg biased whining. You mean it's retarded that Protoss can't take a third good enough, due to roaches? Yes it is! You mean it's retarded that Zerg is forced to go 3bases superearly to not get outmacroed by a FFE build but on the flipside can only hold 50% of the Protoss allins, because this greedy strategy makes it very hard to actually hold them? And don't come with "Zerg has to fuck up to not defend the allin". After all it's Protoss that have the possibility to "FF better" as well a lot of the times (which is not easy, but a lot of times it also comes down simply to FFs). you know why Protoss' started to FFE in the first place?? Because zerg's were taking an extra base regardless. Being down 2 bases to 3 is better than 1 base to 2. Zerg's only get 33 percent more income than protoss 3 bases to 2, where as Zerg's double Protoss' income 2 bases to 1. This is called meta game. Adapting to what works best against common zergs. If zerg's didn't expo 3 bases they would have more units therefore hold off Protoss All-in's even easier. What am i saying, 3 base Zerg's hold off any Protoss 2 base all-ins 85 percent of the time so nvm. You know it takes a lot of sentries to FF, and which they have no dps. The big difference, Zerg's can lose the 3rd base, re-expand and win the game. Protoss fail all-in is automatically lose. No; try taking a third against 3 gate expand. That'd be kinda dumb though, there's no need for the superfast 3rd which is a response to an FFE to pump out your economy when you're racing a relatively uneconomic opener I understand that. He was saying 'zergs can take third regardless what P is doing', but that's not true at all. I understand 3 gate expand came before 1 gate expand, but I never played during the time that 1 gate expand was popular so can't comment on that. But I know for sure that zergs weren't taking thirds versus 3 gate expand. I just had an issue with saying 'Z can take third regardless of what P is doing.' We see Stephano do the same opener every time---a surge of lings and maybe a few roaches for map control, then he is completely safe to do whatever he wants and god forbid the toss attempts to take a quick third or apply any light pressure. He is either safe to expand, drone, tech, or all three at once, while maintaining the possibility of denying the protoss third while going up to four base. We even see zergs have learned to be greedier than before in some cases, such as Ret v Puzzle on Cloud Kingdom where he held off a two base all-in while taking his fourth instead of a macro hatch, and teching up to infestors. Some toss are now doing 1 gate expands because zergs don't recall how to handle them, but after a couple games of practice and looking back a bit they will---make speed on your zerglings and delay your third and prevent them from ever taking an expansion. Again, the zerg will have an economic advantage if they play properly. Either way the zerg will have an economic advantage going into the midgame. Just because in the past zergs suicided a ton, didn't understand timings or scouting patterns, etc. and made the win ratio even or sometimes even toss favored when a new all-in came out, does not make them currently balanced. Yeah, we get it. Zerg players are too dumb to defend allins and it's not Stephano outclassing his opponents at NASL, but rather just abusing Zerg imbaness. When 2months ago all the whine was about Terrans "not having a chance in TvP" and "having to rely on allins and drops", it was just Protoss players being too dumb to defend them. And yeah, Stephano did the same opener in the NASL finals against Alicia (who btw played horrible). Guess what... MC won two GSL's by basically using 1 build for PvT and PvZ (6gate), and one build for PvP (4gate). Maybe the way stephano does is not really figuered out yet? Or maybe you just have to be on even level with him to win (MC took two games of him and has beaten him several times before). You're being disingenuous here. Nobody is discounting Stephano's performance. We're saying it's too easy for what you have to do. Even Stephano himself says ZvP is easy. Yes, he's an excellent player, but he's not a class above people like Hero or MC; not by a longshot. For him to lazily walk over them is evidence of some deeper problems, especially when all the Protoss players were varying their strategies. You can say what you want about Alicia playing badly, but that's what it looks like when a Zerg reacts smartly to what Protoss is doing. All Protoss pressure openings suck if they are handled correctly, and all of them leave the Protoss in an awful position. MC beat Stephano by all-inning him, and basically only won when Stephano made a major error and somehow let units into a position they shouldn't be in. Every game that MC lost was a game in which Stephano made the correct response, executed it decently (but not with any godly micro or mechanics required since the standard response doesn't require these things) and rolled over MC. MC may have won a GSL with timing attack builds, but that was over a year ago. You can't do that shit anymore, which is why MC went through a long slump and came back with a varied macro style. Stephano has shown us that you literally don't need to do anything other than Roach/Ling against Protoss because it defends every single tech.
