EPT[D]That Protoss Elephant - Page 8
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DemigodcelpH
1138 Posts
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Crownlol
United States3726 Posts
On April 13 2013 00:09 FeyFey wrote: The last bit of the OP confuses me, thanks to the MsC you are allowed to play really tech greedy and it gains you more time, so you can delay getting defense as well. It changed my whole way of opening. Also allowing mistakes to happen was the only thing that has driven the Zerg early game changes. It was perfectly fine if you played perfect, but that was the problem. If you have to play perfectly there is no room to change things up. That was the aim of the MsC and they hit perfectly what they aimed for, though other then they planed. As the MsC became more of an offensive unit or 2 photon cannons for defense. But it is still a giant flying sentry with a passable forcefield. Warpgate discussions are as funny as day one though. Especially the weak warpgate units. While they pretty much own Bio if you are even in upgrades. (If you exclude Toss support units you also have to exclude Medivacs in your discussion) Funny thing is that Toss can go ahead in upgrades with no ability for the Terran to catch up. Damn you shield technology that is upgradeable, lucky Terrans have EMPs though. And can now actually save their Ghosts in an engagement with Medivacs. Are you suggesting that Zealot/Stalker beats Marine/Marauder? | ||
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Cloak
United States816 Posts
Zealot speed in BW and Zealot speed in SC2. Yes, Charge is both a passive and active buff, but the original passive buff was much faster. Almost nothing could outrun a BW Speedlot. They had the potential to flank or surround, while SC2 Zealot is 1 swipe per Charge. Obv, they've been balanced to just take hits, but that's precisely why Protoss early game is limited in flow, because Zealots can only take, without giving. Also, add insult to injury, Zealots are slightly slower than workers in SC2 (equal in SC1), in comparison, Zerg got Creep and Queen, and Marine is Marine. The MsC and Sentry attempt to resolve that, but isn't that precisely what everybody hates? Anti-micro? The Protoss support casters, contributing little combat ability but a lot of space control necessitate a deathball playstyle. Since Cybernetics tech is integral to all Protoss builds, you must take out that deathball tendency to allow other playstyles. Easiest way to do that is to push back the mobility tech to their own tree, like Twilight. There would need to be a more squadron promoting change to Protoss in another tech tree, like Stargate. Or some sort of Warp Prism change. Aside from that, T and Z still deathball a lot too. More than 60% of encounters are really just deathball clashes. It's mostly just cultural bias that to just hate on Protoss for that. | ||
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Crownlol
United States3726 Posts
On April 13 2013 00:19 Cloak wrote: Well, I'm going to point out some potential causes that put Protoss in their position. Zealot speed in BW and Zealot speed in SC2. Yes, Charge is both a passive and active buff, but the original passive buff was much faster. Almost nothing could outrun a BW Speedlot. They had the potential to flank or surround, while SC2 Zealot is 1 swipe per Charge. Obv, they've been balanced to just take hits, but that's precisely why Protoss early game is limited in flow, because Zealots can only take, without giving. Also, add insult to injury, Zealots are slightly slower than workers in SC2 (equal in SC1), in comparison, Zerg got Creep and Queen, and Marine is Marine. The MsC and Sentry attempt to resolve that, but isn't that precisely what everybody hates? Anti-micro? The Protoss support casters, contributing little combat ability but a lot of space control necessitate a deathball playstyle. Since Cybernetics tech is integral to all Protoss builds, you must take out that deathball tendency to allow other playstyles. Easiest way to do that is to push back the mobility tech to their own tree, like Twilight. There would need to be a more squadron promoting change to Protoss in another tech tree, like Stargate. Or some sort of Warp Prism change. Aside from that, T and Z still deathball a lot too. More than 60% of encounters are really just deathball clashes. It's mostly just cultural bias that to just hate on Protoss for that. Dramatically increase Sentry dps. Reduce Sentry cost. Remove Forcefield. Allow Sentry to be built before cyber core? Zealots are such a joke in early game, they literally only contribute by plugging holes in your wall-off. | ||
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ZenithM
France15952 Posts
Yes, unfortunately, Protoss is badly designed, so there is no "standard play". Gimmicks are your standard play, embrace that mindset, like MC and Tails do. That being said, some of your units are just plain boring, like colossus, void rays or tempests. | ||
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Huragius
Lithuania1506 Posts
It's always like this. Thread's about game design turns into balance whines (with most ridiculous arguments). | ||
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xongnox
540 Posts
