EPT[D]That Protoss Elephant - Page 9
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GhostFall
United States830 Posts
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Aterons_toss
Romania1275 Posts
The sentry is responsible for that because it makes such a huge difference in some engagements and non at all in others, that's why a immortal timings were perfect vs max roach infestor, because you hit with all those sentries when they had full energy and just minutes or seconds before infestors were out and thus them going from god tier to shit tier in an instant. But say you remove sentry and you remove wg and you make the zealot stronger and 0.1~0.2 faster while maybe replacing the charge with speed for the sake of it not becoming overpowerd, and you make the stalker as strong as a dragon that has AI and ta-dam you have a protoss that can defend decently vs drops if he has observers scouting them and that can hold his own early/mid game with gw units. But than you not only have to remove charge but also blink, because blink marauders ( even without a slow )would be overpowerd. So now the race is to simple and to simple likely means that you won't be able to balance it well enough because you can't tweak as many things and the things you tweak impact the game more since there are fewer choices. So overall even if blizzard wanted to do a protoss overhaul they couldn't, it's to hard, you have to basically replace a race. Thus we need to live with it and see where it goes, up until now I can't even tell based on a few hundred games if I fell like terran is overpowerd as shit or if I fell I could win every PvT with the right mechanics... people don't play HOTS right yet, maybe when they will start doing so protoss will finally find a better place in competitive play. | ||
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Spaceboy
United Kingdom220 Posts
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Whitewing
United States7483 Posts
On April 12 2013 14:07 ThaReckoning wrote: I meant the 6 minute kind of 2 rax that comes with a bunch of stuff, or maybe even a later 3 rax. I don't see a MSC having the energy for a nexus cannon by 6 minutes, but I could be wrong. That is a good point about scouting with the MSC though, but by the time you get there with the core, it could be too late to stop the wheel from turning in 2-3 rax situations. Can you really capitalize on that fast of a 3-3? The old build was good in that it timed out perfectly with your maxed army, just as storm was finishing. The beauty of it was that you'd catch terran in the middle of scrambling to get up enough vikings to deal with your colossi and ghosts for your HT at the same time, while being a few upgrades behind. You really can capitalize on it, and it's one of the safer ways of taking a third base, since your units are just so beefy. You can also hit a really potent 3/3 timing with 3 colossi and a big chargelot archon timing that just smashes terran. The cool thing about new greed builds is that it unlocks new timings that work differently from the old ones. | ||
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mrjpark
United States276 Posts
Let's face it, this is why Terrans and Zergs are able to do what they do. Marines, marauders, zerglings, and roaches are all expendable to a certain extent. They're quick to make and cheap to do so. Hell, you can add in the reaper, too, now that it's a much better unit than from WoL. Ironically, Protoss has this late game in the zealot as an amazing harass unit that just spends otherwise unused minerals. They need something to this effect in the early game. But at the same time, Protoss players don't want a "gimmicky harass unit", which is essentially what the unit would become in relation to the rest of the Protoss arsenal. I think it's okay to have a unit dedicated to harass as long as it fulfills its role. It's okay to have a unit that won't be used for the entirety of the matchup, or even in all 3. Zerg units, for instance, are caged into match-ups due to extreme hard-counters existing within certain races. You see them peek out every now and then thanks to an ever-changing metagame, but they are sure to disappear again once timings get figured out, etc. This is fluid. This can be interesting. Rather than searching for "non-committal aggression", isn't it better we look for ways to give Protoss standard aggression that doesn't put them all-in? I know it's semantics, but I think the message of the term used isn't optimal. Also, I get that the sentry and mscore are terrible units. I really do. I hate them as units and have always felt in their search for an answer, Blizzard just threw the Protoss race deeper into the hell they were currently in. But looking at how they've treated units thus far (reaper, corruptor, colossus), it looks like Blizzard isn't going to scrap any of their units no matter how poorly designed. Our hopes is that we can find a way around the giant elephant in the room. | ||