Perhaps, that said Stephano is exceptionally good at ZvP, even compared to other top Zergs so it's a bit extreme to use him as an example. That said both MC and Hero are both known as being very good, probably both top 5 PvZ players.
I just dislike the 'oh my god this is such good play, he's target-firing sentries, this is mindblowing' kind of thing that goes with Stephano. If that's how onsided ZvP can look if you actually take the time to target-fire proficiently that is pretty worrying
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i don't like how Protoss is designed. In PvZ it seems they either have to 2 base ALL-In or take a third and hold on for dear life. This is not good game design. Hopefully HOTS will change things.
And TvZ is in a bad place right now. The queen buff has reduced Terrans options in the early game far too much leaving Zerg too safe and Terran often stuck in the mid game behind, covered in creep, and staring BroodLords in the face before they've had much of a chance to do anything.
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The problem with hyping up stephano's engagements is that he's one of the few zergs who actually takes care to micro his units. Finally the maps are large enough and a skilled enough player starts positioning and using the mobility to make his more cost effective army crush a less efficient one and we're getting these results.
That and ZvP has looked like this since the spore change and the free third base for zerg.
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Stephano has shown us that you literally don't need to do anything other than Roach/Ling against Protoss because it defends every single tech.
I'd like to remember you about a time where it was the same but on the protoss side
FFE gave a econ, tech and unit advantage safe against everything and zerg just died to it, until Stephano figured out the build that allow Zerg to take a build and still get safe
Build that he worked up a lot recently, you see him innovate a lot, getting carapace first, going lings into roaches instead of roaches
Also, he isnt the only player to do the same build every single time, DRG also do that
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On July 18 2012 11:06 mlspmatt wrote:
i don't like how Protoss is designed. In PvZ it seems they either have to 2 base ALL-In or take a third and hold on for dear life. This is not good game design. Hopefully HOTS will change things.
And TvZ is in a bad place right now. The queen buff has reduced Terrans options in the early game far too much leaving Zerg too safe and Terran often stuck in the mid game behind, covered in creep, and staring BroodLords in the face before they've had much of a chance to do anything.
That sounds more like a problem of how zerg is designed, is it not? PvT can, in the hands of good players, be a very dynamic matchup with multiple small skirmishes, drops, counter-attacks, etc because no race can have complete map control or see everything with creep. I don't think any of the races are poorly designed in concept despite the complaints about fungal growth, colossi, forcefields, warpin, etc. just that some minor things should be tweaked for zerg to allow it to get back to the old state of TvZ and make a more dynamic PvZ.
For instance, a minor tweak to broodlords may make it so that it's not so desirable to go for a 12 minute hive then slowly build up a deathball and 5k/5k, when there are perfectly decent midgame styles for zerg. It's boring watching the entire mid game get skipped in favor of turtling because it favors zerg that much. I remember back when TvZ was enjoyable to watch there would be like 20 minute hives and a lot of position jockeying with ling/baneling/muta. Ling/infestor is just too dominant of a style compared to ling/muta/baneling with quick thirds.
