Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 80

On September 09 2011 01:16 Techno wrote:
A message to the heralds of "Protoss underpowered"
-The win rates aren't that bad
-Every GSL game that isn't 1/1/1 where the Protoss loses, he deserved to lose and was the worse player in the game
-The immortal buff will hopefully be enough for the 1/1/1

And finally, the most important piece:
-Against Terran, Collossus/Chargelot/Stalker should be the core of your army, not HT, a landed storm should be a bonus, drastically swinging any engagement into your favour, not an obvious necessity
-Medivacs should have a higher priority-to-kill value from Protoss, they are the entire reason that Barracks units are good past 10 minutes

On September 08 2011 23:34 Rorschach wrote:


You make some excellent points. I think the whole EMP vs Storm debate could rage on for ever but the fact is Terran weren't building ghosts as much at the time.
EMP requires a lot less skill and is nearly always guaranteed damage due to range and templar mobility. Once shields are depleted and/or HTs are sniped/EMP the toss gateway units just melt. Storm does not have near the momentum that EMP can get you.
Compared to Fungal/EMP research is needed for storm and now there is no energy upgrade.
IMHO Toss has just sustained too many nerfs the past year due to the perception that they are OP as a race. The game was brand new and Terran/Zerg took some time to figure out and received some substantial buffs along the way.

Its a long shot but I hope the WP buff helps even the playing field in the HT vs Ghost relationship.

On September 09 2011 01:29 Itsmedudeman wrote:

Pretty sure terran never really received any buffs but rather nerfs all the way through. I think HTs do need some sort of buff, perhaps in unit speed, but bringing back KA is just dumb and it was downright abusive. Warp in HT, no chance to emp, then morph into archon.

On September 09 2011 01:29 Itsmedudeman wrote:

Pretty sure terran never really received any buffs but rather nerfs all the way through. I think HTs do need some sort of buff, perhaps in unit speed, but bringing back KA is just dumb and it was downright abusive. Warp in HT, no chance to emp, then morph into archon.

On September 09 2011 01:16 Techno wrote:
One anecdote I would like to share:
Now, I don't know how to say this, because I know that it is something that will anger many people. Unfortunetly this is just something I have noticed. Every foreign Protoss (excluding HuK) who streams is not a very good starcraft player in general. To be honest, I am suprised InControL is capable of beating anyone at MLG, ever. Please, please, please switch to Terran, cryers of Protoss Underpowered!

On September 09 2011 01:35 Resistentialism wrote:


Personally I think it's just a shame that you're the OP of this thread. You don't have the right mindset for it.

On September 09 2011 01:29 Itsmedudeman wrote:
Pretty sure terran never really received any buffs but rather nerfs all the way through. I think HTs do need some sort of buff, perhaps in unit speed, but bringing back KA is just dumb and it was downright abusive. Warp in HT, no chance to emp, then morph into archon.

Simple HT fix (it's a buff) for PvT, PvInfestor metagame: Feedback is targeted on open ground like an AoE spell, with a very small (1 radius) reticle. The caster unit nearest to the point clicked, within the reticle, and with energy greater than zero eats the feedback as normal. If there's no suitable target the spell whiffs and you lose your 50 energy.

This lets feedback hit cloaked and burrowed units.

Archives rushing now has some versatility in providing limited protection from a cloaked banshee rush. HTs can also hit cloaked enemy ghosts in the late game even when the protoss observers get scanned and one-shot.

The other thing to mention is that the Protoss can no longer float an obs over an army and then walk up with a bunch of shift-queued feedbacks so easily.

On September 09 2011 01:25 ForTheDr3am wrote:


In GSL August, PvT winrate is 34% and PvZ 26,5% as of now, which is absolutely abysmal. And I highly doubt that 1-1-1 will be handled enough by the Immortal, but that remains to be seen.

I agree about Colossus being a necessity lategame, but Protoss should never stick with the same composition for too long without trading armies (meaning Zealots). If you have too many colossi, it is too easy for vikings to take free shots on them, if you don't have enough you get rolled by Medivac/Ghost/MM ball eventually (once they banked enough energy). I think that Chargelot/Archon with slight Stalker/Colossus support is generally the best composition for Protoss. It's also true that not enough Protosses pay attention to Medivacs, although that is partly because Stalkers need like a dozen shots to kill them and blinking after them is so not worth it as long as a few Marauders are still around.