On April 12 2013 11:06 ThaReckoning wrote: (in terran) Identifying and destroying all ins are as simple as counting pylons, taking a tower, and scanning. Good one. Hilarious. You should watch more terrans streams :D On April 12 2013 11:06 ThaReckoning wrote: You never have to deviate very far from the main build order to hold off aggression, even when unexpected. It's simply in Terran you can't deviate far from your build order, so you should deal with it, and toss can do so many different all-ins..... so there are a very few stable, safe, macro opening in TvP. (contrary to, say, TvZ or PvZ ) Btw except FE builds, protoss deviate less from their main builds than terrans to hold off agression (you chrono more units, and make immortals instead of robo bay ? the terran make 3 bunkers, pulls 20 SCV, so he doesn't build factory at the same time --- very similar stuff in fact ) On April 12 2013 11:06 ThaReckoning wrote: I assert that the lack of non committal aggression for protoss is extremely detrimental to the development of SC2 as a whole. It's warpgate. Warpgate allow incredibly powerful all-ins, so other races need the tools to hold it, and gate units are balanced around it. Thus the non-sense of non-all-in protoss pressure in a lot of situations... But it's also a stylistic choice : you can harass a terran (say DT drop or stargate play), or go for 1g expand into 5 gates MSC sentry pressure (very good choice now with MSC and recall ), ala Adlescott. Most toss doesn't go for it because they prefer passive, camping, deathball play. Because deathball play is very very powerful with a minimal amount of effort put in TT | ||
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Kelsier.
United States103 Posts
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NEEDZMOAR
Sweden1277 Posts
On April 12 2013 16:43 GorGor wrote: This is so ridiculous. Force-fielding is one of the easiest mechanics in the entire game. It's point and click. The only hard part about force-fields is the so-called "wasting" them, but that is true for pretty much any energy based ability in the game. To call protoss reactionary is pretty silly as well, at least in the PvT matchup. Terran doesn't "go vikings" against protoss, they build vikings in reaction to colossus, because if terran doesn't have vikings vs colossus then it is insta-GG. In WOL protoss even went so far as to build a single colossus without upgrading thermal lance and deliberately show it then proceed to go for high templar in order to mind game the terran into overproducing vikings because they were otherwise useless in the matchup. If protoss don't want to use colossus then they can use HT which again requires a REACTION from the terran in the form of ghosts. The only terran strategies that protoss has to play "reactionary" to are ultra gimmicky strategies that don't work on the professional scene. Calling protoss gimmicky compared to terran is just SOOO silly when the empirical evidence shows just the opposite. Protoss players almost always want to play a super macro style, whereas terrans are forced to proxy 2 racks in game 7's or build entire strategies around clever ways to never actually engage the protoss army. I shouldn't even need to talk about PvZ having the most codified idea of "standard" in all of sc2... indeed... forcefield is really a oneclickwonder, supereasy to use, incredibly easy to eb safe with... | ||
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TheFish7
United States2824 Posts
Just wanted to point out that in addition to FF and MSC and Warp-in necessitating weakness from Gateway units, the other things that really make it necessary to keep Zealots and Stalkers weak are Blink and Charge. In BW we had Zealot Legs (can't remember the name) and Singularity charge, which increased run speed for zealots and range for Dragoons. With Blink, Stalkers become quasi-flying units, so they can't be very strong. Zealot charge allows them to close distances which is essentially a range upgrade. If you gave Zealots the speed upgrade back they'd be much better at chasing down Terran bio and make them quicker than slow roaches which would make them a lot harder to counter. If Stalkers had a Singularity charge, they could be used more positionally and would still retain their Anti Air specialty. | ||
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Luzian
Switzerland26 Posts
Yes, I agree that Protoss is a gimmicky race. Yes, I am unhappy about the lack of consistent P results. And yes, it is obvious that Sentries and Warp Tech also have their disadvantages and design flaws. However, I say it as top 8 Master P and high Master random EU player that HotS solved quite a few of the problems you describe for P. The MSC allows for MUCH greedier play such as a 1 Gate 3rd in PvZ or 3 bases before 10 minute PvT. I always prefered the gateway expand in PvZ and already had a lot of success with it in WoL because many Zs lacked experience against my play style. The MSC now allows me to build a Nexus before Warp Tech in both vZ and vT completely safe against almost everything (even Marine SCV allin with Nexus cancel) and especially strengthens the Gate expand since now you should not lose your units anymore when you do a pressure push to deny greedy play. The Z's 3rd always was a guaranteed kill for the 4 Gate pressure and now you do not have to fear losing all your units anymore. There is a reason why I have above 75% winrate vZ without going for air before the 15 