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On July 18 2012 07:43 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2012 07:30 Big J wrote:On July 18 2012 06:46 Shiori wrote:On July 18 2012 06:25 Charon1979 wrote:As for pre-fast third against Terran, you guys were doing just fine. You don't need a third before 5 minutes against Terran to be competitive. You just don't. I can understand the terran pov, but I really cant stand you toss jumping on the bandwagon. PvZ ist stale, boring to watch and boring to play but its balanced. Blame Warp in mechanic. In TvZ Terra is at a slight disadvantage at the moment, maybe it needs a fix, maybe not. But I really really hate these bigot statements: "When the MU was balanced I had a 70% winrate against zerg, now it dropped to 30%... wtf! Zerg OP!" The same with progamers "There just a few top ZvT Players like DRG (51,6%) because zerg players suck in general and terran players just are naturally gifted, work harder, are more intelligent and handsome (worst winrate of the worst TvZ player still > 50%) And to be honest... I really enjoy the queen buff as it helped a ton to stabilize ZvZ. In no way is PvZ balanced when one race can only 2base all-in. And no, this isn't up for debate. Macro PvZ is incredibly Zerg favoured since every P pressure has been neutered to the point of uselessness. Everyone sees this except you, and you keep talking as if the matchup being balanced is something everyone should agree on. Either stop misrepresenting my point of view or stop replying to me. You have yet to make an actual argument with regard to anything I've said. You've stepped over into pointlessly Zerg biased whining. You mean it's retarded that Protoss can't take a third good enough, due to roaches? Yes it is! You mean it's retarded that Zerg is forced to go 3bases superearly to not get outmacroed by a FFE build but on the flipside can only hold 50% of the Protoss allins, because this greedy strategy makes it very hard to actually hold them? And don't come with "Zerg has to fuck up to not defend the allin". After all it's Protoss that have the possibility to "FF better" as well a lot of the times (which is not easy, but a lot of times it also comes down simply to FFs). Not true, actually. Defending Protoss all-ins is very simple and Stephano/DRG have demonstrated it numerous times. Firstly, the only truly good all-in is Immortal/Sentry, because it can work even if it's scouted. The other all-ins all automatically die if they are scouted. As for Immortal Sentry, as long as the Zerg devotes a couple of Injects to Roach/Ling, doesn't a-move into Forcefields, and doesn't engage when the Protoss is already in a choke/at the Zerg's third, they'll win. You need to be burning FFs with constant prods, especially since your army has the higher move speed and can dart in and out without taking much damage. I'm not saying that Immortal/Sentry is easy to hold, mind you. I'm saying it's simple. The reason it's not held by many players is because they don't react to it properly. Instead, they try to go for some weird runby play after the Protoss leaves the base. While cute, this only really works if you have drops, because Protoss players will just wall off with a Pylon, mop up your third, and then warp in Sentries at home to defend any more of your misguided attack. If you flank the Immortal/Sentry push on open ground, you will win, no matter how good the Protoss Forcefields are. Why? Because in order to fight you, the Protoss will literally need to Forcefield a perfect ring around his army. Even if he manages to do this without missing a single FF, you can literally just move away and reengage once the FFs fizzle out, because the Toss will have few to no FFs left. The strength of Immortal/Sentry is entirely down to Forcefields, and Zergs players beginning to abuse that more and more. While before it was commonplace to see Roaches literally ram their heads into Forcefields for their entire duration, we now have Zerg players purposely engaging the Immortal/Sentry army even when they haven't got enough units yet just to bait out FFs. The Protoss player has to FF in this situation. Much like defending a 1-1-1 (the parallels are actually really strong) you want to force the all-inning player to stop, use abilities, and give you more time. With 1-1-1, this means engaging in the open, forcing a siege, and getting more Immortals out behind it. With Immortal/Sentry, it means sending your army out, baiting the FFs or forcing the army to dance, and then darting back. If the Protoss player calls your bluff and doesn't FF, you can win the game straight up by target firing Sentries and killing any left over units with reinforcements from a more defensive position. Being 2base against Immortal/Sentry would actually be rather shitty, I'd say, since you wouldn't be able to get enough units out to deal with the push in time. Standard Stephano style openings can defend a scouted Immortal/Sentry push due to the presence of the macro Hatchery. This is actually huge for defending, and yet some Zerg players still try to attack head on, which is extremely ineffective.
I feel like you are really donwplaying the true effectiveness of it's build, you are making it seem like it's situional. In fact, in the current map pool most maps allow Protoss to utilize chokes making the Immortal/Sentry build strong enough for players to lose even with knowing how to respond to it. Nerchio in the IEM qualifier lost to Grubby on Daybreak LE when he did a textbook example of the build. Nerchio got to 60 drones very fast, utilized his economy, and still loses because Grubby is able to stay into chokes letting Nerchio never engage correctly. Stephano openings do not hard counter this build, far from it.
What I do not agree with especially are Protoss players making out the all-in to be difficult. Being able to make such a high count of sentries early on lets your FF micro be very forgiving, the true key to having the build work is positioning.
