Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 776

On October 16 2013 08:55 lowercase wrote:


I've been a devout fan of SC2 since the original beta. Terran has always been the dominant race. At the top, top tier of skill, GSL Code S, the best Terrans will always beat their opponents of other races, especially TvP. TvZ is certainly more even, and in the "broodfestor" era it was almost Zerg-favoured, but Terran is still the most versatile, well-rounded race with the highest skill ceiling, and nothing Blizzard has done throughout the whole history of SC2 has changed that.

On October 16 2013 11:56 ChristianS wrote:

What, exactly, is this based on? In early WoL Terran was pretty favored, and the win rates reflected it. That went away, though. I suppose you'd say that you're just talking about the very, very top so win rates are useless because they include a lot of other data. But even GSL statistics have not been consistently T-favored. Or you could be talking about the top few players, but then you're talking about, say, less than 5 players from each race, so it seems like the nature of the individual players is important enough that you can't really attribute it to race safely.

For instance, MVP won more GSLs than anyone else. But was that really just because he was Terran? MVP makes a strong argument for being a better player than any of the other champions the game had in WoL – MKP, MC, DRG, MMA, Nestea, Life... of course they're all great players, and each came out on top when they were really on their game, but MVP sure seemed like he was the best, most consistent player, and he has the wins to show it.

People always say stuff about "well-rounded" or "versatile" and I don't really know what it means. In TvP for example, the match-up you emphasize, Terran clearly has less strategic diversity than Protoss. MMMVG is pretty good, so it turns out alright, but it's pretty tough to call it more "versatile" considering there's basically only one viable composition.

On October 16 2013 12:54 saddaromma wrote:

I think his point - T has higher skill cap than other races. And I agree with him.
TvP, I see two direction where T can endlessly ecxel:
1. Drop potential. With right jukes and positioning terran always has potential to outmaneuvr Protoss.
2. The way terran can deny ghost vision. Granted its really hard for terran to do but protoss's degree of control is limited, you just send observer and thats it.
TvZ, infinite potential of marine split micro. You can be as highly effective as to exchane one marine for one baneling. Granted its not likely to ever happen, but possibility exists. Therefore higher skill cap.

On October 16 2013 14:01 ChristianS wrote:

That's an odd list. Okay, drop potential. If Terran has sick multitasking he can out-maneuver the Protoss by getting his army into good positions where Protoss didn't expect it. It takes less multi-tasking from Protoss to negate drops than it takes from the Terran to send them out, but it takes a hell of a lot more map awareness. Protoss has his own drop options, and they're generally fairly effective when we see them done; I believe TheDwf thinks (probably correctly) that every Terran should have turret rings on his main TvP or else he'll just die after a big engagement when the Protoss reinforces inside the Terran main with a warp prism. But we don't see warp prism that much because Protoss on average are worse at multi-tasking; we don't see Terrans respond as quickly very much because on average Terrans are worse at map awareness. This is because the Protoss race as a whole rewards map awareness more heavily, and the Terran race as a whole rewards multitasking more heavily.

Sniping observers isn't really a skill cap issue. If anything I'd say there's a much higher skill ceiling on babysitting an observer in your army at the perfect spot while controlling your army and templar than there is in scanning and a-moving the vikings. Protoss often point to sniping observers as an imbalance issue, but considering the matchup doesn't appear to be T-favored, it's gonna be up to Protoss to come up with an answer. Either build higher observer counts, or stay near enough to a cannon that you can retreat safely, or babysit your observers so they don't get sniped.

Marine split micro doesn't have infinite potential. At higher levels it's less about splitting to exchange one marine for one baneling, and more about keeping the marines firing as often as possible. If you've seen MKP split marines in 2011, you've seen near-perfect marine splits. Technically they're not perfect, but that extra marine or two you could have saved won't change the outcome of most games.

On October 16 2013 14:23 saddaromma wrote:


1. Protoss do not have 10 medivacs, and even if he warps in 10-15 zealots he doesn't have ways to snipe super important tech structures. The point of outmaneuvring is not only about harass, terran can resposition his whole army at mid game.
2. How do you babysit an observer which can be easily scanned and shotdown by viking? Whats the point of keeping them with army when their primary job is to detect sneaking ghosts?
3. I don't even wanna comment on your marine split viewpoint. Too much of a nonsense. "exchanging one marine for one baneling is not good" and saying "no one can ever do better than MKP" wtf. We're theorycrafting here bro.

Checked your other posts and it seems you have a biased viewpoint. Therefore I don't see a reason arguing with you other than pointlessly cluttering this thread.

On October 16 2013 20:44 drkcid wrote:
@Grumbels

I think it´s better to place the observers in certain places of the map, like overlords, and keep then without moving, this way the T player for example has more problems to detect observers (players usually detect observers upon moving) and you can detect armies or drops if you place the observers correctly, and save some APM.

