Hey teamliquid community I had some time on my hands so I thought I would create a thread asking everyone what race they think is the most challenging to play at each level of skill in Starcraft II. I have my own opinions and arguments included, I have given this a good deal of thought. Not including random for simplicity.
Please read the entire OP before casting your votes.
Bronze and Silver level - Zerg
My reasoning for this is because of the significant difference in the macro mechanic Zerg has compared with Terran and Protoss. Larvae injecting is almost non-existant past the first few minutes in my experience, and forgetting to create workers (the bane of nearly all low-level players) tends to punish Zerg most severely.
As macro and mechanics improve for all races, Terran's at this level can find themselves caught in an awkward rut. With often a little bit more to do than their apm can handle, Terran's can suffer from not being able to keep up with the production of a Zerg or Protoss because they cannot mass-produce/instantly warp-in reinforcements. No race at this level really has the apm to continue producing units while controlling their army or dealing with harrassment, and Terran is punished harder for this than either Zerg or Protoss because of the way Terran production facilities function.
With another jump in apm, mechanics, game knowledge and strategy to this level of play, Protoss can have the most difficulties. Terran can maintain production on par with Protoss, and Zerg, well, know how to make drones and infestors... I kid. More importantly, players of the other two races learn how to read the Protoss' opening and have decent scouting, causing timings to fail and making it very easy to counter the Protoss composition.
Ok its the big one, which race is the hardest to play at the highest tier of skill? I think this one is very difficult to discuss without bringing up balance, which I DO NOT want to do. So I think I'll just leave explanations to you guys. I voted Zerg, because they have the greatest reliance on scouting, which becomes the most inconsistent variable when mechanics are fine.
definitely for me its zerg at lower levels, then somewhere around platinum/diamond things get difficult for terrans... hard to say for master/grandmaster because i have no experience playing at that caliber. things have been looking particularly grim for protoss right now tho, so i guess itd be those. so in essence i agree entirely with the majority vote so far.
ok guys im only masters but how can protoss ever be the hardest race? i played terran and zerg and random also but everything was WAY harder than the protoss i mean you can really do good stuff with protoss which take a lot of skill and an awful lot of multitasking but in my opinion terran is the hardest by quite a bit then zerg because of decision making and protoss at the easiest
EDIT: just look at this:http://www.sc2charts.net/en/edb?zone=7for example and it shows how the metagame is by far hardest for terran right now (this is only pro level ofc)
Definitely Zerg at bronze/silver. You have to learn how to scout properly quite a bit earlier than the other two races, your early game defence is quite fragile and you can't rely on a nice easy 1 base timing push build.
On October 02 2011 16:56 sVnteen wrote: ok guys im only masters
said nuff. not being GM disqualifies you to discuss the GM statistics, also if you look at the site you linked to and go to progamer statistics, they disagree with you.
On October 02 2011 16:56 sVnteen wrote: ok guys im only masters but how can protoss ever be the hardest race? i played terran and zerg and random also but everything was WAY harder than the protoss i mean you can really do good stuff with protoss which take a lot of skill and an awful lot of multitasking but in my opinion terran is the hardest by quite a bit then zerg because of decision making and protoss at the easiest
EDIT: just look at this:http://www.sc2charts.net/en/edb?zone=7for example and it shows how the metagame is by far hardest for terran right now (this is only pro level ofc)
I've played in tournaments as both Protoss and Terran. IMO its just so easy to lose to timing attacks as Protoss, at Masters/Diamond level the timings are always late or not very powerful, but at high masters/GM they get it perfect and you feel helpless.
Results seem spot on. I'll never understand how anyone below diamond plays Zerg, as it just takes too much higher level thinking for people who have trouble avoid supply blocks. At the diamond and master level, Terran needs a lot of micro to overcome Zerg and Protoss' AOE unit compositions that can 1a for the win. At the pro level, Protoss players need to make extremely subtle reads on scouting information, never take their eyes off the minimap and react instantly to any dots that appear on it, and defend vs pressure using the minimum number of units possible to maintain the tech lead needed to win.
I don't think there's much difference in any ladder league, when we look at the whole population of players in that league. Blizzard maintains the ladder itself close to that. Only at progaming level (above gm) they don't have enough data and analysis to ensure that. Although they're doing their best.
I currently think that terran has the highest skill cap, the the koreans would seem to agree. In masters league on NA, i find that terran is the most mechanically challenging of the races, and has the least forgiving decision making, if you miss read and react with improper tech, you're usually gonna be way behind due to having invested a ton in production that can't be use otherwise, compared to toss and zerg which have much more forgiving tech trees (build robo, no biggie immortals are very versatile and obs are required anyways for mobile detection, build roach warren, no biggie, just don't make roaches).
High masters terran btw (rank 400 masters NA atm).
The most difficult race to play in masters and grand masters is Terran... i'm absolutely convinced of that. In higher levels of play, you need a lot of APM and multitasking to play as terran.
However, i'm a bit confused... i don't understand why the poll shows us that protoss is more difficult than terran in GM... in a lot of cases, as masters (high) you can play against a GM guy perfectly... that's a fact.
Totally agree with all the results so far. Terran only dominates at the top end of Korea, which shows that it has the highest skill cap with the micro and multitasking that is required.
Scouting in Bronze-Platium is really really bad => Zerg "hardest" in Bronze-Platium
Playing Diamond-Masters is a suprise box. Get a real hard macro player or a real hard all-in. Since it takes less skill to get into Diamond-Masters as Terran and those people don't know how to defend these attacks, => Terran "hardest" in Diamond-Masters
Protoss macro is very very easy, but very strict in tech, which doesn't give you a lot of options to react fast enough. So you have to make the difference by splitting your units, flanking from the sides, dropping your opponent, control your army very good. (Why? A protoss maxed army will always have a lower "unit-count" , so proper micro effects the battle way more) That doesn't really happen yet. Pros like f.e. IncontroL are still having all there units in 1 control group... Making 1 emp kill your whole army. => Protoss "hardest" in GM
I choose Zerg for all except for Grandmasters, where i choose Terran.
Why? Because it doesn't ask which is the best race but which is the hardest to play.
Zerg imo is the hardest to play until each race players are pretty damn good. At the highest level however Terran has so much to do, simultaneaous dropping, microing etc... It's the reason why in Korea Terrans dominate imo. You can do the most things if you have skill and play terran.
Toss on the other hand is pretty easy to learn but can however do not too much on higher level, although the stronger warp prism changed that a bit recently, as seeing SaSe streaming showed me some impressive games of warp prism use... Still it doesn't change the fact that it probably is still the easiest race.
Bronze/Silver - Zerg (Too much multitasking for that low apm) Gold/Platinum - Zerg (Same as above) Diamond/Master - Terran (Can't really explain why I think it's T here, but I tend to fail my macro while controlling my army all the time, whereas I can macro without any problem as Z and P) GrandMaster - Protoss (Okay, now we've past my skill level, but I think Protoss terrible winratio at prolevel recently is proof by itself. Not necessarily hardest race to play at that level, but rather there are too few things to capitilize on even when you have the skill to theoretically do so, whereas your Terran and Zerg opponents still can)
On October 02 2011 17:10 DjRetro wrote: The most difficult race to play in masters and grand masters is Terran... i'm absolutely convinced of that. In higher levels of play, you need a lot of APM and multitasking to play as terran.
However, i'm a bit confused... i don't understand why the poll shows us that protoss is more difficult than terran in GM... in a lot of cases, as masters (high) you can play against a GM guy perfectly... that's a fact.
APM and multitasking is no problem in GM, decision making seperates weak from strong players.
EPT