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On July 18 2012 11:09 Protosnake wrote:Show nested quote +Stephano has shown us that you literally don't need to do anything other than Roach/Ling against Protoss because it defends every single tech. I'd like to remember you about a time where it was the same but on the protoss side FFE gave a econ, tech and unit advantage safe against everything and zerg just died to it, until Stephano figured out the build that allow Zerg to take a build and still get safe Build that he worked up a lot recently, you see him innovate a lot, getting carapace first, going into roaches instead of roaches Also, he isnt the only player to do the same build every single time, DRG also do that
Not true at all. Before Stephano style, Zergs were still doing fine; they just weren't denying every single Toss third. Perhaps you forgot the mass Muta craze that dominated PvZ before Stephano, and the mass Infestor craze that dominated it before that. Now, both of those things are still strong, but are weaker than Roaches, so you do Roaches instead.
BTW: Grubby has extremely good FFs. If you don't FF well with Immortal/Sentry, you don't win against a good player. Having more Sentries doesn't actually make things anymore forgiving because if you run out of FFs too early, you lose.
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On July 18 2012 11:15 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2012 11:09 Protosnake wrote:Stephano has shown us that you literally don't need to do anything other than Roach/Ling against Protoss because it defends every single tech. I'd like to remember you about a time where it was the same but on the protoss side FFE gave a econ, tech and unit advantage safe against everything and zerg just died to it, until Stephano figured out the build that allow Zerg to take a build and still get safe Build that he worked up a lot recently, you see him innovate a lot, getting carapace first, going into roaches instead of roaches Also, he isnt the only player to do the same build every single time, DRG also do that Not true at all. Before Stephano style, Zergs were still doing fine; they just weren't denying every single Toss third. Perhaps you forgot the mass Muta craze that dominated PvZ before Stephano, and the mass Infestor craze that dominated it before that. Now, both of those things are still strong, but are weaker than Roaches, so you do Roaches instead. BTW: Grubby has extremely good FFs. If you don't FF well with Immortal/Sentry, you don't win against a good player. Having more Sentries doesn't actually make things anymore forgiving because if you run out of FFs too early, you lose.
Zerg were basicly exhausting every single 2 base all-in available to them, obviously I remember the Muta and Roach/muta crazyness, but that was, in my opinion, more a metagame shift than an actual solid build
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On July 18 2012 11:09 Heavenlee wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2012 11:06 mlspmatt wrote:
i don't like how Protoss is designed. In PvZ it seems they either have to 2 base ALL-In or take a third and hold on for dear life. This is not good game design. Hopefully HOTS will change things.
And TvZ is in a bad place right now. The queen buff has reduced Terrans options in the early game far too much leaving Zerg too safe and Terran often stuck in the mid game behind, covered in creep, and staring BroodLords in the face before they've had much of a chance to do anything. That sounds more like a problem of how zerg is designed, is it not? PvT can, in the hands of good players, be a very dynamic matchup with multiple small skirmishes, drops, counter-attacks, etc because no race can have complete map control or see everything with creep. I don't think any of the races are poorly designed in concept despite the complaints about fungal growth, colossi, forcefields, warpin, etc. just that some minor things should be tweaked for zerg to allow it to get back to the old state of TvZ and make a more dynamic PvZ. For instance, a minor tweak to broodlords may make it so that it's not so desirable to go for a 12 minute hive then slowly build up a deathball and 5k/5k, when there are perfectly decent midgame styles for zerg. It's boring watching the entire mid game get skipped in favor of turtling because it favors zerg that much. I remember back when TvZ was enjoyable to watch there would be like 20 minute hives and a lot of position jockeying with ling/baneling/muta. Ling/infestor is just too dominant of a style compared to ling/muta/baneling with quick thirds.
Watch GSL and see how many Zerg are going Ling/Infestor. Ling/Infestor is abused by bio compositions, a Zerg needs to have really good multitasking to deal with bio armies and the number of drops which Terran is able to afford when cutting their tank count. I'm not arguing about balance, but saying the matchup isn't dynamic is just ignorant. Most GSL Zerg go Muta/Ling/Bling which makes for great games, even though Terran is weak right now.