About drops:

I think that T players can drop more easily because the medibacs are a core unit, so they can attack with the bio-ball for example or go for drops while P and Z needs to research/build specifically for drops.
But, I think that P players whine too much about drops when they have the more variations for drop: warpp+[zealot,stalker,dt] or the most uncommon and high risk-high reward drops like warpp+[HT,inmortal,colosus,sentry].

On October 16 2013 16:49 Grumbels wrote:
maybe protoss players will get the observer speed upgrade in the future (is that still in the game?)

On October 17 2013 00:09 Thieving Magpie wrote:


But is it really worth it to save the APM? With 11 range the Terran won't ever really see it since you can move the observer before any of his units are in range of it. So long as you keep them at 10-11 range they will never see the observer.

On October 17 2013 00:46 drkcid wrote:


Dude with 60 APM I need to save every APM xDDDDDD

It is more about focusing on main tasks like macro, drops, etc... You only need keep an eye on the minimap where your well placed static observers will alert you if there is any enemy movement. IMHO sometimes its better to use the tactic of "place and forget" than keep an eye on every unit you have.

On October 16 2013 16:49 Grumbels wrote:
maybe protoss players will get the observer speed upgrade in the future (is that still in the game?)

I think sometimes it's interesting to speculate about how optimal play could look like, if players had infinite apm and such. Constantly moving your observers to trail the opponent's army yet staying out of scan range seems like something protoss players could improve upon. Maybe it's not worth it though, all you'd do is save a few observers and you generally will know where his army is anyway.

On October 17 2013 01:42 ETisME wrote:

knowing where the army is usually not the problem. in mid game quite a few protoss do have several patrolling obs around the edges of the map and pylons to know the army movement.
The biggest problem imo is the late game deathball dances.
I am not saying it is easy to do, but sniping obs is easier than to defend it when T have a huge viking cloud (which T almost always have)
And obs is so important because it makes or breaks the ghost vs HT interaction.
You can only rely on storm threatening the ghost to not just cloak and emp/snipe the HTs which otherwise would lead to one sided roll by the terran.

replacing obs is also difficult because you want the robo to be producing colossus instead.

On October 16 2013 16:49 Grumbels wrote:
maybe protoss players will get the observer speed upgrade in the future (is that still in the game?)

I think sometimes it's interesting to speculate about how optimal play could look like, if players had infinite apm and such. Constantly moving your observers to trail the opponent's army yet staying out of scan range seems like something protoss players could improve upon. Maybe it's not worth it though, all you'd do is save a few observers and you generally will know where his army is anyway.

But, I think that P players whine too much about drops when they have the more variations for drop: warpp+[zealot,stalker,dt] or the most uncommon and high risk-high reward drops like warpp+[HT,inmortal,colosus,sentry].

On October 17 2013 02:05 TheDwf wrote:

Who cares if sniping Observers is "easier than to defend it" when lategame TvP is massively in Protoss' favor anyway? Not to mention Protoss can simply follow their Colossi with 2-3 Observer(s) to have detection in the fight, or build a Stargate and one Oracle to cast Revelation if they want to know the position of Terran's army.

On October 17 2013 02:15 Sabu113 wrote:
edit: Lol Dwf. Can't wait for the cog dissonance when we look at the winners at the end of the year.

On October 17 2013 02:18 ETisME wrote:
I don't think terran late game army is weaker than protoss by a lot. (heavy ghost marauder viking)

I find the bigger problem with the current tvp is how fast and safe toss can get their deathball out which is difficult for terran to deal with and has to play from behind.

Like I said, knowing the army position is often not the problem of pvt.
I think Taeja vs rain series really show how hard it is to deal with a terran who snipes obs very often.
Terran does have an advantage here.
And you should care because ht and ghost interaction is what makes or break the deathball fight. Having a not reliable unit for detection (and only for one race) and no room for counter play is not balanced for these trades

As for oracle, It might or might not work. The detection range isn't so good (still easy to snipe) and the revelation don't reveal cloak ghost

On August 25 2013 01:33 Arco wrote:

You've gotta be joking. That game was over for 20 minutes because Rain had terribly low economy. At one point he was on one base while Taeja was on 3 with tons of Orbitals behind.

Rain played horrible and lost that game due to his stubbornness to actually expand. He kept trying to expand towards Terran. He should have been expanding upwards. It would have forced Taeja to walk across the map to try and deny/pick off expansions. Rain could have further delayed and set traps by leaving Templars in the path in that direction.

The sad part is that Taeja had to wait so long to kill Rain because of how ridiculously strong Protoss 200/200 army is in PvT.

If anything, that game displayed how ridiculous Protoss is that it can live for 20 minutes on 1-2 bases against a massive Terran economy.

I play Protoss, so no bias here.

On October 17 2013 02:51 ETisME wrote:
Massively behind in terms of economy.
Rain still had his ideal army composition out with upgrades and tech.

When we are talking about unit interaction, rain still had lots of obs getting sniped, no matter if he was behind in economy or not.
A better economy would not have let him protect his obs better, nor will he be able to deal with the cloak ghost any better.