Hello TL, I'm Zero, a mid masters protoss main who's been playing protoss since WoL release. I'm trying to open up some discussion about the general design of the early game in SC2, and how it pertains to each matchup. In a nutshell, I'm here to talk about how the sentry, MSC, and protoss in general are panning out as ideas. Before we start with that, I'd like to take a trip down memory lane, and see if anything looks familiar to you.
I think you can see what I'm getting at here. Historically protoss is known as the gimmick race, the easy to play but hard to win with race. Why is this? I believe it's because of a reliance on mechanics like warp tech, sentries, and MSC's. MC, the king of trickery and 2 base play, has been extremely successful over a long career with protoss, but why aren't safer players as successful with this race? Every protoss player has felt the sting caused by reliance on these mechanics. Remember how protoss fared at the tournament level throughout WoL? Here's a refresher:
In terms of overall results, protoss had the worst consistency. I feel that this trend will continue for protoss in the future, unless blizzard addresses the early game viability of protoss non-committal aggression and economy. I like the design of the sentry and the implementation of an early game caster for protoss, but at the same time, this is the bane of protoss players everywhere. One of my friends who played BW commonly refers to this game as ZvT, and while it's a bit of frustrated humor on his part, how far is it from the truth?
On paper, the early game of protoss is inkeeping with excellent design. Theoretically you want your players to have weak units that require strong play to utilize properly. This certainly seems to hold true for early and mid tier protoss units, but not so much higher tier ones. However, when examining the game as a whole with Zerg and Terran also included, it's obvious that this mentality went missing somewhere along the line for those races. Where is the risk for early tier terran and zerg players? What keeps them honest? Right now, the answer seems to be nothing, and it's bad for players and viewers alike. This promotes a deathball style of gameplay, instead of many back and forth action packed engagements across the map.
Let's take the non mirror matchups for protoss as examples. Starting with PvZ, we can see that throughout the course of WoL, as changes were made and players got stronger, we moved more and more toward a deathball style of play. New strategies were discovered for protoss, and promptly figured out or nerfed, and thus abandoned. Fast forward to the end of WoL, and you get what I'm talking about. PvZ turned into FFE vs 3 hatch fast hive, and games were being decided in a matter of seconds in one huge battle between 15 and 20 minutes.
It was boring to watch, boring to play as, and boring to play against. I feel it's a direct symptom of protoss reliance on gimmickry in general. If that's not enough to convince you, let's look at PvT. The standard right now is exactly the same as it was in WoL, except terrans just add widow mines instead of floating their factory around scouting. This might seem all fine and dandy, but let's have a closer look at what's going on. The deciding factors in every PvT are the same: how well does protoss defend aggression, and can he take his third? If a build doesn't allow these things, it's just not used.
On the terran end of things, he's teching, double upgrading, expanding, attacking, all at the same time. There's tons of variation to be had, and plenty of stylistic choice. Identifying and destroying all ins are as simple as counting pylons, taking a tower, and scanning. You never have to deviate very far from the main build order to hold off aggression, even when unexpected. The same holds true for PvZ. Is this really a good design for a game, is this fun to watch and to play? Does it promote more diverse gameplay? The answer is no.
I assert that the lack of non committal aggression for protoss is extremely detrimental to the development of SC2 as a whole. Think about all the resources blizzard has spent tweaking and changing and nerfing and buffing because of the implementation and the mentality of things like the oracle, sentry, tempest, MSC, and warp tech. Think about all the matchups shifted, all the styles learned and forgotten because they weren't viable anymore, all the resources wasted arriving at a game barely more well designed than it was on release. I'd argue that we've reached the other end of the spectrum, where instead of fast losses on steppes of war, we have long, boring games on bigger maps that neither player can end.
We've all experienced it and felt it, one way or another. The circular logic for blizzard when it comes to protoss makes no sense. Do we have sentries and MSC and warpgate because gateway units are weak, or do we have weak gateway units because we have sentries and MSC? The effects of this are extremely far reaching in the context of SC2. Strong t3 is a necessity because of this early game weakness, and so strong counters to those like the viking and the ghost are necessary. The list goes on and on, but I think you get the idea. Am I the only one around here who feels that the game would have been much more enjoyable over the past few years if protoss never had the sentry or warp tech, or at least different versions of them that lent themselves to aggression?
Did blizzard nerf too hard and too soon? Are these design flaws from a failed blueprint of protoss? Does this warrant protoss buffs, or t/z nerfs? Is there a problem at all? If something has to be changed, I would advocate nerfing things in general, because of the philosophy on strategy games I have. I still firmly believe things should be weak in general, and games should be balanced at the top level of play. I don't believe adding new units or mechanics is the answer, and I think the MSC can attest to that.
So far, no new options have been discovered as a result of the MSC. It's just allowing worse players to survive attacks and make mistakes, it's the opposite of what it was intended to do, and a clear representation of why power creep is bad. The MSC is a power creep solution to the problem the sentry creates, or tries to solve (still not sure which). No aggressive openers have yet been discovered as a result of the MSC, and no greedier defensive plays have been seen to be possible because of it.
I believe that SC2 has suffered tremendous damage as a skill based game because of the design of early game protoss. Some parts of it deemed too weak, some deemed too strong. It's led to tons of changes that wouldn't otherwise have happened if z/t early game was more inkeeping with the design of protoss.
Think of all the changes that could come about, with the removal of sentries and warptech, and the rebalancing of the early game. Reavers instead of colossi, protoss t3 nerfs in general, both gateway and forge expands viable in PvZ, etc.
This doesn't even go into what could be improved upon about macro mechanics and the 3 base model in general, but I'll leave that for another thread, I think.
In conclusion, I feel more and more that the game would be much more strategically diverse without forcefield, MSC, and all the problems that spew from mechanics like these. There will be a wall for every protoss player, a ceiling they reach where their shenanigans are no longer effective, and they'll be lost. They'll wander TL strategy looking for ideas on what to do after they hold off that figurative 6 pool without losing a single unit, to come away empty handed. They'll explore and try new ways of standard play, and disheartened, come to the same conclusions that everyone came to long ago, that protoss is indeed the gimmick race, easy to play and hard to win with. I fear this will be true as long as tournaments have anything but single elimination formats.
I hope this didn't come off as too much of a rant or a whine to you, and hopefully it was an interesting read.
This is a fantastically well-written post and deserves attention.
Part of me believes it and part of me wants to believe that some of this has changed in HOTS. I am a Masters Protoss as well, and I do feel that the MSC has allowed me to play passive, macro games to a better degree than in WOL, thus making me less reliant on those gimmicky all-in builds and thereby more consistent...
But at the same time I do feel what you're saying. Even those gimmicky all-ins are often much worse now. Gateway all-ins against Terran feel impossible now and have always been pretty bad against Zerg. Even builds such as the Parting immortal/sentry can be stopped by swarm hosts. And Protoss has never really been able to macro evenly with the larvae mechanic and mules. It makes for a truly awkward feeling game sometimes - the kind of awkward where you feel forced to perform the kind of gimmicky plays that seem necessary to stay even. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.
Good post but I think protoss players need more time to learn how to use the mothership core. I think that is the key to early game aggression that doesn't make or break you.
On April 12 2013 12:12 JSK wrote: This is a fantastically well-written post and deserves attention.
Part of me believes it and part of me wants to believe that some of this has changed in HOTS. I am a Masters Protoss as well, and I do feel that the MSC has allowed me to play passive, macro games to a better degree than in WOL, thus making me less reliant on those gimmicky all-in builds and thereby more consistent...
But at the same time I do feel what you're saying. Even those gimmicky all-ins are often much worse now. Gateway all-ins against Terran feel impossible now and have always been pretty bad against Zerg. Even builds such as the Parting immortal/sentry can be stopped by swarm hosts. And Protoss has never really been able to macro evenly with the larvae mechanic and mules. It makes for a truly awkward feeling game sometimes - the kind of awkward where you feel forced to perform the kind of gimmicky plays that seem necessary to stay even. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.
Thanks. I feel like the MSC was meant to achieve something like making gateway expands more viable in PvZ or give protoss the ability to punish greedy terrans, but to me it feels like it didn't do any of those things. Good protoss players weren't having trouble initially stopping all ins, they were having trouble getting a lead and keeping it afterward. The MSC only helps you hold it off, at about what the cost would have been in WoL, it's just simpler to do. That's part of why I feel it was a bad change.
On April 12 2013 12:16 HeeroFX wrote: Good post but I think protoss players need more time to learn how to use the mothership core. I think that is the key to early game aggression that doesn't make or break you.
I spent a lot of time working with it in PvZ, and I've found that often times if the zerg reacts properly (especially in a gateway expand situation) you're very far behind. I think it feels that way because if you use it to augment your army (more than the dps) by using time bomb, you aren't able to recall away when you get into a bad situation. My conclusion is that FFE is still better, so I've gone back to falling in line.
The MSC does allow for more greedy play in PvT, but I'm not sure if it'll remain that way when terran players get better at defending oracle harass without widow mines and go back to gasless expanding.
On April 12 2013 12:31 Whitewing wrote: The MSC does allow for more greedy play in PvT, but I'm not sure if it'll remain that way when terran players get better at defending oracle harass without widow mines and go back to gasless expanding.
I feel like MC's play was more a metagame build than what's going to be standard. As is, nothing greedier is viable imo. It's still 1g expo + tech + 3 gates into blabla midgame.
On April 12 2013 12:31 Whitewing wrote: The MSC does allow for more greedy play in PvT, but I'm not sure if it'll remain that way when terran players get better at defending oracle harass without widow mines and go back to gasless expanding.
I feel like MC's play was more a metagame build than what's going to be standard. As is, nothing greedier is viable imo. It's still 1g expo + tech + 3 gates into blabla midgame.
I've been doing a lot of 1 gate expand into robo into double forge into more gates lately, that's way more greedy (that's double forge and robo bay on 1 gateway). I frequently finish 3/3 before my opponent is half way to 2/2, and that's if he goes double e-bay, if not, he's boned on upgrades.
3/3 Chargelots +guardian shield vs 1/1 marines is the most one sided slaughter you've ever seen, even if the zealots are at a lower count than they might have otherwise have been.
Greed doesn't have to be purely economic, it can be tech based too.
I dont really agree with some of the things you say. You kind of exaggerate how much a Terran or Zerg player can actually do, and without a doubt there are plenty of things that keep Terran players honest, and to some extent in a more indirect way Zerg is also kept honest. The mothership core and the oracle both are steps forward in terms of non committal aggression and I don't think we need anything more yet. Protoss is fun to watch in my opinion and has improved greatly since the release of hots. I don't want to call this biased because I don't think it is, but this is definitely just your opinion and I feel that most of what you say is exaggerated or unsubstantiated. Maybe we can have this discussion later because right now it's too early to tell the effects that hots will have on Protoss.
On April 12 2013 12:31 Whitewing wrote: The MSC does allow for more greedy play in PvT, but I'm not sure if it'll remain that way when terran players get better at defending oracle harass without widow mines and go back to gasless expanding.
I feel like MC's play was more a metagame build than what's going to be standard. As is, nothing greedier is viable imo. It's still 1g expo + tech + 3 gates into blabla midgame.
I've been doing a lot of 1 gate expand into robo into double forge into more gates lately, that's way more greedy (that's double forge and robo bay on 1 gateway). I frequently finish 3/3 before my opponent is half way to 2/2, and that's if he goes double e-bay, if not, he's boned on upgrades.
3/3 Chargelots +guardian shield vs 1/1 marines is the most one sided slaughter you've ever seen, even if the zealots are at a lower count than they might have otherwise have been.
Greed doesn't have to be purely economic, it can be tech based too.
I feel like this rolls over and dies to... well anything the terran does though. You're also forced to do it blind that early, and double forges are a liability against a lot of builds.
On April 12 2013 12:39 MateShade wrote: I dont really agree with some of the things you say. You kind of exaggerate how much a Terran or Zerg player can actually do, and without a doubt there are plenty of things that keep Terran players honest, and to some extent in a more indirect way Zerg is also kept honest. The mothership core and the oracle both are steps forward in terms of non committal aggression and I don't think we need anything more yet. Protoss is fun to watch in my opinion and has improved greatly since the release of hots. I don't want to call this biased because I don't think it is, but this is definitely just your opinion and I feel that most of what you say is exaggerated or unsubstantiated. Maybe we can have this discussion later because right now it's too early to tell the effects that hots will have on Protoss.
I disagree fundamentally because the idea of the MSC is a broken one. Until you can both time bomb and recall in a single fight early on, nothing much can really change, it's just adding a little dps to your army that otherwise wouldn't be there. It's not enough to turn the tide of a fight. The oracle is something similar in that, for one it's a coin flip. When it works it does huge damage, but when it's prepared for, there's not a lot you can do about it. Sure the detection is great, and it somewhat opens up stargate in PvP, but that's about it. It seems like a bandaid change that blizzard opted to give protoss instead of detection at every tech path.
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.
It has nothing to do with imbalance/nerfs/buffs, SC2 Protoss is just the worst designed race by far. What you have said has been stated many times over, but nothing has been done even going into HotS. I appreciate your effort, though. More time or development of "metagame" will not make Protoss plays more interesting or skill-based.
The MSC is the prime example of a unit that was added because the Protoss race was (and still is, sadly) a broken race. It only puts a bandaid on the issues ever present in WoL that are only slightly hidden in HotS.
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.
On the topic of replacing colossi, some nerfs would have to happen to late game powerhouses like that unit if you buff protoss early game, or nerf the other races early game.
Great read, really good explanation of most protoss issues.
Msc was a great step into the right direction, but cannot address by it's own the critical problems with the race.
About terrans or Z's having to play "honest", that's because P have strong all-ins. Every commit from the protoss player is all-inish unless is already considerably ahead. That do not mean the race is weak, no, but as the op said, the race lack if a "flow" of play, compared to the other 2 races.
I invite any Sc2 fan to check the late protoss wins in the late PvX match ups at the highest level. Every one of those include some cheese, gimmiky, all-inish play. From the victory of Rain vs Flash, Flying vs DRG, SoS vs Soo, or SoS vs MKP.
And once those gimmicks get figured out, I place my bets on the fate of protoss at the top level as the same as the late WoL.
On April 12 2013 12:31 Whitewing wrote: The MSC does allow for more greedy play in PvT, but I'm not sure if it'll remain that way when terran players get better at defending oracle harass without widow mines and go back to gasless expanding.
I feel like MC's play was more a metagame build than what's going to be standard. As is, nothing greedier is viable imo. It's still 1g expo + tech + 3 gates into blabla midgame.
I've been doing a lot of 1 gate expand into robo into double forge into more gates lately, that's way more greedy (that's double forge and robo bay on 1 gateway). I frequently finish 3/3 before my opponent is half way to 2/2, and that's if he goes double e-bay, if not, he's boned on upgrades.
3/3 Chargelots +guardian shield vs 1/1 marines is the most one sided slaughter you've ever seen, even if the zealots are at a lower count than they might have otherwise have been.
Greed doesn't have to be purely economic, it can be tech based too.
I feel like this rolls over and dies to... well anything the terran does though. You're also forced to do it blind that early, and double forges are a liability against a lot of builds.
You'd think that, but it's not blind, nor does it auto-die. You scout early and see if he's going for gas or a gasless expand. If it's a gasless expand, (you're going 2 gas on 15 supply, 2 probes in each), you make a stargate and go for oracles while expanding. If he took gas, the build is completely safe because the msc + 2 sentries (I build exactly 2) is enough to hold of basically any agression he can throw at you off of a gas based build. You do build a robo early after all, and get observers. If it seems like he's doing an all-in, you're fine. You can also build cannons in an emergency. My winrate on ladder in PvT right now is around 80%, and that's at a reasonably high masters level. There's basically nothing terran can do to crush you as long as you defend well, at least until later on. Your ridiculously good upgrades help secure a 3rd base and help the really scary drop timings before you can have high templar everywhere.
Most common aggression I run into is widow mine drops with bio poking at the front, and that can be held fairly easily with decent micro and the nexus cannon.
If you want to play heavy aggressive, play a heavy chargelot/archon/blink stlaker/upgrade style. You can be all over the map, proxy pylons everywhere, warp ins everywhere, constant counter attacks. Vs T of course. Keep him on the backfoot. Of course, you can't actually *start* this style until you get near 3 base, which is why you need a third base relatively early.
This is the style I play and I've had quite a bit of success, even more so now with the MSC, although widow mine drops can be a pain. Just tech up to 3 base 7gate, twilight/robo, get slightly late colossi, while all chorno on double ups/charge then blink. Proxy pylons all over to scout for incoming drops, as they are killed, replace them. You know if he has a lot of units in his dropship that he will have a smaller army. Also use pylosn as scouters in front of your nat and third to see when they are coming.
Really it's just mass pylons everywhere instead of building them in your base. Makes toss fun to play imo. Note I haven't been able to beat yet marine/marauder/medivac/hellbat/scv allin on 2 base when I try this style, although I think I could have if I didn't blow chunks in the engagements and have lapses in macro.
On April 12 2013 12:39 MateShade wrote: I dont really agree with some of the things you say. You kind of exaggerate how much a Terran or Zerg player can actually do, and without a doubt there are plenty of things that keep Terran players honest, and to some extent in a more indirect way Zerg is also kept honest. The mothership core and the oracle both are steps forward in terms of non committal aggression and I don't think we need anything more yet. Protoss is fun to watch in my opinion and has improved greatly since the release of hots. I don't want to call this biased because I don't think it is, but this is definitely just your opinion and I feel that most of what you say is exaggerated or unsubstantiated. Maybe we can have this discussion later because right now it's too early to tell the effects that hots will have on Protoss.
I disagree fundamentally because the idea of the MSC is a broken one. Until you can both time bomb and recall in a single fight early on, nothing much can really change, it's just adding a little dps to your army that otherwise wouldn't be there. It's not enough to turn the tide of a fight. The oracle is something similar in that, for one it's a coin flip. When it works it does huge damage, but when it's prepared for, there's not a lot you can do about it. Sure the detection is great, and it somewhat opens up stargate in PvP, but that's about it. It seems like a bandaid change that blizzard opted to give protoss instead of detection at every tech path.
How in the world you can say a time warp or recall doesn't change things :S. That's utterly insane. A single time warp can allow all your units to retreat. It can cause you to get awesome FF's. Not to mention you have an air unit super early game that can fire upon ground... and wow, if you use all your FF's, and you have none left, before your last wave runs out... RECALL?!
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.
On the topic of replacing colossi, some nerfs would have to happen to late game powerhouses like that unit if you buff protoss early game, or nerf the other races early game.
I could definitely agree with there being some changes done to the Colossus, but I don't know if nerf is quite the word I would use. Redesign is honestly what comes to mind when I think of what could be Legacy of the Void material. I like that the Colossus can climb up/down cliffs and can deal splash damage the way it does; it's awesome to watch in my opinion. However, I don't like the topheaviness and the cumbersome design. Lose your Zealots and Archons? Welp, your Colossus is screwed and so is your army. Colossus too slow to Micro, but not worth investing a Warp Prism for? Too bad. Your opponent has Vikings to counter your Colossus? Have to focus those down first with your Stalkers before targeting the massive Bio ball systematically killing of your army. Those Medivacs that your Stalkers aren't killing because of Vikings? They aren't helping. You see the problem I have with that?
I think what should happen is for the Colossus to remain a Tier 3 in LotV, but changed design-wise to be less cumbersome and more awesome, let's go with "Giraffe" for name's sake. The Giraffe is still taller than the other Protoss units, but only 3/4 the height of its Colossus predecessor. It can still climb walls and is a bit faster, however, it has less armor and health. It still deals splash damage in the same fashion as before, though the range has been nerfed by 1 (though the upgrade remains unchanged). The biggest change lies in a new shielding system derived from the Immortal called, let's say, "Phase Shields" that reduces incoming light/splash/aoe damage by a certain percentage/math. Furthermore, either the Giraffe will not be targetable by Anti-Air or it will be targetable by Anti-Air with the Anti-Air damage being done to it only a fraction of its regular power.
Granted, you can't really full-proof TheoryCraft at all, but the point is that the Colossus aesthetically and conceptual is pretty cool. It's implementation and resulting effects to balance, however, aren't exactly the best that we want it to be.
I only reject the Reaver because SC2 is built around clustered armies, which Blizzard said they are not ever going to plan changing for SC2. I also find the concept of having half of the workers dying because one drop couldn't be prevented kind of disturbing. Yes, that also includes the Widow Mine, but that's a considerably different and unrelated argument.
On April 12 2013 12:31 Whitewing wrote: The MSC does allow for more greedy play in PvT, but I'm not sure if it'll remain that way when terran players get better at defending oracle harass without widow mines and go back to gasless expanding.
I feel like MC's play was more a metagame build than what's going to be standard. As is, nothing greedier is viable imo. It's still 1g expo + tech + 3 gates into blabla midgame.
I've been doing a lot of 1 gate expand into robo into double forge into more gates lately, that's way more greedy (that's double forge and robo bay on 1 gateway). I frequently finish 3/3 before my opponent is half way to 2/2, and that's if he goes double e-bay, if not, he's boned on upgrades.
3/3 Chargelots +guardian shield vs 1/1 marines is the most one sided slaughter you've ever seen, even if the zealots are at a lower count than they might have otherwise have been.
Greed doesn't have to be purely economic, it can be tech based too.
I feel like this rolls over and dies to... well anything the terran does though. You're also forced to do it blind that early, and double forges are a liability against a lot of builds.
You'd think that, but it's not blind, nor does it auto-die. You scout early and see if he's going for gas or a gasless expand. If it's a gasless expand, (you're going 2 gas on 15 supply, 2 probes in each), you make a stargate and go for oracles while expanding. If he took gas, the build is completely safe because the msc + 2 sentries (I build exactly 2) is enough to hold of basically any agression he can throw at you off of a gas based build. You do build a robo early after all, and get observers. If it seems like he's doing an all-in, you're fine. You can also build cannons in an emergency. My winrate on ladder in PvT right now is around 80%, and that's at a reasonably high masters level. There's basically nothing terran can do to crush you as long as you defend well, at least until later on. Your ridiculously good upgrades help secure a 3rd base and help the really scary drop timings before you can have high templar everywhere.
Most common aggression I run into is widow mine drops with bio poking at the front, and that can be held fairly easily with decent micro and the nexus cannon.
I think any 2 rax or denying of the scout into some trickery would keep that build from being mainstream. The two forges that early are a huge commitment. A big part of the traditional double forge build centers around a few cool ideas:
Your obs gets there before the forges are done, so you can cancel one Your 1-1 finishes right as the 10 minute medivac timing hits (yours won't have 2-2 by then) Gas timings work out nicely so that you can zealot spam
All in all, if your scout gets denied and he goes 1-1-1 or a dedicated 3 rax you're boned with two forges that early.
+1 to OP, I agree whole heartedly with this post, unfortunately though the Blizzard we have come to know has most likely washed their hands of Protoss' problems and concerns and lets be honest, its going to be at least 3-4 months before the first legitimate balance patch, and as far as the "genera" sc2 crowd is concerned, they are all being brainwashed into believing that zerg is somehow the worst race right now which is a mind boggling notion to say the least.
On April 12 2013 12:31 Whitewing wrote: The MSC does allow for more greedy play in PvT, but I'm not sure if it'll remain that way when terran players get better at defending oracle harass without widow mines and go back to gasless expanding.
I feel like MC's play was more a metagame build than what's going to be standard. As is, nothing greedier is viable imo. It's still 1g expo + tech + 3 gates into blabla midgame.
I've been doing a lot of 1 gate expand into robo into double forge into more gates lately, that's way more greedy (that's double forge and robo bay on 1 gateway). I frequently finish 3/3 before my opponent is half way to 2/2, and that's if he goes double e-bay, if not, he's boned on upgrades.
3/3 Chargelots +guardian shield vs 1/1 marines is the most one sided slaughter you've ever seen, even if the zealots are at a lower count than they might have otherwise have been.
Greed doesn't have to be purely economic, it can be tech based too.
I feel like this rolls over and dies to... well anything the terran does though. You're also forced to do it blind that early, and double forges are a liability against a lot of builds.
You'd think that, but it's not blind, nor does it auto-die. You scout early and see if he's going for gas or a gasless expand. If it's a gasless expand, (you're going 2 gas on 15 supply, 2 probes in each), you make a stargate and go for oracles while expanding. If he took gas, the build is completely safe because the msc + 2 sentries (I build exactly 2) is enough to hold of basically any agression he can throw at you off of a gas based build. You do build a robo early after all, and get observers. If it seems like he's doing an all-in, you're fine. You can also build cannons in an emergency. My winrate on ladder in PvT right now is around 80%, and that's at a reasonably high masters level. There's basically nothing terran can do to crush you as long as you defend well, at least until later on. Your ridiculously good upgrades help secure a 3rd base and help the really scary drop timings before you can have high templar everywhere.
Most common aggression I run into is widow mine drops with bio poking at the front, and that can be held fairly easily with decent micro and the nexus cannon.
I think any 2 rax or denying of the scout into some trickery would keep that build from being mainstream. The two forges that early are a huge commitment. A big part of the traditional double forge build centers around a few cool ideas:
Your obs gets there before the forges are done, so you can cancel one Your 1-1 finishes right as the 10 minute medivac timing hits (yours won't have 2-2 by then) Gas timings work out nicely so that you can zealot spam
All in all, if your scout gets denied and he goes 1-1-1 or a dedicated 3 rax you're boned with two forges that early.
2 rax is easy, mothership core alone crushes a 2 rax (you still have one gateway that can make units and a robo, just nexus cannon and FF the ramp), and an observer is out in plenty of time for the later version. If the initial scout is denied you can scout with the mothership core, I've never had that denied, and I've never had a problem scouting what terran is doing early game. I usually have 2-2 finishing for the 10 minute timing, plenty of gateways, and a colossus out with the msc and a smallish army, with forcefields and decent control defending the push or drops is fairly easy. The MSC is just so powerful on defense, especially early on, I think you're really underestimating it.
I don't know why people would enjoy playing as protoss to be honest. I play all 3 races at low diamond level and protoss matchup is just way behind than other matchups in terms of fun. PvP is boring, PvZ is even worse. there are too little multi tasking other than defending drops, run bys etc. both of which are from the opponent. The late game mass chargelot warp in also requires little attention compared to all other form of harassment because chargetlots are just really good mineral dump.
there are not enough multi tasking strategy that requires toss to have an active mulit tasking, the only one is the stargate phenoix style etc
Protoss is a race designed around deathballs and gimmicky play. Its units rely heavily on eachother and they lack the mobility of other races due to the power of their deathballs. As such they are less capable of play that exploits their opponents weaknesses or outmaneuvers them.
Any buff to protoss in their current state would render them OP. In order to make protoss more capable of top tier play and less reliant on using the same strats a bronze toss would use in GSL they would need nothing short of a redesign on many units.
Way too many claims in this thread are completely unsubstantiated. The vast majority are just using this thread as a soap box to balance whine from.
How about you people be actually constructive, not call for a total redesign of the race(hint: won't happen), and use replays and data to back up your claims.
That aside, given that this IS balance whine, it's in the wrong thread and probably on the wrong forum.
It's not that I don't agree with what you've written... but I feel like you're talking about WoL Protoss.
HotS protoss has a lot of options and actually leads to really interesting games imo. Also, Toss has been tearing it up in Proleague. I'm really enjoying both playing and watching Toss now, and I can't say I was doing either at the end of WoL.
On April 12 2013 13:58 Virid wrote: Way too many claims in this thread are completely unsubstantiated. The vast majority are just using this thread as a soap box to balance whine from.
How about you people be actually constructive, not call for a total redesign of the race(hint: won't happen), and use replays and data to back up your claims.
That aside, given that this IS balance whine, it's in the wrong thread and probably on the wrong forum.
Nice OP, I've always thought the same, but this is quite well-written. I'd give HoTS a chance though, it still does seem a bit early to say that protoss will continue this trend. I guess it just remains to be seen.
On April 12 2013 13:58 Virid wrote: Way too many claims in this thread are completely unsubstantiated. The vast majority are just using this thread as a soap box to balance whine from.
How about you people be actually constructive, not call for a total redesign of the race(hint: won't happen), and use replays and data to back up your claims.
That aside, given that this IS balance whine, it's in the wrong thread and probably on the wrong forum.
The race wouldn't need a complete redesign, just a few units and I think everyone knows who the culprits are. People don't need to use replays and data to show protoss is a race that relies on massing a giant ball then winning through superior unit synergy. Anyone with half a brain that has played this game for any length of time can observe that.
On April 12 2013 13:58 Virid wrote: Way too many claims in this thread are completely unsubstantiated. The vast majority are just using this thread as a soap box to balance whine from.
How about you people be actually constructive, not call for a total redesign of the race(hint: won't happen), and use replays and data to back up your claims.
That aside, given that this IS balance whine, it's in the wrong thread and probably on the wrong forum.
The race wouldn't need a complete redesign, just a few units and I think everyone knows who the culprits are. People don't need to use replays and data to show protoss is a race that relies on massing a giant ball then winning through superior unit synergy. Anyone with half a brain that has played this game for any length of time can observe that.
Sure, if you're grasping at low hanging fruit and desperate to prove you have no business discussing balance.
Take all your claims one step further with a "why?" at the end of every claim you just made and if you still think that you can make conclusions without data then you're crazy.
The one thing I think Protoss needs to experiment more with is Phoenixes in higher numbers. They're seriously underrated. They're a fantastic APM sink, force static defense, are highly mobile, stop mutas and drops, and are a flying spellcaster. Gravitron beam is seriously awesome. And they got a range buff. 7-Range phoenix with attack upgrades are just insane.
As a Masters Protoss I can say that watching Terrans try to deal with 10-12 Phoenix with range and attack upgrades is just hilarious. They can't drop which forces frontal attacks. And boy does it take them forever to get there when they've got 10-12 phoenix harassing the medivac with their army. Obviously having no medivacs makes AOE less of a necessity for protoss. Mass upgraded chargelot with a time warp is pretty good when they can't stim constantly.
It's the one thing I think Protoss needs to try more. In PvT and PvZ: more phoenix. Not just 4-5.
On April 12 2013 12:31 Whitewing wrote: The MSC does allow for more greedy play in PvT, but I'm not sure if it'll remain that way when terran players get better at defending oracle harass without widow mines and go back to gasless expanding.
I feel like MC's play was more a metagame build than what's going to be standard. As is, nothing greedier is viable imo. It's still 1g expo + tech + 3 gates into blabla midgame.
I've been doing a lot of 1 gate expand into robo into double forge into more gates lately, that's way more greedy (that's double forge and robo bay on 1 gateway). I frequently finish 3/3 before my opponent is half way to 2/2, and that's if he goes double e-bay, if not, he's boned on upgrades.
3/3 Chargelots +guardian shield vs 1/1 marines is the most one sided slaughter you've ever seen, even if the zealots are at a lower count than they might have otherwise have been.
Greed doesn't have to be purely economic, it can be tech based too.
I feel like this rolls over and dies to... well anything the terran does though. You're also forced to do it blind that early, and double forges are a liability against a lot of builds.
You'd think that, but it's not blind, nor does it auto-die. You scout early and see if he's going for gas or a gasless expand. If it's a gasless expand, (you're going 2 gas on 15 supply, 2 probes in each), you make a stargate and go for oracles while expanding. If he took gas, the build is completely safe because the msc + 2 sentries (I build exactly 2) is enough to hold of basically any agression he can throw at you off of a gas based build. You do build a robo early after all, and get observers. If it seems like he's doing an all-in, you're fine. You can also build cannons in an emergency. My winrate on ladder in PvT right now is around 80%, and that's at a reasonably high masters level. There's basically nothing terran can do to crush you as long as you defend well, at least until later on. Your ridiculously good upgrades help secure a 3rd base and help the really scary drop timings before you can have high templar everywhere.
Most common aggression I run into is widow mine drops with bio poking at the front, and that can be held fairly easily with decent micro and the nexus cannon.
I think any 2 rax or denying of the scout into some trickery would keep that build from being mainstream. The two forges that early are a huge commitment. A big part of the traditional double forge build centers around a few cool ideas:
Your obs gets there before the forges are done, so you can cancel one Your 1-1 finishes right as the 10 minute medivac timing hits (yours won't have 2-2 by then) Gas timings work out nicely so that you can zealot spam
All in all, if your scout gets denied and he goes 1-1-1 or a dedicated 3 rax you're boned with two forges that early.
2 rax is easy, mothership core alone crushes a 2 rax (you still have one gateway that can make units and a robo, just nexus cannon and FF the ramp), and an observer is out in plenty of time for the later version. If the initial scout is denied you can scout with the mothership core, I've never had that denied, and I've never had a problem scouting what terran is doing early game. I usually have 2-2 finishing for the 10 minute timing, plenty of gateways, and a colossus out with the msc and a smallish army, with forcefields and decent control defending the push or drops is fairly easy. The MSC is just so powerful on defense, especially early on, I think you're really underestimating it.
It doesn't do much for PvZ though.
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.
On April 12 2013 11:06 ThaReckoning wrote: Hello TL, I'm Zero, a mid masters protoss main who's been playing protoss since WoL release. I'm trying to open up some discussion about the general design of the early game in SC2, and how it pertains to each matchup. In a nutshell, I'm here to talk about how the sentry, MSC, and protoss in general are panning out as ideas. Before we start with that, I'd like to take a trip down memory lane, and see if anything looks familiar to you.
I think you can see what I'm getting at here. Historically protoss is known as the gimmick race, the easy to play but hard to win with race. Why is this? I believe it's because of a reliance on mechanics like warp tech, sentries, and MSC's. MC, the king of trickery and 2 base play, has been extremely successful over a long career with protoss, but why aren't safer styles of play as successful with this race? Every protoss player has felt the sting caused by reliance on these mechanics. Remember how protoss fared at the tournament level throughout WoL? Here's a refresher:
In terms of overall results, protoss had the worst consistency. I feel that this trend will continue for protoss in the future, unless blizzard addresses the early game viability of protoss non-committal aggression and economy. I like the design of the sentry and the implementation of an early game caster for protoss, but at the same time, this is the bane of protoss players everywhere. One of my friends who played BW commonly refers to this game as ZvT, and while it's a bit of frustrated humor on his part, how far is it from the truth?
On paper, the early game of protoss is inkeeping with excellent design. Theoretically you want your players to have weak units that require strong play to utilize properly. This certainly seems to hold true for early and mid tier protoss units, but not so much higher tier ones. However, when examining the game as a whole with Zerg and Terran also included, it's obvious that this mentality went missing somewhere along the line for those races. Where is the risk for early tier terran and zerg players? What keeps them honest? Right now, the answer seems to be nothing, and it's bad for players and viewers alike. This promotes a deathball style of gameplay, instead of many back and forth action packed engagements across the map.
Let's take the non mirror matchups for protoss as examples. Starting with PvZ, we can see that throughout the course of WoL, as changes were made and players got stronger, we moved more and more toward a deathball style of play. New strategies were discovered for protoss, and promptly figured out or nerfed, and thus abandoned. Fast forward to the end of WoL, and you get what I'm talking about. PvZ turned into FFE vs 3 hatch fast hive, and games were being decided in a matter of seconds in one huge battle between 15 and 20 minutes.
It was boring to watch, boring to play as, and boring to play against. I feel it's a direct symptom of protoss reliance on gimmickry in general. If that's not enough to convince you, let's look at PvT. The standard right now is exactly the same as it was in WoL, except terrans just add widow mines instead of floating their factory around scouting. This might seem all fine and dandy, but let's have a closer look at what's going on. The deciding factors in every PvT are the same: how well does protoss defend aggression, and can he take his third? If a build doesn't allow these things, it's just not used.
On the terran end of things, he's teching, double upgrading, expanding, attacking, all at the same time. There's tons of variation to be had, and plenty of stylistic choice. Identifying and destroying all ins are as simple as counting pylons, taking a tower, and scanning. You never have to deviate very far from the main build order to hold off aggression, even when unexpected. The same holds true for PvZ. Is this really a good design for a game, is this fun to watch and to play? Does it promote more diverse gameplay? The answer is no.
I assert that the lack of non committal aggression for protoss is extremely detrimental to the development of SC2 as a whole. Think about all the resources blizzard has spent tweaking and changing and nerfing and buffing because of the implementation and the mentality of things like the oracle, sentry, tempest, MSC, and warp tech. Think about all the matchups shifted, all the styles learned and forgotten because they weren't viable anymore, all the resources wasted arriving at a game barely more well designed than it was on release. I'd argue that we've reached the other end of the spectrum, where instead of fast losses on steppes of war, we have long, boring games on bigger maps that neither player can end.
We've all experienced it and felt it, one way or another. The circular logic for blizzard when it comes to protoss makes no sense. Do we have sentries and MSC and warpgate because gateway units are weak, or do we have weak gateway units because we have sentries and MSC? The effects of this are extremely far reaching in the context of SC2. Strong t3 is a necessity because of this early game weakness, and so strong counters to those like the viking and the ghost are necessary. The list goes on and on, but I think you get the idea. Am I the only one around here who feels that the game would have been much more enjoyable over the past few years if protoss never had the sentry or warp tech, or at least different versions of them that lent themselves to aggression?
Did blizzard nerf too hard and too soon? Are these design flaws from a failed blueprint of protoss? Does this warrant protoss buffs, or t/z nerfs? Is there a problem at all? If something has to be changed, I would advocate nerfing things in general, because of the philosophy on strategy games I have. I still firmly believe things should be weak in general, and games should be balanced at the top level of play. I don't believe adding new units or mechanics is the answer, and I think the MSC can attest to that.
So far, no new options have been discovered as a result of the MSC. It's just allowing worse players to survive attacks and make mistakes, it's the opposite of what it was intended to do, and a clear representation of why power creep is bad. The MSC is a power creep solution to the problem the sentry creates, or tries to solve (still not sure which). No aggressive openers have yet been discovered as a result of the MSC, and no greedier defensive plays have been seen to be possible because of it.
I believe that SC2 has suffered tremendous damage as a skill based game because of the design of early game protoss. Some parts of it deemed too weak, some deemed too strong. It's led to tons of changes that wouldn't otherwise have happened if z/t early game was more inkeeping with the design of protoss.
Think of all the changes that could come about, with the removal of sentries and warptech, and the rebalancing of the early game. Reavers instead of colossi, protoss t3 nerfs in general, both gateway and forge expands viable in PvZ, etc.
This doesn't even go into what could be improved upon about macro mechanics and the 3 base model in general, but I'll leave that for another thread, I think.
In conclusion, I feel more and more that the game would be much more strategically diverse without forcefield, MSC, and all the problems that spew from mechanics like these. There will be a wall for every protoss player, a ceiling they reach where their shenanigans are no longer effective, and they'll be lost. They'll wander TL strategy looking for ideas on what to do after they hold off that figurative 6 pool without losing a single unit, to come away empty handed. They'll explore and try new ways of standard play, and disheartened, come to the same conclusions that everyone came to long ago, that protoss is indeed the gimmick race, easy to play and hard to win with. I fear this will be true as long as tournaments have anything but single elimination formats.
I hope this didn't come off as too much of a rant or a whine to you, and hopefully it was an interesting read.
In a rush so I had to go super fast, but I agree.
Protoss is designed poorly. I do believe they are the easiest race to play but not easy to win with at the higher levels.
Stuff like sentries with FF are horrible. The way protoss is designed, they have a lower skill cap and they will continue to struggle more than T and Z at the highest levels of play such as the GSL.
Unfortunately the only way to fix the race is to do things Blizzard will never ever do.
Warpgate needs to be removed. The entire race is balanced around this tech. Removing it would allow Gateway units to be rebalanced and give you less reliance on later tech or gimmicky "keep me safe in the early game" units like the MSC. If it needs be kept (and it will) I think it really needs to undergo changes, like instead of warping in on power grids, have it warp in proximity to a Nexus instead. It'll keep its powerful defensive advantages but wouldn't be so OP as a reinforcement mechanic as to rape the balance of Gateway units. As a bonus, Nexuses are much harder/easier to scout/bigger of a commit to proxy in the early game (i.e retarded) but would be a feasible part of a push in the late game. Not much different from PF spam. But eh, thats off the top of my head.
Colossus needs to be removed. My god it's been beaten to death, but this unit is the epitome of boring. Its too powerful, too easy to micro, too boring to watch, and too crippling to lose as a toss player. Without Colossi dependance, other units/tech can be buffed. And just because its required when talking about the colossus: replace it with the reaver. Theres your harass/heavy hitting unit thats more fun for spectators and isn't as unforgiving for players.
These are things that won't change though because Blizzard is simply unwilling to and I'm sure noobs and casuals would cry without Warpgate. But seriously, its just one or two root things that are keeping the race down, everything else is just by proxy.
On April 12 2013 13:58 Virid wrote: Way too many claims in this thread are completely unsubstantiated. The vast majority are just using this thread as a soap box to balance whine from.
How about you people be actually constructive, not call for a total redesign of the race(hint: won't happen), and use replays and data to back up your claims.
That aside, given that this IS balance whine, it's in the wrong thread and probably on the wrong forum.
As for being constructive, I can give you lots of ideas, but they'll all seem biased to you because you think I'm making the OP out of some misguided reason. Would it really change your mind if I suggested buffs to protoss early game, or nerfs to t/z early game?
I would have agreed with you a month ago, but I think things have improved a lot. For pvt, anyway. I'm not sure we aren't progressing towards the same one dimensional "kill zerg before hive" pvz arc we had in wol, albeit for more complicated reasons than broodlord-infestor. Then again, I'm not sure we are. Time will tell.
On April 12 2013 13:58 Virid wrote: Way too many claims in this thread are completely unsubstantiated. The vast majority are just using this thread as a soap box to balance whine from.
How about you people be actually constructive, not call for a total redesign of the race(hint: won't happen), and use replays and data to back up your claims.
That aside, given that this IS balance whine, it's in the wrong thread and probably on the wrong forum.
The race wouldn't need a complete redesign, just a few units and I think everyone knows who the culprits are. People don't need to use replays and data to show protoss is a race that relies on massing a giant ball then winning through superior unit synergy. Anyone with half a brain that has played this game for any length of time can observe that.
Sure, if you're grasping at low hanging fruit and desperate to prove you have no business discussing balance.
Take all your claims one step further with a "why?" at the end of every claim you just made and if you still think that you can make conclusions without data then you're crazy.
Ok lets assume you havn't been watching the protoss race evolve over the last few years.
Step 1: Go to sc2 replay site, any of them with high lvl replays will do. Hell go to the GM toss replay thread and watch his if you want.
Step 2: Watch replays, count how many doesn't involve a timing push or turtling until deathball critical mass reached.
As for why this is the case, its simple, protoss rewards multitasking and map awareness less than the other two races and thats what separates the very high lvl players from the rest.
Protoss probably the worst designed race now. Zerg has looked better in HotS and everyone always agreed that Terran was the best designed. I agree the two things are gimmicky things, and deathball play that is holding the design of it back. Heck, since they are bringing back BW units and trying to make it more like BW, why not just go back to the basic fundamentals that made BW great?
On April 12 2013 14:16 Thrillz wrote: Protoss probably the worst designed race now. Zerg has looked better in HotS and everyone always agreed that Terran was the best designed. I agree the two things are gimmicky things, and deathball play that is holding the design of it back. Heck, since they are bringing back BW units and trying to make it more like BW, why not just go back to the basic fundamentals that made BW great?
Whilst I agree that protoss is a very poorly designed race (which has been discussed for aaaaages, nothing new here) a lot of this is still whining. For example this conclusion
" In conclusion, I feel more and more that the game would be much more strategically diverse without forcefield, MSC, and all the problems that spew from mechanics like these. There will be a wall for every protoss player, a ceiling they reach where their shenanigans are no longer effective, and they'll be lost. They'll wander TL strategy looking for ideas on what to do after they hold off that figurative 6 pool without losing a single unit, to come away empty handed. They'll explore and try new ways of standard play, and disheartened, come to the same conclusions that everyone came to long ago, that protoss is indeed the gimmick race, easy to play and hard to win with. I fear this will be true as long as tournaments have anything but single elimination formats. "
that's just absolutely rubbish. If protoss players have problems playing standard and winning consistently, it's only at the very top in Korea, and that may not be the case in HotS anyway. Any random protoss nobody can come to team liquid and learn standard play and improve dramatically and have lots of success.
On April 12 2013 14:23 AxionSteel wrote: Whilst I agree that protoss is a very poorly designed race (which has been discussed for aaaaages, nothing new here) a lot of this is still whining. For example this conclusion
" In conclusion, I feel more and more that the game would be much more strategically diverse without forcefield, MSC, and all the problems that spew from mechanics like these. There will be a wall for every protoss player, a ceiling they reach where their shenanigans are no longer effective, and they'll be lost. They'll wander TL strategy looking for ideas on what to do after they hold off that figurative 6 pool without losing a single unit, to come away empty handed. They'll explore and try new ways of standard play, and disheartened, come to the same conclusions that everyone came to long ago, that protoss is indeed the gimmick race, easy to play and hard to win with. I fear this will be true as long as tournaments have anything but single elimination formats. "
that's just absolutely rubbish. If protoss players have problems playing standard and winning consistently, it's only at the very top in Korea, and that may not be the case in HotS anyway. Any random protoss nobody can come to team liquid and learn standard play and improve dramatically and have lots of success.
You're missing the point though. The point is that somewhere out there, there will always be a player that you can't do a timing or an all in or a cute forcefield donut or a proxy oracle or whatever on. There will be players out there so good that the only way to beat them is with them having full knowledge of what you're doing. If the goal is improvement, a gimmicky race hinders that, whatever level the plateau is at.
On April 12 2013 14:23 AxionSteel wrote: Whilst I agree that protoss is a very poorly designed race (which has been discussed for aaaaages, nothing new here) a lot of this is still whining. For example this conclusion
" In conclusion, I feel more and more that the game would be much more strategically diverse without forcefield, MSC, and all the problems that spew from mechanics like these. There will be a wall for every protoss player, a ceiling they reach where their shenanigans are no longer effective, and they'll be lost. They'll wander TL strategy looking for ideas on what to do after they hold off that figurative 6 pool without losing a single unit, to come away empty handed. They'll explore and try new ways of standard play, and disheartened, come to the same conclusions that everyone came to long ago, that protoss is indeed the gimmick race, easy to play and hard to win with. I fear this will be true as long as tournaments have anything but single elimination formats. "
that's just absolutely rubbish. If protoss players have problems playing standard and winning consistently, it's only at the very top in Korea, and that may not be the case in HotS anyway. Any random protoss nobody can come to team liquid and learn standard play and improve dramatically and have lots of success.
You missed the TLPD chart huh? Your erroneous hunch < data. Looks like the problem isn't just at the very top in Korea at all.
When he says "there will be a wall for every protoss player, a ceiling they reach where their shenanigans are no longer effective, and they'll be lost" it is a very true statement. That standard play sounds awesome, but you'd be hard pressed to find any Protoss player that won any major tournament relying on "standard play"
MC won a GSL 6 gating July. Parting "soul trained" his way through Zerg with the Immortal-all in on his way to winning the BWCS. Seed dominated MC with a Warp Prism 4 Gate. The list goes on and on...
Protoss winrates jump whenever some new fancy timing comes out. And fall when that timing is figured out.
This has been the history of Protoss.
Now I'm not sure I agree with the OP that much about the game design decisions Blizzard has made. I actually like Warpgate, Colossus and Forcefields.
The MSC is terrible though, it is way too strong defensively, and ruins all early game pressure a Terran can do against a Protoss player and makes the game stale and boring.
"Fast forward to the end of WoL, and you get what I'm talking about. PvZ turned into FFE vs 3 hatch fast hive, and games were being decided in a matter of seconds in one huge battle between 15 and 20 minutes. " This is a great point, but I feel it is reflected even more in PvT (maybe because I do more timings versus Zerg than Terran). You spend 15 minutes building up for a game to be decided by a a few EMPs or Storms. It makes the game really boring. The MSC, Pylon changes and Widow Mines make it even more likely to happen as the early timings and pressure are less effective for both sides.
On April 12 2013 14:41 Parcelleus wrote: Whine thread, 'gimmicky race' , that whiny label could also be used on Terran and Zerg, by other whiners.
What an incredibly childish response. The three races are entirely different. You don't understand the game and your post brings nothing to this discussion. Dismissing out of hand what the author is trying to initiate a discussion on is ridiculous because the author isn't even claiming that Protoss is underpowered. He's claiming that it's inconsistent - overpowered in silly ways and underpowered in silly ways that make it difficult to play a "standard" style without having to come up with silly bullshit like warp prism sentry all-ins and then cycling them out once the metagame catches up. He backs up what he's saying, but you didn't address any of that.
What's more, this is far from the first time that this issue has been noted. Why don't you enlighten us on how Terran and Zerg can be labelled as "gimmicky"? Do you even know what "gimmicky" means?
On second though, perhaps you should just go back to www.starcraft2.com.The forums there are much more suitable for you.
"MC, the king of trickery and 2 base play, has been extremely successful over a long career with protoss..."
"The deciding factors in every PvT are the same: how well does protoss defend aggression, and can he take his third? If a build doesn't allow these things, it's just not used."
That is completely inconsistent, and to be honest, it ruined the post for me.
On April 12 2013 14:51 Salivanth wrote: "MC, the king of trickery and 2 base play, has been extremely successful over a long career with protoss..."
"The deciding factors in every PvT are the same: how well does protoss defend aggression, and can he take his third? If a build doesn't allow these things, it's just not used."
That is completely inconsistent, and to be honest, it ruined the post for me.
You don't think it's just a little gimmicky that modern PvT revolves around attacking the terran when you have 3-3 but he doesn't, and when you have both storm and colossi, but he doesn't have both ghosts and vikings?
Edit: Besides, MC just had a ton of success in PvT by metagaming his opponents heavily. Do you really think his success in that matchup will last?
On April 12 2013 14:51 Salivanth wrote: "MC, the king of trickery and 2 base play, has been extremely successful over a long career with protoss..."
"The deciding factors in every PvT are the same: how well does protoss defend aggression, and can he take his third? If a build doesn't allow these things, it's just not used."
That is completely inconsistent, and to be honest, it ruined the post for me.
You don't think it's just a little gimmicky that modern PvT revolves around attacking the terran when you have 3-3 but he doesn't, and when you have both storm and colossi, but he doesn't have both ghosts and vikings?
His point was addressing how your post was structured, rather than specifically the matchup.
And I agree with him, you make some really strong points that I quoted above in my post, but then you make some really questionable conclusions.
On April 12 2013 14:41 Parcelleus wrote: Whine thread, 'gimmicky race' , that whiny label could also be used on Terran and Zerg, by other whiners.
What an incredibly childish response. The three races are entirely different. You don't understand the game and your post brings nothing to this discussion. Dismissing out of hand what the author is trying to initiate a discussion on is ridiculous because the author isn't even claiming that Protoss is underpowered. He's claiming that it's inconsistent - overpowered in silly ways and underpowered in silly ways that make it difficult to play a "standard" style without having to come up with silly bullshit like warp prism sentry all-ins and then cycling them out once the metagame catches up. He backs up what he's saying, but you didn't address any of that.
What's more, this is far from the first time that this issue has been noted. Why don't you enlighten us on how Terran and Zerg can be labelled as "gimmicky"? Do you even know what "gimmicky" means?
On second though, perhaps you should just go back to www.starcraft2.com.The forums there are much more suitable for you.
If I was a whiner I would QQ, but I just try to improve and leave the design and balance to those who actually have control over it. If you dont like the design of the game no-one is forcing you to play. Having said that, the OP has a point but unless we get a totally redesigned SC2 it is the way it is. HOTS has opened up things a bit more for Protoss which is a good thing (step in the right direction).
On April 12 2013 14:51 Salivanth wrote: "MC, the king of trickery and 2 base play, has been extremely successful over a long career with protoss..."
"The deciding factors in every PvT are the same: how well does protoss defend aggression, and can he take his third? If a build doesn't allow these things, it's just not used."
That is completely inconsistent, and to be honest, it ruined the post for me.
You don't think it's just a little gimmicky that modern PvT revolves around attacking the terran when you have 3-3 but he doesn't, and when you have both storm and colossi, but he doesn't have both ghosts and vikings?
His point was addressing how your post was structured, rather than specifically the matchup.
And I agree with him, you make some really strong points that I quoted above in my post, but then you make some really questionable conclusions.
I don't see how it's questionable. There aren't any builds that allow you to take a third at a reasonable time, so what reigns is the strongest 2 base build: double forge.
I agree that warp gates and forcefield in their current form both limited the potential of non-committal aggression in WoL, leading to more stale games. For me, PvZ, PvT, and PvP have always been the least interesting matchups to watch in WoL.
I'm not sure how the MSC and protoss changes affect this in HotS. Protoss could remain essentially the same race, or recall on the MSC and photon overcharge could increase the ability of protoss to be aggressive throughout the game. I think it's probably best to wait for the metagame to develop further before judging.
On April 12 2013 14:51 Salivanth wrote: "MC, the king of trickery and 2 base play, has been extremely successful over a long career with protoss..."
"The deciding factors in every PvT are the same: how well does protoss defend aggression, and can he take his third? If a build doesn't allow these things, it's just not used."
That is completely inconsistent, and to be honest, it ruined the post for me.
You don't think it's just a little gimmicky that modern PvT revolves around attacking the terran when you have 3-3 but he doesn't, and when you have both storm and colossi, but he doesn't have both ghosts and vikings?
His point was addressing how your post was structured, rather than specifically the matchup.
And I agree with him, you make some really strong points that I quoted above in my post, but then you make some really questionable conclusions.
I don't see how it's questionable. There aren't any builds that allow you to take a third at a reasonable time, so what reigns is the strongest 2 base build: double forge.
For instance, you could argue that MC has been successful with his trickery, yet macro Protoss players or builds have not been nearly as successful. Which is entirely true, and fits with the theme.
By suggesting that the only build used in PvT are focused on how well a Protoss defends aggression and takes a third, you're basically saying that the trickery and allin's MC uses don't work. Except they did, because he is the most successful Protoss player in SC2 history.
Also that point is weak because it TvP could be summed up by stating any build has to fit the criteria of "how much damage do you do to the Protoss with harass and how long can you delay his third" If a build doesn't do these things, it isn't used, because you have to set the Protoss player behind to win.
In that instance you are essentially mistaking metagame stagnation with race design. The problem isn't either race individually it is the result of the interaction of both races together and metagame stagnation. Terran players have the tools to do damage to set the Protoss player behind, and must do so because a Terran has a hard time competing with a Protoss player on equal economic footing.
On April 12 2013 14:41 Parcelleus wrote: Whine thread, 'gimmicky race' , that whiny label could also be used on Terran and Zerg, by other whiners.
What an incredibly childish response. The three races are entirely different. You don't understand the game and your post brings nothing to this discussion. Dismissing out of hand what the author is trying to initiate a discussion on is ridiculous because the author isn't even claiming that Protoss is underpowered. He's claiming that it's inconsistent - overpowered in silly ways and underpowered in silly ways that make it difficult to play a "standard" style without having to come up with silly bullshit like warp prism sentry all-ins and then cycling them out once the metagame catches up. He backs up what he's saying, but you didn't address any of that.
What's more, this is far from the first time that this issue has been noted. Why don't you enlighten us on how Terran and Zerg can be labelled as "gimmicky"? Do you even know what "gimmicky" means?
On second though, perhaps you should just go back to www.starcraft2.com.The forums there are much more suitable for you.
If I was a whiner I would QQ, but I just try to improve and leave the design and balance to those who actually have control over it. If you dont like the design of the game no-one is forcing you to play.
Sorry bud no one is talking about being forced to play the game, we're just discussing it. I try to improve as well and not liking the design of Protoss as a whole hasn't kept me from playing it, nor will it make me switch races.
Your red-herring arguments are absolutely ridiculous. Not answering my questions and switching to ad-hominem attacks about qqing are simply pathetic. Either contribute or leave.
You didn't answer my question. (you were too busy ignoring the questions I posed to you and childishly telling me not to play the game if I don't like it.) How could Terran and Zerg also be labelled as "gimmicky"?
On April 12 2013 14:41 Parcelleus wrote: Whine thread, 'gimmicky race' , that whiny label could also be used on Terran and Zerg, by other whiners.
What an incredibly childish response. The three races are entirely different. You don't understand the game and your post brings nothing to this discussion. Dismissing out of hand what the author is trying to initiate a discussion on is ridiculous because the author isn't even claiming that Protoss is underpowered. He's claiming that it's inconsistent - overpowered in silly ways and underpowered in silly ways that make it difficult to play a "standard" style without having to come up with silly bullshit like warp prism sentry all-ins and then cycling them out once the metagame catches up. He backs up what he's saying, but you didn't address any of that.
What's more, this is far from the first time that this issue has been noted. Why don't you enlighten us on how Terran and Zerg can be labelled as "gimmicky"? Do you even know what "gimmicky" means?
On second though, perhaps you should just go back to www.starcraft2.com.The forums there are much more suitable for you.
If I was a whiner I would QQ, but I just try to improve and leave the design and balance to those who actually have control over it. If you dont like the design of the game no-one is forcing you to play.
If no one complained about the state of Wings of Liberty at various points in its lifespan then we'd have a shit game today.
On April 12 2013 14:41 Parcelleus wrote: Whine thread, 'gimmicky race' , that whiny label could also be used on Terran and Zerg, by other whiners.
What an incredibly childish response. The three races are entirely different. You don't understand the game and your post brings nothing to this discussion. Dismissing out of hand what the author is trying to initiate a discussion on is ridiculous because the author isn't even claiming that Protoss is underpowered. He's claiming that it's inconsistent - overpowered in silly ways and underpowered in silly ways that make it difficult to play a "standard" style without having to come up with silly bullshit like warp prism sentry all-ins and then cycling them out once the metagame catches up. He backs up what he's saying, but you didn't address any of that.
What's more, this is far from the first time that this issue has been noted. Why don't you enlighten us on how Terran and Zerg can be labelled as "gimmicky"? Do you even know what "gimmicky" means?
On second though, perhaps you should just go back to www.starcraft2.com.The forums there are much more suitable for you.
If I was a whiner I would QQ, but I just try to improve and leave the design and balance to those who actually have control over it. If you dont like the design of the game no-one is forcing you to play.
If no one complained about the state of Wings of Liberty at various points in its lifespan then we'd have a shit game today.
True, hopefully Blizzard takes note. Things can always be better and I think Blizz have shown they have their heart (no pun intended) in the right place and make efforts to keep this game interesting. I think HOTS makes for a much better RTS than WoL did, so that at least is promising.
On April 12 2013 14:51 Salivanth wrote: "MC, the king of trickery and 2 base play, has been extremely successful over a long career with protoss..."
"The deciding factors in every PvT are the same: how well does protoss defend aggression, and can he take his third? If a build doesn't allow these things, it's just not used."
That is completely inconsistent, and to be honest, it ruined the post for me.
You don't think it's just a little gimmicky that modern PvT revolves around attacking the terran when you have 3-3 but he doesn't, and when you have both storm and colossi, but he doesn't have both ghosts and vikings?
His point was addressing how your post was structured, rather than specifically the matchup.
And I agree with him, you make some really strong points that I quoted above in my post, but then you make some really questionable conclusions.
I don't see how it's questionable. There aren't any builds that allow you to take a third at a reasonable time, so what reigns is the strongest 2 base build: double forge.
For instance, you could argue that MC has been successful with his trickery, yet macro Protoss players or builds have not been nearly as successful. Which is entirely true, and fits with the theme.
By suggesting that the only build used in PvT are focused on how well a Protoss defends aggression and takes a third, you're basically saying that the trickery and allin's MC uses don't work. Except they did, because he is the most successful Protoss player in history.
Also that point is weak because it TvP could be summed up by stating any build has to fit the criteria of "how much damage do you do to the Protoss with harass and how long can you delay his third" If a build doesn't do these things, it isn't used, because you have to set the Protoss player behind to win.
In that instance you are essentially mistaking metagame stagnation with race design. The problem isn't either race individually it is the result of the interaction of both races together and metagame stagnation. Terran players have the tools to do damage to set the Protoss player behind, and must do so because a Terran has a hard time competing with a Protoss player on equal economic footing (hence why Terran expands to their natural and 3rd faster).
I thought the part about macro protoss players having less success was pretty obvious, but I can edit it in. The point is that double forge is a bit of greed and trickery that protoss players shouldn't be able to get away with, but through luck or whatever reason, they've been getting away with it for ages. However, as soon as more terrans start delaying upgrades in favor of 8-9 minute timing attacks it'll fall through.
On April 12 2013 14:41 Parcelleus wrote: Whine thread, 'gimmicky race' , that whiny label could also be used on Terran and Zerg, by other whiners.
What an incredibly childish response. The three races are entirely different. You don't understand the game and your post brings nothing to this discussion. Dismissing out of hand what the author is trying to initiate a discussion on is ridiculous because the author isn't even claiming that Protoss is underpowered. He's claiming that it's inconsistent - overpowered in silly ways and underpowered in silly ways that make it difficult to play a "standard" style without having to come up with silly bullshit like warp prism sentry all-ins and then cycling them out once the metagame catches up. He backs up what he's saying, but you didn't address any of that.
What's more, this is far from the first time that this issue has been noted. Why don't you enlighten us on how Terran and Zerg can be labelled as "gimmicky"? Do you even know what "gimmicky" means?
On second though, perhaps you should just go back to www.starcraft2.com.The forums there are much more suitable for you.