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On July 18 2012 11:21 Protosnake wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2012 11:15 Shiori wrote:On July 18 2012 11:09 Protosnake wrote:Stephano has shown us that you literally don't need to do anything other than Roach/Ling against Protoss because it defends every single tech. I'd like to remember you about a time where it was the same but on the protoss side FFE gave a econ, tech and unit advantage safe against everything and zerg just died to it, until Stephano figured out the build that allow Zerg to take a build and still get safe Build that he worked up a lot recently, you see him innovate a lot, getting carapace first, going into roaches instead of roaches Also, he isnt the only player to do the same build every single time, DRG also do that Not true at all. Before Stephano style, Zergs were still doing fine; they just weren't denying every single Toss third. Perhaps you forgot the mass Muta craze that dominated PvZ before Stephano, and the mass Infestor craze that dominated it before that. Now, both of those things are still strong, but are weaker than Roaches, so you do Roaches instead. BTW: Grubby has extremely good FFs. If you don't FF well with Immortal/Sentry, you don't win against a good player. Having more Sentries doesn't actually make things anymore forgiving because if you run out of FFs too early, you lose. Zerg were basicly exhausting every single 2 base all-in available to them, obviously I remember the Muta and Roach/muta crazyness, but that was, in my opinion, more a metagame shift than an actual solid build
...Zergs could still go up to three bases. There were plenty of builds that were centered around taking a safe third base while denying the protoss third.
On July 18 2012 11:26 BongSniper69 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2012 11:09 Heavenlee wrote:On July 18 2012 11:06 mlspmatt wrote:
i don't like how Protoss is designed. In PvZ it seems they either have to 2 base ALL-In or take a third and hold on for dear life. This is not good game design. Hopefully HOTS will change things.
And TvZ is in a bad place right now. The queen buff has reduced Terrans options in the early game far too much leaving Zerg too safe and Terran often stuck in the mid game behind, covered in creep, and staring BroodLords in the face before they've had much of a chance to do anything. That sounds more like a problem of how zerg is designed, is it not? PvT can, in the hands of good players, be a very dynamic matchup with multiple small skirmishes, drops, counter-attacks, etc because no race can have complete map control or see everything with creep. I don't think any of the races are poorly designed in concept despite the complaints about fungal growth, colossi, forcefields, warpin, etc. just that some minor things should be tweaked for zerg to allow it to get back to the old state of TvZ and make a more dynamic PvZ. For instance, a minor tweak to broodlords may make it so that it's not so desirable to go for a 12 minute hive then slowly build up a deathball and 5k/5k, when there are perfectly decent midgame styles for zerg. It's boring watching the entire mid game get skipped in favor of turtling because it favors zerg that much. I remember back when TvZ was enjoyable to watch there would be like 20 minute hives and a lot of position jockeying with ling/baneling/muta. Ling/infestor is just too dominant of a style compared to ling/muta/baneling with quick thirds. Watch GSL and see how many Zerg are going Ling/Infestor. Ling/Infestor is abused by bio compositions, a Zerg needs to have really good multitasking to deal with bio armies and the number of drops which Terran is able to afford when cutting their tank count. I'm not arguing about balance, but saying the matchup isn't dynamic is just ignorant. Most GSL Zerg go Muta/Ling/Bling which makes for great games, even though Terran is weak right now.
...A ton are going ling infestor. However most zergs seem to be able to do whatever they want recently in the matchup regardless, so some going muta/ling/bling is no surprise either.
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We're talking about the best ZvP-player in the world, it seems rather strange to base any conclusions around whether he does well in the match-up or not - and let's not pretend like he is unbeatable either. Mana and Sase might have a word to say about that. To say that he "lazily walked over" Hero and MC doesn't seem like a fair description of the matches. They were close matches with some pretty major mistakes on especially Hero's part. 2-base all-in against a 2-base spine-crawler fortified zerg with infestors?
To say that "roach-ling" holds off any protoss aggression/all-in is simplistic and borderline disingenuous (not to say wrong) - it is certainly possible to force for example hydras with heavy air play. And a lot more goes into a defence than simply building roaches and lings, including scouting/reading your opponent, having units at the right timing and having the right mix of units. AS we've seen again and again, very few zergs are able to do that and very few zergs have the APM to do it. Let's not forget that the best ZvP-players, Stephano and DRG, both are 380-400 APM players.