On September 09 2011 01:16 Techno wrote:
A message to the heralds of "Protoss underpowered"
-The win rates aren't that bad
-Every GSL game that isn't 1/1/1 where the Protoss loses, he deserved to lose and was the worse player in the game
-The immortal buff will hopefully be enough for the 1/1/1

On August 16 2011 07:04 QTIP. wrote:
Threads that have nothing to do with balance get infested with balance whines and trolls. This thread will fail and it won't be your fault.

On September 09 2011 01:52 QTIP. wrote:


Wow. This is from the OP of the thread.

On Page 1 I said:



When the OP is one to go back on his own rules and ruins the credibility of his own thread while demanding higher standards of others, I suppose it is your fault.

On September 09 2011 01:54 Techno wrote:

Could you elaborate on what you don't like about my post? Seems perfectly fine to me. Is it the tone or the content? Also, don't reply that my failing is obvious, because the only thing obvious to me is my staying off the Protoss Underpowered bandwagon. We are having a discussion here, if you want to contribute, then contribute, if you want to be a dick from the sidelines then good luck with that.

On September 09 2011 01:35 Resistentialism wrote:


Personally I think it's just a shame that you're the OP of this thread. You don't have the right mindset for it.

On September 09 2011 01:58 QTIP. wrote:


How about the comment:

-Every GSL game that isn't 1/1/1 where the Protoss loses, he deserved to lose and was the worse player in the game

How the hell are you going to back that claim up? Especially with the discussion that has come to light.

You break your own rules 2 and 4 by making this claim.

2. No excessive hyperbole.
4. No False Claims of "Proof"

In Every GSL game that I watched that wasn't 1/1/1 and the Protoss loses, I've felt like he was outplayed and was the worse player in the game

It's really difficult to understand just how things could have gone so wrong for MC. Looking at the bigger picture, IEM was in fact the latest in a series of defeats and disappointments for Min Chul. Five months and five championships have gone by since MC last reached a GSL final. His last semi-final appearance was in the April World Championships. He failed to make it out his Code-S group twice, and was eliminated in the first round of the Super Tournament. His GSTL record since May is 6-4, and he has only once won an ace match for oGs, losing three. He has attended multiple foreign tournaments against player pools he could be expected to crush, and has only won a couple. That MC is a good player is beyond argument, but it's an open question right now as to whether he's an elite one.

One possible explanation is that MC, as progamers are wont to do, has simply entered a slump period. This happens to the best of players. Memorably, Flash once fell out of the BW Power Rank. Bisu was once demoted to the B-team to receive special training, while Nada has had countless peaks and valleys over his ten-year career. Most players recover, whether through the help of a new strategy, taking a break to recharge their batteries, or taking new inspiration from an outside event. MC may do the same. That said, an observer of MC's basic play would be hard pressed to find real signs of slumping. He still wins a good portion of his games, and it shouldn't be omitted that his IEM loss did indeed come in the final, after all.

Another thought is that MC was never really that good to begin with; that he relied mostly on one and two base cheeses, or on having the luck to meet players in their worst match-ups at crucial times. While there is some truth to the point about MC's opponents, his first two GSL appearances were as tremendously unlucky as subsequent runs have been lucky. Luck is often confused for skill, and skill often for luck. The truth is that they are very similar beasts. Great players make their own luck, and MC has done that in the past.

A third possibility is that MC has been left behind by the current trends in gameplay. This would be substantial news, as the oGs house has essentially led the direction of protoss play since the release of the game. There's really little reason to think that has changed, or that this argument holds any water. Recently, MC has been credited with re-introducing the shuttle storm drop technique from BW into SC2. He is one of the few protoss in the game able to execute this well, let alone use it at all. Surely MC is not far removed from the brain trust that develops protoss strategy, if not the outright leader for his race.

MC is still playing well; he's still at the forefront of protoss innovation, and he's obviously a good player. Still, he isn't doing as well as he, and we, expect. None of the more common theories present a comprehensive picture of just why MC has fallen so precipitously from grace. Of course, he still gets a good deal of credit and attention because he is still the best protoss. Perhaps that’s the crux of the issue. The most persuasive line of argument is that, from the beginning, things actually went way better for MC than they should have.