If I was a whiner I would QQ, but I just try to improve and leave the design and balance to those who actually have control over it. If you dont like the design of the game no-one is forcing you to play.
Sorry bud no one is talking about being forced to play the game, we're just discussing it. I try to improve as well and not liking the design of Protoss as a whole hasn't kept me from playing it, nor will it make me switch races.
Your red-herring arguments are absolutely ridiculous. Not answering my questions and switching to ad-hominem attacks about qqing are simply pathetic. Either contribute or leave.
You didn't answer my question. (you were too busy ignoring the questions I posed to you and childishly telling me not to play the game if I don't like it.) How could Terran and Zerg also be labelled as "gimmicky"?
On April 12 2013 14:51 Salivanth wrote: "MC, the king of trickery and 2 base play, has been extremely successful over a long career with protoss..."
"The deciding factors in every PvT are the same: how well does protoss defend aggression, and can he take his third? If a build doesn't allow these things, it's just not used."
That is completely inconsistent, and to be honest, it ruined the post for me.
You don't think it's just a little gimmicky that modern PvT revolves around attacking the terran when you have 3-3 but he doesn't, and when you have both storm and colossi, but he doesn't have both ghosts and vikings?
His point was addressing how your post was structured, rather than specifically the matchup.
And I agree with him, you make some really strong points that I quoted above in my post, but then you make some really questionable conclusions.
I don't see how it's questionable. There aren't any builds that allow you to take a third at a reasonable time, so what reigns is the strongest 2 base build: double forge.
For instance, you could argue that MC has been successful with his trickery, yet macro Protoss players or builds have not been nearly as successful. Which is entirely true, and fits with the theme.
By suggesting that the only build used in PvT are focused on how well a Protoss defends aggression and takes a third, you're basically saying that the trickery and allin's MC uses don't work. Except they did, because he is the most successful Protoss player in history.
Also that point is weak because it TvP could be summed up by stating any build has to fit the criteria of "how much damage do you do to the Protoss with harass and how long can you delay his third" If a build doesn't do these things, it isn't used, because you have to set the Protoss player behind to win.
In that instance you are essentially mistaking metagame stagnation with race design. The problem isn't either race individually it is the result of the interaction of both races together and metagame stagnation. Terran players have the tools to do damage to set the Protoss player behind, and must do so because a Terran has a hard time competing with a Protoss player on equal economic footing (hence why Terran expands to their natural and 3rd faster).
I thought the part about macro protoss players having less success was pretty obvious, but I can edit it in. The point is that double forge is a bit of greed and trickery that protoss players shouldn't be able to get away with, but through luck or whatever reason, they've been getting away with it for ages. However, as soon as more terrans start delaying upgrades in favor of 8-9 minute timing attacks it'll fall through.
I find that the Double Forge executed really well is safe, while 8-9 minute Terran timings are bad. They come before Medivacs are out (in standard play), and thus have no way to heal Stim, and can't lift units trapped in Force Fields. I remember clearly playing a German High Master play who moved out his forces just as his Medivacs were building. It looked like he planned to camp outside my base and attack when the Medivacs arrived. But I met him in the field, cut up his forces with Force Fields and annihilated his MM force with Zealot/Stalker/Sentry.
My understanding of PvT isn't that great and I'm not that good of a player so I don't really know to be honest. Perhaps you are right.
Protoss will always be the gimmick race because of the design you have mentioned. Throughout the evolution of the metagame they will have small successes due to new strategies that can not yet be identified. But once all of the builds have been discovered and the appropriate scouting + responses have been established, they stand no chance. Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics. I personally find it sad that one of the few ways a Protoss can consistently win is by only tricking their opponents.
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
When you see Zerg able to take fast 3 you know something is wrong. LOL.
MSC doesn't solve the early aggression from Z. Because Z are capable in tech switch.
Let's look back at MC vs DRG Code S match. MC opened up with SG (5 Phx) into Robo and DRG opt for the usual lings/hydra. DRG defended well without taking any significant damage while constant engaging MC thinking DRG will stick to same lings/hydra while switch into muta. From there, MC never come back once mass muta is out. And due to certain maps, you WILL NOT be able to secure 3rd. And since MC on 1 SG, it's almost impossible to seat back and defend.
So what? Base race. Protoss always lose on a base race with mass muta Z. Once plyon's are down, you can't warp more units. What Z do is MASS SPINES and win.
On April 12 2013 14:51 Salivanth wrote: "MC, the king of trickery and 2 base play, has been extremely successful over a long career with protoss..."
"The deciding factors in every PvT are the same: how well does protoss defend aggression, and can he take his third? If a build doesn't allow these things, it's just not used."
That is completely inconsistent, and to be honest, it ruined the post for me.
You don't think it's just a little gimmicky that modern PvT revolves around attacking the terran when you have 3-3 but he doesn't, and when you have both storm and colossi, but he doesn't have both ghosts and vikings?
Edit: Besides, MC just had a ton of success in PvT by metagaming his opponents heavily. Do you really think his success in that matchup will last?
How is that a gimmick? It's a large timing. There are some definite flaws in Protoss design, but I'm not even sure what this is really addressing. What's a gimmick in your eyes? What do you mean by macro play? Cause I think if you have 3-3 on 3-4 bases, that's as macro as you can get.
All you have to do is build some colossi and you will be just fine OP. Sometimes protoss players forget to do that and it causes them to lose a few games, but once you remember how to build colossi (or high templar) then you will be fine.
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
I think the main problem is Protoss has too much utility such as Colossus, oracles, MSC, FF, Blink Stalkers, etc. If synergized properly, then it would definitely be very difficult for the other races to stop it! However, the problem is that we want this game to be balanced. I am glad that the all-ins have been nerfed; however, the main issue is that the protoss is too reliant on the combination of units to be powerful.
I remember in BW. You did not need as many spells to win games. But in SC2, Protoss became more of a micro race in a MACRO-based game. To propose nerfs on the other races is not advisable because that would only make the other races just as boring. If anything, I think Blizzard needs to grant greater flexibility to the Protoss units and give room for Protoss players to play simpler instead of relying on complex deathballs. If anything, they should grant toss units affordable abilities that would be good for early/mid game but useless late game (Terran has the widow mine that fits that role while the Zerg has the multalisk; oracles don't count because they are comparably expensive.)
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
How is this not a balance whine? Protoss can take a 3rd, it might be harder, or require different reactions, but isn't that the point of a different race?
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
Yeah the Oracle is basically the same kind of harrass as the DT. Game ending if not prepared for, but useless otherwise. Drops can still be effective even if your opponent prepares for them simply because of the DPS and survivability of 8 stimmed Marines with Medivac support.
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
How is this not a balance whine? Protoss can take a 3rd, it might be harder, or require different reactions, but isn't that the point of a different race?
It isn't balance whine at all. The point is that Protoss have a massive disparity in macro mechanics compared to Zerg, and this leads to timings based around units or upgrades (+1, Blink, Void Rays, Colossus, ect...) being the best way to combat a Zerg player because you simply won't be able to keep up economically. In terms of balance this means that Protoss is most effective when a new powerful timing comes out that Zerg hasn't figured out, and Zerg is most powerful when they have figured out all the Protoss timings. This has been the history of the SC2 so far.
Terran also suffers from this problem but is able to combat it with effective harassment, thus allowing them to both harass the Zerg and macro up. Protoss has to commit a lot more to get the same damage done, and their harass forces are weaker and more reliant on their opponent being unprepared (DT's and Oracles).
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
Yeah the Oracle is basically the same kind of harrass as the DT. Game ending if not prepared for, but useless otherwise. Drops can still be effective even if your opponent prepares for them simply because of the DPS and survivability of 8 stimmed Marines with Medivac support.
Look, if you're going to harass a base with 4 spines and a spore, there is no possible way for a drop, a DT, or anything to do really any damage.
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
I will answer that question. Protoss has upgrades that cost less and are cheaper and that give more benefit (ground upgrades in WOL covered basically every unit protoss built including their structures whereas terran had 3 different sets of upgrades including an additional upgrade structure). Also chrono boost can be used on tech, in addition to the fact that you are ignoring the warp gate mechanic. Building units is invariably an aspect of sound macro and protoss can build their units immediately with warp gate. To say that all protoss has in terms of macro mechanics is early game chrono is untrue and deceptive considering protoss as a race does have a number of unique macro advantages.
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
How is this not a balance whine? Protoss can take a 3rd, it might be harder, or require different reactions, but isn't that the point of a different race?
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
Yeah the Oracle is basically the same kind of harrass as the DT. Game ending if not prepared for, but useless otherwise. Drops can still be effective even if your opponent prepares for them simply because of the DPS and survivability of 8 stimmed Marines with Medivac support.
Look, if you're going to harass a base with 4 spines and a spore, there is no possible way for a drop, a DT, or anything to do really any damage.
LOOK, if you gonna harass multiple bases with DTs in late game is MORE efficient than buying Oracle.
Am I the only one around here who feels that the game would have been much more enjoyable over the past few years if protoss never had the sentry or warp tech, or at least different versions of them that lent themselves to aggression?
This oh so much this... I dont like the sentry at all. In fact I genuinly hate it and find it to be the most boring unit in the game.
It totally fucks up any ground army a zerg might try to use against a deathball, combines with the MSC its even more stupid.
But I dont think the problem is only in WG mechanics / sentry.
Terran are waaay to cost-efficient with minerals + deathball of bio dps + unlimited unit selection. Add medivacs to that and nothing is equally cost-efficient. In order to counter that somehow, P needed stronk aoe (colo) and a way to make that aoe efficient (sentries). Now imagine gateway units without sentries fighting Zerg Tier 1. Its just laughable. its retarded how bad it is. With sentries though.... Now add in infestors (think WoL) which is the way zerg was cost efficient against the bio deathball crap. and its again a fucked up matchup... I dont know how much it would help but I think medics rather than medivacs would improve the game quite a bit, it would certainly lower the dps of the unlimited selection bioball, perhaps that would result in a posibility to nerf the aoe from protoss and buff their GW units a bit (keep in mind zealot pressure early game against Zerg is still incredibly cost efficient for the protoss) to keep them as a part of their core army. and make WG units weaker or perhaps even remove the WG mechanic. Now buff the zerglings a bit and we might not even need the incredibly gas heavy eco system that protoss and Zerg rely on to be remotely cost efficient.
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
I will answer that question. Protoss has upgrades that cost less and are cheaper and that give more benefit (ground upgrades in WOL covered basically every unit protoss built including their structures whereas terran had 3 different sets of upgrades including an additional upgrade structure). Also chrono boost can be used on tech, in addition to the fact that you are ignoring the warp gate mechanic. Building units is invariably an aspect of sound macro and protoss can build their units immediately with warp gate. To say that all protoss has in terms of macro mechanics is early game chrono is untrue and deceptive considering protoss as a race does have a number of unique macro advantages.
Perhaps it would be better of him to say that Zerg and Terran have economic advantages of Protoss, rather than macro, since macro can be broadly defined.
In both standard PvZ and PvT the Protoss player falls behind in economy and takes a tech advantage to attempt to make up for this. This is also because of chronoboost, this Protoss macro mechanic can be used to speed tech instead of economy, while Mules and Larva only help economically.
Protoss also lacks really effective harass, so that tech you're investing into is likely going to be army (deathball) tech especially since you're behind in economy and so naturally you plan to hit a timing with your advanced tech before your opponents superior economy leads to superior tech, and then you're behind in both economy and tech.
I just learned a lot about Protoss in writing that... and now I have a better understanding of why timings attacks are a great way to play Protoss... perhaps the solution here is to give Protoss better harrass or better economic advantages and nerf their end tech units a bit? Or maybe even just make Chronoboost better at helping Protoss economy and take away it's ability to speed tech... this might put Protoss on par with the other races economically and reduce the power of timings...
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
Yeah the Oracle is basically the same kind of harrass as the DT. Game ending if not prepared for, but useless otherwise. Drops can still be effective even if your opponent prepares for them simply because of the DPS and survivability of 8 stimmed Marines with Medivac support.
Look, if you're going to harass a base with 4 spines and a spore, there is no possible way for a drop, a DT, or anything to do really any damage.
8 marines with stim and a Medivac can combat that easily. Either the Spines are group and you go around them, or they are spread and you fight one of them and kill it easily, and then do economic damage.
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
How is this not a balance whine? Protoss can take a 3rd, it might be harder, or require different reactions, but isn't that the point of a different race?
당신은 이해 못해요! Z is T_T
맞는데 세상에 걱정 문제 없는 사람은 없지~ I don't play Protoss and I really don't have an informed opinion but it's silly to over-exaggerate how easy other races have it.
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
I will answer that question. Protoss has upgrades that cost less and are cheaper and that give more benefit (ground upgrades in WOL covered basically every unit protoss built including their structures whereas terran had 3 different sets of upgrades including an additional upgrade structure). Also chrono boost can be used on tech, in addition to the fact that you are ignoring the warp gate mechanic. Building units is invariably an aspect of sound macro and protoss can build their units immediately with warp gate. To say that all protoss has in terms of macro mechanics is early game chrono is untrue and deceptive considering protoss as a race does have a number of unique macro advantages.
Perhaps it would be better of him to say that Zerg and Terran have economic advantages of Protoss, rather than macro, since macro can be broadly defined.
In both standard PvZ and PvT the Protoss player falls behind in economy and takes a tech advantage to attempt to make up for this. This is also because of chronoboost, this Protoss macro mechanic can be used to speed tech instead of economy, while Mules and Larva only help economically.
Protoss also lacks really effective harass, so that tech you're investing into is likely going to be army (deathball) tech especially since you're behind in economy and so naturally you plan to hit a timing with your advanced tech before your opponents superior economy leads to superior tech, and then you're behind in both economy and tech.
I just learned a lot about Protoss in writing that... and now I have a better understanding of why timings attacks are a great way to play Protoss... perhaps the solution here is to give Protoss better harrass or better economic advantages and nerf their end tech units a bit?
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
Yeah the Oracle is basically the same kind of harrass as the DT. Game ending if not prepared for, but useless otherwise. Drops can still be effective even if your opponent prepares for them simply because of the DPS and survivability of 8 stimmed Marines with Medivac support.
Look, if you're going to harass a base with 4 spines and a spore, there is no possible way for a drop, a DT, or anything to do really any damage.
8 marines with stim and a Medivac can combat that easily. Either the Spines are group and you go around them, or they are spread and you fight one of them and kill it easily, and then do economic damage.
You mean when marines drop one at a time and they get poked to death before the other guys can get down and by the time all 8 marines are unloaded, you're left with 2-3? The point of medivac drops and/or harass isn't to do economic damage, but to pull the other guy out of position. Anything else is extra.
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
I will answer that question. Protoss has upgrades that cost less and are cheaper and that give more benefit (ground upgrades in WOL covered basically every unit protoss built including their structures whereas terran had 3 different sets of upgrades including an additional upgrade structure). Also chrono boost can be used on tech, in addition to the fact that you are ignoring the warp gate mechanic. Building units is invariably an aspect of sound macro and protoss can build their units immediately with warp gate. To say that all protoss has in terms of macro mechanics is early game chrono is untrue and deceptive considering protoss as a race does have a number of unique macro advantages.
Perhaps it would be better of him to say that Zerg and Terran have economic advantages of Protoss, rather than macro, since macro can be broadly defined.
In both standard PvZ and PvT the Protoss player falls behind in economy and takes a tech advantage to attempt to make up for this. This is also because of chronoboost, this Protoss macro mechanic can be used to speed tech instead of economy, while Mules and Larva only help economically.
Protoss also lacks really effective harass, so that tech you're investing into is likely going to be army (deathball) tech especially since you're behind in economy and so naturally you plan to hit a timing with your advanced tech before your opponents superior economy leads to superior tech, and then you're behind in both economy and tech.
I just learned a lot about Protoss in writing that... and now I have a better understanding of why timings attacks are a great way to play Protoss... perhaps the solution here is to give Protoss better harrass or better economic advantages and nerf their end tech units a bit?
On April 12 2013 15:37 Chaggi wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:35 BronzeKnee wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:29 Kim Hyuna wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:25 BronzeKnee wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
Yeah the Oracle is basically the same kind of harrass as the DT. Game ending if not prepared for, but useless otherwise. Drops can still be effective even if your opponent prepares for them simply because of the DPS and survivability of 8 stimmed Marines with Medivac support.
Look, if you're going to harass a base with 4 spines and a spore, there is no possible way for a drop, a DT, or anything to do really any damage.
8 marines with stim and a Medivac can combat that easily. Either the Spines are group and you go around them, or they are spread and you fight one of them and kill it easily, and then do economic damage.
You mean when marines drop one at a time and they get poked to death before the other guys can get down and by the time all 8 marines are unloaded, you're left with 2-3? The point of medivac drops and/or harass isn't to do economic damage, but to pull the other guy out of position. Anything else is extra.
Pretty sure 8 Marines dropped from a Medivac in succession will result in more than 2-3 alive by the time they are all down versus 1 Spine Crawler... I could be wrong since I play Protoss, but I know how badly a single Cannon fairs against 8 Marines dropped, so much so that I target the Medivac with the Cannon.
Also, what is the point of double drops then? Pull the guy out of position twice at the same time? That makes no sense.
No, pull him one way so you can do economic damage on the other front. Sometimes drops are used to pull armies around so damage can be done elsewhere, but at least just as often the point of a drop is economic damage.
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
I will answer that question. Protoss has upgrades that cost less and are cheaper and that give more benefit (ground upgrades in WOL covered basically every unit protoss built including their structures whereas terran had 3 different sets of upgrades including an additional upgrade structure). Also chrono boost can be used on tech, in addition to the fact that you are ignoring the warp gate mechanic. Building units is invariably an aspect of sound macro and protoss can build their units immediately with warp gate. To say that all protoss has in terms of macro mechanics is early game chrono is untrue and deceptive considering protoss as a race does have a number of unique macro advantages.
Perhaps it would be better of him to say that Zerg and Terran have economic advantages of Protoss, rather than macro, since macro can be broadly defined.
In both standard PvZ and PvT the Protoss player falls behind in economy and takes a tech advantage to attempt to make up for this. This is also because of chronoboost, this Protoss macro mechanic can be used to speed tech instead of economy, while Mules and Larva only help economically.
Protoss also lacks really effective harass, so that tech you're investing into is likely going to be army (deathball) tech especially since you're behind in economy and so naturally you plan to hit a timing with your advanced tech before your opponents superior economy leads to superior tech, and then you're behind in both economy and tech.
I just learned a lot about Protoss in writing that... and now I have a better understanding of why timings attacks are a great way to play Protoss... perhaps the solution here is to give Protoss better harrass or better economic advantages and nerf their end tech units a bit?
On April 12 2013 15:37 Chaggi wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:35 BronzeKnee wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:29 Kim Hyuna wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:25 BronzeKnee wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
Yeah the Oracle is basically the same kind of harrass as the DT. Game ending if not prepared for, but useless otherwise. Drops can still be effective even if your opponent prepares for them simply because of the DPS and survivability of 8 stimmed Marines with Medivac support.
Look, if you're going to harass a base with 4 spines and a spore, there is no possible way for a drop, a DT, or anything to do really any damage.
8 marines with stim and a Medivac can combat that easily. Either the Spines are group and you go around them, or they are spread and you fight one of them and kill it easily, and then do economic damage.
You mean when marines drop one at a time and they get poked to death before the other guys can get down and by the time all 8 marines are unloaded, you're left with 2-3? The point of medivac drops and/or harass isn't to do economic damage, but to pull the other guy out of position. Anything else is extra.
Pretty sure 8 Marines dropped from a Medivac in succession will result in more than 2-3 alive by the time they are all down versus 1 Spine Crawler... I could be wrong...
vs 1, but if you have 3-4 which is common in 4+ bases, it's much harder to harass. What's the problem with 1 spine for Protoss?
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
I will answer that question. Protoss has upgrades that cost less and are cheaper and that give more benefit (ground upgrades in WOL covered basically every unit protoss built including their structures whereas terran had 3 different sets of upgrades including an additional upgrade structure). Also chrono boost can be used on tech, in addition to the fact that you are ignoring the warp gate mechanic. Building units is invariably an aspect of sound macro and protoss can build their units immediately with warp gate. To say that all protoss has in terms of macro mechanics is early game chrono is untrue and deceptive considering protoss as a race does have a number of unique macro advantages.
Perhaps it would be better of him to say that Zerg and Terran have economic advantages of Protoss, rather than macro, since macro can be broadly defined.
In both standard PvZ and PvT the Protoss player falls behind in economy and takes a tech advantage to attempt to make up for this. This is also because of chronoboost, this Protoss macro mechanic can be used to speed tech instead of economy, while Mules and Larva only help economically.
Protoss also lacks really effective harass, so that tech you're investing into is likely going to be army (deathball) tech especially since you're behind in economy and so naturally you plan to hit a timing with your advanced tech before your opponents superior economy leads to superior tech, and then you're behind in both economy and tech.
I just learned a lot about Protoss in writing that... and now I have a better understanding of why timings attacks are a great way to play Protoss... perhaps the solution here is to give Protoss better harrass or better economic advantages and nerf their end tech units a bit?
On April 12 2013 15:37 Chaggi wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:35 BronzeKnee wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:29 Kim Hyuna wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:25 BronzeKnee wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
Yeah the Oracle is basically the same kind of harrass as the DT. Game ending if not prepared for, but useless otherwise. Drops can still be effective even if your opponent prepares for them simply because of the DPS and survivability of 8 stimmed Marines with Medivac support.
Look, if you're going to harass a base with 4 spines and a spore, there is no possible way for a drop, a DT, or anything to do really any damage.
8 marines with stim and a Medivac can combat that easily. Either the Spines are group and you go around them, or they are spread and you fight one of them and kill it easily, and then do economic damage.
You mean when marines drop one at a time and they get poked to death before the other guys can get down and by the time all 8 marines are unloaded, you're left with 2-3? The point of medivac drops and/or harass isn't to do economic damage, but to pull the other guy out of position. Anything else is extra.
Pretty sure 8 Marines dropped from a Medivac in succession will result in more than 2-3 alive by the time they are all down versus 1 Spine Crawler... I could be wrong...
vs 1, but if you have 3-4 which is common in 4+ bases, it's much harder to harass. What's the problem with 1 spine for Protoss?
With Protoss you're likely going to be harrasing with Zealots or DT's. They are melee and so the 4 Spines can be spread and cover each other nicely protecting the base in such a way that it forces you to engage all of them if you want to kill the base. But as I said with Terran, your harassing with ranged units, and thus can isolate the Spines if they are separated, or you can just go around them if they are clumped, because you have the advantage of range.
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
I will answer that question. Protoss has upgrades that cost less and are cheaper and that give more benefit (ground upgrades in WOL covered basically every unit protoss built including their structures whereas terran had 3 different sets of upgrades including an additional upgrade structure). Also chrono boost can be used on tech, in addition to the fact that you are ignoring the warp gate mechanic. Building units is invariably an aspect of sound macro and protoss can build their units immediately with warp gate. To say that all protoss has in terms of macro mechanics is early game chrono is untrue and deceptive considering protoss as a race does have a number of unique macro advantages.
Perhaps it would be better of him to say that Zerg and Terran have economic advantages of Protoss, rather than macro, since macro can be broadly defined.
In both standard PvZ and PvT the Protoss player falls behind in economy and takes a tech advantage to attempt to make up for this. This is also because of chronoboost, this Protoss macro mechanic can be used to speed tech instead of economy, while Mules and Larva only help economically.
Protoss also lacks really effective harass, so that tech you're investing into is likely going to be army (deathball) tech especially since you're behind in economy and so naturally you plan to hit a timing with your advanced tech before your opponents superior economy leads to superior tech, and then you're behind in both economy and tech.
I just learned a lot about Protoss in writing that... and now I have a better understanding of why timings attacks are a great way to play Protoss... perhaps the solution here is to give Protoss better harrass or better economic advantages and nerf their end tech units a bit?
On April 12 2013 15:37 Chaggi wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:35 BronzeKnee wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:29 Kim Hyuna wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:25 BronzeKnee wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
Yeah the Oracle is basically the same kind of harrass as the DT. Game ending if not prepared for, but useless otherwise. Drops can still be effective even if your opponent prepares for them simply because of the DPS and survivability of 8 stimmed Marines with Medivac support.
Look, if you're going to harass a base with 4 spines and a spore, there is no possible way for a drop, a DT, or anything to do really any damage.
8 marines with stim and a Medivac can combat that easily. Either the Spines are group and you go around them, or they are spread and you fight one of them and kill it easily, and then do economic damage.
You mean when marines drop one at a time and they get poked to death before the other guys can get down and by the time all 8 marines are unloaded, you're left with 2-3? The point of medivac drops and/or harass isn't to do economic damage, but to pull the other guy out of position. Anything else is extra.
Pretty sure 8 Marines dropped from a Medivac in succession will result in more than 2-3 alive by the time they are all down versus 1 Spine Crawler... I could be wrong since I play Protoss, but I know how badly a single Cannon fairs against 8 Marines dropped, so much so that I target the Medivac with the Cannon.
Also, what is the point of double drops then? Pull the guy out of position twice at the same time? That makes no sense.
No, pull him one way so you can do economic damage on the other front. Sometimes drops are used to pull armies around so damage can be done elsewhere, but at least just as often the point of a drop is economic damage.
The double drop is to do damage, but the idea is the same, to pull armies out of position (yes, twice at the same time, and this is a really simple example but if I'm dropping at the main w/ marauders and dropping at the 3rd with lings, they shouldn't use roaches to defend their main, just like using lings to defend their 3rd is probably not the best idea, making these decisions is a big part of why double drops can be so strong) so they have to choose where to defend. I have too often see protoss warp in things at proxy/warp prism's at my 3rd or 4th, and DT harass my main and natural.
Interesting read, but sadly, I think the sc2 protoss philosophy simply is all-or-nothing. Protoss are stupidly strong at times, but incredibly limited otherwise, and I think that's just how they will continue to be. Rebalancing any of their units would require rebalancing ALL of their units.
Although I'm sure there's a bandwagon against this thinking, HotS is still really new, and we really do have to see how the results go before balancing.
Also, plenty of Kespa teams seem to have faith in P as a race.
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
I will answer that question. Protoss has upgrades that cost less and are cheaper and that give more benefit (ground upgrades in WOL covered basically every unit protoss built including their structures whereas terran had 3 different sets of upgrades including an additional upgrade structure). Also chrono boost can be used on tech, in addition to the fact that you are ignoring the warp gate mechanic. Building units is invariably an aspect of sound macro and protoss can build their units immediately with warp gate. To say that all protoss has in terms of macro mechanics is early game chrono is untrue and deceptive considering protoss as a race does have a number of unique macro advantages.
Perhaps it would be better of him to say that Zerg and Terran have economic advantages of Protoss, rather than macro, since macro can be broadly defined.
In both standard PvZ and PvT the Protoss player falls behind in economy and takes a tech advantage to attempt to make up for this. This is also because of chronoboost, this Protoss macro mechanic can be used to speed tech instead of economy, while Mules and Larva only help economically.
Protoss also lacks really effective harass, so that tech you're investing into is likely going to be army (deathball) tech especially since you're behind in economy and so naturally you plan to hit a timing with your advanced tech before your opponents superior economy leads to superior tech, and then you're behind in both economy and tech.
I just learned a lot about Protoss in writing that... and now I have a better understanding of why timings attacks are a great way to play Protoss... perhaps the solution here is to give Protoss better harrass or better economic advantages and nerf their end tech units a bit?
On April 12 2013 15:37 Chaggi wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:35 BronzeKnee wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:29 Kim Hyuna wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:25 BronzeKnee wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
Yeah the Oracle is basically the same kind of harrass as the DT. Game ending if not prepared for, but useless otherwise. Drops can still be effective even if your opponent prepares for them simply because of the DPS and survivability of 8 stimmed Marines with Medivac support.
Look, if you're going to harass a base with 4 spines and a spore, there is no possible way for a drop, a DT, or anything to do really any damage.
8 marines with stim and a Medivac can combat that easily. Either the Spines are group and you go around them, or they are spread and you fight one of them and kill it easily, and then do economic damage.
You mean when marines drop one at a time and they get poked to death before the other guys can get down and by the time all 8 marines are unloaded, you're left with 2-3? The point of medivac drops and/or harass isn't to do economic damage, but to pull the other guy out of position. Anything else is extra.
Pretty sure 8 Marines dropped from a Medivac in succession will result in more than 2-3 alive by the time they are all down versus 1 Spine Crawler... I could be wrong...
vs 1, but if you have 3-4 which is common in 4+ bases, it's much harder to harass. What's the problem with 1 spine for Protoss?
With Protoss you're likely going to be harrasing with Zealots or DT's. They are melee and so the 4 Spines can be spread and cover each other nicely. And as I said with Terran your harassing with a ranged units, and thus can isolate the Spines if they are separated, or you can just go around them if they are clumped.
very rarely when there's more than 1 spine does only 1 attack at once. The difference of melee vs ranged is a big difference and probably does make a difference in the viability of Protoss harass vs Terran harass (also the longevity of units, like we saw in Fantasy vs anyone in the GSL when he kept his drops alive for so so long). But if you warp in 5-6 zealots w/ 1-2 DTs, you can do damage faster than my marines.
I think for Protoss to complain about a lack of harass options, I just say they haven't tried it enough.
This, this, this. One hundred times this. The only reason why protoss is not more successful in tournaments is exactly this. You have to rely on somewhat-gimmicks like forcefield, etc. to both defend and attack and only players who have that stuff down perfectly and rely manage to FF perfectly, storm perfectly, etc. a whole tournament long will have success as protoss. And that's hard as hell to do because you have to forcefield, storm, etc. reactionary. It's super easy to make mistakes with forcefielding (overlap, holes between the FFs, blocking your own units, forcefielding in too much army, wasting forcefields, ETC) and lose a game that way. It's gimmicky, no other word to describe it.
+1 for stronger gateway units and less relying on gimmicks to survive/win.
Edit: this is not about protoss being too weak. Protoss is looking very strong in HotS if played well. It's just overall the most fragile race in the early to midgame imo and the easiest to mess up with and lose a game due to that.
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
I will answer that question. Protoss has upgrades that cost less and are cheaper and that give more benefit (ground upgrades in WOL covered basically every unit protoss built including their structures whereas terran had 3 different sets of upgrades including an additional upgrade structure). Also chrono boost can be used on tech, in addition to the fact that you are ignoring the warp gate mechanic. Building units is invariably an aspect of sound macro and protoss can build their units immediately with warp gate. To say that all protoss has in terms of macro mechanics is early game chrono is untrue and deceptive considering protoss as a race does have a number of unique macro advantages.
Perhaps it would be better of him to say that Zerg and Terran have economic advantages of Protoss, rather than macro, since macro can be broadly defined.
In both standard PvZ and PvT the Protoss player falls behind in economy and takes a tech advantage to attempt to make up for this. This is also because of chronoboost, this Protoss macro mechanic can be used to speed tech instead of economy, while Mules and Larva only help economically.
Protoss also lacks really effective harass, so that tech you're investing into is likely going to be army (deathball) tech especially since you're behind in economy and so naturally you plan to hit a timing with your advanced tech before your opponents superior economy leads to superior tech, and then you're behind in both economy and tech.
I just learned a lot about Protoss in writing that... and now I have a better understanding of why timings attacks are a great way to play Protoss... perhaps the solution here is to give Protoss better harrass or better economic advantages and nerf their end tech units a bit?
On April 12 2013 15:37 Chaggi wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:35 BronzeKnee wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:29 Kim Hyuna wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:25 BronzeKnee wrote: [quote]
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
Yeah the Oracle is basically the same kind of harrass as the DT. Game ending if not prepared for, but useless otherwise. Drops can still be effective even if your opponent prepares for them simply because of the DPS and survivability of 8 stimmed Marines with Medivac support.
Look, if you're going to harass a base with 4 spines and a spore, there is no possible way for a drop, a DT, or anything to do really any damage.
8 marines with stim and a Medivac can combat that easily. Either the Spines are group and you go around them, or they are spread and you fight one of them and kill it easily, and then do economic damage.
You mean when marines drop one at a time and they get poked to death before the other guys can get down and by the time all 8 marines are unloaded, you're left with 2-3? The point of medivac drops and/or harass isn't to do economic damage, but to pull the other guy out of position. Anything else is extra.
Pretty sure 8 Marines dropped from a Medivac in succession will result in more than 2-3 alive by the time they are all down versus 1 Spine Crawler... I could be wrong...
vs 1, but if you have 3-4 which is common in 4+ bases, it's much harder to harass. What's the problem with 1 spine for Protoss?
With Protoss you're likely going to be harrasing with Zealots or DT's. They are melee and so the 4 Spines can be spread and cover each other nicely. And as I said with Terran your harassing with a ranged units, and thus can isolate the Spines if they are separated, or you can just go around them if they are clumped.
very rarely when there's more than 1 spine does only 1 attack at once. The difference of melee vs ranged is a big difference and probably does make a difference in the viability of Protoss harass vs Terran harass (also the longevity of units, like we saw in Fantasy vs anyone in the GSL when he kept his drops alive for so so long). But if you warp in 5-6 zealots w/ 1-2 DTs, you can do damage faster than my marines.
I think for Protoss to complain about a lack of harass options, I just say they haven't tried it enough.
Protoss harass options are limited because most their units require critical mass and synergy to do anything.
Blizzard's response is to give protoss a dedicated harass unit that is game ending if unprepared for, nigh useless otherwise.
Protoss lacking harass outside of DT's and phoenix is two fold - mobility and synergy. Also phoenix and DT don't fair too well outside of harass normally.
Protoss units are too specific, deathball or harass with little in the way of middle ground. Zealots + warp prism can do good harass but its not comparable to the other races and often not worth it as you are weakening your main army doing so, which is where protoss strength comes from at the moment - giant ball of death that everybody hates to watch and play against.
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
I will answer that question. Protoss has upgrades that cost less and are cheaper and that give more benefit (ground upgrades in WOL covered basically every unit protoss built including their structures whereas terran had 3 different sets of upgrades including an additional upgrade structure). Also chrono boost can be used on tech, in addition to the fact that you are ignoring the warp gate mechanic. Building units is invariably an aspect of sound macro and protoss can build their units immediately with warp gate. To say that all protoss has in terms of macro mechanics is early game chrono is untrue and deceptive considering protoss as a race does have a number of unique macro advantages.
Perhaps it would be better of him to say that Zerg and Terran have economic advantages of Protoss, rather than macro, since macro can be broadly defined.
In both standard PvZ and PvT the Protoss player falls behind in economy and takes a tech advantage to attempt to make up for this. This is also because of chronoboost, this Protoss macro mechanic can be used to speed tech instead of economy, while Mules and Larva only help economically.
Protoss also lacks really effective harass, so that tech you're investing into is likely going to be army (deathball) tech especially since you're behind in economy and so naturally you plan to hit a timing with your advanced tech before your opponents superior economy leads to superior tech, and then you're behind in both economy and tech.
I just learned a lot about Protoss in writing that... and now I have a better understanding of why timings attacks are a great way to play Protoss... perhaps the solution here is to give Protoss better harrass or better economic advantages and nerf their end tech units a bit?
On April 12 2013 15:37 Chaggi wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:35 BronzeKnee wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:29 Kim Hyuna wrote: [quote]
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
Yeah the Oracle is basically the same kind of harrass as the DT. Game ending if not prepared for, but useless otherwise. Drops can still be effective even if your opponent prepares for them simply because of the DPS and survivability of 8 stimmed Marines with Medivac support.
Look, if you're going to harass a base with 4 spines and a spore, there is no possible way for a drop, a DT, or anything to do really any damage.
8 marines with stim and a Medivac can combat that easily. Either the Spines are group and you go around them, or they are spread and you fight one of them and kill it easily, and then do economic damage.
You mean when marines drop one at a time and they get poked to death before the other guys can get down and by the time all 8 marines are unloaded, you're left with 2-3? The point of medivac drops and/or harass isn't to do economic damage, but to pull the other guy out of position. Anything else is extra.
Pretty sure 8 Marines dropped from a Medivac in succession will result in more than 2-3 alive by the time they are all down versus 1 Spine Crawler... I could be wrong...
vs 1, but if you have 3-4 which is common in 4+ bases, it's much harder to harass. What's the problem with 1 spine for Protoss?
With Protoss you're likely going to be harrasing with Zealots or DT's. They are melee and so the 4 Spines can be spread and cover each other nicely. And as I said with Terran your harassing with a ranged units, and thus can isolate the Spines if they are separated, or you can just go around them if they are clumped.
very rarely when there's more than 1 spine does only 1 attack at once. The difference of melee vs ranged is a big difference and probably does make a difference in the viability of Protoss harass vs Terran harass (also the longevity of units, like we saw in Fantasy vs anyone in the GSL when he kept his drops alive for so so long). But if you warp in 5-6 zealots w/ 1-2 DTs, you can do damage faster than my marines.
I think for Protoss to complain about a lack of harass options, I just say they haven't tried it enough.
Protoss harass options are limited because most their units require critical mass and synergy to do anything.
Blizzard's response is to give protoss a dedicated harass unit that is game ending if unprepared for, nigh useless otherwise.
Protoss lacking harass outside of DT's and phoenix is two fold - mobility and synergy. Also phoenix and DT don't fair too well outside of harass normally.
Protoss units are too specific, deathball or harass with little in the way of middle ground. Zealots + warp prism can do good harass but its not comparable to the other races and often not worth it as you are weakening your main army doing so, which is where protoss strength comes from at the moment - giant ball of death that everybody hates to watch and play against.
Badly designed race but not underpowered IMO.
Zealots are not comparable? I fear them most when I play, they drop 4 and warp in 4 more and againts 8 upgraded zealot I need a lot of unit. They shred buildings and reinforcements from barracks really fast and they kill scvs like nothing.
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
I will answer that question. Protoss has upgrades that cost less and are cheaper and that give more benefit (ground upgrades in WOL covered basically every unit protoss built including their structures whereas terran had 3 different sets of upgrades including an additional upgrade structure). Also chrono boost can be used on tech, in addition to the fact that you are ignoring the warp gate mechanic. Building units is invariably an aspect of sound macro and protoss can build their units immediately with warp gate. To say that all protoss has in terms of macro mechanics is early game chrono is untrue and deceptive considering protoss as a race does have a number of unique macro advantages.
Perhaps it would be better of him to say that Zerg and Terran have economic advantages of Protoss, rather than macro, since macro can be broadly defined.
In both standard PvZ and PvT the Protoss player falls behind in economy and takes a tech advantage to attempt to make up for this. This is also because of chronoboost, this Protoss macro mechanic can be used to speed tech instead of economy, while Mules and Larva only help economically.
Protoss also lacks really effective harass, so that tech you're investing into is likely going to be army (deathball) tech especially since you're behind in economy and so naturally you plan to hit a timing with your advanced tech before your opponents superior economy leads to superior tech, and then you're behind in both economy and tech.
I just learned a lot about Protoss in writing that... and now I have a better understanding of why timings attacks are a great way to play Protoss... perhaps the solution here is to give Protoss better harrass or better economic advantages and nerf their end tech units a bit?
On April 12 2013 15:37 Chaggi wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:35 BronzeKnee wrote: [quote]
Yeah the Oracle is basically the same kind of harrass as the DT. Game ending if not prepared for, but useless otherwise. Drops can still be effective even if your opponent prepares for them simply because of the DPS and survivability of 8 stimmed Marines with Medivac support.
Look, if you're going to harass a base with 4 spines and a spore, there is no possible way for a drop, a DT, or anything to do really any damage.
8 marines with stim and a Medivac can combat that easily. Either the Spines are group and you go around them, or they are spread and you fight one of them and kill it easily, and then do economic damage.
You mean when marines drop one at a time and they get poked to death before the other guys can get down and by the time all 8 marines are unloaded, you're left with 2-3? The point of medivac drops and/or harass isn't to do economic damage, but to pull the other guy out of position. Anything else is extra.
Pretty sure 8 Marines dropped from a Medivac in succession will result in more than 2-3 alive by the time they are all down versus 1 Spine Crawler... I could be wrong...
vs 1, but if you have 3-4 which is common in 4+ bases, it's much harder to harass. What's the problem with 1 spine for Protoss?
With Protoss you're likely going to be harrasing with Zealots or DT's. They are melee and so the 4 Spines can be spread and cover each other nicely. And as I said with Terran your harassing with a ranged units, and thus can isolate the Spines if they are separated, or you can just go around them if they are clumped.
very rarely when there's more than 1 spine does only 1 attack at once. The difference of melee vs ranged is a big difference and probably does make a difference in the viability of Protoss harass vs Terran harass (also the longevity of units, like we saw in Fantasy vs anyone in the GSL when he kept his drops alive for so so long). But if you warp in 5-6 zealots w/ 1-2 DTs, you can do damage faster than my marines.
I think for Protoss to complain about a lack of harass options, I just say they haven't tried it enough.
Protoss harass options are limited because most their units require critical mass and synergy to do anything.
Blizzard's response is to give protoss a dedicated harass unit that is game ending if unprepared for, nigh useless otherwise.
Protoss lacking harass outside of DT's and phoenix is two fold - mobility and synergy. Also phoenix and DT don't fair too well outside of harass normally.
Protoss units are too specific, deathball or harass with little in the way of middle ground. Zealots + warp prism can do good harass but its not comparable to the other races and often not worth it as you are weakening your main army doing so, which is where protoss strength comes from at the moment - giant ball of death that everybody hates to watch and play against.
Badly designed race but not underpowered IMO.
Zealots are not comparable? I fear them most when I play, they drop 4 and warp in 4 more and againts 8 upgraded zealot I need a lot of unit. They shred buildings and reinforcements from barracks really fast and they kill scvs like nothing.
As a terran can kite them easily, can run away from them fairly easily, and also its a huge investment to do something like that,
It is fairly powerful though poor wording on my part, most toss players would view those resources better used as part of their deathball though.
Also, once they land their zealots there's no going back, they ARE going to die no matter what, only thing that matters is how much damage they do. Whereas with marine drops they can continue dropping and fall back with boosters readily, the main point of a marine drop is to divert or contain whereas the main point of a zealot drop is normally to do damage. It's not their damage that isn't comparable its their mobility.
On April 12 2013 16:10 DarkLordOlli wrote: This, this, this. One hundred times this. The only reason why protoss is not more successful in tournaments is exactly this. You have to rely on somewhat-gimmicks like forcefield, etc. to both defend and attack and only players who have that stuff down perfectly and rely manage to FF perfectly, storm perfectly, etc. a whole tournament long will have success as protoss. And that's hard as hell to do because you have to forcefield, storm, etc. reactionary. It's super easy to make mistakes with forcefielding (overlap, holes between the FFs, blocking your own units, forcefielding in too much army, wasting forcefields, ETC) and lose a game that way. It's gimmicky, no other word to describe it.
+1 for stronger gateway units and less relying on gimmicks to survive/win.
Edit: this is not about protoss being too weak. Protoss is looking very strong in HotS if played well. It's just overall the most fragile race in the early to midgame imo and the easiest to mess up with and lose a game due to that.
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...
Interesting post, especially about the macro mechanics. But can you answer this question for me: Obviously Terran a similar (though slightly less) disparity in macro mechanics, but they seem to be handle Zerg without relying on timings, it would seem to me that this because Terran has much better ways to harass and be aggressive without committing, is this correct?
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
I will answer that question. Protoss has upgrades that cost less and are cheaper and that give more benefit (ground upgrades in WOL covered basically every unit protoss built including their structures whereas terran had 3 different sets of upgrades including an additional upgrade structure). Also chrono boost can be used on tech, in addition to the fact that you are ignoring the warp gate mechanic. Building units is invariably an aspect of sound macro and protoss can build their units immediately with warp gate. To say that all protoss has in terms of macro mechanics is early game chrono is untrue and deceptive considering protoss as a race does have a number of unique macro advantages.
Perhaps it would be better of him to say that Zerg and Terran have economic advantages of Protoss, rather than macro, since macro can be broadly defined.
In both standard PvZ and PvT the Protoss player falls behind in economy and takes a tech advantage to attempt to make up for this. This is also because of chronoboost, this Protoss macro mechanic can be used to speed tech instead of economy, while Mules and Larva only help economically.
Protoss also lacks really effective harass, so that tech you're investing into is likely going to be army (deathball) tech especially since you're behind in economy and so naturally you plan to hit a timing with your advanced tech before your opponents superior economy leads to superior tech, and then you're behind in both economy and tech.
I just learned a lot about Protoss in writing that... and now I have a better understanding of why timings attacks are a great way to play Protoss... perhaps the solution here is to give Protoss better harrass or better economic advantages and nerf their end tech units a bit?
On April 12 2013 15:37 Chaggi wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:35 BronzeKnee wrote:
On April 12 2013 15:29 Kim Hyuna wrote: [quote]
Terran abuse multiple drop play to keep Z in base while marco-ing up or secure 3rd. With the current turbo medivacs, it is even safer to marco up to keep on par in terms of economy.
1 queen inject = 6 workers and terran has mule. What does P has? Chronoboost only helps in early game.
Protoss oracle is shit.
Btw, am not crying balance. Just feel how HOTS protoss performing now.. T_T
Yeah the Oracle is basically the same kind of harrass as the DT. Game ending if not prepared for, but useless otherwise. Drops can still be effective even if your opponent prepares for them simply because of the DPS and survivability of 8 stimmed Marines with Medivac support.
Look, if you're going to harass a base with 4 spines and a spore, there is no possible way for a drop, a DT, or anything to do really any damage.
8 marines with stim and a Medivac can combat that easily. Either the Spines are group and you go around them, or they are spread and you fight one of them and kill it easily, and then do economic damage.
You mean when marines drop one at a time and they get poked to death before the other guys can get down and by the time all 8 marines are unloaded, you're left with 2-3? The point of medivac drops and/or harass isn't to do economic damage, but to pull the other guy out of position. Anything else is extra.
Pretty sure 8 Marines dropped from a Medivac in succession will result in more than 2-3 alive by the time they are all down versus 1 Spine Crawler... I could be wrong...
vs 1, but if you have 3-4 which is common in 4+ bases, it's much harder to harass. What's the problem with 1 spine for Protoss?
With Protoss you're likely going to be harrasing with Zealots or DT's. They are melee and so the 4 Spines can be spread and cover each other nicely. And as I said with Terran your harassing with a ranged units, and thus can isolate the Spines if they are separated, or you can just go around them if they are clumped.
very rarely when there's more than 1 spine does only 1 attack at once. The difference of melee vs ranged is a big difference and probably does make a difference in the viability of Protoss harass vs Terran harass (also the longevity of units, like we saw in Fantasy vs anyone in the GSL when he kept his drops alive for so so long). But if you warp in 5-6 zealots w/ 1-2 DTs, you can do damage faster than my marines.
I think for Protoss to complain about a lack of harass options, I just say they haven't tried it enough.
Protoss harass options are limited because most their units require critical mass and synergy to do anything.
Blizzard's response is to give protoss a dedicated harass unit that is game ending if unprepared for, nigh useless otherwise.
Protoss lacking harass outside of DT's and phoenix is two fold - mobility and synergy. Also phoenix and DT don't fair too well outside of harass normally.
Protoss units are too specific, deathball or harass with little in the way of middle ground. Zealots + warp prism can do good harass but its not comparable to the other races and often not worth it as you are weakening your main army doing so, which is where protoss strength comes from at the moment - giant ball of death that everybody hates to watch and play against.
Badly designed race but not underpowered IMO.
While I strongly agree that Protoss is pretty trash without hitting that critical mass (a horrible design outcome), Protoss harass options aren't as limited as you think. You mentioned that Terran can just kite the zealots. Well, sure, to be cost effective, we have to kite.
Imagine a situation where you warp in 4-6 zealots in a 3rd or 4th, drop a warp prism full of zealots in the main. Terran HAS to micro or commit a lot of units to each base's defense. And then the Protoss just pushes into maybe the natural or whatever they want to kill. That could very well be a killing blow. There isn't many Terrans that can defend an attack from multiple sides, and deal with a deathball that requires splitting, kiting and EMP's just to survive. You don't do one of them, and the Protoss lands a storm or two, you're pretty dead.
Of course that takes a lot of coordination, but Protoss losing a few zealots to push the Terran army out of position and force hard decisions is not a bad thing. At worst, if the Terran decides to say f it and push at Protoss, move back, turtle up, get a concave and land the good storms/feedback.
On April 12 2013 15:37 GorGor wrote: [quote] I will answer that question. Protoss has upgrades that cost less and are cheaper and that give more benefit (ground upgrades in WOL covered basically every unit protoss built including their structures whereas terran had 3 different sets of upgrades including an additional upgrade structure). Also chrono boost can be used on tech, in addition to the fact that you are ignoring the warp gate mechanic. Building units is invariably an aspect of sound macro and protoss can build their units immediately with warp gate. To say that all protoss has in terms of macro mechanics is early game chrono is untrue and deceptive considering protoss as a race does have a number of unique macro advantages.
Perhaps it would be better of him to say that Zerg and Terran have economic advantages of Protoss, rather than macro, since macro can be broadly defined.
In both standard PvZ and PvT the Protoss player falls behind in economy and takes a tech advantage to attempt to make up for this. This is also because of chronoboost, this Protoss macro mechanic can be used to speed tech instead of economy, while Mules and Larva only help economically.
Protoss also lacks really effective harass, so that tech you're investing into is likely going to be army (deathball) tech especially since you're behind in economy and so naturally you plan to hit a timing with your advanced tech before your opponents superior economy leads to superior tech, and then you're behind in both economy and tech.
I just learned a lot about Protoss in writing that... and now I have a better understanding of why timings attacks are a great way to play Protoss... perhaps the solution here is to give Protoss better harrass or better economic advantages and nerf their end tech units a bit?
On April 12 2013 15:37 Chaggi wrote: [quote]
Look, if you're going to harass a base with 4 spines and a spore, there is no possible way for a drop, a DT, or anything to do really any damage.
8 marines with stim and a Medivac can combat that easily. Either the Spines are group and you go around them, or they are spread and you fight one of them and kill it easily, and then do economic damage.
You mean when marines drop one at a time and they get poked to death before the other guys can get down and by the time all 8 marines are unloaded, you're left with 2-3? The point of medivac drops and/or harass isn't to do economic damage, but to pull the other guy out of position. Anything else is extra.
Pretty sure 8 Marines dropped from a Medivac in succession will result in more than 2-3 alive by the time they are all down versus 1 Spine Crawler... I could be wrong...
vs 1, but if you have 3-4 which is common in 4+ bases, it's much harder to harass. What's the problem with 1 spine for Protoss?
With Protoss you're likely going to be harrasing with Zealots or DT's. They are melee and so the 4 Spines can be spread and cover each other nicely. And as I said with Terran your harassing with a ranged units, and thus can isolate the Spines if they are separated, or you can just go around them if they are clumped.
very rarely when there's more than 1 spine does only 1 attack at once. The difference of melee vs ranged is a big difference and probably does make a difference in the viability of Protoss harass vs Terran harass (also the longevity of units, like we saw in Fantasy vs anyone in the GSL when he kept his drops alive for so so long). But if you warp in 5-6 zealots w/ 1-2 DTs, you can do damage faster than my marines.
I think for Protoss to complain about a lack of harass options, I just say they haven't tried it enough.
Protoss harass options are limited because most their units require critical mass and synergy to do anything.
Blizzard's response is to give protoss a dedicated harass unit that is game ending if unprepared for, nigh useless otherwise.
Protoss lacking harass outside of DT's and phoenix is two fold - mobility and synergy. Also phoenix and DT don't fair too well outside of harass normally.
Protoss units are too specific, deathball or harass with little in the way of middle ground. Zealots + warp prism can do good harass but its not comparable to the other races and often not worth it as you are weakening your main army doing so, which is where protoss strength comes from at the moment - giant ball of death that everybody hates to watch and play against.
Badly designed race but not underpowered IMO.
Zealots are not comparable? I fear them most when I play, they drop 4 and warp in 4 more and againts 8 upgraded zealot I need a lot of unit. They shred buildings and reinforcements from barracks really fast and they kill scvs like nothing.
As a terran can kite them easily, can run away from them fairly easily, and also its a huge investment to do something like that,
It is fairly powerful though poor wording on my part, most toss players would view those resources better used as part of their deathball though.
Also, once they land their zealots there's no going back, they ARE going to die no matter what, only thing that matters is how much damage they do. Whereas with marine drops they can continue dropping and fall back with boosters readily, the main point of a marine drop is to divert or contain whereas the main point of a zealot drop is normally to do damage. It's not their damage that isn't comparable its their mobility.
Once again, because you know you're going to lose them, it basically means you don't have to pay attention to them. Sure, they might be cleaned up, but the Terran is spending actions trying to defend it. Once you start looking at actions like a resource, it makes more sense. No one, not Innovation, not Flash, or MKP can kite multiple groups of units across several screens especially if they are highly upgraded zealots (which in TvP, that's possible)
In most matchups one race tends to be the turtle player while the other one has the faster army and harasses more. Somehow TvZ evades this a bit where both players have pretty fast units but other matchups have always been this way, also in BW.
Sentry usage is already diminished quite a bit since you don't need them as much anymore because of the MsC. Timewarp can serve a similar role of letting you kill a 1 or 2 units if they push to far and MsC harassment style of play is being developed more. New medivacs also make sentries far less used because you need a mobile army more. For example PvT looks to be a matchup where you just make 1 or 2 sentries now and tech quicker instead of massing those forcefields. PvZ even sees them less because vipers/ultras come out quicker which counter sentries fairly well.
It is true that protoss is still the passive race too much. It's sad that mech failed in PvT because if it did work the roles would revert to protoss being the harassment player but alas, it's even more turtling than before now with the new medivacs. PvZ has a lot more harass going on now, more airplay etc. Still you are kind of forced into the deathball later just because sentries, colossi etc. need a critical mass. Stalkers are the only ground unit that can somewhat harass on their own but it's still a bit rare to see, especially since blink got nerfed.
Overall it got a little better I think, PvP especially is less colossus camping in the midgame and more open. PvT has an improved early game where P can harass and defend at the same time often, mid/lategame is still a bit lousy though with P waiting for their critical army with double aoe to kick in while defending drops. The MsC is still a bit of a failure in my eyes, I don't get why they chose to have it like they have now. Recall should never have been just a townportal like it's now, used to stop baseraces or being out of position. It should be a harassment tool! I would love to see the MsC being a little quicker (nerf it's attack to compensate early on) and restrict recall to 16 supply of units. You could do lovely harass with small squads of stalkers, maybe even colossi and drops combined but you couldn't do the free attacks with recall anymore.
And of course fix mech for TvP... Many players hate to be forced into MMM(M) almost every match with terran and facing mech occasionally on a serious note (not the random guy who does it) would be great for protoss. I like facing mech and being the harasser for a change but I face only those scrubs doing mech with only planetaries against which you just have to wait for 10 carriers to win..
Very true, points taken. Multi pronged attacks from protoss seem very powerful theoretically but I don't think I have ever seen it executed. Only reason I can think of is protoss rarely have map control which makes it very hard to drop. I've seen zealot drops and you guys are right, they do cause quite a bit of damage but it just seems so rare to see a toss player even attempt a multi pronged attack.
AFAIK blizzard has said before that they don't think protoss t1 units are "too weak" and have been strongly against any fundamental changes to early game protoss (since the WG research nerfs). Doesn't mean that they're right but I'm pretty sure that they directly addressed this complaint before in interviews.
On April 12 2013 16:55 zbedlam wrote: Very true, points taken. Multi pronged attacks from protoss seem very powerful theoretically but I don't think I have ever seen it executed. Only reason I can think of is protoss rarely have map control which makes it very hard to drop. I've seen zealot drops and you guys are right, they do cause quite a bit of damage but it just seems so rare to see a toss player even attempt a multi pronged attack.
I think it stems from the problem that Protoss really sucks when it's w/o their T3 units. I can kite zealots all day if I don't have Templar/Archon/Collossi threatening to punch me in the balls. The thing is that no matter how simple kiting is, it still takes up a lot of APM and attention, especially when it's small groups vs small groups, and considering how hard zealots are to kill with equal upgrades, multi-pronged aggression on economy is incredibly hard. Don't forget, looking at Terran, production facilities are not only expensive to produce, take a long time + addons, and require SCVs to actually build them. Supply depots almost always are sitting together, and Terran outside of Planetary, has no good ground base defense. It's incredibly easy to stretch a Terran out.
Protoss's have been doing it more though, I don't recall seeing it much in HoTS (cause I haven't seen much HOTS Protoss play) but I do know that KeSPA players like SKT1_Rain did it. In fact, when it was him vs Taeja when Taeja was an unstoppable monster of a Terran, he basically beat Taeja without even engaging in the big giant battles that TvP is known for. Complaining, writing this topic, that's not going to change anything. Sorry, it's just not. Blizzard, outside of betas, has never been known to make huge sweeping changes, and I doubt they will in a game that's 2-3 years old, even in the next expansion.
I'm not totally sure what's meant by the word "gimmick." Usually "gimmick" means either: a) a strategy or tactic that is very chance-based and coin-flippy, resulting in games being decided more by random chance than by player skill. b) a strategy or tactic that depends on the opponent making a mistake or responding incorrectly, e.g. 4gate, roach rush, or even leaving the collapsible rocks on low health and hoping your opponent runs his army through the gap. c) a strategy or tactic that depends on "weird" behavior in the game, e.g. the old 2-bunker wall-off at the bottom of the ramp before tournaments started putting neutral supply depots down there.
So I'm not really sure what is meant by "gimmick" here. Protoss certainly has strategies that fit in all three categories: DT rush is very chance-based, 4-gate is very cheesy and depends on the opponent responding badly, and sentry drop in the main to forcefield the Zerg's ramp while the army's outside is very "weird" behavior. But all three races have examples of "gimmicks." Standard Protoss play has typically involved none of the above; take expansions, defend attacks, build a strong army, and at the right time, attack with a strong timing attack. If you want more aggro options, there's always warp prism, stargate, etc. Of course, for all three races aggressive play suffers from the difficulty that if you invest in aggression and it does no damage, you'll be at least a little behind; but that's exactly how a strategy game should function. If one player invests in tech or expansions, and the other player invests in aggression but does no damage, of course the aggressive player is behind.
In terms of lack of options, far from it! In WoL TvP many Terrans felt somewhat disheartened by their lack of options; we were doomed to play bio w/ ghosts and vikings for the rest of eternity! The whole of Terran play revolved around one timing attack at around ten minutes, whereas Protoss could go for everything from mass warpgate pressure to warp prism harass to colossus play to HT play to DT play; there were so many viable compositions and playstyles the Protoss could choose from, while the Terran could only build marines, marauders, and medivacs, and then add ghosts or vikings depending on what tech path the Protoss chose.
Now in HotS I don't feel quite as limited as a Terran, but Protoss has hardly lost its options, either. If anything it's gained some, since stargate play has now been added to the wide range of strategies available to Protoss players. I'm sure someone will argue that stargate play is "gimmicky" since once players figure out how to respond to it, Protoss won't be able to go stargate any more. But it seems awfully foolish to assume stargate play will only get worse as players get experienced. Certainly that might be the case, but on the other hand perhaps Protoss players will discover new and clever ways to make stargate play work even better than it does now. Predicting the future is an awfully risky business, and it's even more so when you're merely guessing without some kind of testable model on which to base your predictions.
Is DT a gimmick? Is Stargate a gimmick? I don't even think so. Phoenix can shut down drop play, while a few oracles threatening in the base, even with a turret means that the Terran has no map presence. Imagine just walking out of the safety of the bunkers and seeing zealots/sentries/stalkers w/ oracles about to bust. DT's might not be able to do damage when it's on 2 base (but honestly, what decent player gets caught off guard by drops while on 2 base), but as soon as the Terran expands beyond 3, 4, 5, etc bases, DT's are so effective it's a wonder more people don't use it. I feel like a lot of complaints here are like if DT's are somehow not able to be warped in after the 10 minute mark.
On April 12 2013 16:55 zbedlam wrote: Very true, points taken. Multi pronged attacks from protoss seem very powerful theoretically but I don't think I have ever seen it executed. Only reason I can think of is protoss rarely have map control which makes it very hard to drop. I've seen zealot drops and you guys are right, they do cause quite a bit of damage but it just seems so rare to see a toss player even attempt a multi pronged attack.
I think it stems from the problem that Protoss really sucks when it's w/o their T3 units. I can kite zealots all day if I don't have Templar/Archon/Collossi threatening to punch me in the balls. The thing is that no matter how simple kiting is, it still takes up a lot of APM and attention, especially when it's small groups vs small groups, and considering how hard zealots are to kill with equal upgrades, multi-pronged aggression on economy is incredibly hard. Don't forget, looking at Terran, production facilities are not only expensive to produce, take a long time + addons, and require SCVs to actually build them. Supply depots almost always are sitting together, and Terran outside of Planetary, has no good ground base defense. It's incredibly easy to stretch a Terran out.
Protoss's have been doing it more though, I don't recall seeing it much in HoTS (cause I haven't seen much HOTS Protoss play) but I do know that KeSPA players like SKT1_Rain did it. In fact, when it was him vs Taeja when Taeja was an unstoppable monster of a Terran, he basically beat Taeja without even engaging in the big giant battles that TvP is known for. Complaining, writing this topic, that's not going to change anything. Sorry, it's just not. Blizzard, outside of betas, has never been known to make huge sweeping changes, and I doubt they will in a game that's 2-3 years old, even in the next expansion.