minute mark. In general does the Recall allow me to be much more active on the map and apply much more pressure without commitment. Free Hallucination is a fantastic tool as well. Not only do I save the ressources (now go to MSC) and Chrono Boosts but also does it allow me to scout my opponents already around the 6 and a half minute mark and also make it really easy to scout hidden Bases, especially handy against Ts. Even more important is the option to tank Widdow Mine shots with hallucinated Probes or Zealots or using hallucinated Archons to right away bust a greedy Z rushing for T2 with my small pressure after gate expanding. I rarely use the Oracle or the Tempests but even they add tons of new options to the Protoss arsenal and make many more strategies viable. PvP, albeit currently still far from being figured out, has never been this dynamic before. A vast amount of openers exist and slight tech switches are usually enough to counter your opponent's strategy, severely gateway heavy compositions being viable even into far late game due to the additional options in order to counter Colossi. Although I have a really easy time in TvP and ZvP, I do not think that P is weak in any way. You just need the right strategies and you will see that you can play P in many different ways. For example I can take a safe 3rd at 8-9 minutes in PvT with my Phoenix style that makes Bio look weak, I can 2 gate pressure my opposing P, expand behind it and at the same time scout his strategy, making Probe scout redundant and against Z I can constantly threathen them, some times even sniping exposed bases or even counterattack in times I do not scout a Swarmhost transition in advance to allow me to prepare accordingly, all completely safe with proper MSC control and FFs. All those are only usable and strong strategies thanks to HotS. | ||
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Treehead
999 Posts
I don't like warpgate or FF, either - but that's the game. If you don't want to play with them, learn another race. That's what I did. Sure, you need to learn to play against these mechanics, but when you remember what was so painstakingly annoying about using them, they're pretty easy to get around in other lower level players. In high level play, we still have insufficient information towards the assertion that Protoss is weaker than the other races. Protoss players are still able to perform well at the highest level of play. | ||
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Sent.
Poland9095 Posts
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Pharnax
Denmark42 Posts
On April 13 2013 01:08 Treehead wrote: Points made here are decent, but they're also old. People have been calling for the end of warpgate and FF for a long time, and it's not happened yet - nor has Blizzard ever indicated that they might be open to such a path. In fact, Blizzard has indicated a few times that they will specifically not be open to the prospect of removing warpgate or FF. This. Ever since my first SC2 experience in WoL beta, I've been calling for the removal of WG & FF in exchange for sentry/stalker buffs. Imo those mechanics have no place in competitive Starcraft but sadly they are here to stay. | ||
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Mithridates
United States446 Posts
TL;DR protoss is vastly improved and i really think blizz is pushing it in the right direction with hots which hopefully should continue in LotV | ||
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therockmanxx
Peru1174 Posts
Many respected and memorable koreans progamers have quit because they see the lack of fun and deep analysis in this game (Sea for instance is a good example) There are many games that I am pretty sure you can have fun and enjoy for its complexity and balance gameplay overall Dota is awesome, LoL is a good place to start being a progamer or just have fun any FPS is good =) There are many AoE2 matchups are even tournamnets because people enjoy it. They didnt move to AeE3 because they though AoE2 was better after all. Many foreign progamer move to poker because it was another game they enjoy and have fun and can make a living with it ! Which I think is the goal of anyone who want to make gaming a serious business. But getting stuck in a job you dont enjoy or think is not the best you, and complain about it is the the way to go IMHO | ||
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nottapro
202 Posts
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suicideyear
Ivory Coast3016 Posts
I get about a win rate above 50% generally on ladder in TvP but it feels like a chore. It's not a fun matchup for either race. | ||
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thekoven
United States128 Posts
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hitpoint
United States1511 Posts
On April 13 2013 01:33 nottapro wrote: I feel like you have labeled all deviations and creative alternatives to a standard deathball composition, as gimmicky. Deathball does not have to be standard though. There should be more intelligently designed units instead of sentries and stuff. Siege tank, Muta, zergling and widow mines aren't standard deathball units but they are made all the time. Protoss needs a few more core units that aren't either deathball units or gimmicks. | ||
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