TLPD Winrate Charts: January - Page 15

On February 03 2012 08:22 Jermstuddog wrote:
Zealots, Stalkers and Sentries are all out from the get-go. 4 gate remains a viable, though now situational build in the game. Any buff to any of these units will revert back to "4-gate or die."

On February 03 2012 08:50 Jermstuddog wrote:
@phathom

While your point is valid, it doesn't disagree with my greater point. Protoss is fundamentally fucked and Blizzard is running out of band-aids. We are aproaching a point in the meta-game where either Zerg or Protoss (both badly designed IMO) are at risk of becoming non-viable in competitive play. Blizzards balance changes are getting smaller, and the swings are getting bigger.

On February 03 2012 08:56 ChaosTerran wrote:


Zerg, really? The race with the highest overall win rate. And according to Blizzard is overall doing the best at all levels of play and dominating Terran in the lower leagues? Why Zerg? If there's one race that I would not worry about it's definitely Zerg.

They are winning the most tournaments currently, the strongest race in lower level play and also the strongest race overall at pro level (right now). Terran wins the most in Korea but is the least succesful foreigner race and weakest race at the lower levels.

This was said by David Kim by the way in his blog, so really dude? zerg? 100% sure you are a zerg player.

On February 03 2012 08:22 Jermstuddog wrote:
Great graphs definitely showing a huge disparity in ZvP.

I fear for that such a ridiculous difference may hint that the underlying balance issues in the game will ultimately lead to competitive failure.

Let me explain:

If you look at the Protoss units as they stand, there isn't much room for buffs without absolutely upsetting balance at a core level.

Zealots, Stalkers and Sentries are all out from the get-go. 4 gate remains a viable, though now situational build in the game. Any buff to any of these units will revert back to "4-gate or die."

Moving to HTs and DTs, both seem highly viable with current incarnations, maybe a slight speed buff to HTs or reduced cost to DTs would help, but these seem more like quality-of-life changes than anything else. I could see +1 range to Archons, but still same idea.

The robo offers one of the most despised units in the game with the Colossus, applying buffs here would only be adding a myriad of issues to a unit already plagued by imba. The Immortal seems to be finding a comfy place in all 3 MUs, with strong timing attacks vs T becoming quite prevalent. I wouldn't want to see this unit touched at this time. Observers and Warp Prisms both seem to fully fill their roles with not much left to be desired.

Stargates would appear to be the area with the most room for improvement. Phoenixes are already plenty effective vs mutas (though protoss players inexplicably think otherwise) unfortunately they suck vs pretty much everything else. Still, this doesn't leave much room for improvement as Zerg has trouble shooting up in general. Buffing the Phoenix in any way would likely cause 1) mutas to become completely non-viable in the MU, 2) lead to an unstoppable air-based harass which Zerg has no way of answering, or 3) both. The Void Ray seems to be more of a gimmick than anything, I don't care what race we're talking about. The Carrier is starting to see viability in the late game vs Zerg, but Blizzard has already stated intentions of scrapping the unit completely. Same goes for the Mothership.

Protoss already has access to the fastest upgrades, the best timing attacks based on these upgrades, and arguably the second best static defense in the photon cannon, behind the PF. Though, admittedly, all static defenses kinda suck in SC2.

So... where do you apply the fix? The only realistic place I can see is the Void Ray, but that is calling for a whole redesign from the ground up. And considering the things Blizzard has shown in their HotS interview, they're not looking forward to reworking existing units...

If trends continue, Blizzard may have already written themselves into quite the corner.

On February 03 2012 08:22 Jermstuddog wrote:


Stargates would appear to be the area with the most room for improvement. Phoenixes are already plenty effective vs mutas (though protoss players inexplicably think otherwise) unfortunately they suck vs pretty much everything else. Still, this doesn't leave much room for improvement as Zerg has trouble shooting up in general. Buffing the Phoenix in any way would likely cause 1) mutas to become completely non-viable in the MU, 2) lead to an unstoppable air-based harass which Zerg has no way of answering, or 3) both. The Void Ray seems to be more of a gimmick than anything, I don't care what race we're talking about. The Carrier is starting to see viability in the late game vs Zerg, but Blizzard has already stated intentions of scrapping the unit completely. Same goes for the Mothership.

Protoss already has access to the fastest upgrades, the best timing attacks based on these upgrades, and arguably the second best static defense in the photon cannon, behind the PF. Though, admittedly, all static defenses kinda suck in SC2.

So... where do you apply the fix? The only realistic place I can see is the Void Ray, but that is calling for a whole redesign from the ground up. And considering the things Blizzard has shown in their HotS interview, they're not looking forward to reworking existing units...

If trends continue, Blizzard may have already written themselves into quite the corner.

Phoenix is likely the best option to rework. The easiest and least likely thing to break the game is probably a simple range buff to make kiting easier and more punishable. Even .5 range would help.