Agreed, I've seen a few skytosses do some brutal harass but its rare to see, I don't play protoss often so I can't comment why only on what I observe.
Blizzard has done a fair amount to reduce deathballs, no sweeping changes granted but at least we rarely see infestor/bl balls in ZvT anymore.
Personally I think the msc has made protoss a but lazy when it comes to the mid game harass stage, as they don't feel the need to take it with them. Warp gates are already great for dealing with harass, but the msc gets left at home.
I cringe every time I see a player not have it with their army, because if you keep it alive then you completely end this need for committal aggression. You can always retreat!
Especially in PvZ, the msc has revolutionised the waythe were Marco looks, because I am always attacking! There is no reason not to
I completely agree with the first half of the OP, where you talk about how the protoss race as a design is flawed due to sentry (force field) MSC, warp tech, and weak gateway units as a result of these things.
I do however, disagree with the points you made about protoss not improving as a race in Hots. from my own experience, from both playing the game (i am a masters protoss too) and watching pro players stream, i do feel like the early and mid game options for protoss have increased in terms of aggression, and safer expanding with the MSC and oracles. (the tempest also gives us an answer to the once unstoppable brood lord, but that's irrelevant to this thread)
so all in all i believe protoss was flawed in wol, as easy to play and also be gimmicky with, but also the worst race in terms of tournament showings/results in the pro scene. and i agree with the OP on these points.
However i also believe that whats done is done, and although its a shame that blizzard fucked up with our race when designing and balancing it, there's nothing we can do about that now, and i cant possibly imagine anything drastic being reworked like warp tech, all i can see happening is blizzard continuing to try their hardest to balance the game as best they can with the design they've given the protoss, and i think it will take a while, but in contrast to the second half of the OP, i DO in fact think that blizzard took steps in the right direction with hots. the MSC is maybe not desirable for starcraft because its one unit being the core focus of protoss early mid-game which feels kinda warcraft 3-esque, not starcraft-esque, but i think its spells have the potential to solve issues that protoss have in terms of aggression without being allin, and defending allins/ 3rd bases which are too hard to take because of map design.
Nice OP but this isn´t exactly news and has been discussed to death since a few months into WoL. The true testament to how true this actually is, is that in larger numbers gateway units lose to just about anything of equal tech. Just look how protoss plays, fast expand and rush a tier 3 unit out asap, usually the colossus since you get the robo anyway. You get the colossus out and you hold whatever push the T or Z does, if you don´t you die unless you have a lot of sentries. And this is with the opponent also doing a fast expand.
MSC does enable some greedier play and it enables you to build way less sentries - this cannot be denied. Unless you slip of macro you can play very greedy and hold of stuff due to photon overcharge.
What i think makes protoss a "gimmick" is lack of heavy macro oriented play, we cannot avoid comparing it to BroodWar where Protoss large macro style was a valid and succesful strategy (Best was known for it, currently one of the worst Kespa SC2 protosses).
Why there is no solid macro play? Warpgates, gateway units got nerfed proportionally to how you could warp them near the pylon in front of opponent's base. So gateway heavy style can be only used for its strenght as timed attack (warping offensively)thats how early to midgame protoss works, warping units in your own base and macroing up will not work for you unless you were super,super greedy and opponent does not scout.
Basically it comes down to the deathball problem again. All matchups including protoss end up in one huge fight (or in a PvZ including muta in a basetrade) if it is going into a macro game. Otherwise it's about defending all-ins. But this one huge fight is the no1 problem which has to be faced. I'm not so sure if the problem really is the lack of early game aggressions protoss can utilize. I think it's also a problem of how protoss units are designed to be moved and be used in a ball. Because if protoss splits up it's units they become weak after all. The best example is the colossus. It can walk on top of the ball and is terribly weak if not supported by more units. Same goes for all the air units, which can ball up like crazy as there is no collision in air and ofc ground units can ball up under the. (what's also interesting is that pretty much all Protoss units have the exact same speed, once balled up and moved the whole army including every unit except Phoenixes will stay in the ball forever) I also feel like Protoss the smallest possibilities of microing in these huge lategame engagements. A mass air protoss army can't do alot else then attacking and pulling back. The problem is: I just don't see how to address these problems. It would take a major redesign of this race to make it more enjoyable to watch. The question is what is the real focus of this race? Zerg had been the macro race (kinda developed from Swarm->Positioning->Swarm again), Terran was kind of the all-rounder race where everything is theoretically possible but not easy to pull off, but what's protoss? Some incredibly strong all-ins, and deathballs. Actually things that doesn't even fit together and both aren't very cool to watch.
On April 12 2013 16:10 DarkLordOlli wrote: This, this, this. One hundred times this. The only reason why protoss is not more successful in tournaments is exactly this. You have to rely on somewhat-gimmicks like forcefield, etc. to both defend and attack and only players who have that stuff down perfectly and rely manage to FF perfectly, storm perfectly, etc. a whole tournament long will have success as protoss. And that's hard as hell to do because you have to forcefield, storm, etc. reactionary. It's super easy to make mistakes with forcefielding (overlap, holes between the FFs, blocking your own units, forcefielding in too much army, wasting forcefields, ETC) and lose a game that way. It's gimmicky, no other word to describe it.
+1 for stronger gateway units and less relying on gimmicks to survive/win.
Edit: this is not about protoss being too weak. Protoss is looking very strong in HotS if played well. It's just overall the most fragile race in the early to midgame imo and the easiest to mess up with and lose a game due to that.
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...
Impressive how you managed to completely misunderstand and make a whole post around it.
What I meant with forcefields/storms being reactionary is that if say a terran decides to stim up your ramp, you have to have a split second reaction to forcefield perfectly or you lose the game. That's what I meant, nothing else. You can't compare that to reactive macro, that's apples and oranges. That split second perfect forcefielding is the part that's super easy to mess up. If I have time to forcefield, yeah no shit it's easy. But most of the time that's not what happens.
And the last paragraph is nothing but your opinion and terran whine. Don't care about that at all.
I do like the mothership core though, it's powerful but not too gimmicky and it allows for a number of different uses. The decisionmaking behind those is super important.
I agree with OP to some extent but I think as HoTS progresses people will figure out the MSC a little bit more. The threat of Oracles at least forces defensive widow mines or ebay + turrets and them to be defensive for a bit.
I never really understood why Warp Tech was placed as a basic tech literally an ALWAYS have tech. For such a sophisticated, game changing mechanic which strenght rellied on either covert action (cheese) or strong timing (bypassing rally) its given a passive "macro" bonus so its still a no-brainer.
Its the lack of choice that irks me, what if warp tech was an actual optional choice that gave different incentives (like warp tech and gateway tech both having its strenghts) and required a specific scout from opponent to determine protoss intent. Because so far scouting your opponents warp tech just gives you an idea of getting 4gated, and thats it. Because every protoss on the planet will research it anyway.
If the protoss wants to be defensive, he will still research it, because he wants to have faster unit production, so the intent for choosing it was not its design but this silly macro boost tied to it. So why is it there ? -_-
Good read indeed. I also was thinking whats need to be done to make protoss finally an interesting race to play. In my opinion it would be nice if all protoss units turn s to at least 3 food (so they can match their few but strong background) und must be balanced around that. Also what if Warptech can be changed to an mid-end game research? Major changes which will need much work, but maybe worth it.
PS: Hate hero units in RTS games. MS and MSC definitely need to go.
I can only agree for the most part. I dont think z or t should be changed, other than some minor tweaks maybe, but protoss could definatly use a big overhaul. I dont believe Blizzard will make the change we are all waiting for however. There have already been threads like this before, hell people have even made mods to make some of the changes you suggested. Im not going to suggest anything myself, but I can honestly say ZvP is my least favorite matchup, just because theres always that chance you'll face some kind of cheesy allin or end up screwing up 1 fight against a deathball and lose, and it's just not fun, wether you win or lose. When you win its more of a 'you got what you deserved, dirty cheeser'. I even prefer ZvZ over that, or all-inning the protoss myself. If it has come that far, I really think this will hurt our precious esports in the long run. (hehe)
After seeing the ZvT between Fantasy and TRUE, I really wish anything involving protoss could become similar, because the series was just so darn entertaining. But protoss in its current state? It's going to be a rare sight.
Sentries become more powerful as they gather energy. Therefore it allows for timing attacks with sentries that you build early on and let gather energy. The immortal sentry all-in is a natural consequence, it doesn't necessarily have to do with forcefield being broken.
On April 12 2013 19:05 []Phase[] wrote: After seeing the ZvT between Fantasy and TRUE, I really wish anything involving protoss could become similar, because the series was just so darn entertaining. But protoss in its current state? It's going to be a rare sight.
ZvP right now can be a lot like that if Protoss doesnt turtle to airtosslike flying vs DRG on akilon flats.
On April 12 2013 19:05 []Phase[] wrote: After seeing the ZvT between Fantasy and TRUE, I really wish anything involving protoss could become similar, because the series was just so darn entertaining. But protoss in its current state? It's going to be a rare sight.
ZvP right now can be a lot like that if Protoss doesnt turtle to airtosslike flying vs DRG on akilon flats.
Oh, but im sure there will be some fun games every now and then. I just think they are a lot more rare due to some of the issues that the OP stated.
OP is a bunch of (slanted) observations and a few non sequitur conclusions. I don't agree at all.
Most of my games involve using the MSC to do attacks I could never have done in WoL, with the safety of recall in a bad fight or to get home because harass landed while I was moving out, or even just time warp to get away.
I wonder how much the OP has actually tried to play strategies that aren't based on passive deathball plans.
On April 12 2013 19:05 []Phase[] wrote: After seeing the ZvT between Fantasy and TRUE, I really wish anything involving protoss could become similar, because the series was just so darn entertaining. But protoss in its current state? It's going to be a rare sight.
ZvP right now can be a lot like that if Protoss doesnt turtle to airtosslike flying vs DRG on akilon flats.
Oh, but im sure there will be some fun games every now and then. I just think they are a lot more rare due to some of the issues that the OP stated.
Well, I disagree with the problems. Like warpgates are a great thing for Protoss units that are designed as rather slow and therefore passive. Same with recall. And sentries actually allow Protoss to dedicate ressources to aggression and investments, rather than to low tier unit massing. (i dislike the sentiment of low tier spamming being interesting play.)
Unlike the OP I believe those tools were added because Protoss needed them after blizzard decided to cut the 12selection limit. Not that the units were tuned down because of the tools. It's rather that Protoss still suffers too much from "big and beefy" design ideas (which wirked better in BW due to pathing/selection limits, unavailability of bio...) with too little mobile glasscanons or tools to turn it's units into such. (zealot warpin, blink, recall, phoenix kind of being the only ones)
Back in 2010, Tester did the forcefield whole army split, everyone was in awe, months later when macro play stabilized it alraedy became a necessary skill to offset a macro /unit power differance (in straight clash) . ZvP in SC2 is almost never a tug of war, becasue zerg knows that he cannot engage because of forcefields, it makes it a do or die decision, and because logically we prefer to value consistancy over risk zerg falls back into defensive hive which gives him an option to fight protoss without sentry being the equalizer anymore (ironically making it into another do or die situation, vortex vs BLs) End of Wol.
Well, i didnt watch almost any of Hots PvZ (actually i dont watch much protoss, as terran seem to be 90% of all fun), and there are certainly few ideas and units that work as half-measures for a workaround. Viper pulling, muta buff, oracle and all that jazz. Yet apparently we see mass voidrays. I just cannot accept this matchup, its trivial.
Examples of the aforementioned tug of war in ZvP in BW:
+1, nice read. I am mid Master Protoss too. I have wondered this same question and I feel at least PvT could be fixed with 1 simple tweak on medivacs. I am not sure how medivacs could be changed but at the moment medivacs deny everything other protoss style than aoe. To hold medivac-bio army protoss needs either colossi or templars with storm. This simple thing is 1 of the problems in P matchups.
1 thing i would like to see games in maps that have only 1 gas per base (rich gas ofc) and 6 gold minerals per base. I dont know how it would change things but i would like to see games on them.
On April 12 2013 14:11 erin[go]bragh wrote: Unfortunately the only way to fix the race is to do things Blizzard will never ever do.
Warpgate needs to be removed. The entire race is balanced around this tech. Removing it would allow Gateway units to be rebalanced and give you less reliance on later tech or gimmicky "keep me safe in the early game" units like the MSC. If it needs be kept (and it will) I think it really needs to undergo changes, like instead of warping in on power grids, have it warp in proximity to a Nexus instead. It'll keep its powerful defensive advantages but wouldn't be so OP as a reinforcement mechanic as to rape the balance of Gateway units. As a bonus, Nexuses are much harder/easier to scout/bigger of a commit to proxy in the early game (i.e retarded) but would be a feasible part of a push in the late game. Not much different from PF spam. But eh, thats off the top of my head.
Colossus needs to be removed. My god it's been beaten to death, but this unit is the epitome of boring. Its too powerful, too easy to micro, too boring to watch, and too crippling to lose as a toss player. Without Colossi dependance, other units/tech can be buffed. And just because its required when talking about the colossus: replace it with the reaver. Theres your harass/heavy hitting unit thats more fun for spectators and isn't as unforgiving for players.
These are things that won't change though because Blizzard is simply unwilling to and I'm sure noobs and casuals would cry without Warpgate. But seriously, its just one or two root things that are keeping the race down, everything else is just by proxy.
Very much agree with this post... they aren't the perfect solution but they would help a lot and they would at least have some chance of being implemented as they aren't too radical a departure.
I wouldn't "replace" the Collosus overtly though. I'd keep the unit but just change it's movement speed and the way its damage mechanic works to be more similar to the Reaver.
On April 12 2013 20:03 Plansix wrote: This has all be discussed before and all will be discussed again. Nothing will change, as protoss is pretty great as is.
Depends on expectations, seeing how so many fans want to see protoss champions that define the meta-game beyond CHOO CHOO train.
On April 12 2013 15:22 PandaTank wrote: Protoss will always be the gimmick race because of the design you have mentioned. Throughout the evolution of the metagame they will have small successes due to new strategies that can not yet be identified. But once all of the builds have been discovered and the appropriate scouting + responses have been established, they stand no chance. Especially against zerg, due to the massive disparity in macro mechanics. I personally find it sad that one of the few ways a Protoss can consistently win is by only tricking their opponents.
I agree so much, basically if you know what build a protoss is doing you can just counter him so bad, while other races are more reactionary and more standard.
On April 12 2013 16:10 DarkLordOlli wrote: This, this, this. One hundred times this. The only reason why protoss is not more successful in tournaments is exactly this. You have to rely on somewhat-gimmicks like forcefield, etc. to both defend and attack and only players who have that stuff down perfectly and rely manage to FF perfectly, storm perfectly, etc. a whole tournament long will have success as protoss. And that's hard as hell to do because you have to forcefield, storm, etc. reactionary. It's super easy to make mistakes with forcefielding (overlap, holes between the FFs, blocking your own units, forcefielding in too much army, wasting forcefields, ETC) and lose a game that way. It's gimmicky, no other word to describe it.
+1 for stronger gateway units and less relying on gimmicks to survive/win.
Edit: this is not about protoss being too weak. Protoss is looking very strong in HotS if played well. It's just overall the most fragile race in the early to midgame imo and the easiest to mess up with and lose a game due to that.
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...
Have you even played/watched HotS? This is 100% not true at all anymore.
I do wish that Protoss could be the aggressor in matchups more without having to feel so all in. Mothership Core does an okish (not really) job of this, but I don't know. It just feels like you have to play passive until you get storm, basically. Especially with the buffs to Mutas and medivacs.
IMO, the problem is not that protoss does not have an early game - they indeed do if they whish so, gateway units are pretty strong in the beginning, especially against T; the problem is that protoss does not have a midgame (aside from allins, and I'm only talking about non-mirror matches). In midgame, a protoss usually sits in his base and tries to get up Colossus and HT tech, while trying to defend and get away with a third.
To me, the problem seems to be that overcommitting to gateway units in the midgame usually means that the protoss is very weak once the opponent's army reaches a critical size or the opponent reaches some critical technology (and this is much more the case than for T and Z). On the other side, a protoss does not have the production to build up an agressive midgame army without a lot of gateway units.
That makes Warpgates feel like a promise that is not kept: Warping in units feels dynamic and agressive, but what you have to do when playing protoss is teching up defensively. This in mind, I would nevertheless abandon protoss and switch to zerg the instant warpgate tech is removed from the game - I love how this mechanic feels, and I won't go back to building queues.
Anyway, to be honest, while we are still running the very first version of HotS after release, I think balance is currently in kind of a good shape. Especially in comparison to WoL we are playing fairly fair matches so far. Funny to me is the fact that we start to see more and more stuff from BW times return to the metagame. Remember lurker contains where you had to wait 'til that observer is ready before moving out? Those swarm hosts contains strongly remind me of that. Not to discuss the strength of locusts right now, but things like that and the increasing number of harass and drop play in current pro games is a sign of the game going into the right direction if you ask me. It will still take some time until we see play like above in SC2 but I feel we are getting closer and closer to it. I mean, BW was like almost a a decade old back then and comparatively figured out at that point. So it came down to a lot of skill and mechanics in the beginning instead of deathball and build wins. Give it some time and mass games ;-)
I've always hoped for a change in the gate-tech in the beta-days.. blizzard failed in identifying the problem, they've focused too much on the stargate; but you know we've another expansion and we can always hope for it in LotV, it should be a huge shift from the protoss, and the two main problems are bad t1-t2 tech and lazy-boring robo t3.
I don't mind that protoss is weak so much as I hate it being wussy. At lower levels, aka when I play, I could care less about balance because you can simply get better at playing. At progamer levels, I still rooted for protoss in BW even though it was easily the most underpowered race. I just liked how protosses play.
In SC2, I hate the protoss playstyle where it's all about the deathball. I also never liked zerg mechanics so I can't play zerg. And I feel no joy playing terran. So I just stopped bothering.
Compared to the old BW days, protoss today feels slow, sluggish and over-reliant on FFs for a good part of the game. Lots and goons, minus bad pathing, were actually pretty mobile and effective forces around the map when controlled in small groups. Bisu's corsair/speedlot/DT drops were fast, fluid and incredibly deadly.
At one time I might have cheered on this OP, but at this point in the game, and with the additions that HotS brought, I don't think I do anymore.
First, you seem to have this insistence on "non committal" early game aggression. Maybe protoss has to commit a little more to their aggressive plays, but the potential for game ending maneuvers and terrible terrible damage is so much higher. a slight overstep in the early game could cause an extra round or 2 of warp ins to basically end the game for either race. Neither race really has a true "non commital" aggression. They are committing something, delaying tech or leaving themselves vulnerable in some way. This is why MC, Genius, and especially Squirtle have been so sucessful with the way they play. They either shut down those playstyles with their own aggression, or know exactly how to use those "committals" from the other races to do some sort of timing for a win. It's not really any different than how Life has been successful vs terran. Most of what you say comes down to mid game mobility, not early game...and thats just how the game is made to have some races stronger at different points. Blizzard has greatly improved this though for protoss with better air units, cheaper DTs, and there will be much more to explore.
I think the warp gate mechanic is probably something that could change up some things to make protoss more dynamic, but that would change the entire race and blizzard arent going to change the primary design of the race, so its pointless to discuss. It's definitely something that limits gateway units past the 7 min mark, but it also enables such strong all ins and timings as well as defenses. Id argue it makes things more interesting sometimes. It also makes templars/archons incredibly good.
I just sat here typing several different things, really trying to figure out what about the protoss units/design I hate. I went on a huge rant about the collossi, I started saying the robo facility in general is badly designed and holding the rest of the protoss tech back. I even started talking about zealot charge being boring and too easy. ( I do have to say its the only special ability that is purely a move). But really there isn't anyway to truly fix this without drastically changing the whole race. Protoss is really strong, its just not a midgame centric race...I think that is mainly why everyone is not happy. I think the best answer I can come up with is to really change up how the Robo tech functions. First idea being warp prisms are unlocked by robo tech, but not built from them (maybe the nexus). I don't know how you can fix the collosi or the immortal to make the protoss not want to build a giant A move army, but that is where it would have to be fixed. Past that, no idea im glad im not Dustin Browder and David Kim.
As I say this, I think things have only improved for the better in HoTS, and this OP was better suited to WoL. We are going to see more and more interesting plays and builds...and lategame protoss is probably even stronger than before. Air hopefully will be explored more and more. I actually think Protoss is going to win the most in HotS. The skillcap, while still greatly cheapened and limited by the AOE power, is still much higher and leaves more options. I think because terran and zerg techs are more interesting and viable, we might see different unit combos in the games which will automatically make the games more interesting. Here's to hoping, have seen good things so far!
In fact, warp tech would be perfectly fine if not for Blizzard's arrogance. At some point of time they somehow decided that Blizzard game designers don't have to follow RTS design guidelines one of which is "utility costs money".
You have a gateway that produces units, ok. Then you have a gateway that produces units anywhere on the map, that's ok too, but that gateway is obviously more efficient than the first one, therefore, it must have some kind of a drawback. But guess what, build times for units at the WG are lower than at the regular gate, leading to several strange consequences:
- You have that totally useless "switch back" button on the WG that is only there for you to accidentially press at some point and lose a game because of that. - There's a huge spike in protoss production efficiency at the moment when warp gate research is finished, which in turn leads to two consequences: -- 1) Protoss gateway units have to be bad enough to ensure that they don't instantly win the game at that specific timing. -- 2) Production is terrible before the timing which, coupled with consequence 1, means there's no adequate way to be aggressive before that research finishes. Well, unless you seriously consider cannon rushes to be adequate aggression.
The thing is, Warp Gates aren't inherently broken, the way they're implemented is. Blizzard decided to forego rational design for flashy fireworks and introduced too much utility on otherwise already effecient/necessary units (this and the fucking medivac). The moment the cooldowns on the WG are higher, not lower than on a regular Gate the problem is solved.
On April 12 2013 23:08 BluzMan wrote: There's no reason to remove warp tech.
In fact, warp tech would be perfectly fine if not for Blizzard's arrogance. At some point of time they somehow decided that Blizzard game designers don't have to follow RTS design guidelines one of which is "utility costs money".
You have a gateway that produces units, ok. Then you have a gateway that produces units anywhere on the map, that's ok too, but that gateway is obviously more efficient than the first one, therefore, it must have some kind of a drawback. But guess what, build times for units at the WG are lower than at the regular gate, leading to several strange consequences:
- You have that totally useless "switch back" button on the WG that is only there for you to accidentially press at some point and lose a game because of that. - There's a huge spike in protoss production efficiency at the moment when warp gate research is finished, which in turn leads to two consequences: -- 1) Protoss gateway units have to be bad enough to ensure that they don't instantly win the game at that specific timing. -- 2) Production is terrible before the timing which, coupled with consequence 1, means there's no adequate way to be aggressive before that research finishes. Well, unless you seriously consider cannon rushes to be adequate aggression.
The thing is, Warp Gates aren't inherently broken, the way they're implemented is. Blizzard decided to forego rational design for flashy fireworks and introduced too much utility on otherwise already effecient/necessary units (this and the fucking medivac). The moment the cooldowns on the WG are higher, not lower than on a regular Gate the problem is solved.
Thats what i said, there is no reason for warpgate to have the production buff, because most of the time it makes this research a solely +macro bonus while leaving its most detrimental aspects alone and unused till mid-game. Its like blizzard was afraid some protoss would play without warpgate and it those cases it would too classical.
Honestly i dont understand it, it seems it's killing the creativity of players by enforcing the creativity (since you've researched a macro bonus research you can aswell try to do some cutesy thing with it ain't ya?).
What would embrace creativity? No production bonus on warpgate. Hurray. Now if you don't want to allin from a pylon you can actually spend the gas and minerals from this research on something else, oh and you can research +air upgrade without gateway production penalty. I see only positives.
Well, when confronted with this Blizzard responded with something like "You can't queue up units at the warpgate, so if you don't check it out often, you're missing production time, so it's constricting for newer players". That has some rationale within, but if WG is already an inefficient production mechanic with unique deployment options (which it should be), there's no problem with beginner players - they will simply use the regular gateway and be fine with it. Furthermore, at that level games are never decided by timing spending 150 minerals. You can just build one more gate and do fine if you can't handle the cooldowns well enough. And at the level where 150 minerals really matter people are already good at clicking.
It would be pretty awesome if there were some decisions to be made between gateway and warpgate, so that you'd even see even protoss mixing them up. "Ok, these 4 warpgates are for my warprism harass, these 5 gateways are to supplement my main army near my nexus faster"
On April 12 2013 23:08 BluzMan wrote: There's no reason to remove warp tech.
In fact, warp tech would be perfectly fine if not for Blizzard's arrogance. At some point of time they somehow decided that Blizzard game designers don't have to follow RTS design guidelines one of which is "utility costs money".
You have a gateway that produces units, ok. Then you have a gateway that produces units anywhere on the map, that's ok too, but that gateway is obviously more efficient than the first one, therefore, it must have some kind of a drawback. But guess what, build times for units at the WG are lower than at the regular gate, leading to several strange consequences:
- You have that totally useless "switch back" button on the WG that is only there for you to accidentially press at some point and lose a game because of that. - There's a huge spike in protoss production efficiency at the moment when warp gate research is finished, which in turn leads to two consequences: -- 1) Protoss gateway units have to be bad enough to ensure that they don't instantly win the game at that specific timing. -- 2) Production is terrible before the timing which, coupled with consequence 1, means there's no adequate way to be aggressive before that research finishes. Well, unless you seriously consider cannon rushes to be adequate aggression.
The thing is, Warp Gates aren't inherently broken, the way they're implemented is. Blizzard decided to forego rational design for flashy fireworks and introduced too much utility on otherwise already effecient/necessary units (this and the fucking medivac). The moment the cooldowns on the WG are higher, not lower than on a regular Gate the problem is solved.
Just remove sentry and give Toss a mini-stalker with high dps but low survivability. Like some sort of cybermarine. Bam, toss is fun to play and play against again.
Just from a zerg curiosity PoV, why do we dont see more double/triple speedprism play lategame ? With hallucinated prism, it can be pretty deadly... And it's not as if protoss lategame didnt have enough mineralz to use while building its ultimate gas army.
I am going to preface this with the fact that I am a protoss player. When I first saw the sentry in one of the preveiw videos, I thought this was a great idea. However, after several thousand games, I find this unit makes for boring games as Protoss. In PvP it forces both parties to go into turtletoss mode. In PvX it creates a situation where either it a game of cat and mouse where they try and break the Protoss turtle with drops or all in timing, or they simply out expand and hope to overpower the eventual Protoss deathball by fact of attrition. To me, this makes most games quite boring watch and even after a number of games, to play.
Remember the Protoss pity party at the end of WoL? Kinda died as HotS started to roll into beta and release, but now we are back to square one.
Most people are talking about the state of ZvT and how Zergs are suffering in pro games... yet no one is talking about how worse PvT is, looking at aligulac you can see how that MU has for Protoss tanked harder into favor of Terrans than it has for Zergs.
I mean look at the Stalker, every unit that it used to be decent against has received a direct or indirect buff. Stalker/Storm vs. Muta is so bad right now, not to mention how you have to park twice as many Stalkers in base for a single Medivac. They should just replace the warp in sound for gateway units into a giant wet fart sound, because you know something is taking a shit on the battleground.
On April 12 2013 23:39 Snoodles wrote: It would be pretty awesome if there were some decisions to be made between gateway and warpgate, so that you'd even see even protoss mixing them up. "Ok, these 4 warpgates are for my warprism harass, these 5 gateways are to supplement my main army near my nexus faster"
Uhhh... huh. Yeah, that's a pretty sweet idea.
What if Warp Gate research permanently changed Gateways too? Dramatically increasing gateway production speed, say. Then you'd have a meaningful choice of Gateways vs Warp Gates, similar to reactor vs tech lab barracks.
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.
On April 12 2013 23:39 Snoodles wrote: It would be pretty awesome if there were some decisions to be made between gateway and warpgate, so that you'd even see even protoss mixing them up. "Ok, these 4 warpgates are for my warprism harass, these 5 gateways are to supplement my main army near my nexus faster"
I think this could be really cool, that way warpgate isnt a "braindead must have upgrade". This coupled with what the others said with increased warp in cooldown instead of reduced makes alot of sense.
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?
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.
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.
I actually think that gimmicks, given that you have enough of them available to you, and diverse enough, can create stable play. Just be unpredictable and do weird stuff. It most of the time pays off. Sure, you won't win every game, but it'll give you versatility in all that can be done with Protoss.
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.
And now endless arguments why protoss is o UP begins. It's always like this. Thread's about game design turns into balance whines (with most ridiculous arguments).
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
This ultimately isn't really a balance whine, but a stylistic complaint. Of course this gimmicky play could be 'balanced' appropriately so that the win rates were even, but I can tell you that I personally find this style of play very unrewarding. I loved protoss in broodwar cause they could stand toe to toe with the other races at any stage, as opposed to having to arrange setups where the other force can't use its full dps. This is a big reason why I stopped playing SC2 and moved on. I hope Blizzard listens. . .
On April 12 2013 16:10 DarkLordOlli wrote: This, this, this. One hundred times this. The only reason why protoss is not more successful in tournaments is exactly this. You have to rely on somewhat-gimmicks like forcefield, etc. to both defend and attack and only players who have that stuff down perfectly and rely manage to FF perfectly, storm perfectly, etc. a whole tournament long will have success as protoss. And that's hard as hell to do because you have to forcefield, storm, etc. reactionary. It's super easy to make mistakes with forcefielding (overlap, holes between the FFs, blocking your own units, forcefielding in too much army, wasting forcefields, ETC) and lose a game that way. It's gimmicky, no other word to describe it.
+1 for stronger gateway units and less relying on gimmicks to survive/win.
Edit: this is not about protoss being too weak. Protoss is looking very strong in HotS if played well. It's just overall the most fragile race in the early to midgame imo and the easiest to mess up with and lose a game due to that.
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...
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.
The OP is very well written but especially towards the end makes severe mistakes.
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.
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.
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.
I agree with the OP but I'm afraid it's just one of many threads about design flaws of Protoss. Blizzard lost the chance to rework gateway units during HotS beta and I belive that it's impossible to fix the race now without ruining the game. We can only keep complaining and hope the problem will be adressed in LotV beta.
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.
I disagree with your claims of protoss being one dimensional. The msc and new protoss air has really opened up protoss builds. DT, stargate, and gateway openings are far more versatile and dangerous than before. I rarely play macro games with all these new builds at my disposal =D. The msc opens up extremely greedy macro play as well, especially vs terran. High sentry counts are much less necessary than before which really gives you more tech options to utilize with the excess gas. Ex: Ive been having reasonable success with phoenix openings PvT (midmaster level). I agree that protoss matchups are more boring to watch but, at least they are better than wings.
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
If you think the game is fundamentally wrong why dont you just quit. Hell why dont any foreign had quit this game yet ! 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
Protoss is imba. Not overpowered imba, just honestly imbalanced in its most literal form. Top heavy as hell with no in-between. Early game sucks unless you do something off of one base where everything is a pain. Late game is still "maek colossi and maek archon/HT" or go to skytoss or you're dead. Mid-game is "get 3rd or you're dead".
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.
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.
I play protoss and I agree to some extend, and it's a point that has been made trough WOL and maybe even since the WOL beta, protoss is simply to committed to w/e they do. I don't think the very design makes protoss underpowerd I think it just makes it more random.
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.
I really love what OneGoal have done with respect to redesigning protoss to address a lot of these concerns. They've removed forcefield, buffed gateway units (including switching a tweaked immortal to gateway and a redesigned sentry to robo) and changed up the warpgate/gateway dynamic so that there's some choice involved and gateways aren't totally redundant as soon as warpgate is researched. It's still in development but I truly think it fixes a lot of the problems people have with SC2.
On April 12 2013 12:31 Whitewing wrote: The MSC does allow for more greedy play in PvT, but I'm not sure if it'll remain that way when terran players get better at defending oracle harass without widow mines and go back to gasless expanding.
I feel like MC's play was more a metagame build than what's going to be standard. As is, nothing greedier is viable imo. It's still 1g expo + tech + 3 gates into blabla midgame.
I've been doing a lot of 1 gate expand into robo into double forge into more gates lately, that's way more greedy (that's double forge and robo bay on 1 gateway). I frequently finish 3/3 before my opponent is half way to 2/2, and that's if he goes double e-bay, if not, he's boned on upgrades.
3/3 Chargelots +guardian shield vs 1/1 marines is the most one sided slaughter you've ever seen, even if the zealots are at a lower count than they might have otherwise have been.
Greed doesn't have to be purely economic, it can be tech based too.
I feel like this rolls over and dies to... well anything the terran does though. You're also forced to do it blind that early, and double forges are a liability against a lot of builds.
You'd think that, but it's not blind, nor does it auto-die. You scout early and see if he's going for gas or a gasless expand. If it's a gasless expand, (you're going 2 gas on 15 supply, 2 probes in each), you make a stargate and go for oracles while expanding. If he took gas, the build is completely safe because the msc + 2 sentries (I build exactly 2) is enough to hold of basically any agression he can throw at you off of a gas based build. You do build a robo early after all, and get observers. If it seems like he's doing an all-in, you're fine. You can also build cannons in an emergency. My winrate on ladder in PvT right now is around 80%, and that's at a reasonably high masters level. There's basically nothing terran can do to crush you as long as you defend well, at least until later on. Your ridiculously good upgrades help secure a 3rd base and help the really scary drop timings before you can have high templar everywhere.
Most common aggression I run into is widow mine drops with bio poking at the front, and that can be held fairly easily with decent micro and the nexus cannon.
I think any 2 rax or denying of the scout into some trickery would keep that build from being mainstream. The two forges that early are a huge commitment. A big part of the traditional double forge build centers around a few cool ideas:
Your obs gets there before the forges are done, so you can cancel one Your 1-1 finishes right as the 10 minute medivac timing hits (yours won't have 2-2 by then) Gas timings work out nicely so that you can zealot spam
All in all, if your scout gets denied and he goes 1-1-1 or a dedicated 3 rax you're boned with two forges that early.
2 rax is easy, mothership core alone crushes a 2 rax (you still have one gateway that can make units and a robo, just nexus cannon and FF the ramp), and an observer is out in plenty of time for the later version. If the initial scout is denied you can scout with the mothership core, I've never had that denied, and I've never had a problem scouting what terran is doing early game. I usually have 2-2 finishing for the 10 minute timing, plenty of gateways, and a colossus out with the msc and a smallish army, with forcefields and decent control defending the push or drops is fairly easy. The MSC is just so powerful on defense, especially early on, I think you're really underestimating it.
It doesn't do much for PvZ though.
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.
I just don't like the idea of non-committal aggression. Nobody has that and I don't get why this is such a huge arguing point for fixing Protoss. Everybody is giving up something to put up aggression. I mean, I get that idea that Protoss early units are so essential enough that losing anything could lead to a snowball effect. But rather than giving Protoss ways to put on aggression without committing, doesn't it make more sense to give Protoss more expendable early units?
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.
Good standard complaint though I thnk more should have been made about the ability of protoss to put pressure back on their opponents (a more specific subpoint about noncommital aggression. Shuttle/reaver allowed toss to apply strong pressure back when they were pinned down. It made for more dynamism (throughout 2007-2009 atleast) because things were happening on both sides of the map rather than someone turtling and the other being safe to do whatever they wanted.
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.
I agree to pretty much all your points, the way gateway design is horrible and denies all aggression because it is slow and weak. There are lots of threads like this though. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Just spit-balling because I haven't played the game in a very long time (I do watch regularly though). Would it not be possible to buff Zealots and Stalkers whilst kinda combining the Mothership Core and Sentry whilst removing Force Fields and the planetary nexus could come from nexus energy instead or something? If it is completely unreasonable, again I blame the whole not playing thing
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?
I feel like you got off track a little bit and didn't flesh out all your ideas toward the middle, but really pulled it together at the end. I agree, for the most part. I'm not sure I think that Protoss as a whole is a 'gimmick race' but I definitely think warpgate and sentries (read: forcefields) ruin 'toss's early game. It's either too strong or too weak. It cannot, cannot, cannot, be balanced with those.. things.. in the game.
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.)
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
I agree with you on most points TS but I think you are dead wrong on the fact that MSC changes nothing. Just look at how SaSe plays PvZ nowadays. Constant aggression with constant recalls when he starts to over-commit and then add a warp prism on top of that so the zerg has to split his forces.
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.
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.
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.
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.
While we are pretty much repeating all these things over again (no offense), there's not much to do about them aside from playing some mods that do things differently and slap Blizzard with hard data or wait for them to do (or not) something about it.
As mentioned before, they really should utilize the test servers. I'm not sure if it's the resources, time or pride that is the major block to test if some of the redesigns are worth it. But having direct access to the data instead of having it thrown at you from small sources or fishing for it sounds better option to me.
HotS was a good step towards right direction, but waiting for LotV and hoping for best is bit depressing.
I really don't see any argument in this OP other than some recycled un-substantiated assertions about gimmicks (without any attempt at defining what a gimmick is), weak gateway units, sentries, forcefields and now mothership core. There is a complaint about non committal aggression but there is little relation to all the other 'points'. Just a rehash of a lot of similar and largely misguided Protoss whine over the last couple of years. (In any case, I'm not sure what is meant by non committal aggression. A simple early-game Zealot/Stalker/Stalker poke? A Zealot/Stalker/MSC poke? If more, then other races are similarly behind if they invest more into a similar attack and it fails to pay off.)
If you don't like your race, and it does not fit your preferred play style, change your race and have more fun. GL.
The complaint about non-committal aggression is not well founded I think. Zerg basically loses in WoL if it is aggressive before max or the other player moves out. The old meta was make drones until the last possible moment - or you lost already.
I think the main problem with protoss is the Sentry (FF) and now the MSC adds a similar dynamic. Remove FF and buff gateway units and bingo we have a fun game.
The problem with Zerg is fungal. Buff roach/hydra and remove infestor. Bingo good game.
Even since Broodwar, Protoss has been the Bullshit Storm/Stasis/Recall/Maelstrom race. The race everyone complained about because it "just had to micro a little and then won fucking everything".
That's how Protoss plays, A-move the Zealot/Archon, focus fire the ranged ground, and spell cast your fucking face off.
i just want the warpgate research to be removed and gateways always been warp gates, or the research gate>warpgate needing only the cybernetics core, not the upgrade ofc they will need to balance some things, but i think the misspoint on protoss is that...
and the other point is warp prism needs to me build from another build like nexus, not from robotics, queueing 1 warp delay so much de protoss, imagine queueing 2 warps to drops and let the game more dynamics..
msc for sure adds agression for protoss, and especially in the early game. Atleast in pvz. Dunno why you state otherwise. You can poke, and if he swarms you or you know he has lots of units just recall
You can even go heavy gateway pressure lots of time to force zerg to make units, then just recall so you dont lose any sentries and keep on doing this for 7min
On April 13 2013 05:09 ShatterZer0 wrote: But... Protoss has ALWAYS been the gimmick race.
Even since Broodwar, Protoss has been the Bullshit Storm/Stasis/Recall/Maelstrom race. The race everyone complained about because it "just had to micro a little and then won fucking everything".
That's how Protoss plays, A-move the Zealot/Archon, focus fire the ranged ground, and spell cast your fucking face off.
I retract my statement, there was a fine balance of bullshit for protoss in BW, while the problem for sc2 is that everything what made that bullshit fine was taken
Basically whole modern PvX was made of harass and harass was always a legit strategy, and casting shit out in BW, the way you describe was hard.
On April 13 2013 05:38 mrtomjones wrote: Why must every post like this ask for reavers back. Reavers are not going to happen. Stop trying to make them happen.
Well they brought a semi lurker, firebat and a mine into Hots, dont be so sure.
Protoss can warp in at his opponent's base, thus Protoss is as strong offensively as it is defensively.
As a result, Terran and Zerg must ALWAYS have the stronger army at every point in the game. If they didn't, Protoss would simply win at the point when he was stronger with a warp in at his opponent's base.
Because of this, the fundamental rule of PvX is that P should never attack, because his opponent always the stronger army.
Protoss is a horribly gimick race that people simply hasnt finished abusing yet :/, and is almost impossible to rework now that the game is already 3+ years.
Back in WoL, PvT became a scenario in which terran tries to kill the protoss by the 14th minute mark, either through constant harrass or timing attack. PvZ became a immortal soul push vs deal with infestor broodlord choice. PvP was still boring as hell to watch.
Now in HotS, protoss got a bunch of gimicky new units to play with, in TvP we are seeing protosses starting to put on the pressure, preventing the terran from harrassing/ delaying the timing window, forcing the game into the well known triple aoe late game, although now with the choice of adding heavy starships. PvZ got the weirdest end of the stick. We see protosses moving away from the immortal soul push due to the addition of stargate units, and the old deathball with the addition of a voidray became much more stronger, allowing protoss to deal with infestor broodlord effectively, while giving back the zerg hydra as a proper unit, and adding decent supporting units. Funnily enough, the soulpush recieved an indirect buff through the addition of the mothershipcore.
No comment on PvP.
People saying protoss is underpowered in this thread should really stop playing this game lol
I'm sorry but after reading all of it here, I didn't find the the part to quote, but someone said that there is an economical problem that protoss has to the other races and I think this is the even greater issue protoss have with the larvae and mules terran and zerg gain an eco boost at the third base that kills me every time. OK i'm only a gold level protoss and my bad machanics are surely part of this problem but I think the 3 base chrono boost can't keep up with 3 orbital mules or 3 or at this time often 4 base drone production and if you didn't defend a drop or runby perfectly you have to surrender as protoss because you are never able to keep up to your opponent. In my opinion the overall design for protoss isn't bad the thing which interest me in this game even after years is the deversity of races and protoss is what they said it is. few in numbers but strong and high tech race and every unit fits in. Units like the sentry isn't strong but has high tech gimmicks to save itself. I think if scout correct you can pretty much counter every early build of the other races in time. As Protoss you have to win in mid or late game and i'm ok with that. It's my opinion.
On April 13 2013 05:48 -_- wrote: All Protoss problems stem from the warpgate.
Protoss can warp in at his opponent's base, thus Protoss is as strong offensively as it is defensively.
As a result, Terran and Zerg must ALWAYS have the stronger army at every point in the game. If they didn't, Protoss would simply win at the point when he was stronger with a warp in at his opponent's base.
Because of this, the fundamental rule of PvX is that P should never attack, because his opponent always the stronger army.
I mean, you are right until the pro toss techs to higher units from notwarpgate. And, the burst of units from warp gate means pro toss does have early game threats.
Warpgates are here to stay and not that big of a problem, IMO.
Here was my response to: "I heard you got tired of WoL because you didn't like the warpgate mechanic. If this is true, how would you change it, and as no change was made, what made you come back to Hots?"
"Simple questions yo. No problem though. I'll try and give this answer some thought. First I think that we need to examine if there are any hiccups with gameplay resulting from warp gates and whether they are problems or not. Protoss can warp in at any pylon immediately when warp completes and gateways are transformed -> Protoss units are stronger as a result relative to the game time because they don't need to cross the map to reach their opponent -> Early Protoss units need to be made relatively weaker to account for this advantage -> Protoss gateway units are significantly weaker later in the game relative to the other races basic units when maxed engagements occur due to the nerfing (bw->WoL stats). Is this a problem? Well let's look at what its consequences are. Protoss players accordingly had to defend themselves when they only had weak gateway units early on by using specific gas timings [limiting build stems! Problem?] for enough sentries [restricting early compositions to a defensive focus! Problem?] to force field their ramp for an amount of time depending on the matchup [limiting map design! Problem?]. Since Protoss players had to subsequently avoid engagements until their midgame tech units or upgrades could be completed (colossi pvt; blink/immortals pvz etc), their weaker gateway units needed to be grouped together to survive assaults like 5rax stim timings or roach hydra allins of 2011 [limiting early-game and early-midgame harassment opportunities! Problem?]. Then since their opponents can take 3rd (pvt) and 4th (pvz) bases earlier, relying on the Protoss' early-midgame defensive posture, Protoss then typically have to take a third to catch up in economy since reactive allins could be held by preemptive retaliations due to the other race's map control (very similar to Savior's solution to BW TvZ) [Linear game design! Problem?]. End of Midgame PvZ: Then since the Zerg can dominate with hive tech Broodlord-Infestor, easily holding "pre-hive timings" and trade energy for resources in the super lategame, the Protoss player has to commit to a razor-thin pre-hive timing that consists of an influx of weaker gateway units to support those same midgame tech advances in their march to the zerg base, often facing rows of spines due to the predictably linear Protoss play that the player was pigeon-holed into. End of Midgame PvT: Now that the Protoss player has rushed double forge upgrades while tenuously holding on with their low colossi count and low gateway unit count, he has to take advantage of his relatively thin 3:3 timing window before the Terran player cost-effectively trades out his bio (stronger in smaller numbers than the weaker Protoss gateway units) and replaces it with the two counters (I mean counters when I say counters, snipe & emp range > feedback, vikings long range and high DPS with +3 attack) to the AoE units the Protoss relies on in the endgame. So what do we get at the end of a PvT matchup? 99.99% (not MVP/Polt/MKP etc) of Terrans not being able to control their lategame armies effectively enough while still trading marginally evenly but then being steamrolled by zealot warpins [Instantaneous reinforcements crushing the weakened remaining army because of an asynchronous production mechanic! Problem?] Also, briefly addressing PvP and then i'll give a summary. In the vast majority of PvP's involving warpgate aggression, the game is decided by the DEFENDER's control (in terms of build order efficiency, crispness of execution, requisite sentries by certain times), not the aggressor's control [Imposing a one way skill cap for success on defending the most common strategy! Problem?]. So once the top players recognized this, they stopped consistently using gateway aggression. But then the openings didn't have to be "4gate proof" and so players still occasionally 4gated, which means since the choice of tech or aggression is chosen after a stalker denies scouting, PvP involves a certain amount of chance resulting from warp gate aggression [Chance reduces the edge a better player has and reduces long term winning percentages! Problem?]. Lategame PvP is a beautiful thing (Hero vs Alicia G3 MLG Summer Arena if you want the greatest televised match LB R3, G3), for the record. It's a shame we saw it so rarely before the twilight of WoL. So we've got more linear play, an element of chance in PvP, predictable game flow, "game timers" where the Protoss has to act before X occurs, limited map design, fewer effective/safe early game build stems, fewer early/midgame harassment opportunities, an asynchronous production mechanic causing imbalance in lategame PvT, and a one-way skill cap in certain engagements (warp gate aggro pvp etc). These are just a few. Some are more easily asserted than others. Some are less due to warpgate and more to other factors like force field etc, but at the root of each, the game design was initially influenced by warp gate. And THAT is why I have a beef with warp gate. How would I change it? I might kick it to twilight council and buff gateway units. This at least partially solves most but not all of the problems. Just a suggestion. Did I come back to HotS? No... i'm not playing competitively. I'm just playing for fun, at whatever ladder ranking it might be (diamond was a joke yo)"
The issue i have with protoss (i play it) is that i think it's a worse designed race than the other two. Watching tvz almost makes me jealous, at how rewarding small skirmishes can be, at any point in the game. Warping in 10 zealots lategame is obviously great if undetected, but the risk/reward of loading a medivac with 8 marines can't be matched. When i want to attack, i bring my entire army since it's the synergy of everything that makes protoss strong. A squad of blink stalkers can be annoying i guess, but at the later stage, the risk always outweighs the reward unless severely ahead.
I just think the deathball curse is sad, and i wish the race had more posibilites. With that said, MSC adds alot to the early game, but i still feel like splitting my army up can easily tear me apart during the midgame.
I agree with almost everything the OP says, but wasn't the point of the MSC to allow non-committal aggresion? I mean, all you have to do is keep it with your army and you can recall while barely losing anything.
Linear game plan is not necessarily bad thing. In fact, you could make an argument it's part of the racial identity of Protoss, since Protoss were very linear in BW and intended to be so.
It's that the linear game plan is very boring to watch and play.
There's nothing wrong with a linear game plan if it active and not passive. In BW, protoss was very linear as well, but there was a huge enough skill ceiling along that path. Everyone knew bisu was going to execute his corsair/dt build, completely reliant on a gimmick btw. But it was exciting because everyone wanted to see how well he'd execute it. It was active and required different multitasking abilities.
The razer thin timings you have of WoL is just one big push. You execute it and you win or lose. The problem is not the linear game plan, the problem is that the linear game plan is remaining passive for a long time and then immediately into a win/loss scenario.
Ex: People don't necessarily hate being forced into collosus, they hate that the collosus is so boring.
Absolutely agree with everything you said, OP. If I might expand on something you didn't spend much time on; as a masters protoss player who occasionally offraces and plays at a master level with zerg and terran as well, I think it's fairly obvious that this game was balanced around TvZ for a long time. And there's a good reason for that. When WoL was released, it was fairly easy for terran to smash zerg. Terran was also a bit too strong against protoss in the beginning, but I think that's because terran was easier to play and win with upon release more than because it was genuinely OP against protoss. Once we figured out defending drops and using T3 effectively, we kind of balanced ourselves, with a bit of help from Blizzard nerfing terran.
But they nerfed terran because of TvZ. It feels like 95% of the balance changes(nerfs) to terran were specifically made with TvZ in mind. When protoss was buffed, it seemed like more to fix inherent flaws in unit design than imbalance(immortal range, anyone?). Even the Ghost EMP nerf, while being a huge deal for TvP, still made a big difference in TvZ(vs infestors), and of course the snipe ability was all TvZ. Unfortunately, while TvZ has been nerfed, buffed, and balanced since release, it feels like Protoss has kind of been on the sidelines for everything. We're here, we play, but tell me a PvZ or a PvT is half as dynamic and exciting as TvZ is. You can't, not with a straight face.
It's led to an unfortunate situation where Protoss is pretty balanced, but boring. Stale. It's a race that was ignored while Blizzard was designing the other two races to play each other. It breaks my heart that I would rather watch 10 TvZs than one ZvP. Even PvT is kind of boring now that it's been generally figured out. Protoss is generally kind of forced onto one tech path, they have to play extremely defensively or all in, taking a third is a pain in the ass because it's difficult, or at least inefficient, to be aggressive and expand to three bases.
At the end of the day, Protoss feels fundamentally flawed. It feels like a race that doesn't really have a place in this game. It's like a big, strong guy who can hold his own against a smaller kickboxer and smaller Jiu Jitsu fighter, but only because of his size and strength. The more interesting fight is always going to be between the two trained fighters. Eh, maybe that's a shitty analogy, but hopefully it gets my point across
On April 13 2013 08:05 MerciLess wrote: It's like a big, strong guy who can hold his own against a smaller kickboxer and smaller Jiu Jitsu fighter, but only because of his size and strength. The more interesting fight is always going to be between the two trained fighters. Eh, maybe that's a shitty analogy, but hopefully it gets my point across
This made me laugh, and I think the analogy is right on point. I started in WoL playing protoss because they were the coolest and most sci-fi of the races. Now fast forward, I'm a crappy yet competent player, and am watering at the mouth for a matchup that feels even remotely like ZvT. Take for example the Fantasy v. True game... It was amazing, the back and forth was breathtaking, and there was always hope. I do not feel like a protoss can a.) be that recklessly aggressive and b.) remotely recover like those two players did.
It's win or lose with each confrontation with protoss. Miss a drop? You lose. Miss a forcefield? You lose. Kill a few marines early, pat yourself on the back? No, terran makes more and wins.
-Really inflexible. Really, Protoss looks exactly the same for the first 5 minutes in almost every game. -No contrasting styles of play. The only choice is what order you make things: If the game goes long enough you'll probably make every single unit and your end game army will look the same. -No flow from early game harass to mid game builds. -Few units that benefit greatly from micro -Seems to be some sort of economy problem with mineral dumps. What does it say when suiciding 1ks of minerals for marginal benefit is a reasonable strategy?
Well-written post sir but the theoretical solutions near the end that are proposed are quite dramatic.
Maybe warp gate functionality could be changed instead? All warp gates could have some communal build pool which wouldn't allow instant armies but rather to allow more efficient reinforcement/rally mechanics? Something like keeping build time in the equation... Here is an idea:
Warping in a unit takes the same amount of build time to warp it in. However! Multiple warp gates allow this production time to be shortened by dividing the warp time by X where X is the number of powered Warp gates the player controls. You can still queue multiple units to be warped but they are not warped in at the same time but rather in succession (the next begins to warp only after the previous has finished warping). Just an idea but it could solve the instant reinforcements issue for Protoss while still allowing them to have a unique deployment mechanic. Also, this also allows gateway unit's difference in build times to still be relevant after warp gates are researched.
On April 12 2013 23:08 BluzMan wrote: There's no reason to remove warp tech.
In fact, warp tech would be perfectly fine if not for Blizzard's arrogance. At some point of time they somehow decided that Blizzard game designers don't have to follow RTS design guidelines one of which is "utility costs money".
You have a gateway that produces units, ok. Then you have a gateway that produces units anywhere on the map, that's ok too, but that gateway is obviously more efficient than the first one, therefore, it must have some kind of a drawback. But guess what, build times for units at the WG are lower than at the regular gate, leading to several strange consequences:
- You have that totally useless "switch back" button on the WG that is only there for you to accidentially press at some point and lose a game because of that. - There's a huge spike in protoss production efficiency at the moment when warp gate research is finished, which in turn leads to two consequences: -- 1) Protoss gateway units have to be bad enough to ensure that they don't instantly win the game at that specific timing. -- 2) Production is terrible before the timing which, coupled with consequence 1, means there's no adequate way to be aggressive before that research finishes. Well, unless you seriously consider cannon rushes to be adequate aggression.
The thing is, Warp Gates aren't inherently broken, the way they're implemented is. Blizzard decided to forego rational design for flashy fireworks and introduced too much utility on otherwise already effecient/necessary units (this and the fucking medivac). The moment the cooldowns on the WG are higher, not lower than on a regular Gate the problem is solved.
Honestly I think Protoss players would like their armies to be more microable and not in a spell casting sense. For example, BW zealots were very microable when you had speed, but unfortunately speedlots were replaced by chargelots which are not nearly as fun to micro. While they are charging, they are moving too fast to reliably control them in a beneficial way, but when they are not charging, they don't move fast enough to justify microing them over controlling something else. I can list more examples, but I think we all already know them. What I want to see is Blizzard possibly slightly nerfing Protoss stats (dps, hp, etc.) and rebalancing around greater speed or range. This will theoretically reward players who have better control since a larger disparity of speed equates to more difficult army control and optimizing a range advantage is hard to achieve via a-move, but most importantly it would be more fun for Protoss players in general.
While this line of conversation is of great interest to me, I find it all a little pointless. The balance design team has stated in HotS beta that they are absolutely not going to remove sentries or warp gates from the game (FFs and warp-ins most agree being the two reasons necessitating weak early game units for Protoss). Even after soliciting feedback from the community about Protoss design, the most that we got were simple tweaks to the Mothership Core which have changed the metagame in an insignificant way. So what useful purpose does dreaming about these solution accomplish? Can the goals of a more interesting Protoss game be accomplished in a few simple tweaks for the lazy balance designers, as this seems to be the extent of their clout over the game?
I don't want to pee in the corn flakes of the people who posted in this thread - I even agree with most of what I read. I just fail to see the point of bringing up changing these design decisions that were made in the year 200x over and over again when there's close to zero chance they will ever change.
I somewhat agree with the OP about the Sentry issue. There is a problem with balancing according to this though.... As you say well placed sentry spells can win or lose a battle. This actually "does" fit the definition of skill-based balance - if you perform it well you win if you perform it poorly you lose. Would removing or nerfing the sentry give more options? Maybe, but they would be taking a large piece of what fits the definition of skill based, so this will probably never happen.
Some of the rest of your post I disagree with though. For example, saying there is no risk for early Terran or Zerg? I can agree about Terran somewhat (although if you scout their harassment properly that is definitely a risk to them), but Zerg definitely has early game risk. Unless Zerg is doing some sort of all-in they are near 100% reactive, which is inherently a risk, since if you do not perform your response perfectly you are likely to lose.
I also disagree with your suggestions for changes. By that it sounds a bit too much like your nostalgia for SC1 coming through rather than rational discussion.
But aside from that, good write up. I do think it would be a good idea to assess early game of Protoss to be a bit less spell reliant and give more options. Even though it's skill based, it could be skill based in other ways. Or even keep these options but add more. I actually think Zerg could use some of the same treatment as well, as Zergs early game is pretty limited on options. Protoss and Zerg don't need as many options as Terran, but early game does get a bit stale imo, and these type of changes would make early game more exciting and scouting more important.
(Edit: I also think BearStorms post 2 above this one hit the nail on the head. Protoss is definitely spell reliant micro focused, and it sounds like more microable units is what people want. Maybe a good solution would be to assess the gateway units upgrade placement, or adjust their upgrade functionality a bit, to support this as an OPTION, but also keep spellcasting styles as an option?)
Why don't you try doing 3gate aggression with MSC to protect you in PvT?
Then you can expand, switch to an air army to be aggressive with for a bit (like 2 or 3 oracles to kill SCVs and scouting marines and 3 phoenixes I guess to take out drops) and then get HTs/Archons.
Then, once you 'em, just make void rays and all in when you have like 2 or 3 voids.
Hell, you could actually try to play a normal game I guess, and instead of all-ining, you could just go Robo and then go fast tech.
I'm guessing you'd expand to your natural ~6:30 mins so it looks like an attack is coming to the Terran so he spends money on Bunkers which will delay his Barracks. Then you'd get your 3rd while attacking the Terran's base (remember to run away home when he starts winning the fight and make sure you don't lose all your forces or else the Terran will just go attack you if he's any good).
I'm totally just theorizing here, since I play Terran, but this seems like an actual idea you could use... Just get proficient at it, and see what I missed with my plan and fix it. Or you could just totally disregard it if it fails you often enough. But I mean, why not try it out, doesn't really seem that bad to me, gaining air control is huge for defending drops and you can use it to tech up to some pretty strong shiznip. You can also delay your upgrades a bit to start at 9mins or something, if you chrono boost properly you'll still beat the terran to 3-3 anyhow. All you'll really need is +1 air attack for upgrades I think.
Agree whole-heartedly with the OP. I didn't realise it until this post but when I'm playing as my beloved tech-savvy aliens I find myself trying to survive until midgame or later in PvT and PvZ. However I don't think anything will be patched to improve this before LotV when they might implement a better macro mechanic. Also it really bums me out that a terran can mass marines - the basic terran army unit - upgrade them and still roll over most army comps from zerg and protoss. A friend of mine wanted to get from silver to master so he used the staircase method that was shown by Jakatak if im not mistaken. He set his benchmarks for masters level and was level three of the staircase (SCV, marine, marauder, command centre, barracks, bunker, supply depot, refinery, tech lab, reactor, sensor tower) but since he hates marauders he would only get mass marines with combat shields and stim, throw in an engineering bay for upgrades as the game progressed. And he did it - got to masters on NA easily. I was shocked but in all three match ups people werent prepared for it. And coming off the rant back to the OP I find the only reason I do well as Protoss is because of contingency planning for everything (and guardian shields :p)
The Sentry is the most interesting unit in the game. The fact that we've had many, many discussions like this one about how it ended up indirectly defining the entire design of the race sort of proves that. The sentry is incredibly mico intensive and skill based, and its abilities allow for a wider range of tactical options than any other unit in the game.
Even if Protoss was the "least interesting race" as so many posts here suggest, getting rid of its most interesting unit is not the way to fix things.
Similarly, warp ins are fantastic! They provide a ton of strategic options while also greatly adding to Protoss' unique feel. Yet people in this thread want to eliminate the warp in mechanic and make their units build just like Terran's so that gateway units can be redesigned to be stronger in a straight up fight, again just like Terran's.
I'm not saying Protoss is perfect. It's my least favorite race too. But the proposals to fix Protoss by removing what are easily the best parts about them are absurd.
They should just introduce a new research on the cybercore that enables all gates to produce all units twice as fast. So that the protoss has to decide, if he wants research speedgate or warpgate first.
The sentry needs a rework. The force field is a very interesting ability, but it comes with a great price. The whole race is balanced around one ability. I almost want to go as far and say that the forcefield is a second vortex. If the protoss has no energy, he is dead. If he has, he will live to fight another day. The forcefield also hurts the mapmaking community. Almost all maps pretty much have to look the same, or otherwise one or two forcefields could break everything. The only option is to rework the sentry and to rebalance all gateway units accordingly.
Protoss needs a lot more units that rely on positioning. Remove the colossus and replace it with a reaver-ish unit. I also want to see more inbetween robo and gateway units. The also could just transfer the sentriy to the robotics facility. So that the sentry would become more a midgame unit instead of an early game necessity.
On April 12 2013 23:08 BluzMan wrote: There's no reason to remove warp tech.
In fact, warp tech would be perfectly fine if not for Blizzard's arrogance. At some point of time they somehow decided that Blizzard game designers don't have to follow RTS design guidelines one of which is "utility costs money".
You have a gateway that produces units, ok. Then you have a gateway that produces units anywhere on the map, that's ok too, but that gateway is obviously more efficient than the first one, therefore, it must have some kind of a drawback. But guess what, build times for units at the WG are lower than at the regular gate, leading to several strange consequences:
- You have that totally useless "switch back" button on the WG that is only there for you to accidentially press at some point and lose a game because of that. - There's a huge spike in protoss production efficiency at the moment when warp gate research is finished, which in turn leads to two consequences: -- 1) Protoss gateway units have to be bad enough to ensure that they don't instantly win the game at that specific timing. -- 2) Production is terrible before the timing which, coupled with consequence 1, means there's no adequate way to be aggressive before that research finishes. Well, unless you seriously consider cannon rushes to be adequate aggression.