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Sabu113
United States11035 Posts
The biggest problem is how fucking gas heavy the race is. I'm not sure what tweak would work but somethin to moderate that desperate hunger for a third would go a long way. Mn. This complaint might just be a problem with such heavy dependence on binary tier 3 units. Trying to temper that by thinking about BW PvZ (3hatch-5hatch hydra swarms) ofc, this isn't goin to be appreciated because the sc2 community is (1) blinded by their ladder experience, (2) bipolar about someone telling them that their unique hobby might actually be kinda crappy. edit: can't believe so many people like the mothership core. It's such fucking sloppy design. | ||
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Archeon
3251 Posts
One of the main factors often forgotten imo is the fact that the mobility-upgrades are to expensive and not effective enough. Lings upgrade early to sth faster than gateway, same goes for roaches. Bio gets stim and medivac, both upgrades in power as well as in speed. Toss upgrades in terms of mobility are just lacking in comparison, both in terms of cost as well as power. Toss has early the most mobile army, but that changes dramatically in the early-mid and in addition to the fact that most midgame fights even with advantages like highground are really tight leaves toss greedy in the early and defensive in the midgame. My recommendation is switching to zerg. After wol i had enough of feeling like a turtle all the time and decided that zerg might suit more what i want to play and it did. Also if there are no protoss players left, blizzard might see the necessity to change toss from the basic and they wont fear that they hurt somebodies feelings because of it. Also as your friend described, tvz is not a bad matchup. although i might have to say that i am unfair, blizz seems to know the problem. 2/3 new units are essentially there to make early and mid aggression possible, the msc's recall is a solution to the immobility of gateway-units while pushing and the buff to stargate opens up a more mobile midgame-army. The problem in pvt still is that t has that increadibly strong midgame timing and is pretty resisitend to early aggression. pvz already has changed to pool first instead of double expand. @non-commiting aggression: toss by lore-design is a dying, super-advanced elite-race, so much that they recycle their heavy wounded soldiers. Having a disposable fast unit like zerglings just doesnt fit the concept, way less than a unit that can go in, do damage and get out, like dts on paper. Also medivac-drops essentially are non-committal aggression, you commit only in units that would be part of your army anyways and they are fast enough to get out of 9/10 situations. | ||
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Larkin
United Kingdom7161 Posts
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frostalgia
United States178 Posts
Photon Overcharge, Time Warp, and Tempest don't really seem to change much of the game at all. Stargate tech might be more viable now, but Fleet Beacon is not. Mothership is so obsolete it's now all-but-extinct. Tempests will eventually be as rare as Carriers.. unless Zergs suddenly go for Broods again every game. However, I think free Hallucination could help with early game aggression if more Zealot/Stalker hallucinations were used. A fast Oracle with a few hallucinated Oracles in front of it works to soak Widow Mine hits, or scare the hell out of Terran. Also, not enough Protoss are using Recall to save units from death. No reason to lose whole armies that could be saved. I am not convinced there is any answer for high-level Protoss to be able to keep up with high-level Terran and Zerg. But in my opinion, if there was one area that Protoss does need help, it is in tech-switching. Terran building Add-ons give them the ability to tech-switch easily enough, Zerg have the ability to tech-switch by only throwing down one building, but the only thing Protoss has going for them during a tech-switch is Chrono. Not to mention, when Protoss warp in units, they have to look where they warp.. and then go chrono again. Terran and Zerg has to look for Injects and Mules of course, but never to create an army. Any time you see Protoss warping in units, you know that is where he is looking. This can be exploited, especially with as many slow and expensive units Protoss has. I would never want it to change, I love warp the way it is.. but it does have a glaring weakness compared to the other races. Great read.  | ||
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Ben...