In any case, the statistics in Korea tells another story than your lament of racial imbalance - the match-up actually seems balanced. But maybe that is just because of 'stupid' zergs?
http://minus.com/mLvjZlHez/1g
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On July 18 2012 11:28 m0ck wrote:We're talking about the best ZvP-player in the world, it seems rather strange to base any conclusions around whether he does well in the match-up or not - and let's not pretend like he is unbeatable either. Mana and Sase might have a word to say about that. To say that he "lazily walked over" Hero and MC doesn't seem like a fair description of the matches. They were close matches with some pretty major mistakes on especially Hero's part. 2-base all-in against a 2-base spine-crawler fortified zerg with infestors? To say that "roach-ling" holds off any protoss aggression/all-in is simplistic and borderline disingenuous (not to say wrong) - it is certainly possible to force for example hydras with heavy air play. And a lot more goes into a defence than simply building roaches and lings, including scouting/reading your opponent, having units at the right timing and having the right mix of units. AS we've seen again and again, very few zergs are able to do that and very few zergs have the APM to do it. Let's not forget that the best ZvP-players, Stephano and DRG, both are 380-400 APM players. In any case, the statistics in Korea tells another story than your lament of racial imbalance - the match-up actually seems balanced. But maybe that is just because of 'stupid' zergs? http://minus.com/mLvjZlHez/1g
yeah... when zerg dominates 90% of all the tournaments for the past 2 months, I guess the 1 stat that says zerg doesnt dominate proves everything wrong. its just a matter of how long the unfair imbalance that is propelling zerg into so many undeserved tournament positions will continue. or maybe all the good players decided to go zerg 2 month ago maybe...
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On July 18 2012 11:28 m0ck wrote:We're talking about the best ZvP-player in the world, it seems rather strange to base any conclusions around whether he does well in the match-up or not - and let's not pretend like he is unbeatable either. Mana and Sase might have a word to say about that. To say that he "lazily walked over" Hero and MC doesn't seem like a fair description of the matches. They were close matches with some pretty major mistakes on especially Hero's part. 2-base all-in against a 2-base spine-crawler fortified zerg with infestors? To say that "roach-ling" holds off any protoss aggression/all-in is simplistic and borderline disingenuous (not to say wrong) - it is certainly possible to force for example hydras with heavy air play. And a lot more goes into a defence than simply building roaches and lings, including scouting/reading your opponent, having units at the right timing and having the right mix of units. AS we've seen again and again, very few zergs are able to do that and very few zergs have the APM to do it. Let's not forget that the best ZvP-players, Stephano and DRG, both are 380-400 APM players. In any case, the statistics in Korea tells another story than your lament of racial imbalance - the match-up actually seems balanced. But maybe that is just because of 'stupid' zergs? http://minus.com/mLvjZlHez/1g
Mana won with two immortal/sentry all-ins when the build was new and Stephano hadn't played against it. He now knows the proper response and I doubt he would lose to it again. Stephano losing 1-2 to Sase...because one best of three from Spring Arena says a lot? No one said he was unbeatable in the first place. The same chart, which I've seen counters against for not including a ton of matches, says that TvZ is terran favored. Excuse me if I don't take it seriously. And you don't force hydras with heavy air play, no one does that unless it's double stargate, in which case hydra nydus can beat it, or any massive attack in general. And no, neither of them are 400 APM players.