The thing is, Warp Gates aren't inherently broken, the way they're implemented is. Blizzard decided to forego rational design for flashy fireworks and introduced too much utility on otherwise already effecient/necessary units (this and the fucking medivac). The moment the cooldowns on the WG are higher, not lower than on a regular Gate the problem is solved.
I completely agree.
I feel like a quick fix for this is to make the transformation from gateway to warpgate take longer (not the upgrade research time but the actual transformation)
The myth that Protoss gateway units are "weaker" is as dangerous of a myth as the myth that Zerg HAS to be a base ahead. We have seen thousands of games that have ended as a grand debunking of this myth, but it still persists.
On April 12 2013 23:08 BluzMan wrote: There's no reason to remove warp tech.
In fact, warp tech would be perfectly fine if not for Blizzard's arrogance. At some point of time they somehow decided that Blizzard game designers don't have to follow RTS design guidelines one of which is "utility costs money".
You have a gateway that produces units, ok. Then you have a gateway that produces units anywhere on the map, that's ok too, but that gateway is obviously more efficient than the first one, therefore, it must have some kind of a drawback. But guess what, build times for units at the WG are lower than at the regular gate, leading to several strange consequences:
- You have that totally useless "switch back" button on the WG that is only there for you to accidentially press at some point and lose a game because of that. - There's a huge spike in protoss production efficiency at the moment when warp gate research is finished, which in turn leads to two consequences: -- 1) Protoss gateway units have to be bad enough to ensure that they don't instantly win the game at that specific timing. -- 2) Production is terrible before the timing which, coupled with consequence 1, means there's no adequate way to be aggressive before that research finishes. Well, unless you seriously consider cannon rushes to be adequate aggression.
The thing is, Warp Gates aren't inherently broken, the way they're implemented is. Blizzard decided to forego rational design for flashy fireworks and introduced too much utility on otherwise already effecient/necessary units (this and the fucking medivac). The moment the cooldowns on the WG are higher, not lower than on a regular Gate the problem is solved.
I completely agree.
Came to post something like this. It's so true and I've said it forever. It would be so cool if Protoss strats revolved around warp gate and regular with trading off build time in a logical way. Playing defensive switch off warp gate. Going aggressive switch back on. Mid game maybe you keep 3 gates regular 3 gates warp. But the logic is so mind boggling.. You can warp units in anywhere AND it takes less time? Should be reversed than you could beef gateway units up a touch, tone down the AoE some in exchange and get less engagements with death balls where if you lose your expensive gas units the game is over.
The MSC allows you to gateway expand against Zerg. That's a difference. Protoss can go skytoss now, where they couldn't before? I don't really see the problem.
Protoss needs to be made harder to play before they nerf it. Deathball is still way strong
and you have like 25 million allins I dont see the problem.
You complain about non-commital aggression when YOU CAN USE RECALL ON THE MSC... That means you can 7 gate, kill a third, recall, and be fine.
I really think right now in HotS the mindset of Protoss players in general hasn't been changed at least in the pro scene, in what im concerned the gimmicky play will be replaced soon by greedier tech heavy builds that rely more on multitasking and a smooth balance between Macro and Micro than just stupid Timings like in WoL. Over all I really like the Warp gate because is a mechanic that is so protoss and goes with the theme of teleportation and really high tech of the protoss race lore wise, but FF is what i think should be either removed or just nerfed to the ground to get better Gateway units. Some time ago i thought about reworking the Stalker and make them more of harassment based unit with less hp, less cooldown on blink,higher damage output, tier 2 and also more expensive and with higher supply in order to dont get massed and also Bring back the Dragoon to have an staple Ranged damage dealer and buffing Zealots hugely to compensate the lack of FF.
On April 13 2013 11:30 RainF4ll wrote: They should just introduce a new research on the cybercore that enables all gates to produce all units twice as fast. So that the protoss has to decide, if he wants research speedgate or warpgate first.
The sentry needs a rework. The force field is a very interesting ability, but it comes with a great price. The whole race is balanced around one ability. I almost want to go as far and say that the forcefield is a second vortex. If the protoss has no energy, he is dead. If he has, he will live to fight another day. The forcefield also hurts the mapmaking community. Almost all maps pretty much have to look the same, or otherwise one or two forcefields could break everything. The only option is to rework the sentry and to rebalance all gateway units accordingly.
Protoss needs a lot more units that rely on positioning. Remove the colossus and replace it with a reaver-ish unit. I also want to see more inbetween robo and gateway units. The also could just transfer the sentriy to the robotics facility. So that the sentry would become more a midgame unit instead of an early game necessity.
As I said in the OP, protoss early game design is actually brilliant. The units are expensive, weak, and hard to use, excellent RTS design. However, this is not the case for Z/T, especially in the vP matchups. Either you have to give risk to zerg and terran, or take away the risk from protoss.
If i word the OP post similarly for terran, I can make terran sound like a gimmicky race.
Along the lines of :
We have seen it countless times, the terran is forced to go for gimmicky strategies like the 1/1/1 or marine allins because they cannot compete with the protoss in the midgame (insert pictures) Protoss has so many solid build orders, all leading to a safe midgame (dual forge, fast storm, Colossus...)
and so on.
All races have gimmicky stuff and honestly if i had to chose a race to have the most , it would be protoss, yet thats not a bad thing.
On April 13 2013 10:42 archwaykitten wrote: The Sentry is the most interesting unit in the game. The fact that we've had many, many discussions like this one about how it ended up indirectly defining the entire design of the race sort of proves that. The sentry is incredibly mico intensive and skill based, and its abilities allow for a wider range of tactical options than any other unit in the game.
A lowly Stalker (non-Blink) is actually more micro intensive than a Sentry, as it lends itself more to traditional RTS micro techniques like kiting, splitting, target firing or eliminating overkill shots. Casting spells - especially with smartcasting in SC2 - isn't "micro". It's just decision making. The difference between a good Forcefield and a bad Forcefield is in the decision where to place it, not in players' physical abilities such as handspeed or multitasking.
Also, even if it were interesting and race-defining - which I kind of agree with - it doesn't mean it's interesting in the correct way, in a way that makes the race appealing to play and watch. The fact that it can do some wacky stuff is deceptive. Sentry actually encourages very conservative positioning and movement, even when it is used offensively.
On April 13 2013 10:42 archwaykitten wrote: The Sentry is the most interesting unit in the game. The fact that we've had many, many discussions like this one about how it ended up indirectly defining the entire design of the race sort of proves that. The sentry is incredibly mico intensive and skill based, and its abilities allow for a wider range of tactical options than any other unit in the game.
A lowly Stalker (non-Blink) is actually more micro intensive than a Sentry, as it lends itself more to traditional RTS micro techniques like kiting, splitting, target firing or eliminating overkill shots. Casting spells - especially with smartcasting in SC2 - isn't "micro". It's just decision making. The difference between a good Forcefield and a bad Forcefield is in the decision where to place it, not in players' physical abilities such as handspeed or multitasking.
this is so wrong . try to forcefield a marine marauder army that runs away . you dont need decision making you need speed and precision , thats not decision making .
I have to say, I'm surprised this article got so much attention when so much of it is quite literally wrong.
First off, a huge part of it is complaining about WOL gameplay. Well, nobody has ever said WOL was perfect especially at the end there where infestors completely warped the game. Why waste so much time on WOL? It contributes nothing.
The real meat of the article is only the last few paragraphs which are poorly supported and completely subjective.
So far, no new options have been discovered as a result of the MSC. It's just allowing worse players to survive attacks and make mistakes, it's the opposite of what it was intended to do, and a clear representation of why power creep is bad. The MSC is a power creep solution to the problem the sentry creates, or tries to solve (still not sure which). No aggressive openers have yet been discovered as a result of the MSC, and no greedier defensive plays have been seen to be possible because of it.
This is just your opinion and a nonsensical one at that. The GSL and GSTL have shown protosses with a lot of unique builds based off the mothership core, either with a fast pressure with a mothership core causing significant damage or a greedy economic based play with mothership core as the only defense (see the DT rush).
Think of all the changes that could come about, with the removal of sentries and warptech, and the rebalancing of the early game. Reavers instead of colossi, protoss t3 nerfs in general, both gateway and forge expands viable in PvZ, etc.
Again another blanket statement without any real support. A conclusion with a lot of assertions that can be easily picked apart. Sentries are necessary given how weak warpgate units are. The balance of protoss revolves how bad for the cost warp-gate units are. Without sentries, protoss cannot hold off early pushes with their crappy gate units. However, once warpgates come into play, the protoss have a couple of production cycles of being extremely powerful as warpgates negate travel distances and allow protoss to have an extremely strong effective army size that ignores travel distance. Then they become weak again as other races have tier 2 tech that counters gateway units (such as stim). After this point, gateway units get better as protoss gets upgrades in tier 3 from forges and twilight council.
This inherent design of protoss creates interesting games, especially with mothership core giving the protoss early-pressure that they lacked before. There is now much more of a back and forth in PvX matchups. With the mothership core, Protoss can choose to be strong or weak early game at the cost of economy and then vacilitate between weak and strong depending on when they get their gateway tech and upgrades.
The mention of Parting's immortal all-in exaggerates the strength of sentries. Parting's immortal all-in was a result of the metagame and WOL balance which made zerg tier 3 unbeatable which was also possible because queens were too powerful at defense, allowing the zerg to use more larva to drone which lead to an insurmountable economic lead past 10 minutes. Parting's all-in was beatable as startale_curious showed the last GSL season and even more so now with the new tech zerg got.
Parting's all-in was in fact overused because Protoss had no early-game way to punish a greedy zerg taking a quick third on many maps as well as protoss having no way to take on the zerg on an even economy in tier 3.
That all changed with HOTS thanks to the mothership core and new units, tweaks.
I hope this didn't come off as too much of a rant or a whine to you, and hopefully it was an interesting read.
It was a rant. I just can't believe it got so much attention when it was so poorly reasoned.
On April 14 2013 03:06 Diogenes wrote: I have to say, I'm surprised this article got so much attention when so much of it is quite literally wrong.
First off, a huge part of it is complaining about WOL gameplay. Well, nobody has ever said WOL was perfect especially at the end there where infestors completely warped the game. Why waste so much time on WOL? It contributes nothing.
The real meat of the article is only the last few paragraphs which are poorly supported and completely subjective.
So far, no new options have been discovered as a result of the MSC. It's just allowing worse players to survive attacks and make mistakes, it's the opposite of what it was intended to do, and a clear representation of why power creep is bad. The MSC is a power creep solution to the problem the sentry creates, or tries to solve (still not sure which). No aggressive openers have yet been discovered as a result of the MSC, and no greedier defensive plays have been seen to be possible because of it.
This is just your opinion and a nonsensical one at that. The GSL and GSTL have shown protosses with a lot of unique builds based off the mothership core, either with a fast pressure with a mothership core causing significant damage or a greedy economic based play with mothership core as the only defense (see the DT rush).
Think of all the changes that could come about, with the removal of sentries and warptech, and the rebalancing of the early game. Reavers instead of colossi, protoss t3 nerfs in general, both gateway and forge expands viable in PvZ, etc.
Again another blanket statement without any real support. A conclusion with a lot of assertions that can be easily picked apart. Sentries are necessary given how weak warpgate units are. The balance of protoss revolves how bad for the cost warp-gate units are. Without sentries, protoss cannot hold off early pushes with their crappy gate units. However, once warpgates come into play, the protoss have a couple of production cycles of being extremely powerful as warpgates negate travel distances and allow protoss to have an extremely strong effective army size that ignores travel distance. Then they become weak again as other races have tier 2 tech that counters gateway units (such as stim). After this point, gateway units get better as protoss gets upgrades in tier 3 from forges and twilight council.
This inherent design of protoss creates interesting games, especially with mothership core giving the protoss early-pressure that they lacked before. There is now much more of a back and forth in PvX matchups. With the mothership core, Protoss can choose to be strong or weak early game at the cost of economy and then vacilitate between weak and strong depending on when they get their gateway tech and upgrades.
The mention of Parting's immortal all-in exaggerates the strength of sentries. Parting's immortal all-in was a result of the metagame and WOL balance which made zerg tier 3 unbeatable which was also possible because queens were too powerful at defense, allowing the zerg to use more larva to drone which lead to an insurmountable economic lead past 10 minutes. Parting's all-in was beatable as startale_curious showed the last GSL season and even more so now with the new tech zerg got.
Parting's all-in was in fact overused because Protoss had no early-game way to punish a greedy zerg taking a quick third on many maps as well as protoss having no way to take on the zerg on an even economy in tier 3.
That all changed with HOTS thanks to the mothership core and new units, tweaks.
I hope this didn't come off as too much of a rant or a whine to you, and hopefully it was an interesting read.
It was a rant. I just can't believe it got so much attention when it was so poorly reasoned.
Obviously it is my opinion, but all we've seen so far from protoss players are people metagaming what they know their opponent will do. I want to see strong, standard play that the MSC allows. I want to see play that you can do, even if your opponent knows you're going to do it. With build's like MC's stargate plays, or the tails DT drop build, it works if the other guy screws up, but if he doesn't you're boned.
You COULD nerf protoss t3 and add in more valuable units like the reaver, and change up tech paths etc, if you give protoss more evenly distributed strength throughout the game. I don't believe the MSC will be enough to even the odds in the early game, given that you can't really do anything with it except recall. If it's supposed to allow you to go kill the other guy when you spot him doing something questionable, it doesn't work. The potential for losing your sentries means that the first two times you send it out, you can't afford to use time bomb at all.
You're right about Parting's all in, but what got us to that point of unbeatable late game zerg? Blizzard's thought process on nerfing protoss early game, and buffing zerg early game. Multiple blink nerfs, warpgate nerfs, sentry dps nerfs, zealot build time nerfs, pylon radius nerfs, etc. It all added up to that. Blizzard kept taking from protoss based on terrans and zergs inability to stop warpgate rushes that abused sentries.
I just don't think the MSC and the stargate buffs were as good as a rebalance of units and static D early game, and detection regardless of tech path would be.
On April 13 2013 10:42 archwaykitten wrote: The Sentry is the most interesting unit in the game. The fact that we've had many, many discussions like this one about how it ended up indirectly defining the entire design of the race sort of proves that. The sentry is incredibly mico intensive and skill based, and its abilities allow for a wider range of tactical options than any other unit in the game.
A lowly Stalker (non-Blink) is actually more micro intensive than a Sentry, as it lends itself more to traditional RTS micro techniques like kiting, splitting, target firing or eliminating overkill shots. Casting spells - especially with smartcasting in SC2 - isn't "micro". It's just decision making. The difference between a good Forcefield and a bad Forcefield is in the decision where to place it, not in players' physical abilities such as handspeed or multitasking.
Also, even if it were interesting and race-defining - which I kind of agree with - it doesn't mean it's interesting in the correct way, in a way that makes the race appealing to play and watch. The fact that it can do some wacky stuff is deceptive. Sentry actually encourages very conservative positioning and movement, even when it is used offensively.
Well, micro intensity has never really been formally defined, but I'd say things beating on other things is more continuous entertainment and more continuous player/spectator involvement. Forcefields are usually temporarily appreciated because of how they trap the armies. Really great Forcefields are cathartic when it gets to the fish in a barrel point. A lot of people particularly enjoy the FFs, but its ubiquity is not necessary. It might've been better to make Immortal Gateway and Sentry Robo, or something like that.
I agree in that I do feel that Protoss is under-represented in tournament data, I also feel that Zerg has traditionally been the "strongest race." That being said, with mention of risks and early game, I do feel that Terran does have its limitations. Terran is very similar to very early protoss in that it needs to be training its units from its prod facilities. If Terran goes for any early aggression and loses its army (which happens) it generally results in a loss because they lack the means to reproduce their army fast enough (if a proper punishment is to be delivered). Thats plenty of risk if you ask me. I honestly feel that what Zerg and Protoss need, more than anything, is simply just more units, Terran has more units than any other race (last time I checked) and I feel the niche roles and specific compositions help diversify gameplay. With that, however, I think that We haven't seen a lot of Terran's possible compositions because most of them just arent necessary, you typically see the same old compositions from Protoss and Zerg - due largely to their more limited pool of units. This debate could go on forever though, but one things for sure, Idra is a poor sport and a sour loser, and more than likely a virgin. Thanks for your time.
On April 13 2013 10:42 archwaykitten wrote: The Sentry is the most interesting unit in the game. The fact that we've had many, many discussions like this one about how it ended up indirectly defining the entire design of the race sort of proves that. The sentry is incredibly mico intensive and skill based, and its abilities allow for a wider range of tactical options than any other unit in the game.
A lowly Stalker (non-Blink) is actually more micro intensive than a Sentry, as it lends itself more to traditional RTS micro techniques like kiting, splitting, target firing or eliminating overkill shots. Casting spells - especially with smartcasting in SC2 - isn't "micro". It's just decision making. The difference between a good Forcefield and a bad Forcefield is in the decision where to place it, not in players' physical abilities such as handspeed or multitasking.
Also, even if it were interesting and race-defining - which I kind of agree with - it doesn't mean it's interesting in the correct way, in a way that makes the race appealing to play and watch. The fact that it can do some wacky stuff is deceptive. Sentry actually encourages very conservative positioning and movement, even when it is used offensively.
Well, micro intensity has never really been formally defined, but I'd say things beating on other things is more continuous entertainment and more continuous player/spectator involvement. Forcefields are usually temporarily appreciated because of how they trap the armies. Really great Forcefields are cathartic when it gets to the fish in a barrel point. A lot of people particularly enjoy the FFs, but its ubiquity is not necessary. It might've been better to make Immortal Gateway and Sentry Robo, or something like that.
I've always felt that way about the sentry and immortal as well, but immortals would have to be toned down quite a bit.
On April 12 2013 12:12 JSK wrote: This is a fantastically well-written post and deserves attention.
This ^^
I agree with the OP, even if it is slightly harsh.
Im inches from masters in HOTS as random but was Toss in WOL and am probably going to switch over to Toss in HOTS once I get master again.
I like the feel of toss with the warping in (I liked being able to warp from low ground to high ground especially + I love warp prisms) and I like how 1 probe can start multiple buildings.
I like how shields regen and microing the first few stalkers I get vs marines or lings etc.
I like chronoboost (but would like something else to do with the energy).
I like most toss abilities (especially blink).
BUT the OP is right. The reason I am playing random in HOTS is because I find the other races reward multitasking so much more. You can actually move around on the map without fear of a faster army being able to surround you or backstab you whenever they want.
When I am toss I am always thinking if this goes to a base race odds are I will lose, even if I am winning.
If I split up my army it will leave my main army too weak as all my units rely on each other.
If I push out I must be sure my army is better as I cant retreat.
If I don't push out he can get ahead with MULES/Larva.
If he all ins I have to already have cannons, forcefields or (said tech) out ahead of time, I cant just micro my way out of it.
Most annoyingly. When I play T or Z I am happy to play a similar game every time, making minor adjustments based on how the game is going.
When I play Protoss I feel I have to do some gimicky build to get ahead, then I can go on and play out the game.
Overall SC2 is still my favorite game and I am still going to play it but I do feel protoss is fundamentally flawed, even if it has been patched up really nicely in terms of balance.
On April 13 2013 10:42 archwaykitten wrote: The Sentry is the most interesting unit in the game. The fact that we've had many, many discussions like this one about how it ended up indirectly defining the entire design of the race sort of proves that. The sentry is incredibly mico intensive and skill based, and its abilities allow for a wider range of tactical options than any other unit in the game.
A lowly Stalker (non-Blink) is actually more micro intensive than a Sentry, as it lends itself more to traditional RTS micro techniques like kiting, splitting, target firing or eliminating overkill shots. Casting spells - especially with smartcasting in SC2 - isn't "micro". It's just decision making. The difference between a good Forcefield and a bad Forcefield is in the decision where to place it, not in players' physical abilities such as handspeed or multitasking.
Also, even if it were interesting and race-defining - which I kind of agree with - it doesn't mean it's interesting in the correct way, in a way that makes the race appealing to play and watch. The fact that it can do some wacky stuff is deceptive. Sentry actually encourages very conservative positioning and movement, even when it is used offensively.
Well, micro intensity has never really been formally defined, but I'd say things beating on other things is more continuous entertainment and more continuous player/spectator involvement. Forcefields are usually temporarily appreciated because of how they trap the armies. Really great Forcefields are cathartic when it gets to the fish in a barrel point. A lot of people particularly enjoy the FFs, but its ubiquity is not necessary. It might've been better to make Immortal Gateway and Sentry Robo, or something like that.
I've always felt that way about the sentry and immortal as well, but immortals would have to be toned down quite a bit.
Actually, I don't know if you've heard, but the OneGoal Project has actually taken into account (and tested a large number of) the changes that have been run through the comments. Warp Gate was reworked to have a longer cooldown, Colossus is much more potent against clusters of troops, Immortals at Gateway and Sentry at Robo... I highly suggest reading through some of the changes in the main post.
I see 3 protoss playstyles: gimmicky, allinish and camping. this is frustrating to play and to play against. maybe the mothership core provides now a patchwerk solution, but I dont think it will last without fundamental changes.
and edit: this thread is not the first one about this subject. this talk about protoss design goes on for a long time now. but I dont expect any changes tbh
On April 14 2013 10:33 eMGmoG wrote: I see 3 protoss playstyles: gimmicky, allinish and camping. this is frustrating to play and to play against.
I feel you're right on the money with this. Gimmicks either work or don't work that's the point and I'm fine with that. Allins however net me the most hateful BM from people saying Protoss is OP allins can't be stopped etc. And when i macro up while building a deathball and harassing I get BM again saying that using a deathball is terrible. People seem to really hate playing against Protoss.
It's a shame Protoss has the stereotype of being gimmicky, or the race that has to all-in. I love Protoss, and they're my favorite race, but I don't get the self-satisfaction of playing them, so I've switched to Terran.
On April 14 2013 11:39 Diaresta wrote: Great post! Very well written and articulate!
It's a shame Protoss has the stereotype of being gimmicky, or the race that has to all-in. I love Protoss, and they're my favorite race, but I don't get the self-satisfaction of playing them, so I've switched to Terran.
Nonetheless, great post!
Thanks. Hopefully we'll get some more consistent tools that allow us to express our playstyles better someday.
Personally I was very disappointed when I saw that Blizzard was not going to do something about Warpgate tech when they had the chance in the HOTS beta. HOTS was Blizzards chance to really fix the issues with protoss, but they chose to do basically nothing about it. HOTS is still a pretty good game, but it's blatantly obvious that any matchup involving protoss is inferior to the other ones, both to play and to spectate.
On April 12 2013 13:50 ETisME wrote: I don't know why people would enjoy playing as protoss to be honest. I play all 3 races at low diamond level and protoss matchup is just way behind than other matchups in terms of fun. PvP is boring, PvZ is even worse. there are too little multi tasking other than defending drops, run bys etc. both of which are from the opponent. The late game mass chargelot warp in also requires little attention compared to all other form of harassment because chargetlots are just really good mineral dump.
there are not enough multi tasking strategy that requires toss to have an active mulit tasking, the only one is the stargate phenoix style etc
I could describe the myriad of considerations from early early game pvp, to early game, to mid game to late. And no multi-tasking except with stargate units?
Ill just address all of your points with this: random low-diamond player.
On April 12 2013 13:50 ETisME wrote: I don't know why people would enjoy playing as protoss to be honest. I play all 3 races at low diamond level and protoss matchup is just way behind than other matchups in terms of fun. PvP is boring, PvZ is even worse. there are too little multi tasking other than defending drops, run bys etc. both of which are from the opponent. The late game mass chargelot warp in also requires little attention compared to all other form of harassment because chargetlots are just really good mineral dump.
there are not enough multi tasking strategy that requires toss to have an active mulit tasking, the only one is the stargate phenoix style etc
I could describe the myriad of considerations from early early game pvp, to early game, to mid game to late. And no multi-tasking except with stargate units?
Ill just address all of your points with this: random low-diamond player.
He didn't say no multi tasking. He said there are very few strats that require the protoss to actively multi task aside from reactively.
And since the majority of toss builds rely on allinish timing or turtling, he is largely right.
How about you try addressing his points instead of being a twat.
On April 13 2013 05:48 -_- wrote: All Protoss problems stem from the warpgate.
Protoss can warp in at his opponent's base, thus Protoss is as strong offensively as it is defensively.
As a result, Terran and Zerg must ALWAYS have the stronger army at every point in the game. If they didn't, Protoss would simply win at the point when he was stronger with a warp in at his opponent's base.
Because of this, the fundamental rule of PvX is that P should never attack, because his opponent always the stronger army.
This is actually true as far as gateway units are concerned (it doesn't apply to normally produced units like robo or stargate units). That's why when you look at the army value when a Protoss does a 4gate, 6-8 gate all-in, he can have double the army value in pure gateway units and still only win like 50% of the time.
On April 13 2013 10:42 archwaykitten wrote: The Sentry is the most interesting unit in the game. The fact that we've had many, many discussions like this one about how it ended up indirectly defining the entire design of the race sort of proves that. The sentry is incredibly mico intensive and skill based, and its abilities allow for a wider range of tactical options than any other unit in the game.
A lowly Stalker (non-Blink) is actually more micro intensive than a Sentry, as it lends itself more to traditional RTS micro techniques like kiting, splitting, target firing or eliminating overkill shots. Casting spells - especially with smartcasting in SC2 - isn't "micro". It's just decision making. The difference between a good Forcefield and a bad Forcefield is in the decision where to place it, not in players' physical abilities such as handspeed or multitasking.
this is so wrong . try to forcefield a marine marauder army that runs away . you dont need decision making you need speed and precision , thats not decision making .
The main difference is that casting forcefields is something you do and are done with afterwards. You cut off an army focus it and go back to macroing. When you are fighting with pure stalkers you have to pursue to get in range target fire and kite back if the bio army turns to fight and then you do the same thing again. It needs way more constant attention and it takes more skill to do it while keeping up macro than sitting back with sentries waiting for the battle.
On April 13 2013 10:42 archwaykitten wrote: The Sentry is the most interesting unit in the game. The fact that we've had many, many discussions like this one about how it ended up indirectly defining the entire design of the race sort of proves that. The sentry is incredibly mico intensive and skill based, and its abilities allow for a wider range of tactical options than any other unit in the game.
A lowly Stalker (non-Blink) is actually more micro intensive than a Sentry, as it lends itself more to traditional RTS micro techniques like kiting, splitting, target firing or eliminating overkill shots. Casting spells - especially with smartcasting in SC2 - isn't "micro". It's just decision making. The difference between a good Forcefield and a bad Forcefield is in the decision where to place it, not in players' physical abilities such as handspeed or multitasking.
Also, even if it were interesting and race-defining - which I kind of agree with - it doesn't mean it's interesting in the correct way, in a way that makes the race appealing to play and watch. The fact that it can do some wacky stuff is deceptive. Sentry actually encourages very conservative positioning and movement, even when it is used offensively.
I couldn't agree more to that. Traditional RTS micro is what makes games exciting and shows true skill. Too bad not enough people share the same opinion
On April 12 2013 13:50 ETisME wrote: I don't know why people would enjoy playing as protoss to be honest. I play all 3 races at low diamond level and protoss matchup is just way behind than other matchups in terms of fun. PvP is boring, PvZ is even worse. there are too little multi tasking other than defending drops, run bys etc. both of which are from the opponent. The late game mass chargelot warp in also requires little attention compared to all other form of harassment because chargetlots are just really good mineral dump.
there are not enough multi tasking strategy that requires toss to have an active mulit tasking, the only one is the stargate phenoix style etc
I could describe the myriad of considerations from early early game pvp, to early game, to mid game to late. And no multi-tasking except with stargate units?
Ill just address all of your points with this: random low-diamond player.
He didn't say no multi tasking. He said there are very few strats that require the protoss to actively multi task aside from reactively.
And since the majority of toss builds rely on allinish timing or turtling, he is largely right.
How about you try addressing his points instead of being a twat.
Considering one of the most popular builds these days on ladder in TvP is a DT drop/harass w/ WP, I'd say there is a lot of multi-tasking that Protoss can do, and hasn't fully explored yet. You can do that throughout a game if they really wanted to multi-task.
I just love how we have a thread like this every couple weeks but Blizzard just keeps ignoring it, god knows they whould not want to change the holy Browders "Cool" warpgate design.
Like many I really do not like the overall design of Protoss - warp tech, FF and Colossi are just horrible in an RTS. Just wish people would boycott them so we could have 3 proper races in sc2, not going to happen I know, shame.
I would love if somehow gateways became viable, and warp gates were kept the same but generally used for harass purposes or super fast units and Protoss could actually make macro decisions rather than just w zzzzzzzzz all the time.
There is some truth to these statements, and some of it which really does seem like non-existent issues to me. For instance, regarding "no multitasking" I feel that it was improved significantly in HotS. MC's Stargate expand build might be another "gimmick" as you guys use so liberally in this thread, but it's "gimmicks" like this that you realize protoss can require tons of multitasking. Taking the example of MC's stargate expand, here's what you should do- 1. Have a stalker poking the front, kiting marines 2. Have a hallucination fly in to tank a mine shot 3. Fly in your oracle to scout/harass 4. Be macroing back in the base (adding phoenixes, adding production, probing, creating a sizeable ground force) 5. Use phoenixes to control air spaces in case of drops.
However, one thing about protoss is that the mirror is easily the worst. Yes, worse than ZvZ. Despite Muta wars being utterly retarded (I've watched the games), at least ZvZ can have an epic early game with ling-bling battles. PvP early game is slightly less of a coinflip with the mothership core for defence (bless you nexus cannon), but in the late game, literally nothing beats massed void rays with storm support. Nothing. And given the nature of the void rays where microing can frequently hurt you more than it helps you, a mirror-monobattle of void rays is seriously some of the most annoying and mindless games I've ever played.
However, one thing about protoss is that the mirror is easily the worst. Yes, worse than ZvZ. Despite Muta wars being utterly retarded (I've watched the games), at least ZvZ can have an epic early game with ling-bling battles. PvP early game is slightly less of a coinflip with the mothership core for defence (bless you nexus cannon), but in the late game, literally nothing beats massed void rays with storm support. Nothing. And given the nature of the void rays where microing can frequently hurt you more than it helps you, a mirror-monobattle of void rays is seriously some of the most annoying and mindless games I've ever played.
I dont really get why people considered PvP early game so conflippy. I think to execute and hold early game aggression was pretty hard and not really coinflippy at all just because you cant go 1 gate fe. Most people actually execute cheeses pretty badly (like 4 gates with the first warp in at 5:57 in masters), and so are their holds. Generally i dont understand all the hate against cheese and early game all ins, it is part of the game and can be enjoyed (personally i don't cheese anymore since several months), but most people just hate against it. To this stargate thing, personally i think this is very gimmicky play, if you fail to do damage (my point of view is this just happens when your opponent executes well and is not making mistakes) you're so far behind that this opens a huge timing for terran to just kill you (all games i watched (some against mvp) ended with mc failing after he didnt kill a good amount of scvs). Personally i consider protoss the most gimmicky race and i agree with some points but i dont think that protoss has to multitask less i think this depends highly on the playstyle you chose. At least that are my 2 pence
I was going to write my own thread on the subject of Protoss, but I feel this thread is so well presented I may as well just add to the discussion here.
Protoss as a race is best embodied by MC. MC is both the most consistent and the least consistent protoss player around. He will often ace his group with amazing builds and timings and then a few weeks later lose to players that he is in theory much, much better than and fall out of a group or tourney extremely early. This also applies to basically every matchup for Protoss and the fact that they have three totally different styles that require different skillsets for each one. It's not uncommon for the average Protoss player to have two good matchups and one awful one on ladder for example, much more so than the other two races.
It's important to note that I don't want to discuss balance, but I do feel like certain metagame shifts can be extremely good for Protoss. I dont think anything is particularly imbalanced, but I do feel that the metagame heavily favours Protoss in TvP right now and at the same time it heavily favours Zerg in ZvP. This is a stark contrast to two or three weeks ago when the complete opposite was true. There are situations in lategame TvP where the Protoss player is totally helpless as well, at the mercy of his opponents micro.
Lets first examine the current state of PvT. I'm by heart a Terran player, however my PvT is leaps and bounds better than my TvP. The reason for this was in order to tackle my weak TvP I wanted to learn the Protoss openers and try to find the weak points so that I could exploit them. The problem I found though is many of the weakpoints are simply build order losses, with basically nothing the Protoss player can do to stop the loss. Things like hellion drops and really early (pre msc) all ins are great for Terran, but the Protoss player can't stop them. He basically needs to just accept those losses and play to the meta where most Terrans dont do those types of builds.
The list of dangerous Protoss openers against Terran right now is HUGE. 1base proxy oracles, blink all ins, 1base immortal busts are all very good and look very similar in terms of initial setups, so Terran needs to scout very, very effectively to spot the all in. The second part is that those all ins all require totally different setups for defense from the Terran, guess wrong and you lose. Moving onto two base play Protoss can open with all sorts of DT drops modified off Tails initial build (Which is genius). They can open two base Colossus, they can fake Colossus and go into templar and even then they could just open straight up with templar. Hell even a delayed oracle opener can be really really good. The variations in terms of openers Protoss against Terran that are all very good and very viable is beyond extreme, and the vast majority of them are also extremely safe and very difficult to punish.
The single thing that ties all these openers together is the mothership core. Typically in the past Terran would try to hit a small 1-2 minute window where the Protoss was vulnerable in order to do damage, or even win the game. Many of the builds like 2 base Colossus and double forge HT openers had a small window for the Terran to try and exploit. The Terran still needed to have excellent scouting and play extremely well to hit that timing, and at the same time the Protoss had various tools available to delay and stall out until they got the tech they needed to hold. This led to some very exciting games that would settle down after the window went away. Now though the MSC basically removes that window by forcing the Terran to back off for 1-2 minutes at a time (depending on msc energy) while at the same time making drops much much more risky. The crazy amount of greed Protoss can get away with, and the amount of viable openers is very stressful for your average Terran player right now.
The Terran side of things is basically the heavy one base openers like Hellion drops and bunker rushes. If you want to play a more standard game though you're in a ton of trouble. The widow mine drops have been mostly figured out, it's not really a fully viable opener anymore (especially with tails DT drops out there). This leaves you with a standard +1 4 medivac timing, but with a MSC that just gets shut down extremely hard. You see the problem here? Terran players have very few options for aggressive builds and rely heavily on taking advantage of Protoss mistakes, while at the same time a bad read from the Terran results in a near instant loss. This problem is even more compounded by how strong the lategame Protoss army is even without micro is extremely scary.
I dont really want to go into too much detail with PvZ and PvP, but I'll touch on it a bit. PvZ right now is FFE into immortal all in or pray you can hold a third base. Zerg has adapted to the skytoss strats by using a ling/hydra timing to really nullify that idea very, very early on and deny the Protoss a third base. PvP is basically stargate or bust now and the game very closely resembles the boring snoozefest that is ZvZ and muta vs. muta battles.
The real Problem with Protoss? The obvious ones are warpgate, FF and Colossus. Colossus being easily the worst unit in the game. Not only does it cause huge win/loss states for races that react properly/or incorrectly to their presence on the field they totally screw up the balance of air units in the game. Anti air units have to be balanced around being good anti air units AND being good anti Colossus units without being too powerful in one aspect or another. The best example are Void Rays, which are great against Colossus but they also crush Corrupters and Vikings. Capital Ships stand no chance in the current metagame because of just how insanely good anti has to be to deal with Colossus for another example.
The other things people don't seem to talk about are just how extremely black and white all the Protoss units counters/units they counter situations are. This leads to micro and control either needing to be Korean level good, or just not very impactful (most late game Protoss matchups don't require much control, although there are some situations like HT vs. vipers etc). This also leads to unit mixtures needing to be just about perfect from whoever the Protoss is fighting. Terran needs the right mix of Vikings/Ghosts/Marines/Marauders to combat the lategame toss army properly, any mistake here and Terran makes his job much, much more difficult. If the Terran gets it right though the Protoss player loses complete control of the fight and the game.
Chargelots wreck marauders, in large numbers equal supply marauders will kill themselves from stim and take nearly the whole map to either win the fight or lose it. In most cases though you dont have an entire map to kite back and the Zealots win easily. Chargelots at the same time gets wrecked by marines or hellbats, so if your splash gets taken out/disabled and you can't cut his marine numbers down you're going to lose the game badly.
Stalkers are pretty weak overall, but they're great vs. roaches with good control. Put them up against well upgrade Marines, Marauders or hydra's though and they melt into a pile of shattered Protoss dreams.
Then you have units like Immortals who are capable of racking up 30+ kills on units like roaches/marauders/stalkers if they're well protected. They are so strong and so very underrated. At the same time though rely on them too heavily and you expose yourself to large numbers of very cheap light units like chargelots/marines/zerglings.
Archons are another unit that is either game endingly good or causing you a near instant loss. Archons can clean up marauders/a few marines like nobodies business. Have 5 archons left against 18 injured marauders and 4 marines with 4-5medivacs? no problem for the archons. Get them emped at the start of the fight though and watch your 1500 gas go right up in smoke.
Lets wrap this up now. Basically everything about Protoss is complete feast or famine. They have almost nothing that provides stability to their matchups and they lean so heavily on the metagame it's not even funny. The worst part about Protoss though is that your victory depends almost entirely on what your opponent does and not what you yourself do. This needs to change, and soon.
On April 12 2013 12:31 Whitewing wrote: The MSC does allow for more greedy play in PvT, but I'm not sure if it'll remain that way when terran players get better at defending oracle harass without widow mines and go back to gasless expanding.
I feel like MC's play was more a metagame build than what's going to be standard. As is, nothing greedier is viable imo. It's still 1g expo + tech + 3 gates into blabla midgame.
I've been doing a lot of 1 gate expand into robo into double forge into more gates lately, that's way more greedy (that's double forge and robo bay on 1 gateway). I frequently finish 3/3 before my opponent is half way to 2/2, and that's if he goes double e-bay, if not, he's boned on upgrades.
3/3 Chargelots +guardian shield vs 1/1 marines is the most one sided slaughter you've ever seen, even if the zealots are at a lower count than they might have otherwise have been.
Greed doesn't have to be purely economic, it can be tech based too.
I feel like this rolls over and dies to... well anything the terran does though. You're also forced to do it blind that early, and double forges are a liability against a lot of builds.
You'd think that, but it's not blind, nor does it auto-die. You scout early and see if he's going for gas or a gasless expand. If it's a gasless expand, (you're going 2 gas on 15 supply, 2 probes in each), you make a stargate and go for oracles while expanding. If he took gas, the build is completely safe because the msc + 2 sentries (I build exactly 2) is enough to hold of basically any agression he can throw at you off of a gas based build. You do build a robo early after all, and get observers. If it seems like he's doing an all-in, you're fine. You can also build cannons in an emergency. My winrate on ladder in PvT right now is around 80%, and that's at a reasonably high masters level. There's basically nothing terran can do to crush you as long as you defend well, at least until later on. Your ridiculously good upgrades help secure a 3rd base and help the really scary drop timings before you can have high templar everywhere.
Most common aggression I run into is widow mine drops with bio poking at the front, and that can be held fairly easily with decent micro and the nexus cannon.
I think any 2 rax or denying of the scout into some trickery would keep that build from being mainstream. The two forges that early are a huge commitment. A big part of the traditional double forge build centers around a few cool ideas:
Your obs gets there before the forges are done, so you can cancel one Your 1-1 finishes right as the 10 minute medivac timing hits (yours won't have 2-2 by then) Gas timings work out nicely so that you can zealot spam
All in all, if your scout gets denied and he goes 1-1-1 or a dedicated 3 rax you're boned with two forges that early.
And hes boned if your scout isn't denied, which is pretty much the crux for an all-in (on ladder) working. He's gambling just as big as the Protoss is, except you'll probably face that gamble in 1 of 10 games or less.
its a race like this that want me to stop play starcraft2 all together BUT THEY ARE NO OTHER RTS THERE, no, i dont count red alert or crap games like that, they are even worse but its really sad seeing SC2 beeing a prequel and not a sequel..........REALLY the game is garbage compared to broodwar, why did blizzrd change so much
On April 15 2013 02:48 Foxxan wrote: its a race like this that want me to stop play starcraft2 all together BUT THEY ARE NO OTHER RTS THERE, no, i dont count red alert or crap games like that, they are even worse but its really sad seeing SC2 beeing a prequel and not a sequel..........REALLY the game is garbage compared to broodwar, why did blizzrd change so much
Because SC2 is supposed to be sequel, there must be enough changes, so it doesn't qualify only as an expansion.
On a different note, I'm not happy with how HotS protoss is developed, that's why I haven't bought this expansion yet. Waste of money if the race design isn't changed. OP excellently describes some of the major problems.
On April 14 2013 11:39 Diaresta wrote: Great post! Very well written and articulate!
It's a shame Protoss has the stereotype of being gimmicky, or the race that has to all-in. I love Protoss, and they're my favorite race, but I don't get the self-satisfaction of playing them, so I've switched to Terran.
Nonetheless, great post!
for me it comes down to the macro mechanics.
Chronoboost just fails compared to the other to, i was hoping for HotS to fix this however Blizz didn't.
Larva both supports agressiv as does it economic play. Mules both support agressiv as does it economic play. Chronoboost supports agressiv play, but no way it is as good for economic play compared to the other 2.
Chronoboost gives timeframes for Protoss in the metagame to win with crisp timing attacks, until they are figured out. Than it is back to the board until you figure out something to surprise again, because if your timing fails there is no economic follow up.
I mean look how WoL went, Protoss was by far the worst Race doing in early times of WoL. Until one Protoss who understood the design of P most (MC) grabbed his wins with exactly this, sharp timings.
If you leave MC out which P has done anything really major, that can not be just classified as a short time lucky run? (compared to the other races)
I think they should make Forcefield an upgrade like Hallucination was, 200m-200g and 60s-90s at the Cybernetics Core. Make Sentries cost a lot less, say 75/50.
The reason for this is three-fold:
a Sentry is a very viable unit without Forcefield because Hallucination and Guardian Shield are already very good utilities from the start; the additional price reduction will encourage players to get more sentries with their armies for those support utilities without gutting their ability to: quickly tech up, cost effectively defend early game/mid-game or not be forced into a timing attack because they made so many Sentries. b If a Protoss forgoes the FF research it could weaken his standard powerball and yet it can provide opportunities to create better compositions with other gas heavy units that Protoss sorely need in the match ups (ex. would be making Stalkers more effective vs. air plays like Voids or Mutas). It can also provide a more effective mineral dump than Zealots in the late game because you generally need that Guardian Shield and Forcefield at that time but it's too damn expensive to keep getting Sentries. c One of the offsets is that when a Protoss decides to do a timing without FF on their Sentries their more powerful army has slightly less control. This prevents the full dependence on the the FFs to determine the outcome and grants both opponents opportunities to have more dynamic and interesting encounters. It also gives a slightly higher skill-cap because takes skill knowing when to get and not get FF, such as when scouting and defending an all-in or signifying the opponent that has proper scouting that you are performing an all in.
On April 15 2013 03:43 BeyondCtrL wrote: I think they should make Forcefield an upgrade like Hallucination was, 200m-200g and 60s-90s at the Cybernetics Core. Make Sentries cost a lot less, say 75/50.
The reason for this is three-fold:
a Sentry is a very viable unit without Forcefield because Hallucination and Guardian Shield are already very good utilities from the start; the additional price reduction will encourage players to get more sentries with their armies for those support utilities without gutting their ability to: quickly tech up, cost effectively defend early game/mid-game or not be forced into a timing attack because they made so many Sentries. b If a Protoss forgoes the FF research it could weaken his standard powerball and yet it can provide opportunities to create better compositions with other gas heavy units that Protoss sorely need in the match ups (ex. would be making Stalkers more effective vs. air plays like Voids or Mutas). It can also provide a more effective mineral dump than Zealots in the late game because you generally need that Guardian Shield and Forcefield at that time but it's too damn expensive to keep getting Sentries. c One of the offsets is that when a Protoss decides to do a timing without FF on their Sentries their more powerful army has slightly less control. This prevents the full dependence on the the FFs to determine the outcome and grants both opponents opportunities to have more dynamic and interesting encounters. It also gives a slightly higher skill-cap because takes skill knowing when to get and not get FF, such as when scouting and defending an all-in or signifying the opponent that has proper scouting that you are performing an all in.
I dont think there is a problem with protoss at all (except for their unbelievably broken late game compositions but thats another story)
I played Terran for 3 years (masters level for 2 years) and with the introduction of global play i decided to learn protoss on a different server. Well needless to say I got to masters level in about 150 games played.
Things I've noticed:
PvZ is always a standard macro game unless zerg does some weird all in. TvZ you might as well do a strong 1 base opening into late expansion. Terran's best chance of beating this is a 2rax 1 gas open (most terrans 1rax expand) PvP well this is a joke at my current skill level. You can 4gate just like WoL except the MSC makes it even more powerful.
Maybe this is why people seem to consider protoss a gimmicky race. They have really powerful options that dont require a heavy economy to execute. IMO this leads to players developing bad habits and becoming complacent with a certain play style that will get them quick wins on the ladder, but will not improve their gameplay in the long run. Every strategy gets figured out eventually which is why fundamental play is always the best way to go in the long run.
So my point is the problem lies with the players, not with the race having the wrong units or mechanics. Personally I play protoss without forcefields so I would love to see them removed.
And these people lobbying to get reavers back in the game. . . go play the SC2:BW mod.
On April 15 2013 03:43 BeyondCtrL wrote: I think they should make Forcefield an upgrade like Hallucination was, 200m-200g and 60s-90s at the Cybernetics Core. Make Sentries cost a lot less, say 75/50.
The reason for this is three-fold:
a Sentry is a very viable unit without Forcefield because Hallucination and Guardian Shield are already very good utilities from the start; the additional price reduction will encourage players to get more sentries with their armies for those support utilities without gutting their ability to: quickly tech up, cost effectively defend early game/mid-game or not be forced into a timing attack because they made so many Sentries. b If a Protoss forgoes the FF research it could weaken his standard powerball and yet it can provide opportunities to create better compositions with other gas heavy units that Protoss sorely need in the match ups (ex. would be making Stalkers more effective vs. air plays like Voids or Mutas). It can also provide a more effective mineral dump than Zealots in the late game because you generally need that Guardian Shield and Forcefield at that time but it's too damn expensive to keep getting Sentries. c One of the offsets is that when a Protoss decides to do a timing without FF on their Sentries their more powerful army has slightly less control. This prevents the full dependence on the the FFs to determine the outcome and grants both opponents opportunities to have more dynamic and interesting encounters. It also gives a slightly higher skill-cap because takes skill knowing when to get and not get FF, such as when scouting and defending an all-in or signifying the opponent that has proper scouting that you are performing an all in.
You'd kill PvP. No thanks.
Ya, if you're still dying to 4-gates - something that is already possible to hold without FF. Without FF but cheaper Sentry you can for example get Guardian Shield, Robo and Immortal out a lot quicker.
PvZ is always a standard macro game unless zerg does some weird all in. TvZ you might as well do a strong 1 base opening into late expansion. Terran's best chance of beating this is a 2rax 1 gas open (most terrans 1rax expand) PvP well this is a joke at my current skill level. You can 4gate just like WoL except the MSC makes it even more powerful.
So my point is the problem lies with the players, not with the race having the wrong units or mechanics. Personally I play protoss without forcefields so I would love to see them removed.
/QUOTE]
Sorry i don't want to verbally offend you by any means but: 4 gate just works because people tend to play greedy a safe pvp opening should deal with this no problem (Even 1 gate stargate can people are just way too greedy) it got even worse with the msc not better and the high ground warp in was making it even worse. Without sentries against good opponents pvp and pvt (unless you go some kind of templar style) would be not playable. The balance kinda is around the sentry its not even forcefield guardian shield aswell (and protoss did the worst of all races in gsl) So youre basically drawing conclusions off your own (no offense withouy saying im better or worse) bad level of play wich leads to: All protoss players don't know the game (or ar bad dunno but your text basically leads to one of those two). I just think this is not the way to look at it sorry.
My protoss is garbage compared to my Terran, I said things that were based off my current skill level which is masters. You're absolutely right about 4gate working against people being greedy in PvP. The point I was making is that on the ladder people tend to play the style they are most comfortable with. . . and since Protoss has many 1 base options and strong 2 base timings people will tend to use those the most leaving the rest of their game under developed. It doesn't mean that the race is lacking because there are some pretty sick Protoss players out there in the GSL, pro-league etc.
On April 15 2013 04:38 TheIceMan86 wrote: I'm not offended at all bro.
My protoss is garbage compared to my Terran, I said things that were based off my current skill level which is masters. You're absolutely right about 4gate working against people being greedy in PvP. The point I was making is that on the ladder people tend to play the style they are most comfortable with. . . and since Protoss has many 1 base options and strong 2 base timings people will tend to use those the most leaving the rest of their game under developed. It doesn't mean that the race is lacking because there are some pretty sick Protoss players out there in the GSL, pro-league etc.
Yeah, so your point is that in your personal experience in masters Protoss is pretty strong, and that there are a couple good Protoss in GSL, who, despite them being so good as you say are far less consistent and can't manage to get the wins the zerg and terran are getting.
Did you actually read the OP? Look at the winrates?
On April 15 2013 02:48 Foxxan wrote: its a race like this that want me to stop play starcraft2 all together BUT THEY ARE NO OTHER RTS THERE, no, i dont count red alert or crap games like that, they are even worse but its really sad seeing SC2 beeing a prequel and not a sequel..........REALLY the game is garbage compared to broodwar, why did blizzrd change so much
Because SC2 is supposed to be sequel, there must be enough changes, so it doesn't qualify only as an expansion.
On a different note, I'm not happy with how HotS protoss is developed, that's why I haven't bought this expansion yet. Waste of money if the race design isn't changed. OP excellently describes some of the major problems.
I was going to write my own thread on the subject of Protoss, but I feel this thread is so well presented I may as well just add to the discussion here.
Protoss as a race is best embodied by MC. MC is both the most consistent and the least consistent protoss player around. He will often ace his group with amazing builds and timings and then a few weeks later lose to players that he is in theory much, much better than and fall out of a group or tourney extremely early. This also applies to basically every matchup for Protoss and the fact that they have three totally different styles that require different skillsets for each one. It's not uncommon for the average Protoss player to have two good matchups and one awful one on ladder for example, much more so than the other two races.
It's important to note that I don't want to discuss balance, but I do feel like certain metagame shifts can be extremely good for Protoss. I dont think anything is particularly imbalanced, but I do feel that the metagame heavily favours Protoss in TvP right now and at the same time it heavily favours Zerg in ZvP. This is a stark contrast to two or three weeks ago when the complete opposite was true. There are situations in lategame TvP where the Protoss player is totally helpless as well, at the mercy of his opponents micro.
Lets first examine the current state of PvT. I'm by heart a Terran player, however my PvT is leaps and bounds better than my TvP. The reason for this was in order to tackle my weak TvP I wanted to learn the Protoss openers and try to find the weak points so that I could exploit them. The problem I found though is many of the weakpoints are simply build order losses, with basically nothing the Protoss player can do to stop the loss. Things like hellion drops and really early (pre msc) all ins are great for Terran, but the Protoss player can't stop them. He basically needs to just accept those losses and play to the meta where most Terrans dont do those types of builds.
The list of dangerous Protoss openers against Terran right now is HUGE. 1base proxy oracles, blink all ins, 1base immortal busts are all very good and look very similar in terms of initial setups, so Terran needs to scout very, very effectively to spot the all in. The second part is that those all ins all require totally different setups for defense from the Terran, guess wrong and you lose. Moving onto two base play Protoss can open with all sorts of DT drops modified off Tails initial build (Which is genius). They can open two base Colossus, they can fake Colossus and go into templar and even then they could just open straight up with templar. Hell even a delayed oracle opener can be really really good. The variations in terms of openers Protoss against Terran that are all very good and very viable is beyond extreme, and the vast majority of them are also extremely safe and very difficult to punish.
The single thing that ties all these openers together is the mothership core. Typically in the past Terran would try to hit a small 1-2 minute window where the Protoss was vulnerable in order to do damage, or even win the game. Many of the builds like 2 base Colossus and double forge HT openers had a small window for the Terran to try and exploit. The Terran still needed to have excellent scouting and play extremely well to hit that timing, and at the same time the Protoss had various tools available to delay and stall out until they got the tech they needed to hold. This led to some very exciting games that would settle down after the window went away. Now though the MSC basically removes that window by forcing the Terran to back off for 1-2 minutes at a time (depending on msc energy) while at the same time making drops much much more risky. The crazy amount of greed Protoss can get away with, and the amount of viable openers is very stressful for your average Terran player right now.
The Terran side of things is basically the heavy one base openers like Hellion drops and bunker rushes. If you want to play a more standard game though you're in a ton of trouble. The widow mine drops have been mostly figured out, it's not really a fully viable opener anymore (especially with tails DT drops out there). This leaves you with a standard +1 4 medivac timing, but with a MSC that just gets shut down extremely hard. You see the problem here? Terran players have very few options for aggressive builds and rely heavily on taking advantage of Protoss mistakes, while at the same time a bad read from the Terran results in a near instant loss. This problem is even more compounded by how strong the lategame Protoss army is even without micro is extremely scary.
I dont really want to go into too much detail with PvZ and PvP, but I'll touch on it a bit. PvZ right now is FFE into immortal all in or pray you can hold a third base. Zerg has adapted to the skytoss strats by using a ling/hydra timing to really nullify that idea very, very early on and deny the Protoss a third base. PvP is basically stargate or bust now and the game very closely resembles the boring snoozefest that is ZvZ and muta vs. muta battles.
The real Problem with Protoss? The obvious ones are warpgate, FF and Colossus. Colossus being easily the worst unit in the game. Not only does it cause huge win/loss states for races that react properly/or incorrectly to their presence on the field they totally screw up the balance of air units in the game. Anti air units have to be balanced around being good anti air units AND being good anti Colossus units without being too powerful in one aspect or another. The best example are Void Rays, which are great against Colossus but they also crush Corrupters and Vikings. Capital Ships stand no chance in the current metagame because of just how insanely good anti has to be to deal with Colossus for another example.
The other things people don't seem to talk about are just how extremely black and white all the Protoss units counters/units they counter situations are. This leads to micro and control either needing to be Korean level good, or just not very impactful (most late game Protoss matchups don't require much control, although there are some situations like HT vs. vipers etc). This also leads to unit mixtures needing to be just about perfect from whoever the Protoss is fighting. Terran needs the right mix of Vikings/Ghosts/Marines/Marauders to combat the lategame toss army properly, any mistake here and Terran makes his job much, much more difficult. If the Terran gets it right though the Protoss player loses complete control of the fight and the game.
Chargelots wreck marauders, in large numbers equal supply marauders will kill themselves from stim and take nearly the whole map to either win the fight or lose it. In most cases though you dont have an entire map to kite back and the Zealots win easily. Chargelots at the same time gets wrecked by marines or hellbats, so if your splash gets taken out/disabled and you can't cut his marine numbers down you're going to lose the game badly.
Stalkers are pretty weak overall, but they're great vs. roaches with good control. Put them up against well upgrade Marines, Marauders or hydra's though and they melt into a pile of shattered Protoss dreams.
Then you have units like Immortals who are capable of racking up 30+ kills on units like roaches/marauders/stalkers if they're well protected. They are so strong and so very underrated. At the same time though rely on them too heavily and you expose yourself to large numbers of very cheap light units like chargelots/marines/zerglings.
Archons are another unit that is either game endingly good or causing you a near instant loss. Archons can clean up marauders/a few marines like nobodies business. Have 5 archons left against 18 injured marauders and 4 marines with 4-5medivacs? no problem for the archons. Get them emped at the start of the fight though and watch your 1500 gas go right up in smoke.
Lets wrap this up now. Basically everything about Protoss is complete feast or famine. They have almost nothing that provides stability to their matchups and they lean so heavily on the metagame it's not even funny. The worst part about Protoss though is that your victory depends almost entirely on what your opponent does and not what you yourself do. This needs to change, and soon.
This post of Filter basically sums it up and i would advise putting it in the OP
Playing Protoss is so frustrating in the sense that theres no way you can consistently beat an opponent your better than with safe solid play, I mean the only macro Protoss who've showcased this style and made it work to some degree have been Rain, YongHwa and Creator and their losses often come down to making 1 stupid mistake and then just losing because they didn't take enough risks.
On April 15 2013 04:38 TheIceMan86 wrote: I'm not offended at all bro.
My protoss is garbage compared to my Terran, I said things that were based off my current skill level which is masters. You're absolutely right about 4gate working against people being greedy in PvP. The point I was making is that on the ladder people tend to play the style they are most comfortable with. . . and since Protoss has many 1 base options and strong 2 base timings people will tend to use those the most leaving the rest of their game under developed. It doesn't mean that the race is lacking because there are some pretty sick Protoss players out there in the GSL, pro-league etc.
Yeah, so your point is that in your personal experience in masters Protoss is pretty strong, and that there are a couple good Protoss in GSL, who, despite them being so good as you say are far less consistent and can't manage to get the wins the zerg and terran are getting.
Did you actually read the OP? Look at the winrates?
Maybe the protoss players in the GSL are losing to players that are just better than them at the game? Did you ever consider that? At the highest level victories are won by skill, and sometimes by luck, it doesn't matter what race the player is using because if it did, the game wouldn't be taken seriously.
You know what I'm not gonna argue about something I dont really care about. I cannot site specific examples or link to vods or pick apart winrates. I made my point, you missed it, I'm done here.
Great posts both by OP and Filter. Colossi have been negatively affecting Protoss since the very start of WoL and it's sad to see them being clung to so tightly by Blizzard.
My personal experience is that toss is the strongest ladder race, easiest mechanics, very forgiving, very strong units. Now I havent played in the GSL so I wont even comment on high level play.
Strong macro toss on 3 bases in PvT and PvZ seems to be imbalanced beneath high masters. The demands on the terran and zerg (except when you could go mass infestor) are much tougher imo.
On April 15 2013 06:44 Salient wrote: Maybe Legacy of the Void will fix Toss. It is their expansion.
Well, considering how HoTS fixed absolutely none of the fundamental flaws of Zerg (lack of micro intensive units, Nydus worms are terrible, late game economic scaling is awful...etc etc). I wouldn't bet on it. One can only hope that Blizzard realizes that Legacy of the Void is their one last chance to at least come close to the brilliance of Brood War and they pull out all the stops, pull their heads out of their asses and actually make some tough choices about core game design.
Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Feast just showed that a PvZ can be very agressive, like TvZ, with a lot of multitask involved.
Protoss is not necessary about camping. And with the new tools zerg got to destroy the toss deathball (vipers, sh, ultra), let's hope protoss will start to camp less and execute multi pronged agression more...
I have posted many walls of text on the subject, I'll try to be as concise as I can..... Warp gates should be an OPTION, regular gateways should produce faster than them. Make FF's destructible, and buff the stalker, I think giving it plus 2 per attack upgrade would be a good idea. Maybe even give stalkers a way to cancel the attack animation and truly stutter step. Roaches get plus 2 per upgrade, and MM with stim has a much higher rate of fire, which means they also get more benefit from attack upgrades. A stalker buff would also help another big problem protoss has, anti-air. As much as phoenix's have been buffed to suit this need, the stargate tech path is still very restrictive because of it's lack of splash dmg. It doesn't give you a way to deal with lot's of lings or roaches or lots of marines.
Yet another core issue with protoss is that it gets the least benefit from early 3rds. A big part is because how hard it is to defend 3 bases early as toss, but also because of how fast a zerg can drone up a 3rd and terran having the options of orbital/PF, they can either make it much more financially rewarding or safer.Also terran expansions can fly, which give them added safety when making them early and the potential to save them with a lift off. At the same time, a terran can drop mules as soon as an expo is completed, and 2 mules basically pay for the expo.
Then there is map vision, terran having sensor towers and scans, gives them an option to see vast areas. Zerg has creep, overlords, overseer/changlings that certainly are not painful to lose. Protoss has obs, but as we see time and time again they get killed and making an obs costs gas, replacing them is painful when you really need to get that 2nd colossus out for example.
The Momma core was a big fat bandaid to many of the protoss design flaws, but it is grossly inadequate. I'd also like to add that after playing protoss most of WOL, I switched to terran in HOTS and have never regretted my decision. I lost many games as protoss that felt like they were in big part due to it's poor design and wonky mechanics/units, where with terran I have NEVER felt that way, I always feel my losses are well deserved.
Protoss just has so many routes to a build order loss and almost no way to turn it around even if you realize it pretty early. If you get behind as protoss in any of it's matchups, you lose. I'd also like to add that without FF's, colossus, storm, protoss can never get a cost effective trade vs almost any composition. Even with great control vs very little control. That's a serious problem. I've always felt that the BW protoss was vastly superior to sc2 protoss. Reavers, single templar tech building, arbitors, dragoons, shield batteries, dark archons. I think if BW protoss was in sc2 with the addition of warp and prisms, it would be awesome, fun, and provide much better gameplay. Playing toss in sc2 is just frustrating. Your best bet is really to just all in every game, and MC has proven that, time and time again.