Canada3485 Posts
On April 13 2013 01:33 nottapro wrote: It isn't too far from the truth though. For Protoss you have to do all-or-nothing builds or turtle to a deathball. There is no in-between like the other races have (By that I mean there are no pressure builds. Terran can do the standard MMM timing around when Protoss tries to take a third to keep them honest. Unless the Terran massively screws up that build is never all-in). Oracle builds can outright win but die and put you massively behind if scouted so they essentially rely on your opponent not scouting or sucking, which I would say is gimmicky. The current 7ish minute Tails DT drop PvT build is the definition of gimmicky. It only works if the Terran craps themselves and doesn't get detection. We are already seeing it beaten with standard play only a short time into its usage (such as MKP vs. sOs. MKP just threw down turrets and went and killed sOs before he could get a follow-up to the DTs, which happens with many Protoss builds). Modern immortal/sentry now only works if the Zerg doesn't scout and/or doesn't know the responses. I feel like you have labeled all deviations and creative alternatives to a standard deathball composition, as gimmicky. That is the issue. Most non-deathball Protoss builds don't rely on you being good, but on your opponent not knowing what to do. That is why there are so many flavour of the week Protoss builds. You can win with them consistently for a week or two but as soon as they are solved you never win with them again. That was why immortal/sentry was so strong in WoL. It was the only build that broke this mould. It was the only build Protoss could do where they could be scouted and still have a chance of winning, depending on the map. It didn't have a standard solution like most Protoss builds because it was so map-dependent and relied on the Protoss being smart with how they forcefield and split up the Zerg units. Did bad Protoss players beat Zerg players better than them with it a lot more than they should have? Yes for sure, but it was necessary because at the same time Zerg also broke the standard Starcraft mould by having an equally exploitative build, infestor/broodlord with mass static defense, that allowed bad Zerg players to beat Protoss players better than them. And I think this is why Blizzard never fixed either of them in WoL. They knew that if they fixed one, then the other would make the matchup completely broken in favour for one side. If they fixed immortal/sentry, Protoss would almost never win. If they fixed infestor/broodlord, Zerg would almost never win. And fixing both at once would have been far too much for one patch and would have likely screwed up every matchup, though to be honest that would probably not have been a bad thing. | ||
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Archeon
3251 Posts
On April 13 2013 03:44 frostalgia wrote: I don't disagree that Protoss is gimmicky, especially Chrono as a macro mechanic compared to Larvae and Mules. Photon Overcharge, Time Warp, and Tempest don't really seem to change much of the game at all. Stargate tech might be more viable now, but Fleet Beacon is not. Mothership is so obsolete it's now all-but-extinct. Tempests will eventually be as rare as Carriers.. unless Zergs suddenly go for Broods again every game. However, I think free Hallucination could help with early game aggression if more Zealot/Stalker hallucinations were used. A fast Oracle with a few hallucinated Oracles in front of it works to soak Widow Mine hits, or scare the hell out of Terran. Also, not enough Protoss are using Recall to save units from death. No reason to lose whole armies that could be saved. I am not convinced there is any answer for high-level Protoss to be able to keep up with high-level Terran and Zerg. But in my opinion, if there was one area that Protoss does need help, it is in tech-switching. Terran building Add-ons give them the ability to tech-switch easily enough, Zerg have the ability to tech-switch by only throwing down one building, but the only thing Protoss has going for them during a tech-switch is Chrono. Not to mention, when Protoss warp in units, they have to look where they warp.. and then go chrono again. Terran and Zerg has to look for Injects and Mules of course, but never to create an army. Any time you see Protoss warping in units, you know that is where he is looking. This can be exploited, especially with as many slow and expensive units Protoss has. I would never want it to change, I love warp the way it is.. but it does have a glaring weakness compared to the other races. Great read. well i dont mind that tech switching is so slow that much, at least not for tier three. circle could be a bid cheaper though. I think the main problem is still that weakness in the early-mid-game to midgame, when stim or mass-roach makes it almost impossible to take a third before t3/getting some immortals out. This in itself denies the possibility to go for sth like oracles, phoenixes, mid prisms or early gateway-pushes, because investing in sth that doesnt buff your tech might very well lead to your death/playing from one base less than you need. | ||