In his heyday, and even during his slumps, MC was a massive anomaly. Any casual observer of his play in the GSL could make that observation, yet statistics bear this out. MC's Korean winning percentage is 66%. The second best winning percentage from any protoss is Puzzle, who has a 62% win rate, a substantial part of it in weekly foreigner-run tournaments against vastly inferior competition. Alicia notches 54%. HongUn has a 51% win rate. San boasts the same. Look at MC's protoss contemporaries for yourself. There's no one even close to MC's winning percentages.

When MC won his second championship in GSL March, San and Anypro followed him into the semi-finals. As certain writers adamantly insisted, these two were really awful players. Now they're where they belong, in Code B. The only other protoss finalist was InCa. Where is he now? Code B. It is no secret now that protoss is underpowered at the highest current level of play, but studying MC's record suggests that protoss has actually never been competitive in the entire history of Sc2. Little remembered now is the fact that no protoss reached the final four of the first two GSLs. Only two protoss players have reached GSL finals. Only two protoss have ever made a second appearance in the final four. These are tricky facts to work with, because zerg's deep tournament runs may be even scarcer. Yet, when zergs make the later rounds of the GSL, they almost always do better than protoss. The success of players like NesTea, LosirA, and July leaves open the possibility that zerg does in fact have a fighting chance in SC2. The utter failure of the protoss pool seems proof of the polar opposite.

MC then, is slumping because he is supposed to slump. While protoss and zerg have occasionally traded places at the bottom of the balance pile, protoss has borne the brunt of the damage over time, and has indisputably been terrible recently. The only reason that some gaping flaws in the protoss design have now been uncovered is because MC is no longer successful enough to cover them up. He was the first player to really discover the power of early game sentry attacks as protoss. As his fellow protoss mimicked his play, and as terran and zerg became more adept at defending these attacks, MC, and protoss in general, have lost what appears to be their only good set of timing windows. This is the natural evolution of the game – the give and take between current trends and past ones. Yet it seems that protoss has hit a brick wall, and MC along with it.

If you haven't noticed that protoss sucks against terran, and has profound cost-efficiency difficulties against zerg, it’s because you're blind. It has taken imbalance on such an appalling scale as the 1/1/1 family of builds to cast MC down, to make him look mortal and prove once and for all that protoss is absolutely trash at the highest level of competition.

On September 08 2011 02:59 QTIP. wrote:


To be honest, Protoss players need to stop whining. Hongun, Trickster, Inca, Choya, ... you see how bad they all are? Your only good Protoss is MC. When he starts owning you all look so stupid for whin-

Wait what??? MC to Code A?

Anyway...like I was saying. MC is bad. He got stomped and he is slumping because he is too cocky. There are no good Protoss players -- you guys have been so abusive for so long and now you've been figured out. Seriously.. l2p.

/ sarcasm

On September 09 2011 02:02 Techno wrote:

Extremely valid point. I will change the tone accordingly:


Preemptive answer to whats the purpose of this comment? Well to argue this is to argue the very purpose of this thread. There are many posts here claiming they felt the opposite, and I just want to throw my 2 cents in there for completeness to those reading.

On September 09 2011 01:32 Rorschach wrote:


Since when is a decrease in gas cost for a caster not a buff eh?

On September 09 2011 02:14 hugman wrote:


MVP also fell to Code-A once, so what?
Huk is a foreigner Protoss and still manages to be in Code-S.

1-1-1 aside it's too soon to say if P needs more buffs than what's already on the way. Choya, no he's not good. Look at how much of current Protoss play is stuff MC came up with, for the other races you can't attribute that much to one player because there are more good players.

If you look at ZvP now it's played very differently from how it was played when we Zergs were crying about it. While the Infestor is better now I don't think it's so much better that Infestor play couldn't have been viable before. The snare effect is more important than the +armor damage or the DPS, and Infested Terrans weren't touched in the patch. The WG research didn't change 6-gate, didn't change Stargate openers etc. that's all stuff that Zerg was having huge problems with and it was solved by metagame evolution.

That said, Protoss have less underused units that are potentially viable. PvT is not as one dimensional as ZvP was 6 months ago. I think Protoss and Zerg are both underdesigned races compared to Terran. Colossus is just an uninteresting unit that makes for uninteresting tactics and engagements.