I've always felt i'm playing after what my opponent does be it in PvT or PvZ, less so in PvT atm since then i can actually take the initiative a good amount of the time, but never vs Z. Go the wrong techpath or miss to anticipate a tech switch vs Z and you´re done for. Too many stalkers vs his lings, you´re dead, he faked you out by getting hydra den, roach warren spire, you thought hydras and he went mutas? You're dead. Anticipate his techswitch to hydras from mutas too late? Dead.
Biggest issue here tbh is as previously mentioned protoss is very hit or miss when it comes to the units. Also stalkers has been in need of a rework since WoL release. They are way too expensive for being so bad. But i guess they are being held back by WG and also blink.
And then there's the AoE reliance. Protoss rush AoE dmg in every matchup since you simply need it vs so much due to the core gateway units being so inadequate. How many times hasn´t a protoss player had his AoE units sniped for whatever reason, and despite having equal army size/value with them gone, proceed to get completely annihilated like not even close. This can probably be seen best vs T, if he gets a good EMP on ur templars or nice snipes on your colossus you loose all your stuff, like 100 food worth of gateway units for like 20 of his. It won´t be an even remotely close fight. Pretty funny how the more expensive core gateway units can´t hold a candle to lings/roachers/hydras or marines/marauders without AoE accompaning them.
On April 12 2013 12:31 Whitewing wrote: The MSC does allow for more greedy play in PvT, but I'm not sure if it'll remain that way when terran players get better at defending oracle harass without widow mines and go back to gasless expanding.
I feel like MC's play was more a metagame build than what's going to be standard. As is, nothing greedier is viable imo. It's still 1g expo + tech + 3 gates into blabla midgame.
I've been doing a lot of 1 gate expand into robo into double forge into more gates lately, that's way more greedy (that's double forge and robo bay on 1 gateway). I frequently finish 3/3 before my opponent is half way to 2/2, and that's if he goes double e-bay, if not, he's boned on upgrades.
3/3 Chargelots +guardian shield vs 1/1 marines is the most one sided slaughter you've ever seen, even if the zealots are at a lower count than they might have otherwise have been.
Greed doesn't have to be purely economic, it can be tech based too.
I feel like this rolls over and dies to... well anything the terran does though. You're also forced to do it blind that early, and double forges are a liability against a lot of builds.
You'd think that, but it's not blind, nor does it auto-die. You scout early and see if he's going for gas or a gasless expand. If it's a gasless expand, (you're going 2 gas on 15 supply, 2 probes in each), you make a stargate and go for oracles while expanding. If he took gas, the build is completely safe because the msc + 2 sentries (I build exactly 2) is enough to hold of basically any agression he can throw at you off of a gas based build. You do build a robo early after all, and get observers. If it seems like he's doing an all-in, you're fine. You can also build cannons in an emergency. My winrate on ladder in PvT right now is around 80%, and that's at a reasonably high masters level. There's basically nothing terran can do to crush you as long as you defend well, at least until later on. Your ridiculously good upgrades help secure a 3rd base and help the really scary drop timings before you can have high templar everywhere.
Most common aggression I run into is widow mine drops with bio poking at the front, and that can be held fairly easily with decent micro and the nexus cannon.
I think any 2 rax or denying of the scout into some trickery would keep that build from being mainstream. The two forges that early are a huge commitment. A big part of the traditional double forge build centers around a few cool ideas:
Your obs gets there before the forges are done, so you can cancel one Your 1-1 finishes right as the 10 minute medivac timing hits (yours won't have 2-2 by then) Gas timings work out nicely so that you can zealot spam
All in all, if your scout gets denied and he goes 1-1-1 or a dedicated 3 rax you're boned with two forges that early.
And hes boned if your scout isn't denied, which is pretty much the crux for an all-in (on ladder) working. He's gambling just as big as the Protoss is, except you'll probably face that gamble in 1 of 10 games or less.
He controls whether or not your scout gets denied. If he doesn't want you to go into his base, you don't get into his base.
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
I just have so much trouble reading the OP persistent talking about Protoss not having non committal aggression when Protoss is the only race that can TP. I can kind of understand the part about wanting to have non committal economy, because Protoss does seem the most limited when taking very early expansions.
And the statistics used only go up to August 2012. It's well documented that overall, Protoss is getting the short end of the statistics, but that isn't exactly what is keeping you out of Grandmasters. I think the general rule of skill applies that if most P players switched to Z, 100%, they would find themselves a few points higher on the ladder, and that is about it. And if you switched to T you would find yourself a few points lower on the ladder.
And no Protoss really wants the removal of sentries/ff. You just can't do it with Banelings working the way they do, and Zerg needs banes vs Terran. I understand that Warp Tech and Sentries make the early gateway units very had to balance, but it is supposed to be the way to give you the ability to be agressive, and defend (esp vs banes) ... and now TP is even added on top of that. I really don't see you suggesting a whole lot, but complaining about everything.
I also think the late game P power is more related to pathing in the game, and how much mobile splash damage they have. Since HotS, the power of Air toss does really give a good argument for nerfing the Protoss lategame units, but things could be worse, ending up like most Terrans stuck in a permanent mid-game.
This game is no BroodWar, and it could be a lot better. I think a lot of the problems are because of the ridiculously good pathing, units that push each other around, and so much automated game play, and less to do with warp and sentries. Those are simply answers to make a game more "dynamic" that is constantly struggling against it's own engine and mechanics to be interesting.
edit: finally found filters post everyone is talking about. Very true about toss being black and white, and leaning heavily on meta game. but, all SC2 is anyways is waiting for the other player to fall off of the horse first, and every MU is like that :/
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
but that's the beauty of warpgate, you're allowed to not spend money on units and instead spend it on tech and upgrades etc..
Excellent write up, however, it will just fall on deaf ears. I remember last time people tried to complain about warpgate and sentries through well written posts. Blizzard responded with this quote
.. We've been getting a lot of feedback from lower-level Protoss ....
On April 15 2013 02:07 Filter wrote: I was going to write my own thread on the subject of Protoss, but I feel this thread is so well presented I may as well just add to the discussion here.
Protoss as a race is best embodied by MC. MC is both the most consistent and the least consistent protoss player around. He will often ace his group with amazing builds and timings and then a few weeks later lose to players that he is in theory much, much better than and fall out of a group or tourney extremely early. This also applies to basically every matchup for Protoss and the fact that they have three totally different styles that require different skillsets for each one. It's not uncommon for the average Protoss player to have two good matchups and one awful one on ladder for example, much more so than the other two races.
It's important to note that I don't want to discuss balance, but I do feel like certain metagame shifts can be extremely good for Protoss. I dont think anything is particularly imbalanced, but I do feel that the metagame heavily favours Protoss in TvP right now and at the same time it heavily favours Zerg in ZvP. This is a stark contrast to two or three weeks ago when the complete opposite was true. There are situations in lategame TvP where the Protoss player is totally helpless as well, at the mercy of his opponents micro.
Lets first examine the current state of PvT. I'm by heart a Terran player, however my PvT is leaps and bounds better than my TvP. The reason for this was in order to tackle my weak TvP I wanted to learn the Protoss openers and try to find the weak points so that I could exploit them. The problem I found though is many of the weakpoints are simply build order losses, with basically nothing the Protoss player can do to stop the loss. Things like hellion drops and really early (pre msc) all ins are great for Terran, but the Protoss player can't stop them. He basically needs to just accept those losses and play to the meta where most Terrans dont do those types of builds.
The list of dangerous Protoss openers against Terran right now is HUGE. 1base proxy oracles, blink all ins, 1base immortal busts are all very good and look very similar in terms of initial setups, so Terran needs to scout very, very effectively to spot the all in. The second part is that those all ins all require totally different setups for defense from the Terran, guess wrong and you lose. Moving onto two base play Protoss can open with all sorts of DT drops modified off Tails initial build (Which is genius). They can open two base Colossus, they can fake Colossus and go into templar and even then they could just open straight up with templar. Hell even a delayed oracle opener can be really really good. The variations in terms of openers Protoss against Terran that are all very good and very viable is beyond extreme, and the vast majority of them are also extremely safe and very difficult to punish.
The single thing that ties all these openers together is the mothership core. Typically in the past Terran would try to hit a small 1-2 minute window where the Protoss was vulnerable in order to do damage, or even win the game. Many of the builds like 2 base Colossus and double forge HT openers had a small window for the Terran to try and exploit. The Terran still needed to have excellent scouting and play extremely well to hit that timing, and at the same time the Protoss had various tools available to delay and stall out until they got the tech they needed to hold. This led to some very exciting games that would settle down after the window went away. Now though the MSC basically removes that window by forcing the Terran to back off for 1-2 minutes at a time (depending on msc energy) while at the same time making drops much much more risky. The crazy amount of greed Protoss can get away with, and the amount of viable openers is very stressful for your average Terran player right now.
The Terran side of things is basically the heavy one base openers like Hellion drops and bunker rushes. If you want to play a more standard game though you're in a ton of trouble. The widow mine drops have been mostly figured out, it's not really a fully viable opener anymore (especially with tails DT drops out there). This leaves you with a standard +1 4 medivac timing, but with a MSC that just gets shut down extremely hard. You see the problem here? Terran players have very few options for aggressive builds and rely heavily on taking advantage of Protoss mistakes, while at the same time a bad read from the Terran results in a near instant loss. This problem is even more compounded by how strong the lategame Protoss army is even without micro is extremely scary.
I dont really want to go into too much detail with PvZ and PvP, but I'll touch on it a bit. PvZ right now is FFE into immortal all in or pray you can hold a third base. Zerg has adapted to the skytoss strats by using a ling/hydra timing to really nullify that idea very, very early on and deny the Protoss a third base. PvP is basically stargate or bust now and the game very closely resembles the boring snoozefest that is ZvZ and muta vs. muta battles.
The real Problem with Protoss? The obvious ones are warpgate, FF and Colossus. Colossus being easily the worst unit in the game. Not only does it cause huge win/loss states for races that react properly/or incorrectly to their presence on the field they totally screw up the balance of air units in the game. Anti air units have to be balanced around being good anti air units AND being good anti Colossus units without being too powerful in one aspect or another. The best example are Void Rays, which are great against Colossus but they also crush Corrupters and Vikings. Capital Ships stand no chance in the current metagame because of just how insanely good anti has to be to deal with Colossus for another example.
The other things people don't seem to talk about are just how extremely black and white all the Protoss units counters/units they counter situations are. This leads to micro and control either needing to be Korean level good, or just not very impactful (most late game Protoss matchups don't require much control, although there are some situations like HT vs. vipers etc). This also leads to unit mixtures needing to be just about perfect from whoever the Protoss is fighting. Terran needs the right mix of Vikings/Ghosts/Marines/Marauders to combat the lategame toss army properly, any mistake here and Terran makes his job much, much more difficult. If the Terran gets it right though the Protoss player loses complete control of the fight and the game.
Chargelots wreck marauders, in large numbers equal supply marauders will kill themselves from stim and take nearly the whole map to either win the fight or lose it. In most cases though you dont have an entire map to kite back and the Zealots win easily. Chargelots at the same time gets wrecked by marines or hellbats, so if your splash gets taken out/disabled and you can't cut his marine numbers down you're going to lose the game badly.
Stalkers are pretty weak overall, but they're great vs. roaches with good control. Put them up against well upgrade Marines, Marauders or hydra's though and they melt into a pile of shattered Protoss dreams.
Then you have units like Immortals who are capable of racking up 30+ kills on units like roaches/marauders/stalkers if they're well protected. They are so strong and so very underrated. At the same time though rely on them too heavily and you expose yourself to large numbers of very cheap light units like chargelots/marines/zerglings.
Archons are another unit that is either game endingly good or causing you a near instant loss. Archons can clean up marauders/a few marines like nobodies business. Have 5 archons left against 18 injured marauders and 4 marines with 4-5medivacs? no problem for the archons. Get them emped at the start of the fight though and watch your 1500 gas go right up in smoke.
Lets wrap this up now. Basically everything about Protoss is complete feast or famine. They have almost nothing that provides stability to their matchups and they lean so heavily on the metagame it's not even funny. The worst part about Protoss though is that your victory depends almost entirely on what your opponent does and not what you yourself do. This needs to change, and soon.
I'm a Protoss player and I wholeheartedly agree with this. Although I haven't suffered too much in PvZ on KR as I play a more laid back Airtoss + cannon style or a high paced Twilight DT Blink all in.
Protoss is way too metagame orientated and definitely too black and white in terms of unit interactions
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
You cant compare bw>sc2, you have to see the whole package. The protoss units are worse in power compared to zerg,terran in sc2 than in broodwar
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
You cant compare bw>sc2, you have to see the whole package. The protoss units are worse in power compared to zerg,terran in sc2 than in broodwar
Basic gateway units are worse than bio, because that's the whole point of making bio viable in SC2. (would be quite a fail if zealot/stalker could hold it's own against MMM AND Protoss would get all the high tech tech options on the same upgrade, hell, templar/archon even on the same production path) And Protoss was already superdependend on all forms of tech units in BW against Zerg, nothing has changed on that front.
Gateway units are shit with good pathing and unlimited selection. By design. Non of that has anything to do with Warpgate whatsoever.
Seriously guys... Not every unit in the game can be as powerful as the marine. All that whining about Z/P bad low tier units... yes, one races T1 units will always be better than anothers, just by how the techpaths work. That doesn't mean that larva, warpgate, sentries, infestors caused "the units to suck". Hell, if you ask me the only thing that makes other units suck in this game is the marine, which has caused actual nerfs on other units. Not just imaginary that people come up with as theory, after year long figuering which units dominate which other. (blizzard surely did not have the time to figure out the SC2 2013 gameplay in their planning stages 2008,2009)
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
You cant compare bw>sc2, you have to see the whole package. The protoss units are worse in power compared to zerg,terran in sc2 than in broodwar
Basic gateway units are worse than bio, because that's the whole point of making bio viable in SC2. (would be quite a fail if zealot/stalker could hold it's own against MMM AND Protoss would get all the high tech tech options on the same upgrade, hell, templar/archon even on the same production path) And Protoss was already superdependend on all forms of tech units in BW against Zerg, nothing has changed on that front.
Gateway units are shit with good pathing and unlimited selection. By design. Non of that has anything to do with Warpgate whatsoever.
Seriously guys... Not every unit in the game can be as powerful as the marine. All that whining about Z/P bad low tier units... yes, one races T1 units will always be better than anothers, just by how the techpaths work. That doesn't mean that larva, warpgate, sentries, infestors caused "the units to suck". Hell, if you ask me the only thing that makes other units suck in this game is the marine, which has caused actual nerfs on other units. Not just imaginary that people come up with as theory, after year long figuering which units dominate which other. (blizzard surely did not have the time to figure out the SC2 2013 gameplay in their planning stages 2008,2009)
seriously dude, seriously.... why do you write this to me? You take me as a fool dont you, well stop
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
You cant compare bw>sc2, you have to see the whole package. The protoss units are worse in power compared to zerg,terran in sc2 than in broodwar
Basic gateway units are worse than bio, because that's the whole point of making bio viable in SC2. (would be quite a fail if zealot/stalker could hold it's own against MMM AND Protoss would get all the high tech tech options on the same upgrade, hell, templar/archon even on the same production path) And Protoss was already superdependend on all forms of tech units in BW against Zerg, nothing has changed on that front.
Gateway units are shit with good pathing and unlimited selection. By design. Non of that has anything to do with Warpgate whatsoever.
Seriously guys... Not every unit in the game can be as powerful as the marine. All that whining about Z/P bad low tier units... yes, one races T1 units will always be better than anothers, just by how the techpaths work. That doesn't mean that larva, warpgate, sentries, infestors caused "the units to suck". Hell, if you ask me the only thing that makes other units suck in this game is the marine, which has caused actual nerfs on other units. Not just imaginary that people come up with as theory, after year long figuering which units dominate which other. (blizzard surely did not have the time to figure out the SC2 2013 gameplay in their planning stages 2008,2009)
The point is that they are too weak compared to most notably bio, and their tech units are to strong compared to most notably all of the tech units of terran. The core units of protoss suck in comparison to the core units of terran. There will always be a best unit, or in the least a best unit in certain situation, but if we are comparing game design of TvP in BW and SC2, neither race had a power unit such as the ht/colossi are in SC2. The ht was strong in BW, but a single one didn't pack as much punch as in SC2(for multiple reasons). My core point is that I think TvP especially would be more rewarding if the say 90/140 supply of units in the protoss army were actually the dangerous part of the army and the tech units were the support units rather than the other way around.
I love how all people just look at the protoss players and forget the implications for other races.
Maybe I play Terran exactly because I enjoy that my T1 is so strong and the game would be a lot less enjoyable if I had to incooperate Thors into my army.
Well, if it helps Company of Heroes 2 beta is open. Maybe we'll get lucky and the it'll be able to compete enough that Blizz will listen to its customers here...
On April 15 2013 04:38 TheIceMan86 wrote: I'm not offended at all bro.
My protoss is garbage compared to my Terran, I said things that were based off my current skill level which is masters. You're absolutely right about 4gate working against people being greedy in PvP. The point I was making is that on the ladder people tend to play the style they are most comfortable with. . . and since Protoss has many 1 base options and strong 2 base timings people will tend to use those the most leaving the rest of their game under developed. It doesn't mean that the race is lacking because there are some pretty sick Protoss players out there in the GSL, pro-league etc.
Yeah, so your point is that in your personal experience in masters Protoss is pretty strong, and that there are a couple good Protoss in GSL, who, despite them being so good as you say are far less consistent and can't manage to get the wins the zerg and terran are getting.
Did you actually read the OP? Look at the winrates?
Maybe the protoss players in the GSL are losing to players that are just better than them at the game? Did you ever consider that? At the highest level victories are won by skill, and sometimes by luck, it doesn't matter what race the player is using because if it did, the game wouldn't be taken seriously.
You know what I'm not gonna argue about something I dont really care about. I cannot site specific examples or link to vods or pick apart winrates. I made my point, you missed it, I'm done here.
Oh wow, so your argument is that protoss is doing badly because all protoss players suck.
It will be a good day for TL when we're released from ignorant kids like you.
Protoss is fine. I say this as a high masters Protoss player. I have absolutely no trouble playing solid macro styles in every matchup. We even have free Hallucinate now to solve old scouting problems in PvZ. I honestly don't understand what the complaints are about. 1 Gate FEing or reactive DT drop works fine against Terran. WoL style FFEs and Stargate openers work fine against Zerg. The only matchup that kinda sucks is PvP because it's so SG oriented at the moment, but even that has a variety of openers.
This thread just reeks of whine to me. I've never felt that I didn't deserve a loss. If I were getting build order losses, that means my build is garbage, not that the race is broken.
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
You cant compare bw>sc2, you have to see the whole package. The protoss units are worse in power compared to zerg,terran in sc2 than in broodwar
Basic gateway units are worse than bio, because that's the whole point of making bio viable in SC2. (would be quite a fail if zealot/stalker could hold it's own against MMM AND Protoss would get all the high tech tech options on the same upgrade, hell, templar/archon even on the same production path) And Protoss was already superdependend on all forms of tech units in BW against Zerg, nothing has changed on that front.
Gateway units are shit with good pathing and unlimited selection. By design. Non of that has anything to do with Warpgate whatsoever.
Seriously guys... Not every unit in the game can be as powerful as the marine. All that whining about Z/P bad low tier units... yes, one races T1 units will always be better than anothers, just by how the techpaths work. That doesn't mean that larva, warpgate, sentries, infestors caused "the units to suck". Hell, if you ask me the only thing that makes other units suck in this game is the marine, which has caused actual nerfs on other units. Not just imaginary that people come up with as theory, after year long figuering which units dominate which other. (blizzard surely did not have the time to figure out the SC2 2013 gameplay in their planning stages 2008,2009)
The point is that they are too weak compared to most notably bio, and their tech units are to strong compared to most notably all of the tech units of terran. The core units of protoss suck in comparison to the core units of terran. There will always be a best unit, or in the least a best unit in certain situation, but if we are comparing game design of TvP in BW and SC2, neither race had a power unit such as the ht/colossi are in SC2. The ht was strong in BW, but a single one didn't pack as much punch as in SC2(for multiple reasons). My core point is that I think TvP especially would be more rewarding if the say 90/140 supply of units in the protoss army were actually the dangerous part of the army and the tech units were the support units rather than the other way around.
It's been the topic of various discussions that the reaver was way more powerful than the Colossus. And HTs weren't shabby either with their 112 damage storms. Even more, bio or biomech wasn't even viable to begin with against those units, even though MarineMedic beats Dragoon and Zealot in Broodwar.
The reality has nothing to do with warpgate or sentry based gateway nerfs. Blizzard made bio viable by tuning down Protoss splash and tuning up Terran with Marauder&Medivac instead of usless Firebats and damage/square reducing medics (not to mention the implicit drop play you get from medivacs, "for free" when you just go for combat healing).
Of course you may say that they have gone overboard with Terran bio and not far enough with Protoss splash. But in my opinion it will always come down less to how good/bad warpgate units are, but rather that Protoss as a whole concept is basically just "moooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrr beef". Which makes Protoss units trade badly, as they don't have the damage output to achieve anything when outnumbered. (unlike marines, zerglings, banelings, mines, tanks... which will often take a few enemies with them to the grave and therefore allow for "let's try to attack there, it can't be too bad" kind of gameplay). (zealots, oracles and templar being the exceptions)
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
But there was no marauder in bw right?
right. That doesn't mean that "gateway units have been nerfed because of warpgate". It means that Terran got the marauder. Not some arbitrary: you see guys, after years of Starcraft 2 we know that bio beats gateway builds. Obviously that stuff was nerfed long before we figured this out due to sentries and warpgates
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
**First Post :D** I'm by no means an expert at this game, but I play Protoss and have honestly been thinking about switching. I find that the Protoss are just not AS flexible. Think of the match ups. Against Zerg OR Terran, Protoss favor teching up to either Colossus, HTs with Storm, Archons, or Void Rays. All high tech units, and very very good in my opinion. Pretty much necessary in all those match ups. What does that leave Protoss? Units that allow you to tech up, Sentries/MSC, units that allow you to hurt the opponents economy, Oracles/Phoenix/DTs, hopefully putting you ahead while you get the death ball rolling or just flat out ending the game O.O, but what is in between? An Immortal All-in? As Protoss, I just feel the philosophy is to turtle up and tech up. Do you ever feel confident enough to pressure your opponent and deny his 3rd without heavy losses? When you DO tech up, the army compositions aren't anything that is TOO crazy. Corruptor/Vikings for Colo, Hydra/Marines for VR, Good splitting vs HT storm OR EMP/(Abduct?) You build up a death ball with chrono'd upgrades and just pain train your way to the opponents base. Rather stale in my opinion. Some more SUSTAINABLE mid game units would be a relief, Blink Stalkers aside...
But then again, the design makes sense. Protoss is this advanced alien race, it makes sense from their characteristics that they would have to tech up to in battle so they can hit their peak strength.
On April 16 2013 03:06 FancyCaTSC2 wrote: I love how all people just look at the protoss players and forget the implications for other races.
Maybe I play Terran exactly because I enjoy that my T1 is so strong and the game would be a lot less enjoyable if I had to incooperate Thors into my army.
This is exactly what I just realized today. Thors, the unit every terran hates to use, are the equivalent of all those high tech units protoss needs to incorporate in order to compete in every game they play. It always looks so awkward to see Thors in a terran composition because everything else terran has is very microable. Unfortunately the whole of the Protoss army is a bunch of different sized Thors. And even though some of those have abilities to use, there is not much fancy micro you can do to make your units more cost effective. Instead protoss gets one-time cost-efficiency bonuses with things like warp-in and recall.
"In terms of overall results, protoss had the worst consistency. I feel that this trend will continue for protoss in the future, unless blizzard addresses the early game viability of protoss non-committal aggression and economy." quoted for truth I have totally agreed with this since WoL and I still see in Hots. I think this could fix most anything.
Sc2 Protoss is all about snowballing tech and upgrades that simply become an avalanche that can become unstoppable. This design is why Warpgate and Sentries are acceptable: they allow Protoss some flexibility in stalling or intimidating their opponents, which in turn provides Protoss more leeway when it comes to Macro. That said, I honestly think Protoss in SC2 has been the most Macro dependent race, which is really hurting now because both other races have new/buffed units specifically designed to harass Macro into submission. I'm okay with Protoss requiring more skill now to play, since Macro games are significantly more difficult to play as Protoss in HotS, but the problem is that a Protoss that doesn't play aggressive simply cannot keep up. Period.
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
You cant compare bw>sc2, you have to see the whole package. The protoss units are worse in power compared to zerg,terran in sc2 than in broodwar
Basic gateway units are worse than bio, because that's the whole point of making bio viable in SC2. (would be quite a fail if zealot/stalker could hold it's own against MMM AND Protoss would get all the high tech tech options on the same upgrade, hell, templar/archon even on the same production path) And Protoss was already superdependend on all forms of tech units in BW against Zerg, nothing has changed on that front.
Gateway units are shit with good pathing and unlimited selection. By design. Non of that has anything to do with Warpgate whatsoever.
Seriously guys... Not every unit in the game can be as powerful as the marine. All that whining about Z/P bad low tier units... yes, one races T1 units will always be better than anothers, just by how the techpaths work. That doesn't mean that larva, warpgate, sentries, infestors caused "the units to suck". Hell, if you ask me the only thing that makes other units suck in this game is the marine, which has caused actual nerfs on other units. Not just imaginary that people come up with as theory, after year long figuering which units dominate which other. (blizzard surely did not have the time to figure out the SC2 2013 gameplay in their planning stages 2008,2009)
The point is that they are too weak compared to most notably bio, and their tech units are to strong compared to most notably all of the tech units of terran. The core units of protoss suck in comparison to the core units of terran. There will always be a best unit, or in the least a best unit in certain situation, but if we are comparing game design of TvP in BW and SC2, neither race had a power unit such as the ht/colossi are in SC2. The ht was strong in BW, but a single one didn't pack as much punch as in SC2(for multiple reasons). My core point is that I think TvP especially would be more rewarding if the say 90/140 supply of units in the protoss army were actually the dangerous part of the army and the tech units were the support units rather than the other way around.
It's been the topic of various discussions that the reaver was way more powerful than the Colossus. And HTs weren't shabby either with their 112 damage storms. Even more, bio or biomech wasn't even viable to begin with against those units, even though MarineMedic beats Dragoon and Zealot in Broodwar.
The reality has nothing to do with warpgate or sentry based gateway nerfs. Blizzard made bio viable by tuning down Protoss splash and tuning up Terran with Marauder&Medivac instead of usless Firebats and damage/square reducing medics (not to mention the implicit drop play you get from medivacs, "for free" when you just go for combat healing).
Of course you may say that they have gone overboard with Terran bio and not far enough with Protoss splash. But in my opinion it will always come down less to how good/bad warpgate units are, but rather that Protoss as a whole concept is basically just "moooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrr beef". Which makes Protoss units trade badly, as they don't have the damage output to achieve anything when outnumbered. (unlike marines, zerglings, banelings, mines, tanks... which will often take a few enemies with them to the grave and therefore allow for "let's try to attack there, it can't be too bad" kind of gameplay). (zealots, oracles and templar being the exceptions)
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
But there was no marauder in bw right?
right. That doesn't mean that "gateway units have been nerfed because of warpgate". It means that Terran got the marauder. Not some arbitrary: you see guys, after years of Starcraft 2 we know that bio beats gateway builds. Obviously that stuff was nerfed long before we figured this out due to sentries and warpgates
He didn't say that gateway units were nerfed because of warpgate just that they sucked because of it*, I don't really see how you can deny that. The connection they have is that if gateway units were buffed then one base gateway all-ins, which were very popular early on in WoL, would have become too powerful since Warpgate can effectively negate the defenders advantage.
*The difference being that gateway units were not nerfed, but the other races early units have become more effective and they could not buff gateway units to match them directly, so they had to indirectly buff them defensively by adding sentries followed by compensating for their offensive weakness with strong splash in Colossi and High Templar. I know you mentioned HT and Reavers being stronger in BW, but the way that units clump in SC2 means that any form of aoe is just much more effective.
Edit: The sad thing is that I actually really like Warpgate, Sentries and the concept of the Colossus, but I think a lot more people would be happy if we could find some kind of even ground where gateway units were a little stronger, and Colossi/HT were a little weaker such that Protoss has a more stable early game and Colossi/HT wouldn't require quite as hard counters as they currently do.
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
**First Post :D** I'm by no means an expert at this game, but I play Protoss and have honestly been thinking about switching. I find that the Protoss are just not AS flexible. Think of the match ups. Against Zerg OR Terran, Protoss favor teching up to either Colossus, HTs with Storm, Archons, or Void Rays. All high tech units, and very very good in my opinion. Pretty much necessary in all those match ups. What does that leave Protoss? Units that allow you to tech up, Sentries/MSC, units that allow you to hurt the opponents economy, Oracles/Phoenix/DTs, hopefully putting you ahead while you get the death ball rolling or just flat out ending the game O.O, but what is in between? An Immortal All-in? As Protoss, I just feel the philosophy is to turtle up and tech up. Do you ever feel confident enough to pressure your opponent and deny his 3rd without heavy losses? When you DO tech up, the army compositions aren't anything that is TOO crazy. Corruptor/Vikings for Colo, Hydra/Marines for VR, Good splitting vs HT storm OR EMP/(Abduct?) You build up a death ball with chrono'd upgrades and just pain train your way to the opponents base. Rather stale in my opinion. Some more SUSTAINABLE mid game units would be a relief, Blink Stalkers aside...
But then again, the design makes sense. Protoss is this advanced alien race, it makes sense from their characteristics that they would have to tech up to in battle so they can hit their peak strength.
While I agree with the idea that Protoss should be stronger with high tech, the difficult part comes in trying to balance this all out.
As you said all the high tech options for Protoss are very good, but this means that they may be able to be abused by rushing/massing them. Therefore both other races need to have quite hard "counters" to these units so that rushing or massing them does not become the only valid strategy. Now if both the other races have strong ways to deal with these high tech units, this means that they will usually only have a small window of relevance where you will need to make good use of them before their effectiveness begins to decrease. Theoretically this is fine from a balance perspective but it means that you really need to get your timings correct, and this can apply to pretty much any unit, but I think because of the high cost and time to tech up to and produce these units, this could be a major cause for the consistency issues that many Protoss players face.
I would definitely like to have a more sustainable mid game unit, I really like the concept of Immortals, but I feel like splash damage is just too necessary to hold off, except in certain limited situations. I'd love to try out an Immortal with less single target damage and a very small aoe (maybe the shot could explode into shrapnel behind the unit hitting units within a 90 degree angle within a short range). I know that this would make Immortals better against marines and zerglings which they are supposed to be bad against, but in all honesty, for their cost Immortals in their current state don't seem to do great against a significant number of any units unless accompanied by mass forcefields or a full deathball.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
You cant compare bw>sc2, you have to see the whole package. The protoss units are worse in power compared to zerg,terran in sc2 than in broodwar
Basic gateway units are worse than bio, because that's the whole point of making bio viable in SC2. (would be quite a fail if zealot/stalker could hold it's own against MMM AND Protoss would get all the high tech tech options on the same upgrade, hell, templar/archon even on the same production path) And Protoss was already superdependend on all forms of tech units in BW against Zerg, nothing has changed on that front.
Gateway units are shit with good pathing and unlimited selection. By design. Non of that has anything to do with Warpgate whatsoever.
Seriously guys... Not every unit in the game can be as powerful as the marine. All that whining about Z/P bad low tier units... yes, one races T1 units will always be better than anothers, just by how the techpaths work. That doesn't mean that larva, warpgate, sentries, infestors caused "the units to suck". Hell, if you ask me the only thing that makes other units suck in this game is the marine, which has caused actual nerfs on other units. Not just imaginary that people come up with as theory, after year long figuering which units dominate which other. (blizzard surely did not have the time to figure out the SC2 2013 gameplay in their planning stages 2008,2009)
The point is that they are too weak compared to most notably bio, and their tech units are to strong compared to most notably all of the tech units of terran. The core units of protoss suck in comparison to the core units of terran. There will always be a best unit, or in the least a best unit in certain situation, but if we are comparing game design of TvP in BW and SC2, neither race had a power unit such as the ht/colossi are in SC2. The ht was strong in BW, but a single one didn't pack as much punch as in SC2(for multiple reasons). My core point is that I think TvP especially would be more rewarding if the say 90/140 supply of units in the protoss army were actually the dangerous part of the army and the tech units were the support units rather than the other way around.
It's been the topic of various discussions that the reaver was way more powerful than the Colossus. And HTs weren't shabby either with their 112 damage storms. Even more, bio or biomech wasn't even viable to begin with against those units, even though MarineMedic beats Dragoon and Zealot in Broodwar.
The reality has nothing to do with warpgate or sentry based gateway nerfs. Blizzard made bio viable by tuning down Protoss splash and tuning up Terran with Marauder&Medivac instead of usless Firebats and damage/square reducing medics (not to mention the implicit drop play you get from medivacs, "for free" when you just go for combat healing).
Of course you may say that they have gone overboard with Terran bio and not far enough with Protoss splash. But in my opinion it will always come down less to how good/bad warpgate units are, but rather that Protoss as a whole concept is basically just "moooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrr beef". Which makes Protoss units trade badly, as they don't have the damage output to achieve anything when outnumbered. (unlike marines, zerglings, banelings, mines, tanks... which will often take a few enemies with them to the grave and therefore allow for "let's try to attack there, it can't be too bad" kind of gameplay). (zealots, oracles and templar being the exceptions)
On April 16 2013 04:45 Silencioseu wrote:
On April 15 2013 21:37 Big J wrote:
On April 15 2013 19:31 Zarahtra wrote:
On April 15 2013 18:02 Big J wrote:
On April 15 2013 17:35 Zarahtra wrote:
On April 15 2013 17:00 sUgArMaNiAc wrote:
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
But there was no marauder in bw right?
right. That doesn't mean that "gateway units have been nerfed because of warpgate". It means that Terran got the marauder. Not some arbitrary: you see guys, after years of Starcraft 2 we know that bio beats gateway builds. Obviously that stuff was nerfed long before we figured this out due to sentries and warpgates
He didn't say that gateway units were nerfed because of warpgate just that they sucked because of it*, I don't really see how you can deny that. The connection they have is that if gateway units were buffed then one base gateway all-ins, which were very popular early on in WoL, would have become too powerful since Warpgate can effectively negate the defenders advantage.
*The difference being that gateway units were not nerfed, but the other races early units have become more effective and they could not buff gateway units to match them directly, so they had to indirectly buff them defensively by adding sentries followed by compensating for their offensive weakness with strong splash in Colossi and High Templar. I know you mentioned HT and Reavers being stronger in BW, but the way that units clump in SC2 means that any form of aoe is just much more effective.
Edit: The sad thing is that I actually really like Warpgate, Sentries and the concept of the Colossus, but I think a lot more people would be happy if we could find some kind of even ground where gateway units were a little stronger, and Colossi/HT were a little weaker such that Protoss has a more stable early game and Colossi/HT wouldn't require quite as hard counters as they currently do.
well, he actually said in a post before that one that they were nerfed. And I disagree that they suck "because of warpgate". Of course you could buff them, balance PvZ and PvT completly differently (assuming that the game is balanced now, there will most likely be imbalances after balanceunnecessary buffs) and be fine while keeping warpgate. The question for me however is: PvX right now is 1-3 robo/stargate + 5-10 warpgates. Why do I want this setup to change to 0-1 robo/stargate + 10-15 warpgates? Protoss armies already consist of gateway units for the most part and only need very little help from other techs. So why do I want Protoss being balanced around "gateway only, tech is optional".
With or without warpgate, I dislike the thought of "just blink good enough and you'll counter roach/hydra". Or zealot/archon not being a midgame timing, but just amoving it's way to victory over bio all game long. I want Protoss to be forced to use most of their techs, just like Zerg has to, and like Terran at least has to use one of their separate techpaths (and combines that a lot with vikings, medivacs, hellions, hellbats, tanks, mines).
I know, warpgate is a powerful tool. But that doesn't mean the units coming of it have to be balanced down because of it. Look at larva. Not every unit coming of larva "just sucks", and larva is a much more potent timing attack tool than investing into cybercore + warpgate + X gateways.
Basically what it comes down to is, that in Starcraft all units (apart from the marine) have some major drawbacks. Protoss just has all the wrong drawbacks. Immobility and/or low damage for most units. + Show Spoiler +
If you just play any random RTS game, you can quickly identify the fun units. The high damage dealing, highly mobile ones. The ones that Protoss doesn't have enough of.
On April 15 2013 17:35 Zarahtra wrote: [quote] Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
You cant compare bw>sc2, you have to see the whole package. The protoss units are worse in power compared to zerg,terran in sc2 than in broodwar
Basic gateway units are worse than bio, because that's the whole point of making bio viable in SC2. (would be quite a fail if zealot/stalker could hold it's own against MMM AND Protoss would get all the high tech tech options on the same upgrade, hell, templar/archon even on the same production path) And Protoss was already superdependend on all forms of tech units in BW against Zerg, nothing has changed on that front.
Gateway units are shit with good pathing and unlimited selection. By design. Non of that has anything to do with Warpgate whatsoever.
Seriously guys... Not every unit in the game can be as powerful as the marine. All that whining about Z/P bad low tier units... yes, one races T1 units will always be better than anothers, just by how the techpaths work. That doesn't mean that larva, warpgate, sentries, infestors caused "the units to suck". Hell, if you ask me the only thing that makes other units suck in this game is the marine, which has caused actual nerfs on other units. Not just imaginary that people come up with as theory, after year long figuering which units dominate which other. (blizzard surely did not have the time to figure out the SC2 2013 gameplay in their planning stages 2008,2009)
The point is that they are too weak compared to most notably bio, and their tech units are to strong compared to most notably all of the tech units of terran. The core units of protoss suck in comparison to the core units of terran. There will always be a best unit, or in the least a best unit in certain situation, but if we are comparing game design of TvP in BW and SC2, neither race had a power unit such as the ht/colossi are in SC2. The ht was strong in BW, but a single one didn't pack as much punch as in SC2(for multiple reasons). My core point is that I think TvP especially would be more rewarding if the say 90/140 supply of units in the protoss army were actually the dangerous part of the army and the tech units were the support units rather than the other way around.
It's been the topic of various discussions that the reaver was way more powerful than the Colossus. And HTs weren't shabby either with their 112 damage storms. Even more, bio or biomech wasn't even viable to begin with against those units, even though MarineMedic beats Dragoon and Zealot in Broodwar.
The reality has nothing to do with warpgate or sentry based gateway nerfs. Blizzard made bio viable by tuning down Protoss splash and tuning up Terran with Marauder&Medivac instead of usless Firebats and damage/square reducing medics (not to mention the implicit drop play you get from medivacs, "for free" when you just go for combat healing).
Of course you may say that they have gone overboard with Terran bio and not far enough with Protoss splash. But in my opinion it will always come down less to how good/bad warpgate units are, but rather that Protoss as a whole concept is basically just "moooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrr beef". Which makes Protoss units trade badly, as they don't have the damage output to achieve anything when outnumbered. (unlike marines, zerglings, banelings, mines, tanks... which will often take a few enemies with them to the grave and therefore allow for "let's try to attack there, it can't be too bad" kind of gameplay). (zealots, oracles and templar being the exceptions)
On April 16 2013 04:45 Silencioseu wrote:
On April 15 2013 21:37 Big J wrote:
On April 15 2013 19:31 Zarahtra wrote:
On April 15 2013 18:02 Big J wrote:
On April 15 2013 17:35 Zarahtra wrote:
On April 15 2013 17:00 sUgArMaNiAc wrote:
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
But there was no marauder in bw right?
right. That doesn't mean that "gateway units have been nerfed because of warpgate". It means that Terran got the marauder. Not some arbitrary: you see guys, after years of Starcraft 2 we know that bio beats gateway builds. Obviously that stuff was nerfed long before we figured this out due to sentries and warpgates
He didn't say that gateway units were nerfed because of warpgate just that they sucked because of it*, I don't really see how you can deny that. The connection they have is that if gateway units were buffed then one base gateway all-ins, which were very popular early on in WoL, would have become too powerful since Warpgate can effectively negate the defenders advantage.
*The difference being that gateway units were not nerfed, but the other races early units have become more effective and they could not buff gateway units to match them directly, so they had to indirectly buff them defensively by adding sentries followed by compensating for their offensive weakness with strong splash in Colossi and High Templar. I know you mentioned HT and Reavers being stronger in BW, but the way that units clump in SC2 means that any form of aoe is just much more effective.
Edit: The sad thing is that I actually really like Warpgate, Sentries and the concept of the Colossus, but I think a lot more people would be happy if we could find some kind of even ground where gateway units were a little stronger, and Colossi/HT were a little weaker such that Protoss has a more stable early game and Colossi/HT wouldn't require quite as hard counters as they currently do.
well, he actually said in a post before that one that they were nerfed. And I disagree that they suck "because of warpgate". Of course you could buff them, balance PvZ and PvT completly differently (assuming that the game is balanced now, there will most likely be imbalances after balanceunnecessary buffs) and be fine while keeping warpgate. The question for me however is: PvX right now is 1-3 robo/stargate + 5-10 warpgates. Why do I want this setup to change to 0-1 robo/stargate + 10-15 warpgates? Protoss armies already consist of gateway units for the most part and only need very little help from other techs. So why do I want Protoss being balanced around "gateway only, tech is optional".
With or without warpgate, I dislike the thought of "just blink good enough and you'll counter roach/hydra". Or zealot/archon not being a midgame timing, but just amoving it's way to victory over bio all game long. I want Protoss to be forced to use most of their techs, just like Zerg has to, and like Terran at least has to use one of their separate techpaths (and combines that a lot with vikings, medivacs, hellions, hellbats, tanks, mines).
I know, warpgate is a powerful tool. But that doesn't mean the units coming of it have to be balanced down because of it. Look at larva. Not every unit coming of larva "just sucks", and larva is a much more potent timing attack tool than investing into cybercore + warpgate + X gateways.
Basically what it comes down to is, that in Starcraft all units (apart from the marine) have some major drawbacks. Protoss just has all the wrong drawbacks. Immobility and/or low damage for most units. + Show Spoiler +
If you just play any random RTS game, you can quickly identify the fun units. The high damage dealing, highly mobile ones. The ones that Protoss doesn't have enough of.
Ah, my bad, I must have missed that part.
Okay of course, you *can* buff them, but not to the same cost effectiveness of their similar counterparts in Terran and Zerg (Ie Marine Marauder and Ling Roach) because otherwise Warpgate timings will become too strong, this is just simply how it is.
I never said anything about removing Protoss's reliance on tech completely, so please don't even bother with that sort of talk, I just don't want to have to rely on tech to match units on the same tier. The way I would have it, compositions would be pretty much the same as they are now, but with more freedom in how the compositions were attained. Think about it, you would still want to have Colossus/HT in your army because aoe damage is always great, but you wouldn't be held back by having to invest into either just to feel safe moving out onto the map when your opponent has more than a handful of Marines and Marauders. Higher tech units would still be required, but they wouldn't have to be quite so strong, and their counters wouldn't have to be so hard. I want all the races to have to rely on their tech just like you, but I don't want anything specific to be required or else I start to find it stale.
Of course units that come from larva don't "just suck", but they do have to be balanced to take larva into account (time, cost, supply) or else they would be broken, gateway units are exactly the same, they have to be balanced with Warpgate taken into account and when I stated that they suck I was only referring to their cost effectiveness relative to the other races tier 1 units. Of course gateway units don't suck as a whole, but their relative weakness lends Protoss early game to have only two styles that really work: turtling or all-ining, and I don't find either of these styles particularly fun to play or watch*.
*I haven't watched enough HotS yet to know if this is still the case, this is mostly my opinions from WoL.
On April 15 2013 17:35 Zarahtra wrote: [quote] Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
You cant compare bw>sc2, you have to see the whole package. The protoss units are worse in power compared to zerg,terran in sc2 than in broodwar
Basic gateway units are worse than bio, because that's the whole point of making bio viable in SC2. (would be quite a fail if zealot/stalker could hold it's own against MMM AND Protoss would get all the high tech tech options on the same upgrade, hell, templar/archon even on the same production path) And Protoss was already superdependend on all forms of tech units in BW against Zerg, nothing has changed on that front.
Gateway units are shit with good pathing and unlimited selection. By design. Non of that has anything to do with Warpgate whatsoever.
Seriously guys... Not every unit in the game can be as powerful as the marine. All that whining about Z/P bad low tier units... yes, one races T1 units will always be better than anothers, just by how the techpaths work. That doesn't mean that larva, warpgate, sentries, infestors caused "the units to suck". Hell, if you ask me the only thing that makes other units suck in this game is the marine, which has caused actual nerfs on other units. Not just imaginary that people come up with as theory, after year long figuering which units dominate which other. (blizzard surely did not have the time to figure out the SC2 2013 gameplay in their planning stages 2008,2009)
The point is that they are too weak compared to most notably bio, and their tech units are to strong compared to most notably all of the tech units of terran. The core units of protoss suck in comparison to the core units of terran. There will always be a best unit, or in the least a best unit in certain situation, but if we are comparing game design of TvP in BW and SC2, neither race had a power unit such as the ht/colossi are in SC2. The ht was strong in BW, but a single one didn't pack as much punch as in SC2(for multiple reasons). My core point is that I think TvP especially would be more rewarding if the say 90/140 supply of units in the protoss army were actually the dangerous part of the army and the tech units were the support units rather than the other way around.
It's been the topic of various discussions that the reaver was way more powerful than the Colossus. And HTs weren't shabby either with their 112 damage storms. Even more, bio or biomech wasn't even viable to begin with against those units, even though MarineMedic beats Dragoon and Zealot in Broodwar.
The reality has nothing to do with warpgate or sentry based gateway nerfs. Blizzard made bio viable by tuning down Protoss splash and tuning up Terran with Marauder&Medivac instead of usless Firebats and damage/square reducing medics (not to mention the implicit drop play you get from medivacs, "for free" when you just go for combat healing).
Of course you may say that they have gone overboard with Terran bio and not far enough with Protoss splash. But in my opinion it will always come down less to how good/bad warpgate units are, but rather that Protoss as a whole concept is basically just "moooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrr beef". Which makes Protoss units trade badly, as they don't have the damage output to achieve anything when outnumbered. (unlike marines, zerglings, banelings, mines, tanks... which will often take a few enemies with them to the grave and therefore allow for "let's try to attack there, it can't be too bad" kind of gameplay). (zealots, oracles and templar being the exceptions)
On April 16 2013 04:45 Silencioseu wrote:
On April 15 2013 21:37 Big J wrote:
On April 15 2013 19:31 Zarahtra wrote:
On April 15 2013 18:02 Big J wrote:
On April 15 2013 17:35 Zarahtra wrote:
On April 15 2013 17:00 sUgArMaNiAc wrote:
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
But there was no marauder in bw right?
right. That doesn't mean that "gateway units have been nerfed because of warpgate". It means that Terran got the marauder. Not some arbitrary: you see guys, after years of Starcraft 2 we know that bio beats gateway builds. Obviously that stuff was nerfed long before we figured this out due to sentries and warpgates
He didn't say that gateway units were nerfed because of warpgate just that they sucked because of it*, I don't really see how you can deny that. The connection they have is that if gateway units were buffed then one base gateway all-ins, which were very popular early on in WoL, would have become too powerful since Warpgate can effectively negate the defenders advantage.
*The difference being that gateway units were not nerfed, but the other races early units have become more effective and they could not buff gateway units to match them directly, so they had to indirectly buff them defensively by adding sentries followed by compensating for their offensive weakness with strong splash in Colossi and High Templar. I know you mentioned HT and Reavers being stronger in BW, but the way that units clump in SC2 means that any form of aoe is just much more effective.
Edit: The sad thing is that I actually really like Warpgate, Sentries and the concept of the Colossus, but I think a lot more people would be happy if we could find some kind of even ground where gateway units were a little stronger, and Colossi/HT were a little weaker such that Protoss has a more stable early game and Colossi/HT wouldn't require quite as hard counters as they currently do.
well, he actually said in a post before that one that they were nerfed. And I disagree that they suck "because of warpgate". Of course you could buff them, balance PvZ and PvT completly differently (assuming that the game is balanced now, there will most likely be imbalances after balanceunnecessary buffs) and be fine while keeping warpgate. The question for me however is: PvX right now is 1-3 robo/stargate + 5-10 warpgates. Why do I want this setup to change to 0-1 robo/stargate + 10-15 warpgates? Protoss armies already consist of gateway units for the most part and only need very little help from other techs. So why do I want Protoss being balanced around "gateway only, tech is optional".
With or without warpgate, I dislike the thought of "just blink good enough and you'll counter roach/hydra". Or zealot/archon not being a midgame timing, but just amoving it's way to victory over bio all game long. I want Protoss to be forced to use most of their techs, just like Zerg has to, and like Terran at least has to use one of their separate techpaths (and combines that a lot with vikings, medivacs, hellions, hellbats, tanks, mines).
I know, warpgate is a powerful tool. But that doesn't mean the units coming of it have to be balanced down because of it. Look at larva. Not every unit coming of larva "just sucks", and larva is a much more potent timing attack tool than investing into cybercore + warpgate + X gateways.
Basically what it comes down to is, that in Starcraft all units (apart from the marine) have some major drawbacks. Protoss just has all the wrong drawbacks. Immobility and/or low damage for most units. + Show Spoiler +
If you just play any random RTS game, you can quickly identify the fun units. The high damage dealing, highly mobile ones. The ones that Protoss doesn't have enough of.
You want protoss to be forced to use most of their techs? I have two replies to this, first of all the reason you don´t see protoss utilizing all their tech is because like mentioned earlier - it's very black and white, hit or miss. If a terran is already churning out vikings you don't want to start pumping out voidrays, also marines are good. Immortals are great at their niche, but again marines, lings etc. And it just goes on, protoss tech units are just so damn specialized or the enemy already has something to combat it before you even get it hence its not worth getting.
Secondly in PvZ protoss use just about everything almost. Most common is to open stargate w phoenix/voidrays, you have to get colossus for the eventual hydra/roach switch which also enables immortals. Then in the endgame you get storms and DT's out most of the time aswell as capitol ships, just about everything is used in PvZ. The problem is if you use anything of this at the wrong time - you die. If you don´t have 2x stargate when mutas arrive, you die. If you don´t have colossus tech/HT's when hydras hit - you die. All of this really boils down to gateway units being crap.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
You cant compare bw>sc2, you have to see the whole package. The protoss units are worse in power compared to zerg,terran in sc2 than in broodwar
Basic gateway units are worse than bio, because that's the whole point of making bio viable in SC2. (would be quite a fail if zealot/stalker could hold it's own against MMM AND Protoss would get all the high tech tech options on the same upgrade, hell, templar/archon even on the same production path) And Protoss was already superdependend on all forms of tech units in BW against Zerg, nothing has changed on that front.
Gateway units are shit with good pathing and unlimited selection. By design. Non of that has anything to do with Warpgate whatsoever.
Seriously guys... Not every unit in the game can be as powerful as the marine. All that whining about Z/P bad low tier units... yes, one races T1 units will always be better than anothers, just by how the techpaths work. That doesn't mean that larva, warpgate, sentries, infestors caused "the units to suck". Hell, if you ask me the only thing that makes other units suck in this game is the marine, which has caused actual nerfs on other units. Not just imaginary that people come up with as theory, after year long figuering which units dominate which other. (blizzard surely did not have the time to figure out the SC2 2013 gameplay in their planning stages 2008,2009)
The point is that they are too weak compared to most notably bio, and their tech units are to strong compared to most notably all of the tech units of terran. The core units of protoss suck in comparison to the core units of terran. There will always be a best unit, or in the least a best unit in certain situation, but if we are comparing game design of TvP in BW and SC2, neither race had a power unit such as the ht/colossi are in SC2. The ht was strong in BW, but a single one didn't pack as much punch as in SC2(for multiple reasons). My core point is that I think TvP especially would be more rewarding if the say 90/140 supply of units in the protoss army were actually the dangerous part of the army and the tech units were the support units rather than the other way around.
It's been the topic of various discussions that the reaver was way more powerful than the Colossus. And HTs weren't shabby either with their 112 damage storms. Even more, bio or biomech wasn't even viable to begin with against those units, even though MarineMedic beats Dragoon and Zealot in Broodwar.
The reality has nothing to do with warpgate or sentry based gateway nerfs. Blizzard made bio viable by tuning down Protoss splash and tuning up Terran with Marauder&Medivac instead of usless Firebats and damage/square reducing medics (not to mention the implicit drop play you get from medivacs, "for free" when you just go for combat healing).
Of course you may say that they have gone overboard with Terran bio and not far enough with Protoss splash. But in my opinion it will always come down less to how good/bad warpgate units are, but rather that Protoss as a whole concept is basically just "moooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrr beef". Which makes Protoss units trade badly, as they don't have the damage output to achieve anything when outnumbered. (unlike marines, zerglings, banelings, mines, tanks... which will often take a few enemies with them to the grave and therefore allow for "let's try to attack there, it can't be too bad" kind of gameplay). (zealots, oracles and templar being the exceptions)
On April 16 2013 04:45 Silencioseu wrote:
On April 15 2013 21:37 Big J wrote:
On April 15 2013 19:31 Zarahtra wrote:
On April 15 2013 18:02 Big J wrote:
On April 15 2013 17:35 Zarahtra wrote:
On April 15 2013 17:00 sUgArMaNiAc wrote: [quote]
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
But there was no marauder in bw right?
right. That doesn't mean that "gateway units have been nerfed because of warpgate". It means that Terran got the marauder. Not some arbitrary: you see guys, after years of Starcraft 2 we know that bio beats gateway builds. Obviously that stuff was nerfed long before we figured this out due to sentries and warpgates
He didn't say that gateway units were nerfed because of warpgate just that they sucked because of it*, I don't really see how you can deny that. The connection they have is that if gateway units were buffed then one base gateway all-ins, which were very popular early on in WoL, would have become too powerful since Warpgate can effectively negate the defenders advantage.
*The difference being that gateway units were not nerfed, but the other races early units have become more effective and they could not buff gateway units to match them directly, so they had to indirectly buff them defensively by adding sentries followed by compensating for their offensive weakness with strong splash in Colossi and High Templar. I know you mentioned HT and Reavers being stronger in BW, but the way that units clump in SC2 means that any form of aoe is just much more effective.
Edit: The sad thing is that I actually really like Warpgate, Sentries and the concept of the Colossus, but I think a lot more people would be happy if we could find some kind of even ground where gateway units were a little stronger, and Colossi/HT were a little weaker such that Protoss has a more stable early game and Colossi/HT wouldn't require quite as hard counters as they currently do.
well, he actually said in a post before that one that they were nerfed. And I disagree that they suck "because of warpgate". Of course you could buff them, balance PvZ and PvT completly differently (assuming that the game is balanced now, there will most likely be imbalances after balanceunnecessary buffs) and be fine while keeping warpgate. The question for me however is: PvX right now is 1-3 robo/stargate + 5-10 warpgates. Why do I want this setup to change to 0-1 robo/stargate + 10-15 warpgates? Protoss armies already consist of gateway units for the most part and only need very little help from other techs. So why do I want Protoss being balanced around "gateway only, tech is optional".
With or without warpgate, I dislike the thought of "just blink good enough and you'll counter roach/hydra". Or zealot/archon not being a midgame timing, but just amoving it's way to victory over bio all game long. I want Protoss to be forced to use most of their techs, just like Zerg has to, and like Terran at least has to use one of their separate techpaths (and combines that a lot with vikings, medivacs, hellions, hellbats, tanks, mines).
I know, warpgate is a powerful tool. But that doesn't mean the units coming of it have to be balanced down because of it. Look at larva. Not every unit coming of larva "just sucks", and larva is a much more potent timing attack tool than investing into cybercore + warpgate + X gateways.
Basically what it comes down to is, that in Starcraft all units (apart from the marine) have some major drawbacks. Protoss just has all the wrong drawbacks. Immobility and/or low damage for most units. + Show Spoiler +
If you just play any random RTS game, you can quickly identify the fun units. The high damage dealing, highly mobile ones. The ones that Protoss doesn't have enough of.
Ah, my bad, I must have missed that part.
Okay of course, you *can* buff them, but not to the same cost effectiveness of their similar counterparts in Terran and Zerg (Ie Marine Marauder and Ling Roach) because otherwise Warpgate timings will become too strong, this is just simply how it is.
I never said anything about removing Protoss's reliance on tech completely, so please don't even bother with that sort of talk, I just don't want to have to rely on tech to match units on the same tier. The way I would have it, compositions would be pretty much the same as they are now, but with more freedom in how the compositions were attained. Think about it, you would still want to have Colossus/HT in your army because aoe damage is always great, but you wouldn't be held back by having to invest into either just to feel safe moving out onto the map when your opponent has more than a handful of Marines and Marauders. Higher tech units would still be required, but they wouldn't have to be quite so strong, and their counters wouldn't have to be so hard. I want all the races to have to rely on their tech just like you, but I don't want anything specific to be required or else I start to find it stale.
Of course units that come from larva don't "just suck", but they do have to be balanced to take larva into account (time, cost, supply) or else they would be broken, gateway units are exactly the same, they have to be balanced with Warpgate taken into account and when I stated that they suck I was only referring to their cost effectiveness relative to the other races tier 1 units. Of course gateway units don't suck as a whole, but their relative weakness lends Protoss early game to have only two styles that really work: turtling or all-ining, and I don't find either of these styles particularly fun to play or watch*.
*I haven't watched enough HotS yet to know if this is still the case, this is mostly my opinions from WoL.
I disagree. If Protoss had more powerful commited allins and agression of warpgate but was balanced to actually be agressive, all that would change is that Z/T would have to play less greedy (and maybe small adjustments would have to be made, but stuff like +50bunker HP, preresearched concussive shells, a cheaper roach warren and -10seconds build time on spines shouldn't break the game, right?). But if 3gate aggression and 4gate allins would be the norm, Terrans could just open more safely with marauders and siegetanks and zerg builds would be 2base with a spine and roach/ling and Protoss would eventually have to retreat. Similar for any 6-8gates. Etc. Don't get me wrong, I believe warpgates are a powerful tool. But we are talking about a 20-30second advantage with a proxy pylon over reinforcing by rallying in a gateway unit rush. Which is not that huge.
Going back to units drawbacks of basic units: Zerglings drawbacks are melee, no AA and splash vulnerability - basically endgame straight up engagement disadvantages and they don't offer AA. But they are good fighters in the early-mid game. Roaches drawbacks are low range, no AA, bad supply ratio - basically you don't get enough of them into the combat in the lategame and they don't offer AA. But they are good fighters in the early-mid game.
Stalkers drawbacks are cost and damage output. Basically, they are bad fighters cost for cost. Zealots drawbacks are melee, missing AA, missing mobility. They are kind of bad fighters in big mid-lategame engagements and don't offer a lot of mapcontrol potential.
Marines... well, they are vulnerable to massive splash and missing mobility prestim/medivac. Marauders drawbacks are vulnerability to non-armored units and missing antiair and missing mobility prestim/medivac. Basically they are only good for as long as you can properly support them. Similarily hydras, banelings, medivacs, hellions, mines are all rather good engagement units in the right composition/situation and rather mobile. While Sentries and Immortals are again rather on the immobile side and - though the immortal is a really good *inyourfaceunit* - not really strong damage dealers for their cost.
So what it comes down to is that gateway units (in particular the stalker) by design are made to be very good at everything - but straight up engagements and harassment. On the flipside, zerg early game units suck at everything but straight up engagements early on and harassment. So basically, if you made stalkers costefficient combat units vs ground in the early-midgame they would not have any drawbacks. It's the design of the stalker (/dragoon, though it wasn't visible in BW PvT, because bio wasn't viable) that makes Protoss gameplay stale in SC2. You could for sure balance the stalker costefficient with or without warpgate in the game - but it would require other drawbacks like no AA, lower range, worse blink, worse cost/supply ratio, slower. You can't have the whole package in one unit in an RTS, but that's what you are getting if you buff the stalkers costefficiency. Warpgate or not.
You could for sure balance the stalker costefficient with or without warpgate in the game - but it would require other drawbacks like no AA, lower range, worse blink, worse cost/supply ratio, slower. You can't have the whole package in one unit in an RTS, but that's what you are getting if you buff the stalkers costefficiency. Warpgate or not.
What you're describing is an Immortal built from gateway. Which is exactly how things were in SC2 until beta, when it was moved to Robo because of the warpgate mechanic. I jusy wish they had went for moving warpgate to twilight instead. So you could still have better gateway army, keep warpgate and delay the 4gate which was so popular early on.
You could for sure balance the stalker costefficient with or without warpgate in the game - but it would require other drawbacks like no AA, lower range, worse blink, worse cost/supply ratio, slower. You can't have the whole package in one unit in an RTS, but that's what you are getting if you buff the stalkers costefficiency. Warpgate or not.
What you're describing is an Immortal built from gateway. Which is exactly how things were in SC2 until beta, when it was moved to Robo because of the warpgate mechanic. I jusy wish they had went for moving warpgate to twilight instead. So you could still have better gateway army, keep warpgate and delay the 4gate which was so popular early on.
I actually think it would be really cool if Immortals came out of GW/WG, of course they would need some tweaking but giving protoss access to a strong, anti-armored ground unit (to compete with mass roachs & marauders) would really round out the gateway army early while letting the stalker be the more fragile/mobile fighter.