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On July 18 2012 11:33 VTPerfect wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2012 11:28 m0ck wrote:We're talking about the best ZvP-player in the world, it seems rather strange to base any conclusions around whether he does well in the match-up or not - and let's not pretend like he is unbeatable either. Mana and Sase might have a word to say about that. To say that he "lazily walked over" Hero and MC doesn't seem like a fair description of the matches. They were close matches with some pretty major mistakes on especially Hero's part. 2-base all-in against a 2-base spine-crawler fortified zerg with infestors? To say that "roach-ling" holds off any protoss aggression/all-in is simplistic and borderline disingenuous (not to say wrong) - it is certainly possible to force for example hydras with heavy air play. And a lot more goes into a defence than simply building roaches and lings, including scouting/reading your opponent, having units at the right timing and having the right mix of units. AS we've seen again and again, very few zergs are able to do that and very few zergs have the APM to do it. Let's not forget that the best ZvP-players, Stephano and DRG, both are 380-400 APM players. In any case, the statistics in Korea tells another story than your lament of racial imbalance - the match-up actually seems balanced. But maybe that is just because of 'stupid' zergs? http://minus.com/mLvjZlHez/1g yeah... when zerg dominates 90% of all the tournaments for the past 2 months, I guess the 1 stat that says zerg doesnt dominate proves everything wrong. its just a matter of how long the unfair imbalance that is propelling zerg into so many undeserved tournament positions will continue. or maybe all the good players decided to go zerg 2 month ago maybe...
It is a problem, who do we balance for. The best or the rest? I agree that outside of Korea, zerg seems dominant at the moment. But you just don't see that pattern in Korea. Why is that and what can be done about it? It doesn't seem to make much sense to say that the match-up is inherently broken when among the best players in the world there is no evidence of such.
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On July 18 2012 11:43 m0ck wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2012 11:33 VTPerfect wrote:On July 18 2012 11:28 m0ck wrote:We're talking about the best ZvP-player in the world, it seems rather strange to base any conclusions around whether he does well in the match-up or not - and let's not pretend like he is unbeatable either. Mana and Sase might have a word to say about that. To say that he "lazily walked over" Hero and MC doesn't seem like a fair description of the matches. They were close matches with some pretty major mistakes on especially Hero's part. 2-base all-in against a 2-base spine-crawler fortified zerg with infestors? To say that "roach-ling" holds off any protoss aggression/all-in is simplistic and borderline disingenuous (not to say wrong) - it is certainly possible to force for example hydras with heavy air play. And a lot more goes into a defence than simply building roaches and lings, including scouting/reading your opponent, having units at the right timing and having the right mix of units. AS we've seen again and again, very few zergs are able to do that and very few zergs have the APM to do it. Let's not forget that the best ZvP-players, Stephano and DRG, both are 380-400 APM players. In any case, the statistics in Korea tells another story than your lament of racial imbalance - the match-up actually seems balanced. But maybe that is just because of 'stupid' zergs? http://minus.com/mLvjZlHez/1g yeah... when zerg dominates 90% of all the tournaments for the past 2 months, I guess the 1 stat that says zerg doesnt dominate proves everything wrong. its just a matter of how long the unfair imbalance that is propelling zerg into so many undeserved tournament positions will continue. or maybe all the good players decided to go zerg 2 month ago maybe... It is a problem, who do we balance for. The best or the rest? I agree that outside of Korea, zerg seems dominant at the moment. But you just don't see that pattern in Korea. Why is that and what can be done about it? It doesn't seem to make much sense to say that the match-up is inherently broken when among the best players in the world there is no evidence of such.
Unfortunately you are basing your assumptions off a stupid chart that has been heavily criticized for excluding many zerg-dominated tournaments and matches, which makes it more like 60% to 40%.
Here, I'll quote this for you:
The Korea TvZ numbers really shocked me. So I went through just the current GSL's numbers so far. Keep in mind that many of these games will be included in July results. TvZ is right now 28-47. 37% win rate for Terran, 63% win rate for Zerg. In other words, even more imbalanced than the June International results.
I'm pretty sure that even Blizzard has admitted that a 20% gap in a matchup indicates a balance issue. Of course this is only one tournament (albeit with a large sample size and the highest skilled players in the world), but still.