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Bourne
United Kingdom152 Posts
On April 12 2013 12:52 Jasiwel wrote: I found myself agreeing with most everything aside from replacing the Colossus and that the MSC does not allow early aggression. I remember asking here a while back why Protoss Gateway is so weak and why could it not be buffed? The answer was simply because of Warpgate, not even so much Sentry anymore. It makes sense too. I feel like Warpgate is a double-edged sword for the design because it's so incredibly useful, but too incredibly exploitable. Balance in WoL had to really walk a thin line to actually work because warping in Brood War Zealots with Charge could really be too strong then. However, I feel like now with the return of the Hellbat (Firebat) and return of the Widow Mine (S-Mine), Zealots could use a buff because THEY HAVE TURNED INTO CANNON FODDER. I used to have an expectation that every unit I made would matter and that preserving them would be useful, but in the end Protoss Zealots are basically no different than any Zerg unit. Think about it: losing a Stalker hurts, losing a Sentry hurts, losing an Immortal sucks, losing a Colossus REALLY sucks - but losing a Zealot is absolutely expected. Furthermore, Zealots can't really do much aside from absorb damage and maybe do preliminary damage; they are simply liquidated too quickly now and what makes that worse is that the Protoss army is built around having Zealots deal damage and absorb it, while ranged units deal the greater damage. ^TLDR: Warpgate research used to qualify the idea of weaker Protoss units, but now with the addition of extra options/buffs to other races' anti-light units, Zealots could really use a buff to become something aside from cannon fodder. Zealots are cannon fodder, they always have been. In the early game zealots become extremely powerful but towards the end all t1 units become just pure cannon fodder. Stalkers, sentry's and colussus all require gas and replacing these is expensive, gas is the most scarce resource and that is why zealots are cheap and replaceable due to their ability to cost no gas and provide as a tank in the fight against roaches. | ||
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paradoxOO9
United Kingdom1123 Posts
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Mzimzim
United States221 Posts
On April 13 2013 01:59 GhostFall wrote: I think it is a totally worthwhile thing to try buffing gateway units and removing the production bonus aspect of warpgate. I just wish blizzard would actually utilize the test server for drastic changes like changing warpgate and buffing gateway units. What is there to lose? | ||
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danl9rm
United States3111 Posts
I'm done. edit: I wasn't done. The MSC, as you said, doesn't fix the problem, it only exacerbates it. I think. (Not as sure about this one.) | ||
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imMUTAble787
United States680 Posts
Assuming of course you have a protoss player capable of specifically tailoring something for an opponent. Like MC | ||
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Valikyr
Sweden2653 Posts
Protoss is a badly designed race and the hardest to be consistent with though. I wish we had another solution for warp gates and sentries and I have wished that from the beginning. But the MSC is THE best protoss change in HotS. | ||
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Valikyr
Sweden2653 Posts
On April 13 2013 04:17 imMUTAble787 wrote: At the same time would it not be a viable argument to say that because the race excels at gimmicky play, it is ideal for tournament formats like GSL and SPL where you know your opponents and maps ahead of time ? Assuming of course you have a protoss player capable of specifically tailoring something for an opponent. Like MC On paper yes but in reality we've seen the answer which is no. | ||
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Yorke
England881 Posts
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imMUTAble787
United States680 Posts
On April 13 2013 04:27 Valikyr wrote: On paper yes but in reality we've seen the answer which is no. Doesn't MC have something in the neighborhood of a 75% win rate for total career GSL games that end in 12 minutes ? I don't feel like looking up the exact figures. The fact is players like MC and Parting that know how to get into someones head in a series are ridiculously successful. Protosses that try to take a different approach, not so much. If terran is going to be balanced around outliers like MVP, then there is no reason to do something different with protoss. | ||
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