Protoss in BW their units were strong. You didn't just throw your units at them without caring because with the right movements the protoss army would tear your to shreds losing only minimal supply. The correct use of expensive, high HP and high damage units could cripple your army in seconds. Their spell casters did huge damage and had unique abilities. In this game no matter where you go in the protoss army it seems like another Z or T, but they're called protoss and their marines and zerglings are just more expensive. Their threats as well are not only countered easily (especially by T), but countered by a limited amount of units. This being said protoss can still win in HOTS, but have to play in a style that mimics zerg almost in my opinion especially with the MSC. I don't like where their identity is going with the hit and run tactic or the sit back until maxed air army comes out. The bulldog, reaver drop, DT drop, storm drop, mass gateway, carrier switch, the vsZ deathball, are all replaced by what T and Z did and still do. Create a bunch of core units and use those in different fashions. Sure there are variations, but I liked watching protoss for what they could do with just the smallest bit of tech in BW and I feel like they've been changed to match what the other races do and that is unfortunate. Maybe some original shit will happen and I will have to eat my words, but the new tech units in this game don't give me the feeling that I'm wrong.
It is very hard for me to understand the relevancy of this post coming from broodwar. Let me explain.
In broodwar, the meta game has switched a few times creating diferent styles and builds. The reality, is the builds used nowdays are almost living on the edge, since one small mistake in those builds can cost you the game (like in starcraft 2 when flash CC first opening got killed 1 zealot and 1 stalker).
The real problem in sc2 is hard counters. And i do not mean build orders, i mean units.
In broodwar, since the AI of the units was so poor, skill was a basic requirement in order to play the game efficiently. So in general, micro had a lot more aplications than in sc2.
If i was to ask in sc2: What is the counter as terran for colossus? THe answer is obvious: Vikings.
If i ask the same question in broodwar: What is the counter to Reavers? There is no instant answer. Normally it would be a very very long answer that would take in consideration lots of scenarios.
WHy do i consider this so important? Becouse if the counters are light, small adjustments (and i mean really small ones, like pulling your scvs off gas in tvp to get a faster CC), create new variations of builds that are very efficient. But if the counters are so 1 sided, those differences are less effective.
Blizzard created a very EPIC game with starcraft 2, perhaps 2 epic for its own good.
There are way too many units that in the right situation Destroy the opponent. It also happened in broodwar, but not at this scale.
Its especially clear when koreans play vs foreigners (koreans practice a huge amount of hours so they can identyfy builds a lot easier). Not in all cases, but vs mid tier foreigners who actually play rather well, can fight vs top foreigners sort of ok, but almost always get rolled over by a mid-tier korean. Many pros have actually stated their concern that this creates a boring game since once you master the machanics, your wins are not satisfaying since you win due to army composition and not due to skill. And of course same goes for loosing.
The first time i thought about this was when i was playing the game back when it came out and i was playing 3v3 at highest level (top 8 worldwide back then). I was making a 4 gate push with only stalkers since i could micro them, and while the zerg had no speedlings, was basicly boringly easy, but once he had speed, there was nothing i could do.
Most people would argue that its normal and that its the way the game operates ( that you need to adapt to situations and progress to a different tech tree), and while i agree partially, the switch should not be so drastic that it goes from a 90% win scenario in battles to a 90% loose scenario from 1 upgrade.
Basicly that nerfs the importane of mechanical skill, and improves the imporance of "getting the build right".
As a result to this, i ended up going 9 pool speedlings every 3v3, as the aression was so early, that there was no way to nerf the skill i had due to choosing the right build.
The fun part was that eventually (about 3 months after that), every zerg i met in 3v3 was going 9 pool speed, every terran 2 rax, and only the protoss deviated a bit (not always 2 gates).
I do belive that Protoss require more trickery in sc2, but the main problem i thin resides elsewhere. In the early years of broodwar professional gaming, there also were a lot of tricky plays, but the difference was that the unit control did not yet archive its full potential, so there was room for improvment, but in sc2, that control is almost at its top, and yet the unit imbalances are still far too powerfull.
You could for sure balance the stalker costefficient with or without warpgate in the game - but it would require other drawbacks like no AA, lower range, worse blink, worse cost/supply ratio, slower. You can't have the whole package in one unit in an RTS, but that's what you are getting if you buff the stalkers costefficiency. Warpgate or not.
What you're describing is an Immortal built from gateway. Which is exactly how things were in SC2 until beta, when it was moved to Robo because of the warpgate mechanic. I jusy wish they had went for moving warpgate to twilight instead. So you could still have better gateway army, keep warpgate and delay the 4gate which was so popular early on.
Was it moved there because of warpgate, or maybe because it was just too powerful on a low tech production structure? Think about the sentry/immortal allin in PvZ. Then imagine if the same allin could be done without building a robo and by building 2-3immortals at a time from your first gateways, instead of 1 from the two times more expensive robo. Sounds pretty broken to me...
Think about this for a second: every unit coming from a gateway is two supply and costs roughly 100-200resources (BW gateway, SC2 gateway, SC2 warpgate... doesn't matter). Sure Archons and Dark Archons are gateway units - but they need two production slots per unit! So wouldn't the 350 resource, 4supply immortal just break the investment balance of gateways? I mean, a gateway capable of producing an immortal is 2times as powerful as a gateway producing a stalker, 3.5 times as powerful as a gateway producing a zealot.
You can check out the OneGoal mod, where the Immortal is a gateway unit and gateways are the standard way to mass units as protoss. To achive that, they had to scale the Immortal way down, as far as I know and it's now something like a 2-3supply ~200resource, 200HP unit.
Also, that's not what I was saying. All I was saying is that there needs to be some downside to building a unit in an RTS. The given downsides were just examples that could be easily applied to the stalker. You could as well do something else with them, like a HP nerf or just a weaker airattack.
On April 15 2013 17:35 Zarahtra wrote: [quote] Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
You cant compare bw>sc2, you have to see the whole package. The protoss units are worse in power compared to zerg,terran in sc2 than in broodwar
Basic gateway units are worse than bio, because that's the whole point of making bio viable in SC2. (would be quite a fail if zealot/stalker could hold it's own against MMM AND Protoss would get all the high tech tech options on the same upgrade, hell, templar/archon even on the same production path) And Protoss was already superdependend on all forms of tech units in BW against Zerg, nothing has changed on that front.
Gateway units are shit with good pathing and unlimited selection. By design. Non of that has anything to do with Warpgate whatsoever.
Seriously guys... Not every unit in the game can be as powerful as the marine. All that whining about Z/P bad low tier units... yes, one races T1 units will always be better than anothers, just by how the techpaths work. That doesn't mean that larva, warpgate, sentries, infestors caused "the units to suck". Hell, if you ask me the only thing that makes other units suck in this game is the marine, which has caused actual nerfs on other units. Not just imaginary that people come up with as theory, after year long figuering which units dominate which other. (blizzard surely did not have the time to figure out the SC2 2013 gameplay in their planning stages 2008,2009)
The point is that they are too weak compared to most notably bio, and their tech units are to strong compared to most notably all of the tech units of terran. The core units of protoss suck in comparison to the core units of terran. There will always be a best unit, or in the least a best unit in certain situation, but if we are comparing game design of TvP in BW and SC2, neither race had a power unit such as the ht/colossi are in SC2. The ht was strong in BW, but a single one didn't pack as much punch as in SC2(for multiple reasons). My core point is that I think TvP especially would be more rewarding if the say 90/140 supply of units in the protoss army were actually the dangerous part of the army and the tech units were the support units rather than the other way around.
It's been the topic of various discussions that the reaver was way more powerful than the Colossus. And HTs weren't shabby either with their 112 damage storms. Even more, bio or biomech wasn't even viable to begin with against those units, even though MarineMedic beats Dragoon and Zealot in Broodwar.
The reality has nothing to do with warpgate or sentry based gateway nerfs. Blizzard made bio viable by tuning down Protoss splash and tuning up Terran with Marauder&Medivac instead of usless Firebats and damage/square reducing medics (not to mention the implicit drop play you get from medivacs, "for free" when you just go for combat healing).
Of course you may say that they have gone overboard with Terran bio and not far enough with Protoss splash. But in my opinion it will always come down less to how good/bad warpgate units are, but rather that Protoss as a whole concept is basically just "moooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrr beef". Which makes Protoss units trade badly, as they don't have the damage output to achieve anything when outnumbered. (unlike marines, zerglings, banelings, mines, tanks... which will often take a few enemies with them to the grave and therefore allow for "let's try to attack there, it can't be too bad" kind of gameplay). (zealots, oracles and templar being the exceptions)
On April 16 2013 04:45 Silencioseu wrote:
On April 15 2013 21:37 Big J wrote:
On April 15 2013 19:31 Zarahtra wrote:
On April 15 2013 18:02 Big J wrote:
On April 15 2013 17:35 Zarahtra wrote:
On April 15 2013 17:00 sUgArMaNiAc wrote:
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
But there was no marauder in bw right?
right. That doesn't mean that "gateway units have been nerfed because of warpgate". It means that Terran got the marauder. Not some arbitrary: you see guys, after years of Starcraft 2 we know that bio beats gateway builds. Obviously that stuff was nerfed long before we figured this out due to sentries and warpgates
He didn't say that gateway units were nerfed because of warpgate just that they sucked because of it*, I don't really see how you can deny that. The connection they have is that if gateway units were buffed then one base gateway all-ins, which were very popular early on in WoL, would have become too powerful since Warpgate can effectively negate the defenders advantage.
*The difference being that gateway units were not nerfed, but the other races early units have become more effective and they could not buff gateway units to match them directly, so they had to indirectly buff them defensively by adding sentries followed by compensating for their offensive weakness with strong splash in Colossi and High Templar. I know you mentioned HT and Reavers being stronger in BW, but the way that units clump in SC2 means that any form of aoe is just much more effective.
Edit: The sad thing is that I actually really like Warpgate, Sentries and the concept of the Colossus, but I think a lot more people would be happy if we could find some kind of even ground where gateway units were a little stronger, and Colossi/HT were a little weaker such that Protoss has a more stable early game and Colossi/HT wouldn't require quite as hard counters as they currently do.
well, he actually said in a post before that one that they were nerfed. And I disagree that they suck "because of warpgate". Of course you could buff them, balance PvZ and PvT completly differently (assuming that the game is balanced now, there will most likely be imbalances after balanceunnecessary buffs) and be fine while keeping warpgate. The question for me however is: PvX right now is 1-3 robo/stargate + 5-10 warpgates. Why do I want this setup to change to 0-1 robo/stargate + 10-15 warpgates? Protoss armies already consist of gateway units for the most part and only need very little help from other techs. So why do I want Protoss being balanced around "gateway only, tech is optional".
With or without warpgate, I dislike the thought of "just blink good enough and you'll counter roach/hydra". Or zealot/archon not being a midgame timing, but just amoving it's way to victory over bio all game long. I want Protoss to be forced to use most of their techs, just like Zerg has to, and like Terran at least has to use one of their separate techpaths (and combines that a lot with vikings, medivacs, hellions, hellbats, tanks, mines).
I know, warpgate is a powerful tool. But that doesn't mean the units coming of it have to be balanced down because of it. Look at larva. Not every unit coming of larva "just sucks", and larva is a much more potent timing attack tool than investing into cybercore + warpgate + X gateways.
Basically what it comes down to is, that in Starcraft all units (apart from the marine) have some major drawbacks. Protoss just has all the wrong drawbacks. Immobility and/or low damage for most units. + Show Spoiler +
If you just play any random RTS game, you can quickly identify the fun units. The high damage dealing, highly mobile ones. The ones that Protoss doesn't have enough of.
I just want to comment on the last bit you had to say. While the every unit has a weakness but marine thing is inflammatory, and I can't necessarily agree with it (they have low HP, that's their weakness), I totally agree with the fact that usually the fast high damage dealing units are the most fun units.
Really it comes down to harassment and small battle tactics. To me, this is why the old reaver and old high templar was more fun. You could shuttle them around (fast) and do some nice damage. Difference between old high temp and new high temp is that the old one did more damage so it was better against more types of units, and you had 250 energy instead of 200 so you could cast it more frequently. And armies are so fast in SC2 the high templar can only storm when they come to you. Colossus vs reaver has been argued plenty, no need to rehash.
Stalkers almost are fun units, but their damage output is so low it ends up being too risky to use them as harassment. Dark Templar are almost fun, but they attack so slowly they are better against buildings than anything else.
Mutas are fun to use. MMM fun. Reapers are fun. Window mines, less fun. High templar less fun (so slow vs the speed of armies in SC2).
Phoenix are a little fun, but damage output is terrible. Oracles are a little fun but so hit or miss.
Still, there are other things that are fun. Swarmhosts are fun, not fast. Sentries are fun, not fast or damage dealers. Some things are just fun because they are cool. But even with those units, you need to be engaged with the units and I really think every race needs fast high damage units for certain situations to make them more fun overall.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
You cant compare bw>sc2, you have to see the whole package. The protoss units are worse in power compared to zerg,terran in sc2 than in broodwar
Basic gateway units are worse than bio, because that's the whole point of making bio viable in SC2. (would be quite a fail if zealot/stalker could hold it's own against MMM AND Protoss would get all the high tech tech options on the same upgrade, hell, templar/archon even on the same production path) And Protoss was already superdependend on all forms of tech units in BW against Zerg, nothing has changed on that front.
Gateway units are shit with good pathing and unlimited selection. By design. Non of that has anything to do with Warpgate whatsoever.
Seriously guys... Not every unit in the game can be as powerful as the marine. All that whining about Z/P bad low tier units... yes, one races T1 units will always be better than anothers, just by how the techpaths work. That doesn't mean that larva, warpgate, sentries, infestors caused "the units to suck". Hell, if you ask me the only thing that makes other units suck in this game is the marine, which has caused actual nerfs on other units. Not just imaginary that people come up with as theory, after year long figuering which units dominate which other. (blizzard surely did not have the time to figure out the SC2 2013 gameplay in their planning stages 2008,2009)
The point is that they are too weak compared to most notably bio, and their tech units are to strong compared to most notably all of the tech units of terran. The core units of protoss suck in comparison to the core units of terran. There will always be a best unit, or in the least a best unit in certain situation, but if we are comparing game design of TvP in BW and SC2, neither race had a power unit such as the ht/colossi are in SC2. The ht was strong in BW, but a single one didn't pack as much punch as in SC2(for multiple reasons). My core point is that I think TvP especially would be more rewarding if the say 90/140 supply of units in the protoss army were actually the dangerous part of the army and the tech units were the support units rather than the other way around.
It's been the topic of various discussions that the reaver was way more powerful than the Colossus. And HTs weren't shabby either with their 112 damage storms. Even more, bio or biomech wasn't even viable to begin with against those units, even though MarineMedic beats Dragoon and Zealot in Broodwar.
The reality has nothing to do with warpgate or sentry based gateway nerfs. Blizzard made bio viable by tuning down Protoss splash and tuning up Terran with Marauder&Medivac instead of usless Firebats and damage/square reducing medics (not to mention the implicit drop play you get from medivacs, "for free" when you just go for combat healing).
Of course you may say that they have gone overboard with Terran bio and not far enough with Protoss splash. But in my opinion it will always come down less to how good/bad warpgate units are, but rather that Protoss as a whole concept is basically just "moooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrr beef". Which makes Protoss units trade badly, as they don't have the damage output to achieve anything when outnumbered. (unlike marines, zerglings, banelings, mines, tanks... which will often take a few enemies with them to the grave and therefore allow for "let's try to attack there, it can't be too bad" kind of gameplay). (zealots, oracles and templar being the exceptions)
On April 16 2013 04:45 Silencioseu wrote:
On April 15 2013 21:37 Big J wrote:
On April 15 2013 19:31 Zarahtra wrote:
On April 15 2013 18:02 Big J wrote:
On April 15 2013 17:35 Zarahtra wrote:
On April 15 2013 17:00 sUgArMaNiAc wrote: [quote]
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
But there was no marauder in bw right?
right. That doesn't mean that "gateway units have been nerfed because of warpgate". It means that Terran got the marauder. Not some arbitrary: you see guys, after years of Starcraft 2 we know that bio beats gateway builds. Obviously that stuff was nerfed long before we figured this out due to sentries and warpgates
He didn't say that gateway units were nerfed because of warpgate just that they sucked because of it*, I don't really see how you can deny that. The connection they have is that if gateway units were buffed then one base gateway all-ins, which were very popular early on in WoL, would have become too powerful since Warpgate can effectively negate the defenders advantage.
*The difference being that gateway units were not nerfed, but the other races early units have become more effective and they could not buff gateway units to match them directly, so they had to indirectly buff them defensively by adding sentries followed by compensating for their offensive weakness with strong splash in Colossi and High Templar. I know you mentioned HT and Reavers being stronger in BW, but the way that units clump in SC2 means that any form of aoe is just much more effective.
Edit: The sad thing is that I actually really like Warpgate, Sentries and the concept of the Colossus, but I think a lot more people would be happy if we could find some kind of even ground where gateway units were a little stronger, and Colossi/HT were a little weaker such that Protoss has a more stable early game and Colossi/HT wouldn't require quite as hard counters as they currently do.
well, he actually said in a post before that one that they were nerfed. And I disagree that they suck "because of warpgate". Of course you could buff them, balance PvZ and PvT completly differently (assuming that the game is balanced now, there will most likely be imbalances after balanceunnecessary buffs) and be fine while keeping warpgate. The question for me however is: PvX right now is 1-3 robo/stargate + 5-10 warpgates. Why do I want this setup to change to 0-1 robo/stargate + 10-15 warpgates? Protoss armies already consist of gateway units for the most part and only need very little help from other techs. So why do I want Protoss being balanced around "gateway only, tech is optional".
With or without warpgate, I dislike the thought of "just blink good enough and you'll counter roach/hydra". Or zealot/archon not being a midgame timing, but just amoving it's way to victory over bio all game long. I want Protoss to be forced to use most of their techs, just like Zerg has to, and like Terran at least has to use one of their separate techpaths (and combines that a lot with vikings, medivacs, hellions, hellbats, tanks, mines).
I know, warpgate is a powerful tool. But that doesn't mean the units coming of it have to be balanced down because of it. Look at larva. Not every unit coming of larva "just sucks", and larva is a much more potent timing attack tool than investing into cybercore + warpgate + X gateways.
Basically what it comes down to is, that in Starcraft all units (apart from the marine) have some major drawbacks. Protoss just has all the wrong drawbacks. Immobility and/or low damage for most units. + Show Spoiler +
If you just play any random RTS game, you can quickly identify the fun units. The high damage dealing, highly mobile ones. The ones that Protoss doesn't have enough of.
I just want to comment on the last bit you had to say. While the every unit has a weakness but marine thing is inflammatory, and I can't necessarily agree with it (they have low HP, that's their weakness), I totally agree with the fact that usually the fast high damage dealing units are the most fun units.
Really it comes down to harassment and small battle tactics. To me, this is why the old reaver and old high templar was more fun. You could shuttle them around (fast) and do some nice damage. Difference between old high temp and new high temp is that the old one did more damage so it was better against more types of units, and you had 250 energy instead of 200 so you could cast it more frequently. And armies are so fast in SC2 the high templar can only storm when they come to you. Colossus vs reaver has been argued plenty, no need to rehash.
Stalkers almost are fun units, but their damage output is so low it ends up being too risky to use them as harassment. Dark Templar are almost fun, but they attack so slowly they are better against buildings than anything else.
Mutas are fun to use. MMM fun. Reapers are fun. Window mines, less fun. High templar less fun (so slow vs the speed of armies in SC2).
Phoenix are a little fun, but damage output is terrible. Oracles are a little fun but so hit or miss.
Still, there are other things that are fun. Swarmhosts are fun, not fast. Sentries are fun, not fast or damage dealers. Some things are just fun because they are cool. But even with those units, you need to be engaged with the units and I really think every race needs fast high damage units for certain situations to make them more fun overall.
Oh yeah, there are definatly things that are a lot of fun and not fast+high damage. But they usally fullfill one of those conditions and often have huge range, which is kind of similar to high speed inthe sense that they are able to attack without actually being forced to fight. (siege tanks in TvT, swarmhosts)
About the marine thing. I do believe they have drawbacks. But they are not that severe. Like, you mentioned health. 55HP for 50minerals isn't too bad (there are quite worse units in that category). It is only bad against splash, where the HP/unit matters. The other one would be mobility. And both of them are provided by medivacs to a certain degree.
On April 15 2013 17:35 Zarahtra wrote: [quote] Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
You cant compare bw>sc2, you have to see the whole package. The protoss units are worse in power compared to zerg,terran in sc2 than in broodwar
Basic gateway units are worse than bio, because that's the whole point of making bio viable in SC2. (would be quite a fail if zealot/stalker could hold it's own against MMM AND Protoss would get all the high tech tech options on the same upgrade, hell, templar/archon even on the same production path) And Protoss was already superdependend on all forms of tech units in BW against Zerg, nothing has changed on that front.
Gateway units are shit with good pathing and unlimited selection. By design. Non of that has anything to do with Warpgate whatsoever.
Seriously guys... Not every unit in the game can be as powerful as the marine. All that whining about Z/P bad low tier units... yes, one races T1 units will always be better than anothers, just by how the techpaths work. That doesn't mean that larva, warpgate, sentries, infestors caused "the units to suck". Hell, if you ask me the only thing that makes other units suck in this game is the marine, which has caused actual nerfs on other units. Not just imaginary that people come up with as theory, after year long figuering which units dominate which other. (blizzard surely did not have the time to figure out the SC2 2013 gameplay in their planning stages 2008,2009)
The point is that they are too weak compared to most notably bio, and their tech units are to strong compared to most notably all of the tech units of terran. The core units of protoss suck in comparison to the core units of terran. There will always be a best unit, or in the least a best unit in certain situation, but if we are comparing game design of TvP in BW and SC2, neither race had a power unit such as the ht/colossi are in SC2. The ht was strong in BW, but a single one didn't pack as much punch as in SC2(for multiple reasons). My core point is that I think TvP especially would be more rewarding if the say 90/140 supply of units in the protoss army were actually the dangerous part of the army and the tech units were the support units rather than the other way around.
It's been the topic of various discussions that the reaver was way more powerful than the Colossus. And HTs weren't shabby either with their 112 damage storms. Even more, bio or biomech wasn't even viable to begin with against those units, even though MarineMedic beats Dragoon and Zealot in Broodwar.
The reality has nothing to do with warpgate or sentry based gateway nerfs. Blizzard made bio viable by tuning down Protoss splash and tuning up Terran with Marauder&Medivac instead of usless Firebats and damage/square reducing medics (not to mention the implicit drop play you get from medivacs, "for free" when you just go for combat healing).
Of course you may say that they have gone overboard with Terran bio and not far enough with Protoss splash. But in my opinion it will always come down less to how good/bad warpgate units are, but rather that Protoss as a whole concept is basically just "moooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrr beef". Which makes Protoss units trade badly, as they don't have the damage output to achieve anything when outnumbered. (unlike marines, zerglings, banelings, mines, tanks... which will often take a few enemies with them to the grave and therefore allow for "let's try to attack there, it can't be too bad" kind of gameplay). (zealots, oracles and templar being the exceptions)
On April 16 2013 04:45 Silencioseu wrote:
On April 15 2013 21:37 Big J wrote:
On April 15 2013 19:31 Zarahtra wrote:
On April 15 2013 18:02 Big J wrote:
On April 15 2013 17:35 Zarahtra wrote:
On April 15 2013 17:00 sUgArMaNiAc wrote:
On April 15 2013 07:03 IcedBacon wrote: Warpgate is my biggest problem with Protoss. It's forgiving for bad macro and also allows for so much of the cheesy shit that P can do. Floating 2k mins? Just throw down 6 more gateways and warp in a big round.
Terran can do this to with barracks though... only difference is protoss can choose where to warp in.
Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
But there was no marauder in bw right?
right. That doesn't mean that "gateway units have been nerfed because of warpgate". It means that Terran got the marauder. Not some arbitrary: you see guys, after years of Starcraft 2 we know that bio beats gateway builds. Obviously that stuff was nerfed long before we figured this out due to sentries and warpgates
He didn't say that gateway units were nerfed because of warpgate just that they sucked because of it*, I don't really see how you can deny that. The connection they have is that if gateway units were buffed then one base gateway all-ins, which were very popular early on in WoL, would have become too powerful since Warpgate can effectively negate the defenders advantage.
*The difference being that gateway units were not nerfed, but the other races early units have become more effective and they could not buff gateway units to match them directly, so they had to indirectly buff them defensively by adding sentries followed by compensating for their offensive weakness with strong splash in Colossi and High Templar. I know you mentioned HT and Reavers being stronger in BW, but the way that units clump in SC2 means that any form of aoe is just much more effective.
Edit: The sad thing is that I actually really like Warpgate, Sentries and the concept of the Colossus, but I think a lot more people would be happy if we could find some kind of even ground where gateway units were a little stronger, and Colossi/HT were a little weaker such that Protoss has a more stable early game and Colossi/HT wouldn't require quite as hard counters as they currently do.
well, he actually said in a post before that one that they were nerfed. And I disagree that they suck "because of warpgate". Of course you could buff them, balance PvZ and PvT completly differently (assuming that the game is balanced now, there will most likely be imbalances after balanceunnecessary buffs) and be fine while keeping warpgate. The question for me however is: PvX right now is 1-3 robo/stargate + 5-10 warpgates. Why do I want this setup to change to 0-1 robo/stargate + 10-15 warpgates? Protoss armies already consist of gateway units for the most part and only need very little help from other techs. So why do I want Protoss being balanced around "gateway only, tech is optional".
With or without warpgate, I dislike the thought of "just blink good enough and you'll counter roach/hydra". Or zealot/archon not being a midgame timing, but just amoving it's way to victory over bio all game long. I want Protoss to be forced to use most of their techs, just like Zerg has to, and like Terran at least has to use one of their separate techpaths (and combines that a lot with vikings, medivacs, hellions, hellbats, tanks, mines).
I know, warpgate is a powerful tool. But that doesn't mean the units coming of it have to be balanced down because of it. Look at larva. Not every unit coming of larva "just sucks", and larva is a much more potent timing attack tool than investing into cybercore + warpgate + X gateways.
Basically what it comes down to is, that in Starcraft all units (apart from the marine) have some major drawbacks. Protoss just has all the wrong drawbacks. Immobility and/or low damage for most units. + Show Spoiler +
If you just play any random RTS game, you can quickly identify the fun units. The high damage dealing, highly mobile ones. The ones that Protoss doesn't have enough of.
Well, I think you're misinterpreting the intention of Protoss complaints, though they are disjointed, rehashed, and so on. It's not the desire to stay on T1 until the end days, it's to normalize the tech pressure of the 3 races. I think Zerg is the most tech balanced. Each stage has pros and cons, but there is always pressure to progress in tech and switch in tech, this also might be because tech switch barrier of entry is low. While Terran and Protoss are somewhat two sides of the same spectrum. Terran have limited subsequent tech to progress to (whether or not that is objective or subjective is not germane to this discussion) while Protoss will struggle to get the money comp in whichever way possible, even if that means suboptimal macro -> production realization, and micro isn't really going to change things (think Immortals vs Zerglings). But now, reverse the counter situation, Protoss with the Immortal, and Zerg with Roach. Is the Roach heavy composition doomed? No. They have more leniency and now that Immortal push is their's to lose.
This leads to my next point. But first, because there's some controversy over what are core units, I'll just make up some labels for unit natures. We can try Payload units vs. Meat units. You have units that have critical windows in that particular battle (not timings), and then you have units that are just always as good as they are. So Payloads are like Colossi, Sentries, Ravens, Infestors, Voids. Payloads are tough to balance, mostly because their focus is on the most unstable part of the battle, the onset of it, where the reagents are at their maximum concentration, the surface area is at its max, and the reaction rate will naturally follow suit. They're almost all are antithetical to attrition or back and forth micro battles, because they want things done in 5s.
Because of the nonlinear dynamical system, minor imbalances may precipitate one-sided engagements very quickly. It's problematic from a balance and spectator point of view. I know that was a long primer, but here's the next point: Cue Protoss and their overreliance on this Payload model, except for Stalkers and Zealots (ironically both of their upgrades make them more Payload). Payloads also promote deathball, given how they want the 5s engagement, and the bigger the ball, the faster the battle is decided. Now let's compare Marine/Marauder. They are the Meat and the Payload. Granted, they're only very meaty because of Medivacs, and they would just be Payload were it not for heals, but nonetheless, in an MMM comp, MM is both Meat and Payload. So now it's hard to isolate weakness in this army without out-Payloading it or out-Meating it. Remember, Meat units win the long run because they're always good, but both Protoss Stalker and Zealot are meh in cost efficiency and all the Protoss Payloads take a tremendous amount of time to get energy or to even get there, so they can't Meat their way back into anything unless the battle was already won, and their Payload reinforcements are guaranteed to have no effect until much later. Real comebacks midbattle are solely enjoyed by T and Z because Roach/Ling and MM accomplish those goals very cost efficiently fresh out the box. If you doubt this, which race will most likely lose if they lost 80% of their army in battle? Which two races have a chance to rebound and carry it to lategame?
Could go on and on about it, but that's not the only scenario I see where the back-and-forth chain is broken. Another example is production vulnerability, meaning the enemy's capability of inhibiting your Payload unit production, because they are necessary in this hypercharged SC2 climate. All the Payloads of Toss come from 1-2 Robos or Stargates, or take 100s (55 + 45) warp-in to be combat ready Templar that still need to research their main spell. Imagine if Infestors took 100s and 200m/200g/110s to Fungal. Infestors already got nerfed down to Protoss level stats, Infestors got to taste the imba of Terran in WoL by simulating the Marine, and now nobody uses them, because nobody likes Protoss-level balance unless they absolutely must use them (i.e. Protoss players). The production building are usually stretched, especially Robo, where you need to pump out Collo/Obs I don't see the same production tension laid on Terran or Zerg as it is for Protoss. It reminds me of BW, because that was how Protoss assuredly killed Terran, by camping their Factories and invalidating them. It seems its reversed now. Can't stop 8-10 Barracks, easy to stop 1-2 Robos. And with TvP, they merely need to reach the natural for the same effect.
On April 14 2013 04:32 ThaReckoning wrote: You COULD nerf protoss t3 and add in more valuable units like the reaver, and change up tech paths etc, if you give protoss more evenly distributed strength throughout the game. I don't believe the MSC will be enough to even the odds in the early game, given that you can't really do anything with it except recall. If it's supposed to allow you to go kill the other guy when you spot him doing something questionable, it doesn't work. The potential for losing your sentries means that the first two times you send it out, you can't afford to use time bomb at all.
… Blizzard's thought process on nerfing protoss early game, and buffing zerg early game. Multiple blink nerfs, warpgate nerfs, sentry dps nerfs, zealot build time nerfs, pylon radius nerfs, etc. It all added up to that. Blizzard kept taking from protoss based on terrans and zergs inability to stop warpgate rushes that abused sentries.
I just don't think the MSC and the stargate buffs were as good as a rebalance of units and static D early game, and detection regardless of tech path would be.
On April 15 2013 02:07 Filter wrote: ... Lets wrap this up now. Basically everything about Protoss is complete feast or famine. They have almost nothing that provides stability to their matchups and they lean so heavily on the metagame it's not even funny. The worst part about Protoss though is that your victory depends almost entirely on what your opponent does and not what you yourself do. This needs to change, and soon.
Excellent posts. Personally I’m considering switching to Terran after over ten years Protoss. Blizzard tries to fix Protoss, but improves for the worse.
I guess we can discuss this all day but until we find a concrete solution to the problem it will never be fixed. I doubt blizzard is even working on remaking protoss, so if we want change we would have to find a concrete solution with numbers and actually design it ourselves to force a change
Good read. Im not really sure how to respond but I am going to list some things that must be changed -Collossus needs to be removed or made into something that requires a shred of thought to use. Think about how terran must position and seige his tanks to get aoe damage. What does protoss have to do? nothing at all. Its just arbitrarily good, theres no tradeoffs anywhere. Think of how the reaver was so slow and required micro to use. Why was that replaced with something so mindless? -warp gate must be removed. Its no fun at all for something that is required to be in an rts game. Have we seen a protoss game anywhere where warpgate wasnt researched immediatly? It also removes the concept of defenders advantage and rush distances. It makes balancing gateway units so delicate because it opens so many early game aggression options. -zealot legs and phoenix autofire must be removed. its literally nothing but free micro. Why in the world is this even in the game, I cant understand. buff them some other way, but stop making them so mindless to use. -get rid of the goddamn immortal. The epitome of a 1a unit, I really cant see how this community went up in arms over the warhound, arguing that it is a 1a unit, when this fucker has been in the game since day 1. someone, please explain to me.
warp gate must be removed. Its no fun at all for something that is required to be in an rts game. Have we seen a protoss game anywhere where warpgate wasnt researched immediatly? It also removes the concept of defenders advantage and rush distances. It makes balancing gateway units so delicate because it opens so many early game aggression options.
Personally I think Warp Gate is a really cool mechanic and helps differentiate/identify the races, Terran produces units 1 at a time like an assembly line, Zerg spawns armies out of larva while Protoss warps reinforcements to the battle field. there are a few changes I would like to see though.
First, WG is infinietly better that GW in every way, maybe allow WG to produce each unit 15% faster or 5 seconds faster rather than 10, also; when a unit is built at a GW triggers the WG CD so you can`t finish a unit, convert to WG and produce again leading to a spike in army size (hence all the timing oriented attacks).
I would also advocate the removal/adjustment of forcefield to make sentries more supportive adn less crutch
lastly, beef up zeolot and stalker a bit, +10 shields for zeolots, +1(+1 armored) from each upgrade for stalker / faster attack speed and I`d be Happy
On April 17 2013 05:27 Aveng3r wrote: Good read. Im not really sure how to respond but I am going to list some things that must be changed -Collossus needs to be removed or made into something that requires a shred of thought to use. Think about how terran must position and seige his tanks to get aoe damage. What does protoss have to do? nothing at all. Its just arbitrarily good, theres no tradeoffs anywhere. Think of how the reaver was so slow and required micro to use. Why was that replaced with something so mindless? -warp gate must be removed. Its no fun at all for something that is required to be in an rts game. Have we seen a protoss game anywhere where warpgate wasnt researched immediatly? It also removes the concept of defenders advantage and rush distances. It makes balancing gateway units so delicate because it opens so many early game aggression options. -zealot legs and phoenix autofire must be removed. its literally nothing but free micro. Why in the world is this even in the game, I cant understand. buff them some other way, but stop making them so mindless to use. -get rid of the goddamn immortal. The epitome of a 1a unit, I really cant see how this community went up in arms over the warhound, arguing that it is a 1a unit, when this fucker has been in the game since day 1. someone, please explain to me.
Immortal:
The immortal has gotten a lot of flak. I remember plenty of older threads complaining about the roach/marauder/immortal 1-a dragoon-like triumvirate that robs each race of its identity.
But the immortal provides the key damage dealing support against roach/marauder that stalkers dont have so people kind of just accept it for what it is now.
Warpgate and Forcefield
People suggesting that warpgates be entirely removed are bonkers. Let's take a minute to congratulate blizzard on a fresh and exciting new mechanic. Same with forcefield.
However, as this (and numerous other) threads have attempted to show, the implementation of these abilities is flawed. The warpgate and forcefield mechanics are simply too powerful for their positions in the tech tree.
Obvious arguments have already been made, but if you sit down to make a list of the most apparent drawbacks of warpgate, you wont find any, at least on the surface. There is literally no reason not to get this upgrade. Forcefield comes out of the gate as a core spell too. How is this a tier 1.5 ability? For the rush? Make that a choice not a necessity.
If FF had been designed as a 50/50 or 100/100 tier 2 upgrade on the twilight council and warpgate had been designed as a 150/150 or 200/200 upgrade on the cy core, with buffs to gateway production and a nerf to warpgate production, these problems would not exist in their present form.
Instead, you would create a game in which teching to twilight council would become a powerful option to increase the power of gateway units dramatically (much like stim/combat shield does) in conjunction with the increased production from gateways. That's a true protoss army, with powerful units and lots of high tech support abilities.
Or alternatively, warpgate could be researched to provide strategic positioning of gateway units at the cost of fast production cycles. One might imagine researching warpgate while building twilight-->dark shrine for warp in DTs, but having weaker sentries/gateway units in the midgame as a result (without the upgrades from the council). This would lead to a more zerg-like toss army with the mobility to put on aggression but at a loss of production, meaning the aggression would ultimately be limited.
Protoss Tech Tree and the Colossus
Protoss tech tree has 3 separate paths that are kind of independent but when combined become ridiculously strong, which is only made difficult by the high economic cost. BW design made this very difficult because you couldnt a-move reavers while microing high templar: you had to micro both of your splash units to get good results, making it impossible to maximize their power.
What I see in SC2 is that blizzard has in many ways removed difficulty of control as a way of balancing the game. That goes for spellcasting too which is now smartcasting (good for noobs like me but lets not pretend it doesn't have side effects). You can make it impractical to get both tech trees without making it impossible, by making a units power directly proportional to their control (see: marine vs baneling). Good players will make it work, but not 100% of the time. Look at corsair/DT from broodwar: guys with high APM could do impossible things with that strategy and its so fun to watch.
If you start limiting toss tech options a bit due to how infeasible perfect control becomes, you can start to make each tech tree more well rounded, less dependent on each other (look at the way templar/colossi compliment each other nicely, or voidray/colossi, or voidray(or tempest)/templar) allowing stronger, more defined protoss tech switches and not a general goal of acquiring every tech tree that results in a well-rounded deathball.
At the same time, you can introduce more interesting units, like the reaver (not the reaver, though I love it dearly: lets move on. I actually think oracles and phoenix have potential if they complimented each other better) which are skill dependent, so the player is forced to use their APM to bring the full power of the toss army to the battlefield. If you can, you will be amazing. If you cannot, then your army will be weaker.
Blizzard doesnt want to do this because it will make balancing the game harder to control from their angle. They are slightly neurotic in this regard. I see their design philosophy struggling to limit the effects of player skill in an attempt to make things fair for all skill levels (again, this is admirable and shouldnt be ignored, i just worry about the extent of it). The flip side is a game in which it is harder for the Bisus to show that they are in fact Bisu by doing absurd things with a few shuttles of reavers and a pack of corsair.
If I were designing this game, I'd strive to emulate that, but I wouldn't want to replicate it.
I see their design philosophy struggling to limit the effects of player skill in an attempt to make things fair for all skill levels (again, this is admirable and shouldnt be ignored, i just worry about the extent of it).
This is the worst thing you can do when designing a competitive game. You always balance things assuming a perfect player would abuse it to it's most devastating potential.
On April 17 2013 05:27 Bam Lee wrote: I guess we can discuss this all day but until we find a concrete solution to the problem it will never be fixed. I doubt blizzard is even working on remaking protoss, so if we want change we would have to find a concrete solution with numbers and actually design it ourselves to force a change
We can hope they get a little crazy for LotV. It is the Protoss expansion. If someone can find a way to leak nitrous oxide in their office, anything could happen.
On April 17 2013 05:27 Bam Lee wrote: I guess we can discuss this all day but until we find a concrete solution to the problem it will never be fixed. I doubt blizzard is even working on remaking protoss, so if we want change we would have to find a concrete solution with numbers and actually design it ourselves to force a change
We can hope they get a little crazy for LotV. It is the Protoss expansion. If someone can find a way to leak nitrous oxide in their office, anything could happen.
I second this. We could invite them all to a round of tazerball. Soccer with low voltage tazers and a beachball!
I see their design philosophy struggling to limit the effects of player skill in an attempt to make things fair for all skill levels (again, this is admirable and shouldnt be ignored, i just worry about the extent of it).
This is the worst thing you can do when designing a competitive game. You always balance things assuming a perfect player would abuse it to it's most devastating potential.
Let me clarify and elaborate on my position. I'm trying to be pragmatic. (edit: ugh wall of text: sorry)
Blizzard won't change their philosophy in this regard: this has been clear. They will tell you that they are designing an esport, but their actions speak louder than their words. How many units have been nerfed because blizzard was impatient and didnt wait for the metagame to adapt? How many times has blizzard blatantly ignored (or even worse, not seen) well written articles on sites like this that demonstrated how stuff is broken or needs a redesign (think FRB, whether or not you agree with it)? How many strategies and units have been changed due to 2v2 concerns rather than 1v1 (true theyve shied away from that)?
Now if your #1 goal is simply to create a true competitive game, SC2 fails compared to Broodwar. I think many would agree with this.
However, there are reasonable arguments to be made that take into account the current videogame market and consumer and their expectations. SC2 has succeeded in this regard, reigniting the RTS and SC communities (kind of at broodwar's expense, but lets ignore that) and drawing lots of new players into the game. Could it be better? Yes. But so far it has had laudable success.
Now my personal belief is that BW is fun no matter what level you play it at. If you have the mindset to improve at the game and you understand the skills needed to play and are excited at the prospect of learning and practicing them, you can deal with getting rocked by stuff that may be a bit too powerful on iCCup because you don't have flash's game sense, macro, micro, etc.
But many people dont feel this way. Look at all the people that have ladder anxiety in a decently balanced game with 50/50 matchmaking.
So in conclusion, I think the inclusiveness is admirable, but the implementation is not there. It's on the players too, and in many situations, blizzard should have devoted the time it spent rebalancing the game to studying and writing a well-written message (including hints) to its lower level fans telling them (us) to learn xyz skills in order to beat it, rather than simply nerfing it. That creates a toxic environment in which some casual people expect intervention. A small nudge in the right direction could help them see the more competitive side, helping to unite the community with itself and blizzard.
Blizzard has already said that you have to have certain skills to play this game (like macro mechanics, etc) so the question then becomes where to draw the line. I think if a game is well designed and fun, people will want to play it regardless. If you dont like the broodwar example, look at super smash bros melee. Totally imbalanced but still totally fun to play even if youre a complete scrub.
All I'm going to say is that its extremely naive and bold to come out and say that Protoss has no new strategies and very whiny indeed to discredit blizzard so by saying things like Protoss is no better designed than the WOL Beta. One strategy off the very top of my head involving the MSC is making blink aggression or all ins EXTREMELY more powerful on maps such as star station with more surface area around the skirt of your base; as its not nearly the investment as it was before in dropping the robo as well as twilight and chronos on observer and the blink upgrade ->furthermore; it forces the Terran to make siege tanks and deviate their strategic play away from double upgrade fast 3CC etc (Or at least is the soloution that I have in dealing with pushes on those kinds of map), which is a lot different from WOL in making a few turrets to deny observer scouting and a bunker to deny the blink up -> strategies are part in parcel of the units the more important factors are the map pools. In addition it's 6 weeks into game launch come on dude; if you have a knowledge of RTS than you should know after an expansion drops it takes time for even most professional players to develop more strategies because they have a previous style of play in mind from the vanilla and they want to tailor kinds of play from how they used to play the match ups; there is a previous bias. In short a premature crucifixion of blizzard. Give the game 6 months and then you can spray all you'd like.
On April 17 2013 09:06 TheNumberE wrote: All I'm going to say is that its extremely naive and bold to come out and say that Protoss has no new strategies and very whiny indeed to discredit blizzard so by saying things like Protoss is no better designed than the WOL Beta. One strategy off the very top of my head involving the MSC is making blink aggression or all ins EXTREMELY more powerful on maps such as star station with more surface area around the skirt of your base; as its not nearly the investment as it was before in dropping the robo as well as twilight and chronos on observer and the blink upgrade ->furthermore; it forces the Terran to make siege tanks and deviate their strategic play away from double upgrade fast 3CC etc (Or at least is the soloution that I have in dealing with pushes on those kinds of map), which is a lot different from WOL in making a few turrets to deny observer scouting and a bunker to deny the blink up -> strategies are part in parcel of the units the more important factors are the map pools. In addition it's 6 weeks into game launch come on dude; if you have a knowledge of RTS than you should know after an expansion drops it takes time for even most professional players to develop more strategies because they have a previous style of play in mind from the vanilla and they want to tailor kinds of play from how they used to play the match ups; there is a previous bias. In short a premature crucifixion of blizzard. Give the game 6 months and then you can spray all you'd like.
Protoss needed stronger standard play in addition to all ins, though. Given the track record of protoss, the blink build will disappear before too long anyway (if it hasn't already/). The point is that these concerns have existed and been voiced since WoL beta, and still haven't been addressed properly. Hell, someone even linked to a post by blizzard claiming it's a nonissue.
On April 15 2013 19:31 Zarahtra wrote: [quote] The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
You cant compare bw>sc2, you have to see the whole package. The protoss units are worse in power compared to zerg,terran in sc2 than in broodwar
Basic gateway units are worse than bio, because that's the whole point of making bio viable in SC2. (would be quite a fail if zealot/stalker could hold it's own against MMM AND Protoss would get all the high tech tech options on the same upgrade, hell, templar/archon even on the same production path) And Protoss was already superdependend on all forms of tech units in BW against Zerg, nothing has changed on that front.
Gateway units are shit with good pathing and unlimited selection. By design. Non of that has anything to do with Warpgate whatsoever.
Seriously guys... Not every unit in the game can be as powerful as the marine. All that whining about Z/P bad low tier units... yes, one races T1 units will always be better than anothers, just by how the techpaths work. That doesn't mean that larva, warpgate, sentries, infestors caused "the units to suck". Hell, if you ask me the only thing that makes other units suck in this game is the marine, which has caused actual nerfs on other units. Not just imaginary that people come up with as theory, after year long figuering which units dominate which other. (blizzard surely did not have the time to figure out the SC2 2013 gameplay in their planning stages 2008,2009)
The point is that they are too weak compared to most notably bio, and their tech units are to strong compared to most notably all of the tech units of terran. The core units of protoss suck in comparison to the core units of terran. There will always be a best unit, or in the least a best unit in certain situation, but if we are comparing game design of TvP in BW and SC2, neither race had a power unit such as the ht/colossi are in SC2. The ht was strong in BW, but a single one didn't pack as much punch as in SC2(for multiple reasons). My core point is that I think TvP especially would be more rewarding if the say 90/140 supply of units in the protoss army were actually the dangerous part of the army and the tech units were the support units rather than the other way around.
It's been the topic of various discussions that the reaver was way more powerful than the Colossus. And HTs weren't shabby either with their 112 damage storms. Even more, bio or biomech wasn't even viable to begin with against those units, even though MarineMedic beats Dragoon and Zealot in Broodwar.
The reality has nothing to do with warpgate or sentry based gateway nerfs. Blizzard made bio viable by tuning down Protoss splash and tuning up Terran with Marauder&Medivac instead of usless Firebats and damage/square reducing medics (not to mention the implicit drop play you get from medivacs, "for free" when you just go for combat healing).
Of course you may say that they have gone overboard with Terran bio and not far enough with Protoss splash. But in my opinion it will always come down less to how good/bad warpgate units are, but rather that Protoss as a whole concept is basically just "moooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrr beef". Which makes Protoss units trade badly, as they don't have the damage output to achieve anything when outnumbered. (unlike marines, zerglings, banelings, mines, tanks... which will often take a few enemies with them to the grave and therefore allow for "let's try to attack there, it can't be too bad" kind of gameplay). (zealots, oracles and templar being the exceptions)
On April 16 2013 04:45 Silencioseu wrote:
On April 15 2013 21:37 Big J wrote:
On April 15 2013 19:31 Zarahtra wrote:
On April 15 2013 18:02 Big J wrote:
On April 15 2013 17:35 Zarahtra wrote: [quote] Well the big thing about warp gates is they need to be balanced in a way that a reinforcement of upto 40 warp gate supply doesn't win the protoss the game outright, that is to say, they force gateway units to suck(or in the case of the HT, not come out truly combat ready). It has just forced Blizzard's hand to nerf the protoss units from being the strong tough warrior to being gimmicky glasscannons that desperately need to hit a timing before x upgrade of the opponent is done.
Which patches apart from khaydarian amulet removal + zealot buff are you referring to?
The WoL patch. As warp gate was in WoL from the start, gateway units sucked pretty much from the start and the real impact units were their tech units, which is just a sad design which has left protoss so gimmicky. From TvP POV, if you snipe/Emp the templars and kill the colossi the rest of the protoss army doesn't stand a chance. I'll concede that blink stalkers do break that chain in PvZ if you mass them enough, but that requires a critical mass/deathball, which isn't exactly the strength I wish protoss had more of. The protoss army is imo just to weak without their power units, which comes both from the remax capability provided in lategame, but moreso I'd say from being able to be 1 round of production ahead with their very many different allins in the early game.
Which connection do those things need to have? Gateway units have been slightly buffed BW-->SC2 (blink, dragoon range upgrade not needed, nearly same stats, added sentries). They follow the exact same design rules all other Starcraft units go: the stronger the unit, the less costefficent. Protoss smallest units are zealots, stalkers which are naturally less costefficient than the weaker marine, zergling, roach/BW hydralisk.
The only thing that changed is that the pathing/selection/gameplay changed, and now Protoss doesn't have the advantage of "easy control" anymore where 12 Protoss T1 units would be capable of combating 24 Zerg/Terran T1 units due to better control. (and even that wasn't quite true in BW, as marines&medics just like hydra/ling do counter gateway units and Protoss was just as dependend as in SC2 to go reaver&templar against those)
But there was no marauder in bw right?
right. That doesn't mean that "gateway units have been nerfed because of warpgate". It means that Terran got the marauder. Not some arbitrary: you see guys, after years of Starcraft 2 we know that bio beats gateway builds. Obviously that stuff was nerfed long before we figured this out due to sentries and warpgates
He didn't say that gateway units were nerfed because of warpgate just that they sucked because of it*, I don't really see how you can deny that. The connection they have is that if gateway units were buffed then one base gateway all-ins, which were very popular early on in WoL, would have become too powerful since Warpgate can effectively negate the defenders advantage.
*The difference being that gateway units were not nerfed, but the other races early units have become more effective and they could not buff gateway units to match them directly, so they had to indirectly buff them defensively by adding sentries followed by compensating for their offensive weakness with strong splash in Colossi and High Templar. I know you mentioned HT and Reavers being stronger in BW, but the way that units clump in SC2 means that any form of aoe is just much more effective.
Edit: The sad thing is that I actually really like Warpgate, Sentries and the concept of the Colossus, but I think a lot more people would be happy if we could find some kind of even ground where gateway units were a little stronger, and Colossi/HT were a little weaker such that Protoss has a more stable early game and Colossi/HT wouldn't require quite as hard counters as they currently do.
well, he actually said in a post before that one that they were nerfed. And I disagree that they suck "because of warpgate". Of course you could buff them, balance PvZ and PvT completly differently (assuming that the game is balanced now, there will most likely be imbalances after balanceunnecessary buffs) and be fine while keeping warpgate. The question for me however is: PvX right now is 1-3 robo/stargate + 5-10 warpgates. Why do I want this setup to change to 0-1 robo/stargate + 10-15 warpgates? Protoss armies already consist of gateway units for the most part and only need very little help from other techs. So why do I want Protoss being balanced around "gateway only, tech is optional".
With or without warpgate, I dislike the thought of "just blink good enough and you'll counter roach/hydra". Or zealot/archon not being a midgame timing, but just amoving it's way to victory over bio all game long. I want Protoss to be forced to use most of their techs, just like Zerg has to, and like Terran at least has to use one of their separate techpaths (and combines that a lot with vikings, medivacs, hellions, hellbats, tanks, mines).
I know, warpgate is a powerful tool. But that doesn't mean the units coming of it have to be balanced down because of it. Look at larva. Not every unit coming of larva "just sucks", and larva is a much more potent timing attack tool than investing into cybercore + warpgate + X gateways.
Basically what it comes down to is, that in Starcraft all units (apart from the marine) have some major drawbacks. Protoss just has all the wrong drawbacks. Immobility and/or low damage for most units. + Show Spoiler +
If you just play any random RTS game, you can quickly identify the fun units. The high damage dealing, highly mobile ones. The ones that Protoss doesn't have enough of.
Ah, my bad, I must have missed that part.
Okay of course, you *can* buff them, but not to the same cost effectiveness of their similar counterparts in Terran and Zerg (Ie Marine Marauder and Ling Roach) because otherwise Warpgate timings will become too strong, this is just simply how it is.
I never said anything about removing Protoss's reliance on tech completely, so please don't even bother with that sort of talk, I just don't want to have to rely on tech to match units on the same tier. The way I would have it, compositions would be pretty much the same as they are now, but with more freedom in how the compositions were attained. Think about it, you would still want to have Colossus/HT in your army because aoe damage is always great, but you wouldn't be held back by having to invest into either just to feel safe moving out onto the map when your opponent has more than a handful of Marines and Marauders. Higher tech units would still be required, but they wouldn't have to be quite so strong, and their counters wouldn't have to be so hard. I want all the races to have to rely on their tech just like you, but I don't want anything specific to be required or else I start to find it stale.
Of course units that come from larva don't "just suck", but they do have to be balanced to take larva into account (time, cost, supply) or else they would be broken, gateway units are exactly the same, they have to be balanced with Warpgate taken into account and when I stated that they suck I was only referring to their cost effectiveness relative to the other races tier 1 units. Of course gateway units don't suck as a whole, but their relative weakness lends Protoss early game to have only two styles that really work: turtling or all-ining, and I don't find either of these styles particularly fun to play or watch*.
*I haven't watched enough HotS yet to know if this is still the case, this is mostly my opinions from WoL.
I disagree. If Protoss had more powerful commited allins and agression of warpgate but was balanced to actually be agressive, all that would change is that Z/T would have to play less greedy (and maybe small adjustments would have to be made, but stuff like +50bunker HP, preresearched concussive shells, a cheaper roach warren and -10seconds build time on spines shouldn't break the game, right?). But if 3gate aggression and 4gate allins would be the norm, Terrans could just open more safely with marauders and siegetanks and zerg builds would be 2base with a spine and roach/ling and Protoss would eventually have to retreat. Similar for any 6-8gates. Etc. Don't get me wrong, I believe warpgates are a powerful tool. But we are talking about a 20-30second advantage with a proxy pylon over reinforcing by rallying in a gateway unit rush. Which is not that huge.
Going back to units drawbacks of basic units: Zerglings drawbacks are melee, no AA and splash vulnerability - basically endgame straight up engagement disadvantages and they don't offer AA. But they are good fighters in the early-mid game. Roaches drawbacks are low range, no AA, bad supply ratio - basically you don't get enough of them into the combat in the lategame and they don't offer AA. But they are good fighters in the early-mid game.
Stalkers drawbacks are cost and damage output. Basically, they are bad fighters cost for cost. Zealots drawbacks are melee, missing AA, missing mobility. They are kind of bad fighters in big mid-lategame engagements and don't offer a lot of mapcontrol potential.
Marines... well, they are vulnerable to massive splash and missing mobility prestim/medivac. Marauders drawbacks are vulnerability to non-armored units and missing antiair and missing mobility prestim/medivac. Basically they are only good for as long as you can properly support them. Similarily hydras, banelings, medivacs, hellions, mines are all rather good engagement units in the right composition/situation and rather mobile. While Sentries and Immortals are again rather on the immobile side and - though the immortal is a really good *inyourfaceunit* - not really strong damage dealers for their cost.
So what it comes down to is that gateway units (in particular the stalker) by design are made to be very good at everything - but straight up engagements and harassment. On the flipside, zerg early game units suck at everything but straight up engagements early on and harassment. So basically, if you made stalkers costefficient combat units vs ground in the early-midgame they would not have any drawbacks. It's the design of the stalker (/dragoon, though it wasn't visible in BW PvT, because bio wasn't viable) that makes Protoss gameplay stale in SC2. You could for sure balance the stalker costefficient with or without warpgate in the game - but it would require other drawbacks like no AA, lower range, worse blink, worse cost/supply ratio, slower. You can't have the whole package in one unit in an RTS, but that's what you are getting if you buff the stalkers costefficiency. Warpgate or not.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree on that point, because I still think it would be very difficult to balance, taking into account the variety of gateway allins, including: 2 base, with blink, with warp prism etc. Not to mention that any additional balances have to be taken into account between the other two races and for their mirrors. Also on the 30 sec, imo that is huge, though only with regards to calculated all-ins.
I agree with you for the most part with the drawbacks of units, but it seems to me that it usually makes sense to make the immobile expensive units more cost efficient in a straight up fight. So yeah, like you said earlier, Protoss has all the wrong drawbacks, but to me, these drawbacks don't make sense from a design perspective unless they were necessary to compensate for warpgate.
I think the lack of mobility can definitely make things difficult, Zerglings and Marines get their mobility upgrade earlier and for cheaper, what if Zealot charge upgrade was split into Movespeed/Charge and put movespeed in the cyber core and charge stays in the twilight council, splitting it into two 100/100 upgrades, where legs were a prereq for charge?
I just disagree with blizzard's power creep model, it's been shown to be bad in other games and it's no different here. For example, blizzard wanted to buff phoenixes against mutas back in WoL, and add the widow mine. Cool. Well, now mutas got a buff as a result of these two changes. Now that mutas are buffed, blink storm builds don't stop them anymore. You've effectively removed choice because you were buffing certain counters to muta earlier, instead of nerfing the muta. This kind of thing is rampant with blizzard.
On April 18 2013 02:56 ThaReckoning wrote: I just disagree with blizzard's power creep model, it's been shown to be bad in other games and it's no different here. For example, blizzard wanted to buff phoenixes against mutas back in WoL, and add the widow mine. Cool. Well, now mutas got a buff as a result of these two changes. Now that mutas are buffed, blink storm builds don't stop them anymore. You've effectively removed choice because you were buffing certain counters to muta earlier, instead of nerfing the muta. This kind of thing is rampant with blizzard.
Think back to all the Protoss nerfs in 2010 and 2011. They speak volumes to your point and how correct it is. Instead of fixing an issue by dealing with the issue itself, they try and buff or nerf other stuff to compensate. They nerfed warpgate so much just to try and fix PvP (even though it didn't work. People were saying all along that they just had to make it so you couldn't warp above forcefields on ramps yet it took Blizzard almost a year to realize that) and by doing that they took away any way of viably doing pressure in the early game for Protoss outside of proxy gates. There used to be builds like 3gate pressure expand that allowed Protoss to keep opponents honest but after all the warpgate nerfs they hit so late that they were basically never worth it to do because the opponent could do a fast expand, cut corners in other areas, and still be safe. The threat of the 4gate used to be a tool to keep the other races honest. There is no way that with faster warpgate that Zerg could have been doing some of the builds they did at the end of WoL, with fast thirds and only queens for defence. Nor could Terran have got away with 1rax expand and been safe. It allowed there to be potential action in the first 10 minutes of the game, and didn't allow the ridiculously passive play we see today.
It's like they refuse to backpedal on any patch they implemented in the past (other than bunkers), even if it is clearly bad. The queen patch was universally recognized as being really bad for the game, yet instead of undoing it, they just left it in, even though they could have fixed it for HOTS. Same thing with the muta buff in the HOTS beta. It completely ruined ZvZ and made ZvP really dumb too. Now if Protoss scouts spire they have to go for 2 stargates as a response or else there is a good chance they will die outright if the Zerg does actually go muta (which clever Zergs are already starting to exploit by making a spire, just enough mutas to convince the protoss that they are actually going mutas, then switching into swarmhosts, which require a completely different tech path to deal with). Instead of actually fixing mutas, they made the spore crawler do more damage to mutas, which did essentially nothing for fixing ZvZ, and now for ZvP Protoss is forced into one style upon scouting spire because nothing else will survive mass muta, not even the old responses like storm, stalkers or mass cannons.
On April 18 2013 02:56 ThaReckoning wrote: I just disagree with blizzard's power creep model, it's been shown to be bad in other games and it's no different here. For example, blizzard wanted to buff phoenixes against mutas back in WoL, and add the widow mine. Cool. Well, now mutas got a buff as a result of these two changes. Now that mutas are buffed, blink storm builds don't stop them anymore. You've effectively removed choice because you were buffing certain counters to muta earlier, instead of nerfing the muta. This kind of thing is rampant with blizzard.
Think back to all the Protoss nerfs in 2010 and 2011. They speak volumes to your point and how correct it is. Instead of fixing an issue by dealing with the issue itself, they try and buff or nerf other stuff to compensate. They nerfed warpgate so much just to try and fix PvP (even though it didn't work. People were saying all along that they just had to make it so you couldn't warp above forcefields on ramps yet it took Blizzard almost a year to realize that) and by doing that they took away any way of viably doing pressure in the early game for Protoss outside of proxy gates. There used to be builds like 3gate pressure expand that allowed Protoss to keep opponents honest but after all the warpgate nerfs they hit so late that they were basically never worth it to do because the opponent could do a fast expand, cut corners in other areas, and still be safe. The threat of the 4gate used to be a tool to keep the other races honest. There is no way that with faster warpgate that Zerg could have been doing some of the builds they did at the end of WoL, with fast thirds and only queens for defence. Nor could Terran have got away with 1rax expand and been safe. It allowed there to be potential action in the first 10 minutes of the game, and didn't allow the ridiculously passive play we see today.