GSL Code A+S TVZ
Nestea v STC 2-0
SuHoSin v MVP 1-2
Sniper v Supernova 1-2
YuGiOh v MKP 1-2
Symbol v MKP 2-0
DRG v Maru 2-1
Violet v Maru 2-1
Leenock v Ryung 0-2
Leenock v Taeja 0-2
Violet v MVP 2-0
Symbol v MKP 2-1
DRG v Ryung 2-1
Nestea v Supernova 2-0
Nestea v Supernova 2-1
Monster v Jjakji 0-2
YuGiOh v Harrier 2-0
Freaky v Bomber 1-2
Losira v Hack 1-2
Total: 25-21
GSTL TVZ
Life v TL 1-0
Life v Slayers 1-0
Symbol v Fnatic 1-0
Losira v TSL 1-0
Symbol v IM 3-0
Moon v IM 1-0
Byul v IM 1-0
Annyeong v Fnatic 1-0
Moon v Prime 2-0
BBong v TSL 0-1
Sniper v Fnatic 2-0
Coca v Prime 3-0
KingKong v HoSeo 0-1
Curious v HoSeo 0-1
Ragnarok v FXO 0-1
Shine v FXO 1-0
Hyun v HoSeo 1-1
Symbol v HoSeo 0-1
Revival v HoSeo 1-0
Lucky v Startale 1-1
Leenock vs Startale 1-0
Total: 22-7
Grand Total: 47-28. 63% Z v 37% T.
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...Zergs could still go up to three bases. There were plenty of builds that were centered around taking a safe third base while denying the protoss third.
And they were not safe at all, since they were relying on a 2base push supposed to do damage and thus secure a late 3rd. TLDR : Do damage or die, which is pretty much all-in-ish
Note that the Stephano push is also pretty much all-in, as if he does not do enough damage in the early game he usually die 2-3 min later, but the 3rd base up allow for more options
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On July 18 2012 11:50 Protosnake wrote:Show nested quote +
...Zergs could still go up to three bases. There were plenty of builds that were centered around taking a safe third base while denying the protoss third.
And they were not safe at all, since they were relying on a 2base push supposed to do damage and thus secure a late 3rd. TLDR : Do damage or die, which is pretty much all-in-ish Note that the Stephano push is also pretty much all-in, as if he does not do enough damage in the early game he usually die 2-3 min later, but the 3rd base up allow for more options
No, you're just making a random statement. Infestor/ling for instance could hold off an aggression while securing a third base. You have no proof behind your statement at all so I see no reason to even address your points. The winrates were fairly even at the time that zerg was not basically gifted a free third base and a 15+ worker advantage at 8:00. The Stephano roach/ling push is an all-in but we aren't discussing that. His build can go into the push if he scouts a fast third, and it can also be slightly altered to take care of two base-allins with the same general concept.
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On July 18 2012 11:50 Protosnake wrote:Show nested quote +
...Zergs could still go up to three bases. There were plenty of builds that were centered around taking a safe third base while denying the protoss third.
And they were not safe at all, since they were relying on a 2base push supposed to do damage and thus secure a late 3rd. TLDR : Do damage or die, which is pretty much all-in-ish Note that the Stephano push is also pretty much all-in, as if he does not do enough damage in the early game he usually die 2-3 min later, but the 3rd base up allow for more options
This isn't actually how PvZ was being played out. Zergs were just playing a more turtley macro style. They weren't all-inning. If anything, they were using mass Mutas to harass, which was more than powerful enough.
Also, those winrate charts are incredibly useless because of Korea's small sample size, the relative uselessness of GSL Code S results for balance (due to 99% of games in Code S being metagame plays specifically designed to beat a certain player rather than their race per se) and the lack of differentiation between all-ins and serious play.
Mana is not a good PvZ player. Whoever said that he was needs to get their head examined. He all-inned twice, caught Stephano off guard, and won. In other news, Goody beat MMA in a freak accident because of some all-ins. Not exactly convincing.
And yeah, Stephano may be one of the best ZvPers in the world (I'd say that DRG/Symbol are both stronger when they're playing well, though) but that doesn't mean anything when he literally didn't do anything impressive at Nasl. Yes, he played well. Great, even. But he didn't wow us with innovation or show off sick control (except that Hatchery DT defense thing. That was cool). He just did the same exact opening over and over with the same exact response to whatever the Protoss did because Roach/Ling + Queens/Static defense denies any pressure and sets you up for a counterattack.
Most Korean Protoss players already know that passive third builds are weak because Protoss is disadvantaged in a split map scenario, particularly because of the fact the fact that Stephano actually bothers to spread his Brood Lords and engage properly.
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