It's like they refuse to backpedal on any patch they implemented in the past (other than bunkers), even if it is clearly bad. The queen patch was universally recognized as being really bad for the game, yet instead of undoing it, they just left it in, even though they could have fixed it for HOTS. Same thing with the muta buff in the HOTS beta. It completely ruined ZvZ and made ZvP really dumb too. Now if Protoss scouts spire they have to go for 2 stargates as a response or else there is a good chance they will die outright if the Zerg does actually go muta (which clever Zergs are already starting to exploit by making a spire, just enough mutas to convince the protoss that they are actually going mutas, then switching into swarmhosts, which require a completely different tech path to deal with). Instead of actually fixing mutas, they made the spore crawler do more damage to mutas, which did essentially nothing for fixing ZvZ, and now for ZvP Protoss is forced into one style upon scouting spire because nothing else will survive mass muta, not even the old responses like storm, stalkers or mass cannons.
Pretty spot on with the circle jerk of balance that goes on. The state of PvZ atm is just dumb as hell, it´s just not fun to play at all. I remember discussing this with a zerg friend way back in WoL, like two years ago a while after the 4 gate nerfs hit and our conclussion was that if Zerg scouts a toss, he should never lose to early aggression, it´s simply not possible. This didn´t mean play safe or anything, it simply meant tossing up some spines and building some roaches. Still getting a super greedy third and everything. But balancing stuff like the 4 gate is tricky, since it was very easy to execute and much harder to defend. There was pretty much 0 defenders advantage, in some cases thanks to sentries and ramps even a disadvantage for the defender if he was unlucky to have some units in his main. And if you could 4 gate you would win pretty much every single game up until like Diamond since again, easy to execute harder to defend. It required that the defender scouted and prepared properly while requiring nothing of the sort from the 4 gater really.
Compare PvZ to TvZ is a travesty, watching DeMuslim play super greedy AND apply some pressure and harassment while doing so vs Idra is just... that's how i want to play, it doesn't even have to be super greedy just be able to do something to him in the early game that isn´t a complete all in. Seeing Z taking a greedy 3rd and 4th and be unable to do much of anything about it is just beyond frustrating. Protoss are as afraid of mutas now as zergs were of 4 gates back in the start of WoL hence we always open stargate. Short of a few all ins there is nothing like this for the zerg vs a protoss.
On April 18 2013 02:56 ThaReckoning wrote: I just disagree with blizzard's power creep model, it's been shown to be bad in other games and it's no different here. For example, blizzard wanted to buff phoenixes against mutas back in WoL, and add the widow mine. Cool. Well, now mutas got a buff as a result of these two changes. Now that mutas are buffed, blink storm builds don't stop them anymore. You've effectively removed choice because you were buffing certain counters to muta earlier, instead of nerfing the muta. This kind of thing is rampant with blizzard.
Think back to all the Protoss nerfs in 2010 and 2011. They speak volumes to your point and how correct it is. Instead of fixing an issue by dealing with the issue itself, they try and buff or nerf other stuff to compensate. They nerfed warpgate so much just to try and fix PvP (even though it didn't work. People were saying all along that they just had to make it so you couldn't warp above forcefields on ramps yet it took Blizzard almost a year to realize that) and by doing that they took away any way of viably doing pressure in the early game for Protoss outside of proxy gates. There used to be builds like 3gate pressure expand that allowed Protoss to keep opponents honest but after all the warpgate nerfs they hit so late that they were basically never worth it to do because the opponent could do a fast expand, cut corners in other areas, and still be safe. The threat of the 4gate used to be a tool to keep the other races honest. There is no way that with faster warpgate that Zerg could have been doing some of the builds they did at the end of WoL, with fast thirds and only queens for defence. Nor could Terran have got away with 1rax expand and been safe. It allowed there to be potential action in the first 10 minutes of the game, and didn't allow the ridiculously passive play we see today.
It's like they refuse to backpedal on any patch they implemented in the past (other than bunkers), even if it is clearly bad. The queen patch was universally recognized as being really bad for the game, yet instead of undoing it, they just left it in, even though they could have fixed it for HOTS. Same thing with the muta buff in the HOTS beta. It completely ruined ZvZ and made ZvP really dumb too. Now if Protoss scouts spire they have to go for 2 stargates as a response or else there is a good chance they will die outright if the Zerg does actually go muta (which clever Zergs are already starting to exploit by making a spire, just enough mutas to convince the protoss that they are actually going mutas, then switching into swarmhosts, which require a completely different tech path to deal with). Instead of actually fixing mutas, they made the spore crawler do more damage to mutas, which did essentially nothing for fixing ZvZ, and now for ZvP Protoss is forced into one style upon scouting spire because nothing else will survive mass muta, not even the old responses like storm, stalkers or mass cannons.
100% agreed here. The only changes necessary to wg were like you mentioned, the forcefield change, and maybe the powering up cliffs for pylons. The old pylon radius back would be helpful, as would faster warpgate and higher dps on sentries. I think it's the same story for things like the zealot build time nerf, and the blink nerf etc. Back in WoL I'd say all the time that protoss needed stronger defense in the main tech path, instead of slower zealot build times. Everyone told me I was crazy, it'd make protoss unstoppable, that whole argument. Here we are in WoL, with protoss having (a little) more defense in the main tech path, but the zealot nerfs weren't rolled back.
On April 18 2013 02:56 ThaReckoning wrote: I just disagree with blizzard's power creep model, it's been shown to be bad in other games and it's no different here. For example, blizzard wanted to buff phoenixes against mutas back in WoL, and add the widow mine. Cool. Well, now mutas got a buff as a result of these two changes. Now that mutas are buffed, blink storm builds don't stop them anymore. You've effectively removed choice because you were buffing certain counters to muta earlier, instead of nerfing the muta. This kind of thing is rampant with blizzard.
Think back to all the Protoss nerfs in 2010 and 2011. They speak volumes to your point and how correct it is. Instead of fixing an issue by dealing with the issue itself, they try and buff or nerf other stuff to compensate. They nerfed warpgate so much just to try and fix PvP (even though it didn't work. People were saying all along that they just had to make it so you couldn't warp above forcefields on ramps yet it took Blizzard almost a year to realize that) and by doing that they took away any way of viably doing pressure in the early game for Protoss outside of proxy gates. There used to be builds like 3gate pressure expand that allowed Protoss to keep opponents honest but after all the warpgate nerfs they hit so late that they were basically never worth it to do because the opponent could do a fast expand, cut corners in other areas, and still be safe. The threat of the 4gate used to be a tool to keep the other races honest. There is no way that with faster warpgate that Zerg could have been doing some of the builds they did at the end of WoL, with fast thirds and only queens for defence. Nor could Terran have got away with 1rax expand and been safe. It allowed there to be potential action in the first 10 minutes of the game, and didn't allow the ridiculously passive play we see today.
It's like they refuse to backpedal on any patch they implemented in the past (other than bunkers), even if it is clearly bad. The queen patch was universally recognized as being really bad for the game, yet instead of undoing it, they just left it in, even though they could have fixed it for HOTS. Same thing with the muta buff in the HOTS beta. It completely ruined ZvZ and made ZvP really dumb too. Now if Protoss scouts spire they have to go for 2 stargates as a response or else there is a good chance they will die outright if the Zerg does actually go muta (which clever Zergs are already starting to exploit by making a spire, just enough mutas to convince the protoss that they are actually going mutas, then switching into swarmhosts, which require a completely different tech path to deal with). Instead of actually fixing mutas, they made the spore crawler do more damage to mutas, which did essentially nothing for fixing ZvZ, and now for ZvP Protoss is forced into one style upon scouting spire because nothing else will survive mass muta, not even the old responses like storm, stalkers or mass cannons.
Pretty spot on with the circle jerk of balance that goes on. The state of PvZ atm is just dumb as hell, it´s just not fun to play at all. I remember discussing this with a zerg friend way back in WoL, like two years ago a while after the 4 gate nerfs hit and our conclussion was that if Zerg scouts a toss, he should never lose to early aggression, it´s simply not possible. This didn´t mean play safe or anything, it simply meant tossing up some spines and building some roaches. Still getting a super greedy third and everything. But balancing stuff like the 4 gate is tricky, since it was very easy to execute and much harder to defend. There was pretty much 0 defenders advantage, in some cases thanks to sentries and ramps even a disadvantage for the defender if he was unlucky to have some units in his main. And if you could 4 gate you would win pretty much every single game up until like Diamond since again, easy to execute harder to defend. It required that the defender scouted and prepared properly while requiring nothing of the sort from the 4 gater really.
Compare PvZ to TvZ is a travesty, watching DeMuslim play super greedy AND apply some pressure and harassment while doing so vs Idra is just... that's how i want to play, it doesn't even have to be super greedy just be able to do something to him in the early game that isn´t a complete all in. Seeing Z taking a greedy 3rd and 4th and be unable to do much of anything about it is just beyond frustrating. Protoss are as afraid of mutas now as zergs were of 4 gates back in the start of WoL hence we always open stargate. Short of a few all ins there is nothing like this for the zerg vs a protoss.
Might i ask what the spore crawler buff was btw?
It was a buff in damage against biological air units only. So basically only the muta (and I think the corruptor?). It wouldn't affect anything else. I think it made it so it was something like 30 damage per shot but I cannot remember the exact number. Either way it did basically nothing, 30 or whatever it was damage per shot does not matter when there are 50 mutas.
I "think" it was implemented to try and stop muta verse muta, however did nothing.
I agree also that Protoss is a bit of a messy race. I tend to take a huge hate towards this race, not towards the players, due to how they are played out. There is much potential for Protoss to be just as good as Terran, however are just not there. I don't think it's the players at all, I honestly think the problem lies within the design of the race.
The only thing that may fix this, is a complete overhaul of the race... By this i just mean numbers, not units, though units could possibly work too. I just don't think it's ever going to happen during sc2.... Sadly.
On April 19 2013 04:01 Salient wrote: I wonder if Blizzard is aware of this issue. The developers seem to think everything is wonderful in HoTS.
Yeah, it's very disheartening to think about. Their definition of balance has nothing to do with actual gameplay, and everything to do with w/l ratios. I think they're missing the big picture.
On April 19 2013 04:01 Salient wrote: I wonder if Blizzard is aware of this issue. The developers seem to think everything is wonderful in HoTS.
Yeah, it's very disheartening to think about. Their definition of balance has nothing to do with actual gameplay, and everything to do with w/l ratios. I think they're missing the big picture.
but how exactly would you determine "gameplay"
I'm very excited of early game toss doing pokes with stalkers and late game toss players who harass with prism/zealots while using templars to keep their army safe as they poke the middle.
But I also hate zvz and tvt the two most dynamic and explosive matchups.
To each their own right?
I hate watching PvZ after the protoss starts their third. Because its either protoss holds it (and turtles) or protoss doesn't--and its game over.
The early game play of pokes, phoenix scouts and overlord peeks to try to ascertain if its a rush or not is exciting to me.
Im not saying Toss doesn't need changes (they need a LOT) but I can't see why you'd fault Blizz for sticking to win ratios. Its a very important statistic.
On April 19 2013 04:01 Salient wrote: I wonder if Blizzard is aware of this issue. The developers seem to think everything is wonderful in HoTS.
Yeah, it's very disheartening to think about. Their definition of balance has nothing to do with actual gameplay, and everything to do with w/l ratios. I think they're missing the big picture.
but how exactly would you determine "gameplay"
I'm very excited of early game toss doing pokes with stalkers and late game toss players who harass with prism/zealots while using templars to keep their army safe as they poke the middle.
But I also hate zvz and tvt the two most dynamic and explosive matchups.
To each their own right?
I hate watching PvZ after the protoss starts their third. Because its either protoss holds it (and turtles) or protoss doesn't--and its game over.
The early game play of pokes, phoenix scouts and overlord peeks to try to ascertain if its a rush or not is exciting to me.
Im not saying Toss doesn't need changes (they need a LOT) but I can't see why you'd fault Blizz for sticking to win ratios. Its a very important statistic.
It's also a statistic that protoss has done terrible in over the course of years at the highest level of gameplay.
On April 19 2013 04:01 Salient wrote: I wonder if Blizzard is aware of this issue. The developers seem to think everything is wonderful in HoTS.
Yeah, it's very disheartening to think about. Their definition of balance has nothing to do with actual gameplay, and everything to do with w/l ratios. I think they're missing the big picture.
but how exactly would you determine "gameplay"
I'm very excited of early game toss doing pokes with stalkers and late game toss players who harass with prism/zealots while using templars to keep their army safe as they poke the middle.
But I also hate zvz and tvt the two most dynamic and explosive matchups.
To each their own right?
I hate watching PvZ after the protoss starts their third. Because its either protoss holds it (and turtles) or protoss doesn't--and its game over.
The early game play of pokes, phoenix scouts and overlord peeks to try to ascertain if its a rush or not is exciting to me.
Im not saying Toss doesn't need changes (they need a LOT) but I can't see why you'd fault Blizz for sticking to win ratios. Its a very important statistic.
It's also a statistic that protoss has done terrible in over the course of years at the highest level of gameplay.
Well yes between GSL wins, GSL winrates, race retention, and race presence--protoss loses on all fronts tournament wise.
I guess I was more asking why winrates was not an important statistic--I do agree toss needs some loving.
On April 19 2013 04:01 Salient wrote: I wonder if Blizzard is aware of this issue. The developers seem to think everything is wonderful in HoTS.
Yeah, it's very disheartening to think about. Their definition of balance has nothing to do with actual gameplay, and everything to do with w/l ratios. I think they're missing the big picture.
but how exactly would you determine "gameplay"
I'm very excited of early game toss doing pokes with stalkers and late game toss players who harass with prism/zealots while using templars to keep their army safe as they poke the middle.
But I also hate zvz and tvt the two most dynamic and explosive matchups.
To each their own right?
I hate watching PvZ after the protoss starts their third. Because its either protoss holds it (and turtles) or protoss doesn't--and its game over.
The early game play of pokes, phoenix scouts and overlord peeks to try to ascertain if its a rush or not is exciting to me.
Im not saying Toss doesn't need changes (they need a LOT) but I can't see why you'd fault Blizz for sticking to win ratios. Its a very important statistic.
Good gameplay could probably mean that you can do a variety of styles and stay relevant in terms of being able to win. Think back to around the end of WoL. PvZ technically was kinda balanced (in terms of sheer numbers), but was it a good matchup? Absolutely not. It was either Protoss does an all-in (be it immortal/sentry, or those pre-hive colossus timings) and wins or Zerg wins with Infestor/Broodlord (yes in the last couple weeks MC was winning with mass air but we never got to see that play out). If Protoss does anything else, they lose. If Zerg does anything else, they lose. It was balanced but in a really unhealthy way.
Statistics should be a tool to help make a judgment, not the be-all-end-all that an entire argument is based off of. We had this point drilled into our heads a lot in my research statistics class. The problem is that Blizzard looks at these stats, sees that they are around 50% and calls it a day. In reality, they should not even be looking at statistics until after answering questions like "Does each race have access to a variety of gameplay options in this matchup as of right now", "Is there more than one or two ways for them to viably win the game?", "Upon scouting a tech, is there any flexibility in the response?" and questions like those. Right now if a Protoss sees a spire in PvZ they have to throw down more stargates, there is no choice between what way to deal with the opponent's tech, it is either phoenixes or lose. Likewise in ZvZ, if a Zerg sees another Zerg going spire, they either go spire themselves or probably lose the game, they have no other viable choices. Inflexible gameplay scares people away. If the average SC2 player knew that at least half of their PvZs would be hour long wars against static defence and free units and that they were not likely to win, do you think they would want to play?
On April 19 2013 04:01 Salient wrote: I wonder if Blizzard is aware of this issue. The developers seem to think everything is wonderful in HoTS.
Yeah, it's very disheartening to think about. Their definition of balance has nothing to do with actual gameplay, and everything to do with w/l ratios. I think they're missing the big picture.
but how exactly would you determine "gameplay"
I'm very excited of early game toss doing pokes with stalkers and late game toss players who harass with prism/zealots while using templars to keep their army safe as they poke the middle.
But I also hate zvz and tvt the two most dynamic and explosive matchups.
To each their own right?
I hate watching PvZ after the protoss starts their third. Because its either protoss holds it (and turtles) or protoss doesn't--and its game over.
The early game play of pokes, phoenix scouts and overlord peeks to try to ascertain if its a rush or not is exciting to me.
Im not saying Toss doesn't need changes (they need a LOT) but I can't see why you'd fault Blizz for sticking to win ratios. Its a very important statistic.
Good gameplay could probably mean that you can do a variety of styles and stay relevant in terms of being able to win. Think back to around the end of WoL. PvZ technically was kinda balanced, but was it a good matchup? Absolutely not. It was either Protoss does an all-in (be it immortal/sentry, or those pre-hive colossus timings) and wins or Zerg wins with Infestor/Broodlord (yes in the last couple weeks MC was winning with mass air but we never got to see that play out). If Protoss does anything else, they lose. If Zerg does anything else, they lose. It was balanced but in a really unhealthy way.
Statistics should be a tool to help make a judgment, not the be-all-end-all that an entire argument is based off of. We had this point drilled into our heads a lot in my research statistics class. The problem is that Blizzard looks at these stats, sees that they are around 50% and calls it a day. In reality, they should not even be looking at statistics until after answering questions like "Does each race have access to a variety of gameplay options in this matchup as of right now", "Is there more than one or two ways for them to viably win the game?", "Upon scouting a tech, is there any flexibility in the response?" and questions like those. Right now if a Protoss sees a spire in PvZ they have to throw down more stargates, there is no choice between what way to deal with the opponent's tech, it is either phoenixes or lose. Likewise in ZvZ, if a Zerg sees another Zerg going spire, they either go spire themselves or probably lose the game, they have no other viable choices. Inflexible gameplay scares people away. If the average SC2 player knew that at least half of their PvZs would be hour long wars against static defence and free units and that they were not likely to win, do you think they would want to play?
I'm in agreement--but that still doesn't void the winrate statistics. Any and all changes must be made with those statistics in mind. If a change makes the game more dynamic--but zerg wins 60% of the time, then its the wrong change. Reaching 50% winrate is the PERFECT time to make changes since you can always "step back" to the balanced gameplay.
I mostly have philosophical differences in the design of protoss (I love the stalker for example, I liked it better when it was cheap unit called a Hydralisk in BW) I dislike that Protoss is the race with the fast and fragile units (Stalkers, Phoenix, Warp Prisms, Colossus) as opposed to being the brutish but powerful units (Dragoons, Reavers, Scouts, Arbiters) it made more sense flavor wise.
On April 19 2013 04:01 Salient wrote: I wonder if Blizzard is aware of this issue. The developers seem to think everything is wonderful in HoTS.
Yeah, it's very disheartening to think about. Their definition of balance has nothing to do with actual gameplay, and everything to do with w/l ratios. I think they're missing the big picture.
but how exactly would you determine "gameplay"
I'm very excited of early game toss doing pokes with stalkers and late game toss players who harass with prism/zealots while using templars to keep their army safe as they poke the middle.
But I also hate zvz and tvt the two most dynamic and explosive matchups.
To each their own right?
I hate watching PvZ after the protoss starts their third. Because its either protoss holds it (and turtles) or protoss doesn't--and its game over.
The early game play of pokes, phoenix scouts and overlord peeks to try to ascertain if its a rush or not is exciting to me.
Im not saying Toss doesn't need changes (they need a LOT) but I can't see why you'd fault Blizz for sticking to win ratios. Its a very important statistic.
Good gameplay could probably mean that you can do a variety of styles and stay relevant in terms of being able to win. Think back to around the end of WoL. PvZ technically was kinda balanced, but was it a good matchup? Absolutely not. It was either Protoss does an all-in (be it immortal/sentry, or those pre-hive colossus timings) and wins or Zerg wins with Infestor/Broodlord (yes in the last couple weeks MC was winning with mass air but we never got to see that play out). If Protoss does anything else, they lose. If Zerg does anything else, they lose. It was balanced but in a really unhealthy way.
Statistics should be a tool to help make a judgment, not the be-all-end-all that an entire argument is based off of. We had this point drilled into our heads a lot in my research statistics class. The problem is that Blizzard looks at these stats, sees that they are around 50% and calls it a day. In reality, they should not even be looking at statistics until after answering questions like "Does each race have access to a variety of gameplay options in this matchup as of right now", "Is there more than one or two ways for them to viably win the game?", "Upon scouting a tech, is there any flexibility in the response?" and questions like those. Right now if a Protoss sees a spire in PvZ they have to throw down more stargates, there is no choice between what way to deal with the opponent's tech, it is either phoenixes or lose. Likewise in ZvZ, if a Zerg sees another Zerg going spire, they either go spire themselves or probably lose the game, they have no other viable choices. Inflexible gameplay scares people away. If the average SC2 player knew that at least half of their PvZs would be hour long wars against static defence and free units and that they were not likely to win, do you think they would want to play?
I'm in agreement--but that still doesn't void the winrate statistics. Any and all changes must be made with those statistics in mind. If a change makes the game more dynamic--but zerg wins 60% of the time, then its the wrong change. Reaching 50% winrate is the PERFECT time to make changes since you can always "step back" to the balanced gameplay.
I mostly have philosophical differences in the design of protoss (I love the stalker for example, I liked it better when it was cheap unit called a Hydralisk in BW) I dislike that Protoss is the race with the fast and fragile units (Stalkers, Phoenix, Warp Prisms, Colossus) as opposed to being the brutish but powerful units (Dragoons, Reavers, Scouts, Arbiters) it made more sense flavor wise.
I believe changing that will fix a lot of things.
Yes and your first point gets back to the issue we were discussing. Blizzard seems to refuse to backpedal on patches, even if it causes long-term instability. Around the start of 2012 things were relatively balanced, Zerg was slightly unfavoured in TvZ but other than that things were peachy. Then came the queen patch and suddenly Zerg win percentages skyrocketed and were above 60% at times (especially in GSL). One would think that would have clued Blizzard in but they never bothered to look back on that patch and think that perhaps they went to far and should try something else. Same with the muta buff. Before it showed up, things were obviously in flux a bit (it was beta after all), but were starting to stabilize. After it suddenly ZvZ turned into a nightmare and PvZ got extra stupid, and neither have any sign of going back so far. After seeing that you would think they would go "Well that didn't work, let's try something else!" but they didn't, they left it in and tried doing all these stupid bandage patches that have done nothing so far. They've been doing that all along with every bad change, and it is starting to become more noticeable as people get better at the game.
I agree with your ideas about the design of Protoss. Currently they are trying to make Protoss too many things, they are supposed to be the expensive, powerful race that is immobile but instead they make fast, weak units, and have incredibly portable production. Because of these design goofups, if protoss had the units they are supposed to have they would be completely broken because they would be so good. So we are stuck with weak, crappy gateway units that can't hold their own against much cheaper units.
Its just playing zerg and protoss is kinda boring, the big macro level is more or less fine, strategy aspect is great, but there is very small micro oriented abuse.
Sure you will fly around with your unscouted pheonix flock and pick 5 units, sure you will sneak your oracle and gain small but very important economic edge here and there.
Im not saying there is no inspiring moments, sure they are, 80% or more comes from terran since Hots and seems like it will never go away.
However in grand scheme of thing all of this are just touches, there is nothing akin to overstretched harassments of 11muta group or reaver centered play, What is there is small adrenaline, its more like decision making and counting supplies, the momentum breaks are either too heavy (gg no counter, gg forcefielded) or too light (he is prepared, meaning macro harass may automatically fail). Only speedvacs and very few other unit/combos disregard that rule.
Fantasy vs TRUE, many loved that, overextention not axed (FF) action was actually what made BW harass great to watch. The problem of mentioned GSL match, was that the game was meticulously orchestrated into a state of extreme low economy and indecision which made it all possible.
I dunno its pretty hard to accept Protoss design coming from being fan of Bisu, Stork, JangBi and almost any succesful Protoss in BW. Sure protoss was always more gimmicky than other races but hell it was fun, starting from Reach zealot bombs, Nal_ra reaver play, Bisu sair and dark templar, Stork Reaver and Carrier, JangBi Storms. Those are labels, sure, but it defined the race.
I can dig you almost all the youtube videos but i guess its not needed everything is there and always was. Its just the ears that should listen are deaf.
Oh they listened once, to Nony. Didnt change much given how whole idea of Stork-esque carrier play truly is foreign to SC2 design. I very hope im wrong on that one as Stork bringing carriers into SC2 would be probably insta-favorite moment of mine in whole sc2. Sorry for fan-boy nudge.
I understand that many things i mentioned come from grand design of Starcraft 2 and it's mechanical rules but dissecting small problems and trying to mini-patch them results in prolonged discussions like this. There are many things that could be done WITHOUT breaking the MBS/Automine taboo and be totally fine, you could say a "good compromise", yet I can't see this compromise in Protoss design.
I wouldn't even say this, but seeing how Blizzard themselves are not really set in stone. Imagine, you can't really say "We will cut Carrier, there is no point to that unit, its placeholder", "Nony makes video", Blizzard "oh shit". Carrier back.
On April 19 2013 04:01 Salient wrote: I wonder if Blizzard is aware of this issue. The developers seem to think everything is wonderful in HoTS.
Yeah, it's very disheartening to think about. Their definition of balance has nothing to do with actual gameplay, and everything to do with w/l ratios. I think they're missing the big picture.
but how exactly would you determine "gameplay"
I'm very excited of early game toss doing pokes with stalkers and late game toss players who harass with prism/zealots while using templars to keep their army safe as they poke the middle.
But I also hate zvz and tvt the two most dynamic and explosive matchups.
To each their own right?
I hate watching PvZ after the protoss starts their third. Because its either protoss holds it (and turtles) or protoss doesn't--and its game over.
The early game play of pokes, phoenix scouts and overlord peeks to try to ascertain if its a rush or not is exciting to me.
Im not saying Toss doesn't need changes (they need a LOT) but I can't see why you'd fault Blizz for sticking to win ratios. Its a very important statistic.
Good gameplay could probably mean that you can do a variety of styles and stay relevant in terms of being able to win. Think back to around the end of WoL. PvZ technically was kinda balanced, but was it a good matchup? Absolutely not. It was either Protoss does an all-in (be it immortal/sentry, or those pre-hive colossus timings) and wins or Zerg wins with Infestor/Broodlord (yes in the last couple weeks MC was winning with mass air but we never got to see that play out). If Protoss does anything else, they lose. If Zerg does anything else, they lose. It was balanced but in a really unhealthy way.
Statistics should be a tool to help make a judgment, not the be-all-end-all that an entire argument is based off of. We had this point drilled into our heads a lot in my research statistics class. The problem is that Blizzard looks at these stats, sees that they are around 50% and calls it a day. In reality, they should not even be looking at statistics until after answering questions like "Does each race have access to a variety of gameplay options in this matchup as of right now", "Is there more than one or two ways for them to viably win the game?", "Upon scouting a tech, is there any flexibility in the response?" and questions like those. Right now if a Protoss sees a spire in PvZ they have to throw down more stargates, there is no choice between what way to deal with the opponent's tech, it is either phoenixes or lose. Likewise in ZvZ, if a Zerg sees another Zerg going spire, they either go spire themselves or probably lose the game, they have no other viable choices. Inflexible gameplay scares people away. If the average SC2 player knew that at least half of their PvZs would be hour long wars against static defence and free units and that they were not likely to win, do you think they would want to play?
I'm in agreement--but that still doesn't void the winrate statistics. Any and all changes must be made with those statistics in mind. If a change makes the game more dynamic--but zerg wins 60% of the time, then its the wrong change. Reaching 50% winrate is the PERFECT time to make changes since you can always "step back" to the balanced gameplay.
I mostly have philosophical differences in the design of protoss (I love the stalker for example, I liked it better when it was cheap unit called a Hydralisk in BW) I dislike that Protoss is the race with the fast and fragile units (Stalkers, Phoenix, Warp Prisms, Colossus) as opposed to being the brutish but powerful units (Dragoons, Reavers, Scouts, Arbiters) it made more sense flavor wise.
I believe changing that will fix a lot of things.
Yes and your first point gets back to the issue we were discussing. Blizzard seems to refuse to backpedal on patches, even if it causes long-term instability. Around the start of 2012 things were relatively balanced, Zerg was slightly unfavoured in TvZ but other than that things were peachy. Then came the queen patch and suddenly Zerg win percentages skyrocketed and were above 60% at times (especially in GSL). One would think that would have clued Blizzard in but they never bothered to look back on that patch and think that perhaps they went to far and should try something else. Same with the muta buff. Before it showed up, things were obviously in flux a bit (it was beta after all), but were starting to stabilize. After it suddenly ZvZ turned into a nightmare and PvZ got extra stupid, and neither have any sign of going back so far. After seeing that you would think they would go "Well that didn't work, let's try something else!" but they didn't, they left it in and tried doing all these stupid bandage patches that have done nothing so far. They've been doing that all along with every bad change, and it is starting to become more noticeable as people get better at the game.
I agree with your ideas about the design of Protoss. Currently they are trying to make Protoss too many things, they are supposed to be the expensive, powerful race that is immobile but instead they make fast, weak units, and have incredibly portable production. Because of these design goofups, if protoss had the units they are supposed to have they would be completely broken because they would be so good. So we are stuck with weak, crappy gateway units that can't hold their own against much cheaper units.
Hmm.... I wonder if it would make "more sense" if terran had warp in tech? But don't call it that--call it like, drop pod beacons and would work similar to how drop pods worked in the campaign. Marines and Maruaders would have to have a slight nerf due to their increased mobility while Protoss would be the race "stuck" at home/with supply lines.
terran would become the tactically mobile (different from fast which zerg gets credit for) yet weak units dependent on Factory units to hold ground and barracks units to reinforce positions.
Protoss would need stronger frontline units--maybe even make a juggle switch--give Protoss the marauder and give terran the stalker (keep the graphics and names of course) so that Protoss ground marauders would slow units for zealots to slice up while stargate play would become *essential* at combating air play. But the lack of a gateway AA unit would force Blizz to have to strengthen stargate unit to actually be air superiority fighters, maybe even bring back the scout but make its attack AoE to compensate.
Now I'm just theorycrafting--my bad, didn't mean to do that.
I'm wondering what people think of Maps as well? Maybe current maps just aren't really favoring protoss at the moment. Everything is getting bigger and bigger and they all seem to be completely wide open, which seems to punish protoss as well. Maybe maps need to have more choked off points through out the map. Having a variety of choked and open points of interest in the map could benefit protoss a lot more, especially with their AoE & Forcefields.
Sure Whirlwind is huge and it's easier to take a 3rd for protoss, but the rest of the map is huge. Moving your army across the map leaves you extremely vulnerable, not only to getting attacked head on since it's so open, but vulnerable to counter attacks. Protoss just isn't really able to leave 1/3 of their force at home to defend, they have to rely on cannons, warp ins (which then makes their attack not as strong) or templars. Turning around to defend the counter attack is suicide and with the size of maps you'll arrive way too late and lose much more.
On April 19 2013 05:57 Klogon wrote: On the brightside of all of this... at least it gives something Blizzard to work on for LotV if they choose to do so.
On April 19 2013 05:57 Klogon wrote: On the brightside of all of this... at least it gives something Blizzard to work on for LotV if they choose to do so.
Maybe LotV can be SC2's BW
The TL hipsters will never let that happen. Soon, not even BW will be BW.
On April 19 2013 05:57 Klogon wrote: On the brightside of all of this... at least it gives something Blizzard to work on for LotV if they choose to do so.
Maybe LotV can be SC2's BW
The TL hipsters will never let that happen. Soon, not even BW will be BW.
On April 19 2013 05:57 Klogon wrote: On the brightside of all of this... at least it gives something Blizzard to work on for LotV if they choose to do so.
Maybe LotV can be SC2's BW
The TL hipsters will never let that happen. Soon, not even BW will be BW.
I mean in terms of changing the game, from what I understand SC was pretty bad and BW made it playable (never really played either)... If the big changes don't come HotS looks to go to a similar way to WoL.. and I don't think that type of game can last long as a sport that's watched because its boring.
On April 19 2013 05:57 Klogon wrote: On the brightside of all of this... at least it gives something Blizzard to work on for LotV if they choose to do so.
Maybe LotV can be SC2's BW
The TL hipsters will never let that happen. Soon, not even BW will be BW.
It will be all about pre-BroodWar
When the micro was real and people cared about macro. Not this new, imitation macro and micro with their hightech mechanical keyboards and mice. Back in the day when we had to clean our mice with q tips and punch those keys till it hurt on our shitty cell keyboards. Back when it was real man, real RTS.
On April 19 2013 05:57 Klogon wrote: On the brightside of all of this... at least it gives something Blizzard to work on for LotV if they choose to do so.
Maybe LotV can be SC2's BW
The TL hipsters will never let that happen. Soon, not even BW will be BW.
It will be all about pre-BroodWar
When the micro was real and people cared about macro. Not this new, imitation macro and micro with their hightech mechanical keyboards and mice. Back in the day when we had to clean our mice with q tips and punch those keys till it hurt on our shitty cell keyboards. Back when it was real man, real RTS.
When we be blingin' cables flowin' 56k with that aol ring be ringing e'ryday!
On April 19 2013 05:57 Klogon wrote: On the brightside of all of this... at least it gives something Blizzard to work on for LotV if they choose to do so.
Maybe LotV can be SC2's BW
The TL hipsters will never let that happen. Soon, not even BW will be BW.
It will be all about pre-BroodWar
When the micro was real and people cared about macro. Not this new, imitation macro and micro with their hightech mechanical keyboards and mice. Back in the day when we had to clean our mice with q tips and punch those keys till it hurt on our shitty cell keyboards. Back when it was real man, real RTS.
When we be blingin' cables flowin' 56k with that aol ring be ringing e'ryday!
When we didn't all in because we wanted the quick, coin flip win, but because our mom might pick up the phone and disconnect the game. We all-ined because we had to man, because we had to.
On April 19 2013 05:57 Klogon wrote: On the brightside of all of this... at least it gives something Blizzard to work on for LotV if they choose to do so.
Some of the points that the OP made are similar to Victor's post on the game back in beta. If they didn't take to heart a post from someone of his standing then, I seriously doubt they'll listen to anyone on this subject now.
On April 19 2013 05:57 Klogon wrote: On the brightside of all of this... at least it gives something Blizzard to work on for LotV if they choose to do so.
Maybe LotV can be SC2's BW
The TL hipsters will never let that happen. Soon, not even BW will be BW.
It will be all about pre-BroodWar
When the micro was real and people cared about macro. Not this new, imitation macro and micro with their hightech mechanical keyboards and mice. Back in the day when we had to clean our mice with q tips and punch those keys till it hurt on our shitty cell keyboards. Back when it was real man, real RTS.
Lets be fair here. BW is still unquestionably the richer experience. 2011, the days of the 1/1/1 and the year of Broodlord infestor, JD's two muta group control vs idra's 40pack, hots zvz v BW zvz (See Zero on Matchpoint <3).
I think it's fair to say that a lot of the really attractive and awesome aspects about protoss that existed in BW didn't translate over to SC2. A lot of what BGX talks about in terms of adrenaline and harass play isn't there no matter how hard they try to force it to exist with cheap gimmicks like medivac boost. Gut test, compare pimpest plays between bw and sc2. Sure there's some degree of nostalgia but don't knock a game that provided a more balanced, richer and interesting experience through 07-09 than SC2 has to date. Sure it can change but- man I just want that excitement back!
Kinda silly to call people who like Shakespeare and Faulkner hipsters :p
Terrible OP. If you have no more claim to fame than being a mid-masters Protoss, it's not a good idea to assume people will be happy to wade through a whole essay written by you.
I wouldn't have to say this if it weren't for the fact that a much more lucid discussion thread started by me on a similar topic was closed just a while ago. And I was taken to task for not putting comparable "effort" into my post, i.e. not initiating a thread marked [D] for discussion with an OP that acts as a barrier to discussion.
It seems the forum is run by morons with a supplementary, hermaphroditic clittoris that's sensitive only to long-winded and meandering posts strewn with big fuck-off images whose value in humour isn't sufficient to pay for the revolutions of the scroll wheel required by them.
On April 19 2013 07:05 Rossie wrote: Terrible OP. If you have no more claim to fame than being a mid-masters Protoss, it's not a good idea to assume people will be happy to wade through a whole essay written by you.
I wouldn't have to say this if it weren't for the fact that a much more lucid discussion thread started by me on a similar topic was closed just a while ago. And I was taken to task for not putting comparable "effort" into my post, i.e. not initiating a thread marked [D] for discussion with an OP that acts as a barrier to discussion.
It seems the forum is run by morons with a supplementary, hermaphroditic clittoris that's sensitive only to long-winded and meandering posts strewn with big fuck-off images whose value in humour isn't sufficient to pay for the revolutions of the scroll wheel required by them.
..... ....... .......... .............
??????????????
Can you please, um, elucidate your point more clearly?
Edit/ That was quick. He had another "we cannot hold" thread and is obviously nursing a grievance because it was closed. He does have a pronounced track record as a leading Protoss balance whiner, though. Not a worthy addition to Aiur.
At this thread. I'd prefer to wait and see with regard to HOTS. In WOL, I realised over time that many of the problems I thought Protoss had were simply mistaken (weak gateway units, warpgate etc). But, these notions still have force and are repeated.
I do believe though, that some of the problems with the game (if they are problems) are due to the hardness of the counters in Starcraft 2. But, this is felt by all races and at all levels within the game. It may be that it is felt the hardest by Protoss. I don't know. That said, I've long wished that the Stalker was looked at. I think a lot of the perceved issues with Protoss comes from that unit (cool as it is). A buff to the unit, and a nerf to Blink (that is the cooldown) may be worth looking at. It's always been a hindrance to Protoss that our chief "tier one" damage dealing unit, the Zealot, is a melee unit that engages ranged units in PvT and is countered by the Roach in PvZ (if not to the same terrible extent that the Stalker is hard countered by the Marauder).
On April 19 2013 05:57 Klogon wrote: On the brightside of all of this... at least it gives something Blizzard to work on for LotV if they choose to do so.
Maybe LotV can be SC2's BW
The TL hipsters will never let that happen. Soon, not even BW will be BW.
It will be all about pre-BroodWar
When the micro was real and people cared about macro. Not this new, imitation macro and micro with their hightech mechanical keyboards and mice. Back in the day when we had to clean our mice with q tips and punch those keys till it hurt on our shitty cell keyboards. Back when it was real man, real RTS.
Lets be fair here. BW is still unquestionably the richer experience. 2011, the days of the 1/1/1 and the year of Broodlord infestor, JD's two muta group control vs idra's 40pack, hots zvz v BW zvz (See Zero on Matchpoint <3).
I think it's fair to say that a lot of the really attractive and awesome aspects about protoss that existed in BW didn't translate over to SC2. A lot of what BGX talks about in terms of adrenaline and harass play isn't there no matter how hard they try to force it to exist with cheap gimmicks like medivac boost. Gut test, compare pimpest plays between bw and sc2. Sure there's some degree of nostalgia but don't knock a game that provided a more balanced, richer and interesting experience through 07-09 than SC2 has to date. Sure it can change but- man I just want that excitement back!
Kinda silly to call people who like Shakespeare and Faulkner hipsters :p
On April 19 2013 07:05 Rossie wrote: Terrible OP. If you have no more claim to fame than being a mid-masters Protoss, it's not a good idea to assume people will be happy to wade through a whole essay written by you.
I wouldn't have to say this if it weren't for the fact that a much more lucid discussion thread started by me on a similar topic was closed just a while ago. And I was taken to task for not putting comparable "effort" into my post, i.e. not initiating a thread marked [D] for discussion with an OP that acts as a barrier to discussion.
It seems the forum is run by morons with a supplementary, hermaphroditic clittoris that's sensitive only to long-winded and meandering posts strewn with big fuck-off images whose value in humour isn't sufficient to pay for the revolutions of the scroll wheel required by them.
..... ....... .......... .............
??????????????
Can you please, um, elucidate your point more clearly?
I think bruised ego just needs to lash out.
From a spectator's point of view, it's rare that I even bother to watch Protoss matches anymore. It's effectively a two race game for me. The inability to trade cost effectively in anything but a deathball makes for really shitty matches. TvZ, while still a balancing act has so much more potential as a matchup. All one has to do is listen to the casters. In TvZ, it's action all over the place. In PvT, it's "oh look, that proxy Oracle got 15 SCVs, I think it's really hard to come back from that", or "turret's down, I don't think this harass is really going to do anything".
Im gonna help this thread going cause it deserves to be seen and blizzard needs to realise the problems. I would ofcourse be a fool to think that this would ever changed tho. The race needs a total change which is never ever gonna happend.
On April 19 2013 05:57 Klogon wrote: On the brightside of all of this... at least it gives something Blizzard to work on for LotV if they choose to do so.
Maybe LotV can be SC2's BW
The TL hipsters will never let that happen. Soon, not even BW will be BW.
It will be all about pre-BroodWar
Personally, I think Starcraft was ruined when Drones couldn't fly anymore. We fought for it. After many months, some brave soul shift-click Extractor-canceled at the perfect time and found a way to float a Drone. He showed that RTSs could be rewarding and great again, not Roach Marauder Forcefields Deathball Rocks. They fixed that glitch to bury the truth.
On April 19 2013 05:57 Klogon wrote: On the brightside of all of this... at least it gives something Blizzard to work on for LotV if they choose to do so.
Maybe LotV can be SC2's BW
The TL hipsters will never let that happen. Soon, not even BW will be BW.
It will be all about pre-BroodWar
Personally, I think Starcraft was ruined when Drones couldn't fly anymore. We fought for it. After many months, some brave soul shift-click Extractor-canceled at the perfect time and found a way to float a Drone. He showed that RTSs could be rewarding and great again, not Roach Marauder Forcefields Deathball Rocks. They fixed that glitch to bury the truth.
On April 19 2013 07:05 Rossie wrote: Terrible OP. If you have no more claim to fame than being a mid-masters Protoss, it's not a good idea to assume people will be happy to wade through a whole essay written by you.
I wouldn't have to say this if it weren't for the fact that a much more lucid discussion thread started by me on a similar topic was closed just a while ago. And I was taken to task for not putting comparable "effort" into my post, i.e. not initiating a thread marked [D] for discussion with an OP that acts as a barrier to discussion.
It seems the forum is run by morons with a supplementary, hermaphroditic clittoris that's sensitive only to long-winded and meandering posts strewn with big fuck-off images whose value in humour isn't sufficient to pay for the revolutions of the scroll wheel required by them.
..... ....... .......... .............
??????????????
Can you please, um, elucidate your point more clearly?
I think bruised ego just needs to lash out.
From a spectator's point of view, it's rare that I even bother to watch Protoss matches anymore. It's effectively a two race game for me. The inability to trade cost effectively in anything but a deathball makes for really shitty matches. TvZ, while still a balancing act has so much more potential as a matchup. All one has to do is listen to the casters. In TvZ, it's action all over the place. In PvT, it's "oh look, that proxy Oracle got 15 SCVs, I think it's really hard to come back from that", or "turret's down, I don't think this harass is really going to do anything".
PvT is actually my FAVORITE matchup right now. It feels like reanimator vs BUG in legacy where the Terran player does what he can to protect his Delver before the protoss gets a swing with Griselbrand. Just flies all over the protoss bases being swatted and hunted like rebel scum outrunning imperial forces--its exciting!
PvZ... Well it's fun for about 10-15 minutes....
ZvZ is fun for about 5 minutes, then its boring from 5-15 minutes, then suddenly its like watching wack-em-sock-em robots wailing away at each other as they snipe one each other's bases
TvT was more fun in WoL--it was my fave matchup until blueflame got nerfed.
Blueflame, Banes, Widowmines, etc... those insta splash units that just 180 fights are always so fun to watch for me. Sometimes you watch life run face first into mine fields and nothing happens and sometimes you watch fantasy have an even fight at 30-100 supply difference because of well placed mine traps. Player execution is SOOO fun.
idk if we can ever bring back the TvT or TvZ of BW though...
On April 19 2013 05:57 Klogon wrote: On the brightside of all of this... at least it gives something Blizzard to work on for LotV if they choose to do so.
Maybe LotV can be SC2's BW
The TL hipsters will never let that happen. Soon, not even BW will be BW.
It will be all about pre-BroodWar
Personally, I think Starcraft was ruined when Drones couldn't fly anymore. We fought for it. After many months, some brave soul shift-click Extractor-canceled at the perfect time and found a way to float a Drone. He showed that RTSs could be rewarding and great again, not Roach Marauder Forcefields Deathball Rocks. They fixed that glitch to bury the truth.
Dude, it was ruined the moment you couldn't move your CC beside the mineral patch.
That community made mod has some godly protoss ideas. Stalker range upgrade, stalker doing normal 14 dmg, an actual choice between warpgate and gateway tech and tons more. I'd kill for making protoss the way it is in that mod, would up the funfactor by 10x.
Isn't the Hydra movement speed the exact sort of change you guys are talking about? Blizzard had this grand vision of Zerg creep being this terrifying thing that no Terran or Protoss would ever want to fight on, and one of the things that would make creep terrifying is that the dreaded hydralisk would live there. But after hearing years of complaints about hydras being too slow, Blizzard finally caved and turned hydras back into a completely standard unit.
And even though this hydralisk change looks to be a positive one, I still wish Blizzard had fixed things in a more interesting way. By making the hydralisk less dependent on creep, they've lessened the usefulness of creep overall. I would have preferred to see Blizzard go in the other direction, perhaps making hydras even stronger fighters than they are now, while making them even slower off creep. It's a small thing in this case, but Blizzard missed the opportunity to make creep an even more defining aspect of the Zerg race.
I feel like most of the proposed changes to warp gate would hurt the game in the same way. Sure you could eliminate warp gates and buff gateway units to the point where they can be wielded like a standard army, but you'd be eliminating one of the things that sets Protoss apart from the other races, and one of the things that sets StarCraft 2 apart from other RTS games. It might even fix some problems in the short term by returning to "tried and true" RTS design, but it's the lazy way out. It's the deviations from "tried and true" RTS design that make SC2 interesting in the first place.
On April 19 2013 09:02 archwaykitten wrote: Isn't the Hydra movement speed the exact sort of change you guys are talking about? Blizzard had this grand vision of Zerg creep being this terrifying thing that no Terran or Protoss would ever want to fight on, and one of the things that would make creep terrifying is that the dreaded hydralisk would live there. But after hearing years of complaints about hydras being too slow, Blizzard finally caved and turned hydras back into a completely standard unit.
And even though this hydralisk change looks to be a positive one, I still wish Blizzard had fixed things in a more interesting way. By making the hydralisk less dependent on creep, they've lessened the usefulness of creep overall. I would have preferred to see Blizzard go in the other direction, perhaps making hydras even stronger fighters than they are now, while making them even slower off creep. It's a small thing in this case, but Blizzard missed the opportunity to make creep an even more defining aspect of the Zerg race.
I feel like most of the proposed changes to warp gate would hurt the game in the same way. Sure you could eliminate warp gates and buff gateway units to the point where they can be wielded like a standard army, but you'd be eliminating one of the things that sets Protoss apart from the other races, and one of the things that sets StarCraft 2 apart from other RTS games. It might even fix some problems in the short term by returning to "tried and true" RTS design, but it's the lazy way out. It's the deviations from "tried and true" RTS design that make SC2 interesting in the first place.
In response to your last paragraph, that's part of why I think it's always better to nerf than buff. WG and the sentry are cool ideas, it's just kind of saddening that they're necessary because of the brute force of the other races.
On April 19 2013 09:02 archwaykitten wrote: Isn't the Hydra movement speed the exact sort of change you guys are talking about? Blizzard had this grand vision of Zerg creep being this terrifying thing that no Terran or Protoss would ever want to fight on, and one of the things that would make creep terrifying is that the dreaded hydralisk would live there. But after hearing years of complaints about hydras being too slow, Blizzard finally caved and turned hydras back into a completely standard unit.
And even though this hydralisk change looks to be a positive one, I still wish Blizzard had fixed things in a more interesting way. By making the hydralisk less dependent on creep, they've lessened the usefulness of creep overall. I would have preferred to see Blizzard go in the other direction, perhaps making hydras even stronger fighters than they are now, while making them even slower off creep. It's a small thing in this case, but Blizzard missed the opportunity to make creep an even more defining aspect of the Zerg race.
I feel like most of the proposed changes to warp gate would hurt the game in the same way. Sure you could eliminate warp gates and buff gateway units to the point where they can be wielded like a standard army, but you'd be eliminating one of the things that sets Protoss apart from the other races, and one of the things that sets StarCraft 2 apart from other RTS games. It might even fix some problems in the short term by returning to "tried and true" RTS design, but it's the lazy way out. It's the deviations from "tried and true" RTS design that make SC2 interesting in the first place.
You're joking right? Hydras without the speed upgrade are an enormous design mistake. It's probably the only unit between both games that is so profoundly cost ineffective, and likely to put you on an inescapable path to losing.
Until I can instantly spawn creep wherever I want without spending gas or sacrificing overlords, creep isn't as good as you want it to be - and it doesn't need to be. Zerg isn't really about creep, just like protoss isn't really about warpgates. Warpgates are a different kind of flaw - instead of saying "god forbid you ever make me, because you will lose as a result", they say "you have this fun gimmick but in order to make it fair your race is pigeonholed into playing in a braindead way sometimes"
Anyway, here's my idea for Legacy of the Void: buff gateways so that both gateways and warpgates are valid choices during the game. The player can trade versatility (via warping in anywhere) for something else (like maybe gateways get a bigger bonus from chrono boost). Let the players decide how much they want warpgates to define their play in each game.
On April 19 2013 05:57 Klogon wrote: On the brightside of all of this... at least it gives something Blizzard to work on for LotV if they choose to do so.
Maybe LotV can be SC2's BW
The TL hipsters will never let that happen. Soon, not even BW will be BW.
It will be all about pre-BroodWar
When the micro was real and people cared about macro. Not this new, imitation macro and micro with their hightech mechanical keyboards and mice. Back in the day when we had to clean our mice with q tips and punch those keys till it hurt on our shitty cell keyboards. Back when it was real man, real RTS.
Lets be fair here. BW is still unquestionably the richer experience. 2011, the days of the 1/1/1 and the year of Broodlord infestor, JD's two muta group control vs idra's 40pack, hots zvz v BW zvz (See Zero on Matchpoint <3).
I think it's fair to say that a lot of the really attractive and awesome aspects about protoss that existed in BW didn't translate over to SC2. A lot of what BGX talks about in terms of adrenaline and harass play isn't there no matter how hard they try to force it to exist with cheap gimmicks like medivac boost. Gut test, compare pimpest plays between bw and sc2. Sure there's some degree of nostalgia but don't knock a game that provided a more balanced, richer and interesting experience through 07-09 than SC2 has to date. Sure it can change but- man I just want that excitement back!
Kinda silly to call people who like Shakespeare and Faulkner hipsters :p
WoL ZvZ was definitely much better than BW ZvZ, and I definitely enjoyed WoL PvP about as much as I enjoyed BW ZvZ
But Marines Splits does not outmatch lurker traps and minefields are definitely more fun to watch than blink medivac snipes
Idk.... To be fair I have the image of the Last GSL finals in my head and maybe too much saturation over the past months but I much preferred ZvZ when it was a micro knife fight (admittedly, I like pvp blink fights too) as opposed to a more macro-focused affair. Sure there were build orders that could be painful... but then you had opportunities for brilliance. Jaedong is Jaedong because he had those scenarios to completely upset preconceptions. I do have bias towards micro fights slightly over management styles as a rule so fair enough.
Lurker traps x_X I feel like the tension when we saw them was a bit more than when we see a nicely placed baneling mine. I feel like they also did a nice job of letting zerg put something down that told the opponent (If you want this base you're gonna have to invest time/troops in it) ala Planetary fortress to a degree.
Ah and I can't forget Hwasin's 3 marine rotation that was disgusting. <3 (Only saw the pimpest play never the game)
I don't think Bliz will ever buff Warp Gates. It's how they view Toss in SC2. It is no illusion to most Toss players how retarded Warp Gate units can get in a game, especially how Terrans and Zergs have gotten in HotS. They will have to re-do majority of Toss Gateway units if they do something to Warp.
I have always had an idea of, buffing the Warp Gate units, but allow Toss to warp in, only a certain amount of units. Lets say, 1 Warp Gate. You can warp in, 3 units from it in 3 minutes. So technically you build normally like you would in BW, but also be able to warp units in, a certain amount in a certain amount of time. Maybe in that sense, they can buff the Warp Gate units without really killing Toss gateway stuff.
Right now you see Toss struggling a lot, because of how obvious Stargates have become, in order to balance build orders and not always go Stargate, you still do the normal WoL thing. And against Terran with Mines/Ghost/Speed Medivacs, it just isn't doable against a great Terran. You have to do hell of a lot with Stargate to get a lead to crush with an normal Gateway composition. Zerg match up is still more or less the same I think. Aside from the Stargate, you won't always do it, Zergs will expect a Stargate opening more often then not.
But it's just me... I hope Blizz figures out something because seeing the same thing from Toss in HotS still is a bit sad. Feels like you have to go Stargate, but at the same time you cannot always go Stargate.
On April 19 2013 12:45 Seraphic wrote: I don't think Bliz will ever buff Warp Gates. It's how they view Toss in SC2. It is no illusion to most Toss players how retarded Warp Gate units can get in a game, especially how Terrans and Zergs have gotten in HotS. They will have to re-do majority of Toss Gateway units if they do something to Warp.
I have always had an idea of, buffing the Warp Gate units, but allow Toss to warp in, only a certain amount of units. Lets say, 1 Warp Gate. You can warp in, 3 units from it in 3 minutes. So technically you build normally like you would in BW, but also be able to warp units in, a certain amount in a certain amount of time. Maybe in that sense, they can buff the Warp Gate units without really killing Toss gateway stuff.
Right now you see Toss struggling a lot, because of how obvious Stargates have become, in order to balance build orders and not always go Stargate, you still do the normal WoL thing. And against Terran with Mines/Ghost/Speed Medivacs, it just isn't doable against a great Terran. You have to do hell of a lot with Stargate to get a lead to crush with an normal Gateway composition. Zerg match up is still more or less the same I think. Aside from the Stargate, you won't always do it, Zergs will expect a Stargate opening more often then not.
But it's just me... I hope Blizz figures out something because seeing the same thing from Toss in HotS still is a bit sad. Feels like you have to go Stargate, but at the same time you cannot always go Stargate.
This stargate talk is exactly why I stopped playing protoss after playing it the entire time for WoL.
On April 19 2013 08:26 unkkz wrote: That community made mod has some godly protoss ideas. Stalker range upgrade, stalker doing normal 14 dmg, an actual choice between warpgate and gateway tech and tons more. I'd kill for making protoss the way it is in that mod, would up the funfactor by 10x.
There have been cool ideas. Blizzard seem content to have Protoss be gimmicky and impossible to play dynamically though
I think the most worrying thing about Protoss (as a protoss player) is the way that that Blizzard tooled them in WoL. If you look how Protoss evolved from beta to the end of WoL it was horrible and PvZ became either; the protoss all in's off two base, or the zerg wins... and Blizzard seemed to be pretty happy about that... the most galling thing I think I've ever seen was when TL interviewed Dustin Browder and asking him how they felt about late game PvZ/ZvP and how nural on a mother-ship basically ment there was no way for the protoss to ever come back, and his response was something along the lines off, well I've never seen that before...
On April 19 2013 18:14 baldgye wrote: it was horrible and PvZ became either the protoss all in's off two base, or the zerg wins...
That's how it was for Terran in PvT for all of WoL; your point falls apart unfortunately when you're being hypocritical.
On April 19 2013 18:14 baldgye wrote:interviewed Dustin Browder and asking him how they felt about late game PvZ/ZvP and how nural on a mother-ship basically ment there was no way for the protoss to ever come back, and his response was something along the lines off, well I've never seen that before...
What's particularly frustrating is that Protoss balance is a serious long standing issue but it doesn't get coverage on the high profile shows like SotG which seem to be one of the best ways to reach the devs. I attribute this to Protoss always having more success in the foreign scene than KR due to the lower skill base not butting against the low Protoss skill ceiling as hard.
Artosis is one of the most insightful people in the scene and currently represents Protoss on SotG, but the main point he raises in balance discussions is Void Rays needing a nerf, even as he casts the definitive SC2 league where Protoss are struggling and underreprested as they have been for the majority of GSL seasons.
-Replace Guardian Shield with a shield-battery like spell, either on the Sentry or another unit. Rather than a set and forget passive buff have a Transfusion like ability this is worse than Guardian Shield without good micro but can scale to be better at it in the hands of someone with excellent control. Protoss needs these kind of abilities that can scale with a players skill and allow small numbers of Protoss units to beat small numbers of other early game units if the Protoss player has the better control.
-Replace Zealot Charge with BW zealot speed. This would give Protoss a mobile and disposable unit which can be used to hit and fade like the Zergling and Marine.
-Remove ability to warp in on Pylons outside of a control range of a Nexus. This would restrict battlefield warp ins to Warp Prisms, requring another unit to be microed and removing the possibility of early game instant reinforced warpgate all ins, which could clear the way for gateway unit buffs.
-Give a proper BW style recall (not the current town portal) to a Protoss unit that isn't slow and can be built in numbers greater than one. Recall harass was one of the most exciting parts of BW PvT but had to be used skillfully or just ended up being a donation of units that opened the way for a Terran push.
On April 19 2013 18:56 DemigodcelpH wrote: On April 19 2013 18:14 baldgye wrote: it was horrible and PvZ became either the protoss all in's off two base, or the zerg wins...
That's how it was for Terran in PvT for all of WoL; your point falls apart unfortunately when you're being hypocritical.
Yea because lategame T with 20 ghosts and vikings sucks vs P.
On April 19 2013 18:56 DemigodcelpH wrote: On April 19 2013 18:14 baldgye wrote: it was horrible and PvZ became either the protoss all in's off two base, or the zerg wins...
That's how it was for Terran in PvT for all of WoL; your point falls apart unfortunately when you're being hypocritical.
Yea because lategame T with 20 ghosts and vikings sucks vs P.
Building 20+ Ghosts and mass Vikings while dealing with Zealots/DTs harass + the threat of the Protoss army steamrolling you while you transition is extremely difficult, not to mention you still need excellent control (beyond the skill cap of 99.9% of the Terran population) to fully use this glass cannon army. Plus adding a few Tempests considerably weaken mass Ghosts/Vikings anyway, probably making it borderline obsolete as Vikings can't handle both Tempests + 6-7 Colossi. I have seen ByuN (i. e. one of the best Ghosts/Vikings players) regularly lose to this on his stream.
Warpgate production is cyclic, just like zerg production. Robo + Stargate production is queued, just like terran production.
So, as toss, you should master both production mechanics. Sure, you have 6 gates. You don't need to warp all the six units each round, unless you see some kind of aggression; just like all zergs do (you have larvae, you don't need to spend them all at once per each round of larvae spit). The true protoss master combines his gamesense and his scouting and then he decides to produce more or less units.
In other words, OP is just like any other toss: a whining master.
On April 19 2013 23:13 Apoteosis wrote: Warpgate production is cyclic, just like zerg production. Robo + Stargate production is queued, just like terran production.
So, as toss, you should master both production mechanics. Sure, you have 6 gates. You don't need to warp all the six units each round, unless you see some kind of aggression; just like all zergs do (you have larvae, you don't need to spend them all at once per each round of larvae spit). The true protoss master combines his gamesense and his scouting and then he decides to produce more or less units.
In other words, OP is just like any other toss: a whining master.
Problem with the example is that stacking up production (warp gate cycles) can't be done the same way larva can through injects.
On April 19 2013 23:13 Apoteosis wrote: Warpgate production is cyclic, just like zerg production. Robo + Stargate production is queued, just like terran production.
So, as toss, you should master both production mechanics. Sure, you have 6 gates. You don't need to warp all the six units each round, unless you see some kind of aggression; just like all zergs do (you have larvae, you don't need to spend the all at once per each round of larvae spit). The true protoss master combines his gamesense and his scouting and then he decides to produce more or less units.
In other words, OP is just like any other toss: a whining master.
Zerg can stockpile about 20-30 larvae per hatch with marginal loss , protoss cannot "stockpile" anything besides chronoboost. You build a gate that is being unused = waste. Get some knowledge before you call other people whiners.
On April 19 2013 05:57 Klogon wrote: On the brightside of all of this... at least it gives something Blizzard to work on for LotV if they choose to do so.
Maybe LotV can be SC2's BW
The TL hipsters will never let that happen. Soon, not even BW will be BW.
It will be all about pre-BroodWar
When the micro was real and people cared about macro. Not this new, imitation macro and micro with their hightech mechanical keyboards and mice. Back in the day when we had to clean our mice with q tips and punch those keys till it hurt on our shitty cell keyboards. Back when it was real man, real RTS.
On April 12 2013 12:12 JSK wrote: This is a fantastically well-written post and deserves attention.
Part of me believes it and part of me wants to believe that some of this has changed in HOTS. I am a Masters Protoss as well, and I do feel that the MSC has allowed me to play passive, macro games to a better degree than in WOL, thus making me less reliant on those gimmicky all-in builds and thereby more consistent...
But at the same time I do feel what you're saying. Even those gimmicky all-ins are often much worse now. Gateway all-ins against Terran feel impossible now and have always been pretty bad against Zerg. Even builds such as the Parting immortal/sentry can be stopped by swarm hosts. And Protoss has never really been able to macro evenly with the larvae mechanic and mules. It makes for a truly awkward feeling game sometimes - the kind of awkward where you feel forced to perform the kind of gimmicky plays that seem necessary to stay even. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.
Thanks. I feel like the MSC was meant to achieve something like making gateway expands more viable in PvZ or give protoss the ability to punish greedy terrans, but to me it feels like it didn't do any of those things. Good protoss players weren't having trouble initially stopping all ins, they were having trouble getting a lead and keeping it afterward. The MSC only helps you hold it off, at about what the cost would have been in WoL, it's just simpler to do. That's part of why I feel it was a bad change.
MSC is the fucking shit. Go air toss agasint mass widow mines. As soon as they burrow just recall back.
Got enough ff in pvz go fucking move out onto the map, if you engage somewhere bad just ff and recall.
On April 19 2013 23:13 Apoteosis wrote: Warpgate production is cyclic, just like zerg production. Robo + Stargate production is queued, just like terran production.
So, as toss, you should master both production mechanics.
In conclusion, Protoss has the hardest macro in the game. The A-Queuer races can't match the skill ceiling.
On April 19 2013 23:13 Apoteosis wrote: Warpgate production is cyclic, just like zerg production. Robo + Stargate production is queued, just like terran production.
So, as toss, you should master both production mechanics. Sure, you have 6 gates. You don't need to warp all the six units each round, unless you see some kind of aggression; just like all zergs do (you have larvae, you don't need to spend them all at once per each round of larvae spit). The true protoss master combines his gamesense and his scouting and then he decides to produce more or less units.
In other words, OP is just like any other toss: a whining master.
Zerg should never have larva available until they reach max. Anything less is just bad macro, usually a supply cap or lack of economy.
On April 19 2013 23:13 Apoteosis wrote: Warpgate production is cyclic, just like zerg production. Robo + Stargate production is queued, just like terran production.
So, as toss, you should master both production mechanics. Sure, you have 6 gates. You don't need to warp all the six units each round, unless you see some kind of aggression; just like all zergs do (you have larvae, you don't need to spend them all at once per each round of larvae spit). The true protoss master combines his gamesense and his scouting and then he decides to produce more or less units.
In other words, OP is just like any other toss: a whining master.
Zerg should never have larva available until they reach max. Anything less is just bad macro, usually a supply cap or lack of economy.
Secrets to good macro.
Terran: Keep reinforce lines open, continual hit and retreat tactics to pressure and then regroup with reinforcements.
Zerg: Max out fast and stock larva for quick transitions.
Protoss: Don't max out and keep warpgates available as a swiss army knife in response to drops or a quick max out during a push. Find a way to not die while only at 170-180 supply vs a max army.
On April 19 2013 23:13 Apoteosis wrote: Warpgate production is cyclic, just like zerg production. Robo + Stargate production is queued, just like terran production.
So, as toss, you should master both production mechanics. Sure, you have 6 gates. You don't need to warp all the six units each round, unless you see some kind of aggression; just like all zergs do (you have larvae, you don't need to spend them all at once per each round of larvae spit). The true protoss master combines his gamesense and his scouting and then he decides to produce more or less units.
In other words, OP is just like any other toss: a whining master.
Zerg should never have larva available until they reach max. Anything less is just bad macro, usually a supply cap or lack of economy.
There are plenty of reasons Zerg stockpile larvae before they're maxed. Waiting on their Spire to complete, for example.
On April 19 2013 23:13 Apoteosis wrote: Warpgate production is cyclic, just like zerg production. Robo + Stargate production is queued, just like terran production.
So, as toss, you should master both production mechanics. Sure, you have 6 gates. You don't need to warp all the six units each round, unless you see some kind of aggression; just like all zergs do (you have larvae, you don't need to spend the all at once per each round of larvae spit). The true protoss master combines his gamesense and his scouting and then he decides to produce more or less units.
In other words, OP is just like any other toss: a whining master.
Zerg can stockpile about 20-30 larvae per hatch with marginal loss , protoss cannot "stockpile" anything besides chronoboost. You build a gate that is being unused = waste. Get some knowledge before you call other people whiners.
...
You know that a hatch can only have 19 larva max, right? Any inject after 19 larva returns nothing. Protoss can stockpile plenty of things. They can stockpile gates and other production buildings. They can stockpile resources. Both of these are valuable commodities. In fact, I am reminded of PvT against a terran super-army, where that is exactly what you want to do.
Don't get me wrong, I would love having 30 larva on one hatchery .
I made something like that myself once, but it never got any exposure. I couldn't get any high level players to test it because they felt that it would never help them improve at the real SC2. In my mod I had things like:
reactors on starports and factories only increased production 50% mules not oversaturating, had a cooldown salvage taking ~15s stalkers having a lower firing delay (better kiting) and getting better upgrade scaling sentries had a version of time bomb ultras pathed over small units colossus nerf vs armored protoss got detection via observers from tc, stargate, and robo cannons unlocked from the gateway
On April 20 2013 16:13 baldgye wrote: Cannons from gateway? That'd sure improve PvP....
Yeah, you could never be cannon rushed or proxy gated at all, it'd be great.
Nonono, its proxy gate with cannon rush. Shit man, its revolutionary. Its like in those teamgames where the protoss cannon rushes and the zerg 6 pools.
On April 20 2013 16:13 baldgye wrote: Cannons from gateway? That'd sure improve PvP....
Yeah, you could never be cannon rushed or proxy gated at all, it'd be great.
Nonono, its proxy gate with cannon rush. Shit man, its revolutionary. Its like in those teamgames where the protoss cannon rushes and the zerg 6 pools.
Lmao, fixing sc2 match up by match up here!
Just think, you could do a standard build and then cannon contain each other and then rush to oricals and mass void rays...
On April 20 2013 16:13 baldgye wrote: Cannons from gateway? That'd sure improve PvP....
Yeah, you could never be cannon rushed or proxy gated at all, it'd be great.
Nonono, its proxy gate with cannon rush. Shit man, its revolutionary. Its like in those teamgames where the protoss cannon rushes and the zerg 6 pools.
How would you proxy gate or cannon rush someone who can scout around their base, and drop one cannon to stop it?
On April 20 2013 16:13 baldgye wrote: Cannons from gateway? That'd sure improve PvP....
Yeah, you could never be cannon rushed or proxy gated at all, it'd be great.
Nonono, its proxy gate with cannon rush. Shit man, its revolutionary. Its like in those teamgames where the protoss cannon rushes and the zerg 6 pools.
How would you proxy gate or cannon rush someone who can scout around their base, and drop one cannon to stop it?
On April 19 2013 23:13 Apoteosis wrote: Warpgate production is cyclic, just like zerg production. Robo + Stargate production is queued, just like terran production.
So, as toss, you should master both production mechanics. Sure, you have 6 gates. You don't need to warp all the six units each round, unless you see some kind of aggression; just like all zergs do (you have larvae, you don't need to spend the all at once per each round of larvae spit). The true protoss master combines his gamesense and his scouting and then he decides to produce more or less units.
In other words, OP is just like any other toss: a whining master.
Zerg can stockpile about 20-30 larvae per hatch with marginal loss , protoss cannot "stockpile" anything besides chronoboost. You build a gate that is being unused = waste. Get some knowledge before you call other people whiners.
...
You know that a hatch can only have 19 larva max, right? Any inject after 19 larva returns nothing. Protoss can stockpile plenty of things. They can stockpile gates and other production buildings. They can stockpile resources. Both of these are valuable commodities. In fact, I am reminded of PvT against a terran super-army, where that is exactly what you want to do.
Don't get me wrong, I would love having 30 larva on one hatchery .
What he meant and what you mean is different.
Your idea applies to everything starcraft, his idea says that a protoss don't lose anything from having 6 gateways, when in fact he could live with 4 gateways and have stronger economy.
Warpgate operates identically as gateway, when talk about economy, and by extension it operates identically as barracks, or as hatch. Eggs are more economically neutral than buildings.
What irked me is that: The true protoss master combines his gamesense and his scouting and then he decides to produce more or less units.
Which makes no sense, if protoss scouts, he does not build uneccesery gateways, when zerg scouts he does not build uncessecery units etc. This contradiction of his post made me believe that he believes that protoss warpgate tech allows protoss to stockpile "warps" the same way inject does to larvae. Thats why i called out his elementary knowledge. Because in reality you operate on warpgates in similar fashion the same you would operate with gateways without warp tech. The idea behind production facility is exatcly the same. Unlike zerg
If what he meant is "Protoss makes similar decision making to Zerg in regards of macro as a whole" i would agree, but thats exactly the same for all races in SC1/SC2. And his post was worded in a way that didn't mean that.
On April 20 2013 16:13 baldgye wrote: Cannons from gateway? That'd sure improve PvP....
Yeah, you could never be cannon rushed or proxy gated at all, it'd be great.
Nonono, its proxy gate with cannon rush. Shit man, its revolutionary. Its like in those teamgames where the protoss cannon rushes and the zerg 6 pools.
How would you proxy gate or cannon rush someone who can scout around their base, and drop one cannon to stop it?
I was thinking more in PvZ and PvT....
I don't think it'd be an issue, those strategies are already bad vs zerg and terran.
Us true believers fought for forcefields and warpgate to be removed and for the Protoss race to be completely redesigned under new mechanics. However, sheeps as well as Blizzard's lazyness fought the proposed change. Result: Same dead game. TvZ and TvT are fine though ..
On April 20 2013 16:13 baldgye wrote: Cannons from gateway? That'd sure improve PvP....
Yeah, you could never be cannon rushed or proxy gated at all, it'd be great.
Shield Battery after gateway please. Kk thx.
Actually, you know what would be really cool? A high tech energy battery, like after templar archives. It builds energy slowly, but can transfer it's own energy to sentries, high templar, mothership core, oracles etc. The lateness of the tech would make it significantly less overpowered, but would allow for protoss to play from behind a bit better to compensate for the absolute lack of clutch units that can force a comeback.
It'd still be subject to EMP's like orbitals or nexii are, and given that it would build energy at the same rate as anything else, it wouldn't be like having infinite energy. Actually, it would provide energy at a lower rate than evolution chambers and vipers.
The fact that this is even an idea at all is indicative of the design flaws of toss: like how expensive their army is but how unsplittable it is, therefore limiting plays to come back from behind. WTB reaver drops.
On April 22 2013 03:25 highsis wrote: Agreed, and I'm a Terran top master player occasionally matched with GMs.
For a side note, when I play obs I rarely see good protosses. It's usually Terran > Zerg > Protoss at the top.
I've played over 100 matches in obs and I've never dropped a game vs toss, let alone not seeing them often.
I have my days where I hate it, and I have my days where I love it. Lately I've been thinking of going to t or z, though.
Oh now I'm pretty much done with Starcraft, however i did switch from P to T and lemme tell you, get ready to : 1. Love it but 2. Realize your skill is lower than you thought.
I'm not kidding when I say a mid master Protoss has the mechanics of a high diamond Terran player. In the higher leagues however, I do believe Protoss (at least in WoL) have less choices and less ways of truly experimenting with their race, therefore they are not "OP".
In Diamond-Master though, as a Terran you'll see how frustrating it is to lose to MUCH less skilled protoss players. The game is yours to win or lose though.. the game is a challenge for you, not for the opponent who could simply be a bot and it wouldn't change much.
On April 22 2013 03:25 highsis wrote: Agreed, and I'm a Terran top master player occasionally matched with GMs.
For a side note, when I play obs I rarely see good protosses. It's usually Terran > Zerg > Protoss at the top.
I've played over 100 matches in obs and I've never dropped a game vs toss, let alone not seeing them often.
I have my days where I hate it, and I have my days where I love it. Lately I've been thinking of going to t or z, though.
Oh now I'm pretty much done with Starcraft, however i did switch from P to T and lemme tell you, get ready to : 1. Love it but 2. Realize your skill is lower than you thought.
I'm not kidding when I say a mid master Protoss has the mechanics of a high diamond Terran player. In the higher leagues however, I do believe Protoss (at least in WoL) have less choices and less ways of truly experimenting with their race, therefore they are not "OP".
In Diamond-Master though, as a Terran you'll see how frustrating it is to lose to MUCH less skilled protoss players. The game is yours to win or lose though.. the game is a challenge for you, not for the opponent who could simply be a bot and it wouldn't change much.
As someone who has recently switched from P to T, this is so true.
On April 22 2013 03:25 highsis wrote: Agreed, and I'm a Terran top master player occasionally matched with GMs.
For a side note, when I play obs I rarely see good protosses. It's usually Terran > Zerg > Protoss at the top.
I've played over 100 matches in obs and I've never dropped a game vs toss, let alone not seeing them often.
I have my days where I hate it, and I have my days where I love it. Lately I've been thinking of going to t or z, though.
Oh now I'm pretty much done with Starcraft, however i did switch from P to T and lemme tell you, get ready to : 1. Love it but 2. Realize your skill is lower than you thought.
I'm not kidding when I say a mid master Protoss has the mechanics of a high diamond Terran player. In the higher leagues however, I do believe Protoss (at least in WoL) have less choices and less ways of truly experimenting with their race, therefore they are not "OP".
In Diamond-Master though, as a Terran you'll see how frustrating it is to lose to MUCH less skilled protoss players. The game is yours to win or lose though.. the game is a challenge for you, not for the opponent who could simply be a bot and it wouldn't change much.
As someone who has recently switched from P to T, this is so true.
Don't the two of you think that maybe, just maybe, it's because you played Toss for ~3 years and have "recently" switched to Terran? There is a learning curve, especially after playing the game one way for years and switching to a completely new one...
On April 22 2013 03:25 highsis wrote: Agreed, and I'm a Terran top master player occasionally matched with GMs.
For a side note, when I play obs I rarely see good protosses. It's usually Terran > Zerg > Protoss at the top.
I've played over 100 matches in obs and I've never dropped a game vs toss, let alone not seeing them often.
I have my days where I hate it, and I have my days where I love it. Lately I've been thinking of going to t or z, though.
Oh now I'm pretty much done with Starcraft, however i did switch from P to T and lemme tell you, get ready to : 1. Love it but 2. Realize your skill is lower than you thought.
I'm not kidding when I say a mid master Protoss has the mechanics of a high diamond Terran player. In the higher leagues however, I do believe Protoss (at least in WoL) have less choices and less ways of truly experimenting with their race, therefore they are not "OP".
In Diamond-Master though, as a Terran you'll see how frustrating it is to lose to MUCH less skilled protoss players. The game is yours to win or lose though.. the game is a challenge for you, not for the opponent who could simply be a bot and it wouldn't change much.
As a random player, I've noticed that I win about 50% with all three races. If what you are saying was true, I would win much much less with terran. I have trouble matchups with all of the races (TvT, ZvT, PvZ) and strong matchups (TvP, PvT, ZvZ), but I win pretty equally with all races. I'm low diamond, and I'm low diamond for all three races.
On April 22 2013 03:25 highsis wrote: Agreed, and I'm a Terran top master player occasionally matched with GMs.
For a side note, when I play obs I rarely see good protosses. It's usually Terran > Zerg > Protoss at the top.
I've played over 100 matches in obs and I've never dropped a game vs toss, let alone not seeing them often.
I have my days where I hate it, and I have my days where I love it. Lately I've been thinking of going to t or z, though.
Oh now I'm pretty much done with Starcraft, however i did switch from P to T and lemme tell you, get ready to : 1. Love it but 2. Realize your skill is lower than you thought.
I'm not kidding when I say a mid master Protoss has the mechanics of a high diamond Terran player. In the higher leagues however, I do believe Protoss (at least in WoL) have less choices and less ways of truly experimenting with their race, therefore they are not "OP".
In Diamond-Master though, as a Terran you'll see how frustrating it is to lose to MUCH less skilled protoss players. The game is yours to win or lose though.. the game is a challenge for you, not for the opponent who could simply be a bot and it wouldn't change much.
As someone who has recently switched from P to T, this is so true.
And this is also the reason I hesitate in switching to Terran. A deathball of protoss can just steamroll you, as I did versus a terran recently, who was freaking maxed while I was at like 140 (clearly I suck at macro compared). Storm, chargelot and 2 collos (for him to waste a few food on vikings), and it was just funny to see how melted he was. Damn. It seems so stressing for a terran to kite and dodge all game long, and dont get me started on the drops they kind of have to do. And if they dont do this, you simply lose to the deathball.
Also, TvT? Is it fun or does these game take like 30minutes+++ all the time with tanks everywhere? PvP is atleast quickly over, brutal and fast, which I dont mind.
On April 22 2013 03:25 highsis wrote: Agreed, and I'm a Terran top master player occasionally matched with GMs.
For a side note, when I play obs I rarely see good protosses. It's usually Terran > Zerg > Protoss at the top.
I've played over 100 matches in obs and I've never dropped a game vs toss, let alone not seeing them often.
I have my days where I hate it, and I have my days where I love it. Lately I've been thinking of going to t or z, though.
Oh now I'm pretty much done with Starcraft, however i did switch from P to T and lemme tell you, get ready to : 1. Love it but 2. Realize your skill is lower than you thought.
I'm not kidding when I say a mid master Protoss has the mechanics of a high diamond Terran player. In the higher leagues however, I do believe Protoss (at least in WoL) have less choices and less ways of truly experimenting with their race, therefore they are not "OP".
In Diamond-Master though, as a Terran you'll see how frustrating it is to lose to MUCH less skilled protoss players. The game is yours to win or lose though.. the game is a challenge for you, not for the opponent who could simply be a bot and it wouldn't change much.
the game is not all dependant on mechanics, if you're gonna whine about that and not take into consideration on why you really lost, then go lose more.
On April 22 2013 03:25 highsis wrote: Agreed, and I'm a Terran top master player occasionally matched with GMs.
For a side note, when I play obs I rarely see good protosses. It's usually Terran > Zerg > Protoss at the top.
I've played over 100 matches in obs and I've never dropped a game vs toss, let alone not seeing them often.
I have my days where I hate it, and I have my days where I love it. Lately I've been thinking of going to t or z, though.
Oh now I'm pretty much done with Starcraft, however i did switch from P to T and lemme tell you, get ready to : 1. Love it but 2. Realize your skill is lower than you thought.
I'm not kidding when I say a mid master Protoss has the mechanics of a high diamond Terran player. In the higher leagues however, I do believe Protoss (at least in WoL) have less choices and less ways of truly experimenting with their race, therefore they are not "OP".
In Diamond-Master though, as a Terran you'll see how frustrating it is to lose to MUCH less skilled protoss players. The game is yours to win or lose though.. the game is a challenge for you, not for the opponent who could simply be a bot and it wouldn't change much.
As someone who has recently switched from P to T, this is so true.
And this is also the reason I hesitate in switching to Terran. A deathball of protoss can just steamroll you, as I did versus a terran recently, who was freaking maxed while I was at like 140 (clearly I suck at macro compared). Storm, chargelot and 2 collos (for him to waste a few food on vikings), and it was just funny to see how melted he was. Damn. It seems so stressing for a terran to kite and dodge all game long, and dont get me started on the drops they kind of have to do. And if they dont do this, you simply lose to the deathball.
Also, TvT? Is it fun or does these game take like 30minutes+++ all the time with tanks everywhere? PvP is atleast quickly over, brutal and fast, which I dont mind.
a terran deathball with 3-3 and ghosts is actually far more scarier than a protoss deathball
On April 22 2013 03:25 highsis wrote: Agreed, and I'm a Terran top master player occasionally matched with GMs.
For a side note, when I play obs I rarely see good protosses. It's usually Terran > Zerg > Protoss at the top.
I've played over 100 matches in obs and I've never dropped a game vs toss, let alone not seeing them often.
I have my days where I hate it, and I have my days where I love it. Lately I've been thinking of going to t or z, though.
Oh now I'm pretty much done with Starcraft, however i did switch from P to T and lemme tell you, get ready to : 1. Love it but 2. Realize your skill is lower than you thought.
I'm not kidding when I say a mid master Protoss has the mechanics of a high diamond Terran player. In the higher leagues however, I do believe Protoss (at least in WoL) have less choices and less ways of truly experimenting with their race, therefore they are not "OP".
In Diamond-Master though, as a Terran you'll see how frustrating it is to lose to MUCH less skilled protoss players. The game is yours to win or lose though.. the game is a challenge for you, not for the opponent who could simply be a bot and it wouldn't change much.
As someone who has recently switched from P to T, this is so true.
And this is also the reason I hesitate in switching to Terran. A deathball of protoss can just steamroll you, as I did versus a terran recently, who was freaking maxed while I was at like 140 (clearly I suck at macro compared). Storm, chargelot and 2 collos (for him to waste a few food on vikings), and it was just funny to see how melted he was. Damn. It seems so stressing for a terran to kite and dodge all game long, and dont get me started on the drops they kind of have to do. And if they dont do this, you simply lose to the deathball.
Also, TvT? Is it fun or does these game take like 30minutes+++ all the time with tanks everywhere? PvP is atleast quickly over, brutal and fast, which I dont mind.
Uhm if you beat a maxed out terran army with 140ish supply yourself you must have been way ahead on the upgrades, atleast 1 weap 1 armor ahead. Or he chose the worst damn engagement possible while having too many marines. Seriously i'd even like to see a replay since i don´t fathom how it is possible since i've lost 200 vs 200 battles with equal upgrades that weren't even close to two well placed EMP´s, like me standing with 80 food left and the terran with like 175. Big P vs T army engagements are all about positioning, very volatile matchup.
Two EMPs made you lose that hard? Did you manage to get all your HT and all your sentries exactly in the middle of those EMPs? Generally a well placed storm is alot more deadly than a well placed EMP.
In WoL I could at least mech vs toss, but that is alot harder in HOTS. My micro is good enough in TvT and TvZ, but my win rate in TvP will soon drop to below 30% since I lack the micro to simultaniously EMP, snipe and dodge storms.
Also, TvT? Is it fun or does these game take like 30minutes+++ all the time with tanks everywhere? PvP is atleast quickly over, brutal and fast, which I dont mind.
It happens that your opponent contains you and is quite happily waiting till you run out of minerals, but generally TvTs are alot more dynamic than that. Because siege tanks are actually quite good in TvT you don't need your entire army to hold a push of his entire army. This means far more supply can be used for dropping and harrasment. And of course you also got attempts to flank the other player with your tanks. What some people are afraid of is the ultra slow tank pushes where you just slightly place a few tanks 2cm forwards and hope he doesnt have vision of them, but really that doesnt happen often, and if you maintain air superiority you really don't have to worry about it. And aditionally in HOTS ravens lobbing seeker missiles on the enemy is quite popular.
In the end if the game is still going on one player will transition into battlecruisers and then generally a decission is forced quite soon.
On April 22 2013 03:25 highsis wrote: Agreed, and I'm a Terran top master player occasionally matched with GMs.
For a side note, when I play obs I rarely see good protosses. It's usually Terran > Zerg > Protoss at the top.
I've played over 100 matches in obs and I've never dropped a game vs toss, let alone not seeing them often.
I have my days where I hate it, and I have my days where I love it. Lately I've been thinking of going to t or z, though.
Oh now I'm pretty much done with Starcraft, however i did switch from P to T and lemme tell you, get ready to : 1. Love it but 2. Realize your skill is lower than you thought.
I'm not kidding when I say a mid master Protoss has the mechanics of a high diamond Terran player. In the higher leagues however, I do believe Protoss (at least in WoL) have less choices and less ways of truly experimenting with their race, therefore they are not "OP".
In Diamond-Master though, as a Terran you'll see how frustrating it is to lose to MUCH less skilled protoss players. The game is yours to win or lose though.. the game is a challenge for you, not for the opponent who could simply be a bot and it wouldn't change much.
the game is not all dependant on mechanics, if you're gonna whine about that and not take into consideration on why you really lost, then go lose more.
No, I've played it from both sides, and Terrans do require a lot more apm and proaction. It's not about whining about the balance of the races (I consider T stronger on the higher leagues), but it's about acknowledging the imbalance of skill required.
On April 22 2013 03:25 highsis wrote: Agreed, and I'm a Terran top master player occasionally matched with GMs.
For a side note, when I play obs I rarely see good protosses. It's usually Terran > Zerg > Protoss at the top.
I've played over 100 matches in obs and I've never dropped a game vs toss, let alone not seeing them often.
I have my days where I hate it, and I have my days where I love it. Lately I've been thinking of going to t or z, though.
Oh now I'm pretty much done with Starcraft, however i did switch from P to T and lemme tell you, get ready to : 1. Love it but 2. Realize your skill is lower than you thought.
I'm not kidding when I say a mid master Protoss has the mechanics of a high diamond Terran player. In the higher leagues however, I do believe Protoss (at least in WoL) have less choices and less ways of truly experimenting with their race, therefore they are not "OP".
In Diamond-Master though, as a Terran you'll see how frustrating it is to lose to MUCH less skilled protoss players. The game is yours to win or lose though.. the game is a challenge for you, not for the opponent who could simply be a bot and it wouldn't change much.
As someone who has recently switched from P to T, this is so true.
And this is also the reason I hesitate in switching to Terran. A deathball of protoss can just steamroll you, as I did versus a terran recently, who was freaking maxed while I was at like 140 (clearly I suck at macro compared). Storm, chargelot and 2 collos (for him to waste a few food on vikings), and it was just funny to see how melted he was. Damn. It seems so stressing for a terran to kite and dodge all game long, and dont get me started on the drops they kind of have to do. And if they dont do this, you simply lose to the deathball.
Also, TvT? Is it fun or does these game take like 30minutes+++ all the time with tanks everywhere? PvP is atleast quickly over, brutal and fast, which I dont mind.
TvT is an amazing matchup. The big question: Bio or Mech (marines tanks too) really make it a versatile and diverse matchup. When you mechbro your TvTs vs a bioshitter, you don't feel like it's a mirror matchup.
Edit: To be honest, any matchups not including terrans (ZvZ, PvZ, PvP) are pretty bad because of the way the races are meant to be played. Only terran is well designed in this game.. that race is focused on efficient small engagements, skirmishes and drops, and they do not want a maxed out battle. Zerg wants to get to the point that they can instant remax, and Protoss wants their 200 food deathball (which they can obtain on 3 bases.. even 2).
So yeah the game will continue to be unwatchable half of the time if they don't revamp the races (although Zergs are better now)
Dayvie(Kim) recently was questioned by Apollo why are KR Terrans so much better than foreigner.The answers were soo strange and ununderstandable:
"There are various reazons..Many KR Terrans share their builds."
I was "WTF" its easy to see stream or play tournaments and check replays ans even steal GSL BO.Are you really thinking DK,Foreigner players dont watch GSL or copy BOs??? I saw Demuslim play 4 TvTs in row vs Polt and won the last one.He was checking the BOs and concluded there are not so different.Every game began pretty differente(the opening) but ended with the usual boring WoL stuff: Marine+Tank+Vikings+Scans siege battles everywhere and the decision making let Polt win 3 games in row.
The next thing DK said was: "The Terran units(BIO) need more micro to be effective and take more time to dominate,but the micro really pay". I knew this.Just saw Taeja win TvP pulling SCVs and still needed hell of micro to kill P on AW with only 2 Collossi and 3 HTs.The micro was the thing that allow Taeja to win.The P was warping wave after wave of Chargelots and I personally would lose this game,but Taeja won.Another thing I dislike is the SCV train.So,now,after 3 years of SC2 in TvP BIO, Terrans need to pull SCVs to be able to barelly win the game vs "amoving" Protoss?WTF!!!
Last thing DK said was: "The way KR practice is another reason.They are so metodic with their practice and they practice this micro a lot and focus on it a lot".Its the same as point number 2,said before.If you want to win with T in high level where macro is supposed to be the same,you need lot of micro.
Me as Platinum Random Player,find the P race the easiest to play and Zerg the easiest to win.Terran is queing units all the time,upgrades and lot of micro in battles.In TvZ you also need to spread your units as well and try not be caught off sieged/mines unactivated and still stimrun and try trade coseffiecently while maybe droping.As Zerg I just a amove with everything,use the 2 hotkey for all banelings and chase marines with them.3 hotkey for Mutas to snipe tanks or medivacs while lings do the job.Nothing more in battle.After the battle finish,just spawn larva and make more units and go again to snipe drops or attack some expansion or defend a push.As terran you need to continue making units in battle and macro,which is not easy.The PvT is even easier.Amove with everything.Throw storms and warp units if needed.GG.
TvT still the most different MU in opening but even now in HotS at high level(taeja,demuslim,polt) is engind in Marine/tank 40 min battles...
On April 22 2013 03:25 highsis wrote: Agreed, and I'm a Terran top master player occasionally matched with GMs.
For a side note, when I play obs I rarely see good protosses. It's usually Terran > Zerg > Protoss at the top.
I've played over 100 matches in obs and I've never dropped a game vs toss, let alone not seeing them often.
I have my days where I hate it, and I have my days where I love it. Lately I've been thinking of going to t or z, though.
Oh now I'm pretty much done with Starcraft, however i did switch from P to T and lemme tell you, get ready to : 1. Love it but 2. Realize your skill is lower than you thought.
I'm not kidding when I say a mid master Protoss has the mechanics of a high diamond Terran player. In the higher leagues however, I do believe Protoss (at least in WoL) have less choices and less ways of truly experimenting with their race, therefore they are not "OP".
In Diamond-Master though, as a Terran you'll see how frustrating it is to lose to MUCH less skilled protoss players. The game is yours to win or lose though.. the game is a challenge for you, not for the opponent who could simply be a bot and it wouldn't change much.
the game is not all dependant on mechanics, if you're gonna whine about that and not take into consideration on why you really lost, then go lose more.
No, I've played it from both sides, and Terrans do require a lot more apm and proaction. It's not about whining about the balance of the races (I consider T stronger on the higher leagues), but it's about acknowledging the imbalance of skill required.
I hate this concept of "imbalanced on a skill level"
Second Breakfast is much more complicated to run than Deadguy Red--but how hard it is to execute stack orders does not make Second Breakfast more IMBA than Deadguy Red.
On April 22 2013 03:25 highsis wrote: Agreed, and I'm a Terran top master player occasionally matched with GMs.
For a side note, when I play obs I rarely see good protosses. It's usually Terran > Zerg > Protoss at the top.
I've played over 100 matches in obs and I've never dropped a game vs toss, let alone not seeing them often.
I have my days where I hate it, and I have my days where I love it. Lately I've been thinking of going to t or z, though.
Oh now I'm pretty much done with Starcraft, however i did switch from P to T and lemme tell you, get ready to : 1. Love it but 2. Realize your skill is lower than you thought.
I'm not kidding when I say a mid master Protoss has the mechanics of a high diamond Terran player. In the higher leagues however, I do believe Protoss (at least in WoL) have less choices and less ways of truly experimenting with their race, therefore they are not "OP".
In Diamond-Master though, as a Terran you'll see how frustrating it is to lose to MUCH less skilled protoss players. The game is yours to win or lose though.. the game is a challenge for you, not for the opponent who could simply be a bot and it wouldn't change much.
the game is not all dependant on mechanics, if you're gonna whine about that and not take into consideration on why you really lost, then go lose more.
No, I've played it from both sides, and Terrans do require a lot more apm and proaction. It's not about whining about the balance of the races (I consider T stronger on the higher leagues), but it's about acknowledging the imbalance of skill required.
I play all of the races, my Terran APM is higher than any other race. Does that mean I'm more mechanically gifted when I play terran than protoss or zerg? Or is it is because I produce two marines/lings to one zealot and I produce one immortal to three marauders/roaches and one colossi to 3/4 vikings? Or that in a fight I spam move and attack, but that doesn't mean I'm better than when I'm blinking my stalkers to pick off medivac/vikings, popping guardian shield, making sure the targeted colossi is puling the vikings back, looking for openings to move in to storm without my high templar getting emp'd, and setting up forward pylons to warp in zealots for a flank. Just because protoss APM is lower than terran APM, does not mean that the terran is better. In fact, I bet if the protoss played terran, his APM would be just as high as the terrans.
A good example is stopping drops with the new turbo-vacs is far harder than executing them. Executing the drop uses more APM, but to have the sense of where the terran army is as well as an understanding of the percentage of army in the drops is significantly more skill requiring than to do the turbo-vac drop.
So far, no new options have been discovered as a result of the MSC. It's just allowing worse players to survive attacks and make mistakes,
This is somewhat true, but lets face it. Protoss needs this (even good players).with all those all ins, scv pulls, mutalisks abuse that even when you saw it coming ,you just can't do anything. Protoss had no answers for that since WoL unless you micro so hard (while the all-inning opponent just a move his army).
On April 22 2013 03:25 highsis wrote: Agreed, and I'm a Terran top master player occasionally matched with GMs.
For a side note, when I play obs I rarely see good protosses. It's usually Terran > Zerg > Protoss at the top.
I've played over 100 matches in obs and I've never dropped a game vs toss, let alone not seeing them often.
I have my days where I hate it, and I have my days where I love it. Lately I've been thinking of going to t or z, though.
Oh now I'm pretty much done with Starcraft, however i did switch from P to T and lemme tell you, get ready to : 1. Love it but 2. Realize your skill is lower than you thought.
I'm not kidding when I say a mid master Protoss has the mechanics of a high diamond Terran player. In the higher leagues however, I do believe Protoss (at least in WoL) have less choices and less ways of truly experimenting with their race, therefore they are not "OP".
In Diamond-Master though, as a Terran you'll see how frustrating it is to lose to MUCH less skilled protoss players. The game is yours to win or lose though.. the game is a challenge for you, not for the opponent who could simply be a bot and it wouldn't change much.
the game is not all dependant on mechanics, if you're gonna whine about that and not take into consideration on why you really lost, then go lose more.
No, I've played it from both sides, and Terrans do require a lot more apm and proaction. It's not about whining about the balance of the races (I consider T stronger on the higher leagues), but it's about acknowledging the imbalance of skill required.
I play all of the races, my Terran APM is higher than any other race. Does that mean I'm more mechanically gifted when I play terran than protoss or zerg? Or is it is because I produce two marines/lings to one zealot and I produce one immortal to three marauders/roaches and one colossi to 3/4 vikings? Or that in a fight I spam move and attack, but that doesn't mean I'm better than when I'm blinking my stalkers to pick off medivac/vikings, popping guardian shield, making sure the targeted colossi is puling the vikings back, looking for openings to move in to storm without my high templar getting emp'd, and setting up forward pylons to warp in zealots for a flank. Just because protoss APM is lower than terran APM, does not mean that the terran is better. In fact, I bet if the protoss played terran, his APM would be just as high as the terrans.
A good example is stopping drops with the new turbo-vacs is far harder than executing them. Executing the drop uses more APM, but to have the sense of where the terran army is as well as an understanding of the percentage of army in the drops is significantly more skill requiring than to do the turbo-vac drop.
Wow, it makes me happy that a random player (or at least someone who plays every race) says that. I am a mid masters protoss but i also play 2v2 with terran, and I am almost always (like the 95% of the games) the guy with the higher APM count, doesn't matter if its with P or T and still when i win against a Terran, a big majority of them rage about me beeing an a+move player.
Well maybe i don't need to multitask that much, but loosing a single unit with protoss can make me loose a game, not dealing with a drop properly can also make me loose a game even if I played perfectly until then (not to say that it is quite harder to deal with drops than to do drops even if i needs less apms...)
The logic behing P is retarded, we are suposed to have the better and more valuable units, but instead of that, the gave us warp gate and expensive/bad gateway units that needs 213123 upgrades to be effective. I'm not even talking about balance, nerfs or buffs, i'm just saying that the desing of the race is very bad. Also, i feel that with HOTS blizzard has ignored all this problems, well they gave us the mothership, that's actually very good, but the rest of the units? Only fucking planes, they are cool, but it doesn't deal with all the problems this race has...
PD: I want my reaver back ( i can dream) PD2: Some proplayer will figure out soon a good all-in that works, and even if protoss will continue to be fucking bad, blizzard and most people will pretend it's ok, also they won't care about win rates because z and t are harder and they deserve more. Herpaderpa
This thread is awesome and OP: I salute you for writing it so well.
Sadly there have been a few threads before this one which brought up most of these points and still people argue against it...
But by now it's pretty obvious just by looking at the big tournament results that protoss gameplay is very limited.
I love protoss for their philosophy from sc1 and bw but sc2 forced me into playing random, because protoss was simply so depressing to play.
I HATE sentries, they are SOOO stupid, how can you make a tier 1 unit that can create indesteructble walls? How can this be balanced without making all the other early units crap or making early game counters available. Nobody likes zvps where the toss loses because of one missed FF and speedlings wreak havoc on the economy or those games where the zerg loses because he is out of position once and get forcefielded into obilivion.
It's just stupid and boring.
Warpgate is a great idea - but again much too early available in the tech path and it does not have a drawback when compared to the gateway. MY idea would be to make warpgate a research available later in the game, maybe at the twilight council AND increase the cooldown when compared to gateway AND make warp ins only available through a warpprism. That would make it a cool late game strat but not a required research that in turn forces gateway units to be even more crappy.
Concerning the colossus - I would think that it is not that hard to balance, it might be enough to trade damage for greater spread or restrict the damage to non-light units. The thor air aoe is a good example, it's super powerful vs big low hp armies but will still lose vs fewer, spread out units with more hp.
And the MSC is crap, as I always said. It's a hero unit, hero units are by definition all or nothing units, they can only be in one place, can convey big advantages but when they are out of position or are lost you are in big trouble. If you go for some risky aggression and your MSC gets sniped before your recall and your army gets obliterated you can just leave the game...
Oh and playing random I have never understood how any terran ever loses to protoss - with very little practice and pure reliance on mmm pushes with some micro and an occasional ghost I was able to kill most protoss I encountered.
If two players of great skill meet in pvt, in my opinion the t is ALWAYS favored, because as many people have said t is not only very forgiving for small mistakes but it scales extremely well with good micro and tactical skill, whereas protoss will always be all-in pushes or defend until deathball and pray because there is simply no other effective option.
Edit: Together with some other players I was already posting about FF and warpgate changes during the beta of hots, but Blizzard simply was to scared to make such big changes... With protoss slumping so visibly maybe something will be done finally.
I'm a fan of warp gates; it's something new and makes all three races so unique. Placing it later in the tech tree might be interesting.
Using gates like Terran (and every other RTS race in video game history) might make PvZ a challenge in SC2 and with the clumping mechanics, make Protoss more deathball than ever as you wouldn't want your slow zealots and sentries walking across the map to join your main army.
On April 23 2013 03:17 Dvriel wrote: Dayvie(Kim) recently was questioned by Apollo why are KR Terrans so much better than foreigner.The answers were soo strange and ununderstandable:
"There are various reazons..Many KR Terrans share their builds."
I was "WTF" its easy to see stream or play tournaments and check replays ans even steal GSL BO.Are you really thinking DK,Foreigner players dont watch GSL or copy BOs??? I saw Demuslim play 4 TvTs in row vs Polt and won the last one.He was checking the BOs and concluded there are not so different.Every game began pretty differente(the opening) but ended with the usual boring WoL stuff: Marine+Tank+Vikings+Scans siege battles everywhere and the decision making let Polt win 3 games in row.
The next thing DK said was: "The Terran units(BIO) need more micro to be effective and take more time to dominate,but the micro really pay". I knew this.Just saw Taeja win TvP pulling SCVs and still needed hell of micro to kill P on AW with only 2 Collossi and 3 HTs.The micro was the thing that allow Taeja to win.The P was warping wave after wave of Chargelots and I personally would lose this game,but Taeja won.Another thing I dislike is the SCV train.So,now,after 3 years of SC2 in TvP BIO, Terrans need to pull SCVs to be able to barelly win the game vs "amoving" Protoss?WTF!!!
Last thing DK said was: "The way KR practice is another reason.They are so metodic with their practice and they practice this micro a lot and focus on it a lot".Its the same as point number 2,said before.If you want to win with T in high level where macro is supposed to be the same,you need lot of micro.
Me as Platinum Random Player,find the P race the easiest to play and Zerg the easiest to win.Terran is queing units all the time,upgrades and lot of micro in battles.In TvZ you also need to spread your units as well and try not be caught off sieged/mines unactivated and still stimrun and try trade coseffiecently while maybe droping.As Zerg I just a amove with everything,use the 2 hotkey for all banelings and chase marines with them.3 hotkey for Mutas to snipe tanks or medivacs while lings do the job.Nothing more in battle.After the battle finish,just spawn larva and make more units and go again to snipe drops or attack some expansion or defend a push.As terran you need to continue making units in battle and macro,which is not easy.The PvT is even easier.Amove with everything.Throw storms and warp units if needed.GG.
TvT still the most different MU in opening but even now in HotS at high level(taeja,demuslim,polt) is engind in Marine/tank 40 min battles...
I'm sorry but id rather hear how masters/GM players feel as oppose to plat players, no disrespect and i agree with a select few things us said but it seems like a rather long QQ
On June 01 2013 10:53 sjperera wrote: make Protoss more deathball than ever as you wouldn't want your slow zealots and sentries walking across the map to join your main army.
I don't think so. If you're considering a nerf to warpgate and force field you're going to see major buffs to gateway unit health and damage.
I would LOVE to see FF be removed and warpgate be pushed to lategame tech, but the amount of balancing rework required is something you'd only see in an expansion, not in a content patch.
Idra had a good rant about the problems with Protoss on the last episode of Meta. Basically, it comes down to force field.
On April 23 2013 02:57 Patate wrote: TvT is an amazing matchup. The big question: Bio or Mech (marines tanks too) really make it a versatile and diverse matchup. When you mechbro your TvTs vs a bioshitter, you don't feel like it's a mirror matchup.
Edit: To be honest, any matchups not including terrans (ZvZ, PvZ, PvP) are pretty bad because of the way the races are meant to be played. Only terran is well designed in this game.. that race is focused on efficient small engagements, skirmishes and drops, and they do not want a maxed out battle. Zerg wants to get to the point that they can instant remax, and Protoss wants their 200 food deathball (which they can obtain on 3 bases.. even 2).
So yeah the game will continue to be unwatchable half of the time if they don't revamp the races (although Zergs are better now)
This is also why the warp prism buff Blizzard is toying with is a good idea, it allows protoss to get units on on the map easier for constant drops and counter attacks. If you don't think it's a big change, remember the speed prism immortal drops in PvP, you are constantly dropping in front of their production to snipe a collo as it pops out, or dropping to the side of their army and getting a stalker. The only problem with this buff is that it increases the power of robo all ins, immo sentry, immo zealot, immo collo all become stronger which may encourage more all ins , instead of use for macro.
On June 01 2013 10:18 Freeborn wrote:If two players of great skill meet in pvt, in my opinion the t is ALWAYS favored, because as many people have said t is not only very forgiving for small mistakes but it scales extremely well with good micro and tactical skill, whereas protoss will always be all-in pushes or defend until deathball and pray because there is simply no other effective option.
Um, Terran is the least forgiving of small mistakes. Mismicro your marines vs. storms: GG.
I can count the number of "non-committal engagements" I've seen from toss players on one hand. I've rarely if ever seen a toss do multipronged aggression despite having the strongest units per supply. Warp prisms are used more for massively committal doom drops than they are for more limited aggression despite being far faster than any unit capable of catching them. There is little to no use of Recall despite the fact that a toss who loses 15 zealots and two stalkers but retains his colossus/void ray/templar count is massively head of a terran who takes similar losses to his own units. Instead we see protoss after protoss commit to engagements they think they can win by dropping a largely useless slowing field to stop their zealots (the expendable bit of their army) being kited.
Save the damn energy for recalls.
Use two or three warp prisms to drop multiple expansions.
Don't automatically deploy a warp prism every single time you think you've got an edge. Move it to support your push and throw in flanks.
There is no fundamental disadvantage to protoss which means they have to all in or they don't win straight up engagements. This is a myth which people back up by veiled references to "mechanics". A protoss coming at you from three flanks will probably win no matter what you do.
Not even pros use the full potential of warp prisms. The reason they don't is because they mostly don't have to.
Terrans and Zerg know how to disengage fluidly and how to save units. Protoss only seem to do this for blink stalkers and I have no idea why. How often does a protoss disengage their colossi from an obviously lost engagement? Plenty of terrans/zerg pull back their medivacs or their infestors to safer ground if they are losing yet for some reason Protoss don't do the same despite having far stronger abilities to do so. I've never understood it.
Oh and then there's the forcefield use. 80% of your FF energy used to stop a group of units retreating that want to frontally engage you. Makes sense against a numerically superior force where you have a number of strong units that you want to counter their units with (immortals/colossi). Makes absolutely no sense to bisect an enemy force that is literally backed into their own production structures and have a shorter supply line than you. Use the damn things to retreat, regroup and pressure on multiple fronts. Don't just spam chargelots and assume you HAVE to kill him right now. You don't.
On June 02 2013 16:17 Evangelist wrote: Terrans and Zerg know how to disengage fluidly and how to save units. Protoss only seem to do this for blink stalkers and I have no idea why. How often does a protoss disengage their colossi from an obviously lost engagement? Plenty of terrans/zerg pull back their medivacs or their infestors to safer ground if they are losing yet for some reason Protoss don't do the same despite having far stronger abilities to do so. I've never understood it.
guess you have never tried to retreat vs. T and Z. You lose half of your army due to it beeing so slow. It is done in PvP because there you can.
Good points. I think it is because the Protoss are an alien race, compared to the other two human and animal race, that it is difficult to actually design an identity around them. It's failure as a race compared to the other two can be attributed to out lack of understanding what an alien race should be like.
On June 01 2013 10:18 Freeborn wrote:If two players of great skill meet in pvt, in my opinion the t is ALWAYS favored, because as many people have said t is not only very forgiving for small mistakes but it scales extremely well with good micro and tactical skill, whereas protoss will always be all-in pushes or defend until deathball and pray because there is simply no other effective option.
Um, Terran is the least forgiving of small mistakes. Mismicro your marines vs. storms: GG.
You're joking right. How many games have you seen Protoss outright win with just one good storm? Compared to Terran winning outright through missed forcefields, mishandled drop defense of any kind, whether it's hellbats, widow mines, or just M&M. Unlike storms, you can't move out of EMP to minimize damage. Notice storm late...just move out of it. Templars emped, observer died, forcefield too late, mothership died or forced to use recall in early game; just type gg.
On June 02 2013 16:17 Evangelist wrote: I can count the number of "non-committal engagements" I've seen from toss players on one hand. I've rarely if ever seen a toss do multipronged aggression despite having the strongest units per supply. Warp prisms are used more for massively committal doom drops than they are for more limited aggression despite being far faster than any unit capable of catching them. There is little to no use of Recall despite the fact that a toss who loses 15 zealots and two stalkers but retains his colossus/void ray/templar count is massively head of a terran who takes similar losses to his own units. Instead we see protoss after protoss commit to engagements they think they can win by dropping a largely useless slowing field to stop their zealots (the expendable bit of their army) being kited.
Save the damn energy for recalls.
Use two or three warp prisms to drop multiple expansions.
Don't automatically deploy a warp prism every single time you think you've got an edge. Move it to support your push and throw in flanks.
There is no fundamental disadvantage to protoss which means they have to all in or they don't win straight up engagements. This is a myth which people back up by veiled references to "mechanics". A protoss coming at you from three flanks will probably win no matter what you do.
Not even pros use the full potential of warp prisms. The reason they don't is because they mostly don't have to.
Terrans and Zerg know how to disengage fluidly and how to save units. Protoss only seem to do this for blink stalkers and I have no idea why. How often does a protoss disengage their colossi from an obviously lost engagement? Plenty of terrans/zerg pull back their medivacs or their infestors to safer ground if they are losing yet for some reason Protoss don't do the same despite having far stronger abilities to do so. I've never understood it.
Oh and then there's the forcefield use. 80% of your FF energy used to stop a group of units retreating that want to frontally engage you. Makes sense against a numerically superior force where you have a number of strong units that you want to counter their units with (immortals/colossi). Makes absolutely no sense to bisect an enemy force that is literally backed into their own production structures and have a shorter supply line than you. Use the damn things to retreat, regroup and pressure on multiple fronts. Don't just spam chargelots and assume you HAVE to kill him right now. You don't.
LOL...recall takes time..in big engagements that you mentioned the core won't survive. Also the radius isn't big enough. The reason you don't see more warp prisms is that they're supply taken away from the main army and they're not useful in the main fight. You can't mass them like you can with medivacs or mutas. It's not like medivacs, hellbats, mines or mutas who are excellent at harass but is also useful with the main army. The only reason why you see warp prism harass at all is because Protoss is hungry for gas and so they can dump their minerals in gasless units like the prism and zealot run-bys. Zealot runbys are also rarely cost effective. It's just done to buy time for Protoss to readjust their composition.
However, I do believe that many specific protosst traits such as warp gates, ff or msc require a good amount of skill if you want to keep up at the higher levels of play. While they do restrict gateway units from receiving a buff, don't forget about two things here:
1. Zealots and stalkers wouldn't be buffed a lot without warp gates. The reason is that in the midgame with blink or charge they are quite decent, they are still less effective than bio without aoe but especially vs zerg, you couldn't buff them a lot. It's before these upgrades that they seem kinda weak and because getting charge/blink takes up more time and resources than metabolic boost/glial reconstituation or stim/combat shield/conc shells.
2. All 3 races employ mechanics, that make each race unique and put a lot of restrictions on their race. Larva mechanics and having only to build a single tech building in order to be able to produce 20-30 mutas/hydras etc at the same time puts a lot of restrictions on the zerg race as well. Why do you think mutas compared to banshees/phoenix/oracles etc have actually much worse combat stats? It's because a zerg can get a hydra den + spire at the same time, 6 gases of 3 base and it's up to you guessing correctly if on top of the lings he has out on the map there will be 20 mutas or 20 hydras hatching, both requiring different reactions (phoenix/blink/ht vs colossi). So those midgame tech switches, the ability to produce mass drones or units make for a really interesting dynamic compared to other races and also other games, but it puts a lot of restrictions on it.
The only race which is more similar to races in other RTS games is terran. But even terran has restrictions such as not being able to get amazing mobile aoe ever, because they feature already the highest dps with low tech units and it is ranged. They have no ff to prevent surrounds and have (now with firebats they have) usually no good tanking units, which balances this out. There is a reason terrans have no colossi but rather tanks which need to be siege up in order to deal aoe dmg.
I'd love to have a way more aggressive (non-allin) and way less gimmicky protoss race. I'd love to be able to play more similar to terrans, like grabbing the first few marines + mines and attacking while being safe etc. It always feels like you have to defend and just hit timings. You can't have lonely units out on the map (except for the occosional chargelots harass warpins or dts ofc). Since unit effectiveness varies to greatly between having only gateway units or power units added to the mix it's not an aggressive way to play with a lot of back and forth, it's more getting them out and hitting good timings which is way less fun.
HOTS did a way better job than WOL though, pvp is a really good and fun matchup now, with a lot of diverse unit compositions, harassment and macro games. Out of all 3 protoss matchups pvp is the most dynamic one. In no other matchup you are allowed to be out on the map a ton and play aggressive while macroing up, while teching etc. The msc is a great addition for pvz, because now you can choose between ffe and gate expands with aggression. The core allows you to retreat while before if you once ran out of ff you lost all your sentries and any followup push is doomed to fail (or taking a 3rd on most maps). It's still more on the timing based side, you push out every 2-3min with certain key upgrades finishing but it's quite fun to play.
In pvt I feel you just sit in your base and try to defend all stuff until you can hit midgame timings where you can leave your base (with hts + canons or similar) because you have now better upgrades until he catches up, or colossi vs no vikings or a low viking count or hts vs no ghosts. I tried to be aggressive vs terrans so many times but it's a different race and hardly works out without being fully allin. You simply can't just get 3 gates and pressure a bit after fe, while you even push out mines will drop your mineral lines. You can't force your oponent to delay his tech and stuff, you can only force out bunkers. It's either break his bunkers and really do dmg or you don't break them and all you forced is lost mining time and some extra expanses. Unlike terran who can force you to delay tech by getting enough tsalkers to deal with those first mines, marines, hellbat drops, banshees, hellions etc.
The oracle is super gimmicky as well. You either proxy it or rush it out super fast and do a ton of dmg (especially if he was greedy/unprepared/made him think you went for something else) but otherwise one single turret in the middle of the mineral line is enough to prevent further harassment. You can only try to snipe a single scv adding another rax or so but basically the harassment time is over. You also can't use it for direct engagements once +1/stim/combat shield/medivacs are out and it has no support spells (apart from granting vision). I seriously hope they redesign it a bit, like decreasing its dps so it doesn't slaughter opponents super early if they have a too low marine count/no turret finished but increase its speed, acceleration, turning rate, maybe also decrase its hp but buff its shields and increase the cost to deal dps but decrease or remove the cost for activating the pulsar beam. Right now you have to wait for a while for it to regen energy, you can't dart in and out like you would with other units like phoenix. It's a gimmicky unit that is not that worthwile constant harassment unit it should be.
I think it's far too late to change the basic dynamics of a race but a lot of improvements can be done. I hope they will take routes like buffing prism speed, oracle speed, etc stuff like this and not improving aoe like colossi etc. If they find a way to add more protoss harassment that leads to nice macro games it would make the game so much better.
Personally I always hated those super abusive protoss builds. For every shitty allin (be it a super early boss canon rush up to immortal-sentry allins) every protoss player that indeed wants to play regular macro games it gets harder because winrates need to be balanced out. So the more harassment they add and less viable those gimmicky wins are going to be, the more success a protoss can have with playing standard.
I agree with OP. It seems like the way protoss is played (being a protoss myself) in a way that you must do some type of gimmicky play. Just how the entire race is played is just not how it should. Your suggestions were great but who knows what will eventually happen. Sentries gone? Would be interesting to say the least.
On June 02 2013 16:17 Evangelist wrote: I can count the number of "non-committal engagements" I've seen from toss players on one hand. I've rarely if ever seen a toss do multipronged aggression despite having the strongest units per supply. Warp prisms are used more for massively committal doom drops than they are for more limited aggression despite being far faster than any unit capable of catching them. There is little to no use of Recall despite the fact that a toss who loses 15 zealots and two stalkers but retains his colossus/void ray/templar count is massively head of a terran who takes similar losses to his own units. Instead we see protoss after protoss commit to engagements they think they can win by dropping a largely useless slowing field to stop their zealots (the expendable bit of their army) being kited.
Save the damn energy for recalls.
Use two or three warp prisms to drop multiple expansions.
Don't automatically deploy a warp prism every single time you think you've got an edge. Move it to support your push and throw in flanks.
There is no fundamental disadvantage to protoss which means they have to all in or they don't win straight up engagements. This is a myth which people back up by veiled references to "mechanics". A protoss coming at you from three flanks will probably win no matter what you do.
Not even pros use the full potential of warp prisms. The reason they don't is because they mostly don't have to.
Terrans and Zerg know how to disengage fluidly and how to save units. Protoss only seem to do this for blink stalkers and I have no idea why. How often does a protoss disengage their colossi from an obviously lost engagement? Plenty of terrans/zerg pull back their medivacs or their infestors to safer ground if they are losing yet for some reason Protoss don't do the same despite having far stronger abilities to do so. I've never understood it.
Oh and then there's the forcefield use. 80% of your FF energy used to stop a group of units retreating that want to frontally engage you. Makes sense against a numerically superior force where you have a number of strong units that you want to counter their units with (immortals/colossi). Makes absolutely no sense to bisect an enemy force that is literally backed into their own production structures and have a shorter supply line than you. Use the damn things to retreat, regroup and pressure on multiple fronts. Don't just spam chargelots and assume you HAVE to kill him right now. You don't.
LOL...recall takes time..in big engagements that you mentioned the core won't survive. Also the radius isn't big enough. The reason you don't see more warp prisms is that they're supply taken away from the main army and they're not useful in the main fight. You can't mass them like you can with medivacs or mutas. It's not like medivacs, hellbats, mines or mutas who are excellent at harass but is also useful with the main army. The only reason why you see warp prism harass at all is because Protoss is hungry for gas and so they can dump their minerals in gasless units like the prism and zealot run-bys. Zealot runbys are also rarely cost effective. It's just done to buy time for Protoss to readjust their composition.
It is logic like this which results in people thinking protoss harass is broken.
1. Keep the damn mothership core behind your army and retreat to it. 2. Marines/zerglings serve the same purpose for terran and zerg. They are a mineral dump that can do damage. 3. The reason they don't harass is they never really needed to. This is despite having arguably the strongest harassment mechanic in the game (storm drops).
You don't need to mass them. You make 2 or 3 like a terran does when doing hellbat drops or mech. It's 4 to 6 supply with another 8 invested in every drop. This is vastly superior to investing 8 supply then warping in 18 sacrificial supply on top of an opponent's production buildings or worse, a planetary fortress. Drop in 3 different locations, warp in at a 4th.
Protoss has plenty of completely unused harassment mechanics. Maybe they need to be more accessible but they have plenty of them.
On June 02 2013 16:17 Evangelist wrote: I can count the number of "non-committal engagements" I've seen from toss players on one hand. I've rarely if ever seen a toss do multipronged aggression despite having the strongest units per supply. Warp prisms are used more for massively committal doom drops than they are for more limited aggression despite being far faster than any unit capable of catching them. There is little to no use of Recall despite the fact that a toss who loses 15 zealots and two stalkers but retains his colossus/void ray/templar count is massively head of a terran who takes similar losses to his own units. Instead we see protoss after protoss commit to engagements they think they can win by dropping a largely useless slowing field to stop their zealots (the expendable bit of their army) being kited.
Save the damn energy for recalls.
Use two or three warp prisms to drop multiple expansions.
Don't automatically deploy a warp prism every single time you think you've got an edge. Move it to support your push and throw in flanks.
There is no fundamental disadvantage to protoss which means they have to all in or they don't win straight up engagements. This is a myth which people back up by veiled references to "mechanics". A protoss coming at you from three flanks will probably win no matter what you do.
Not even pros use the full potential of warp prisms. The reason they don't is because they mostly don't have to.
Terrans and Zerg know how to disengage fluidly and how to save units. Protoss only seem to do this for blink stalkers and I have no idea why. How often does a protoss disengage their colossi from an obviously lost engagement? Plenty of terrans/zerg pull back their medivacs or their infestors to safer ground if they are losing yet for some reason Protoss don't do the same despite having far stronger abilities to do so. I've never understood it.
Oh and then there's the forcefield use. 80% of your FF energy used to stop a group of units retreating that want to frontally engage you. Makes sense against a numerically superior force where you have a number of strong units that you want to counter their units with (immortals/colossi). Makes absolutely no sense to bisect an enemy force that is literally backed into their own production structures and have a shorter supply line than you. Use the damn things to retreat, regroup and pressure on multiple fronts. Don't just spam chargelots and assume you HAVE to kill him right now. You don't.
This is just incredibly in error. 1. Toss units take up more supply and have large surface, and have relativelty low DPS for cost. That is why they are bad for harass. If toss could warp in marines from warp-prisms toss would never lose. 2. MSC dies quickly and recall leaves units vulnerable to damage for a relatively long period of time. 3. Warp prisms take up robo production time which, even with 2 robos, means less units and obs coming out. Obs are way more critical now in HotS with mines being an ever-present threat. 4. 2 or 3 warp prisms? And how much money + warp-gates do you need to make that work??? 5. Straw man. No one thinks flanking is bad. 6. The issue is, if you make enough units to due damage, you have to do damage. Protoss falls behind when they make units because everything is so expensive unless they deal damage. Also, recall did little to change this. 7. Pros don't use warp-prisms more because they are easy to shut down and are not cost effective. 8.Colossi can't outrun anything. Blink Stalkers are the ONLY thing that can. 9.You are saying that good FFs are good and bad ones aren't? Great point, man.
Protoss has been a terrible design from the start. I feel like SC2 is general is a lot less skill based and rather relies on gimmicks to try and make up.
I mean there is no question that the reaver a lot more interesting and skill based than the Colossus, scourge are a lot more interesting and skill based than corruptors, lurkers are a lot more interesting and skill based than roaches, etc,,,,
So the whole game has been created on a gimmick, then ported as a competitive game, when its not. This also damages the playbility of it as it leads to more boring styles and gimmicky play, rather than real interesting plays based on skill.
On June 03 2013 04:26 BillGates wrote: Protoss has been a terrible design from the start. I feel like SC2 is general is a lot less skill based and rather relies on gimmicks to try and make up.
I mean there is no question that the reaver a lot more interesting and skill based than the Colossus, scourge are a lot more interesting and skill based than corruptors, lurkers are a lot more interesting and skill based than roaches, etc,,,,
So the whole game has been created on a gimmick, then ported as a competitive game, when its not. This also damages the playbility of it as it leads to more boring styles and gimmicky play, rather than real interesting plays based on skill.
You really mean to downplay skill in this game?
Go watch the very best and there is still massive amounts of skill gap between one another. Not to say there aren't some terribly designed units but this game still has a massive skill ceiling.
I think the protoss balance situation kind of mirrors, if anyone has played WoW pvp, the mage situation. The mage in WoW was designed in such a way that-- it doesn't function mechanically like a more standard class. It relies heavily on its spells and burst. There are often QQ threads on mages being underpowered or overpowered, and each patch it seems like the devs respond to the community detailing how hard it is to balance mages because if they have burst and can kill you, they seem overpowered, but if you nerf their damage too much, they just don't appear in the top tier of teams that pvp season.
I think the protoss design runs along a similar vein. They seem to do well at times due to balance patches or meta, then don't. Or it will at least appear that way.
Well, I had a huge post written out, but then my browser crashed. Sigh...
Essentially, I feel that Protoss doesn't have as many ways to out-play an opponent as Terran and Zerg do. Protoss can gain advantages through greed and smart build choices, but they can't just execute better to the same degree that a Terran or a Zerg could.
I would actually argue that Protoss has the best ability to gain an advantage through build choice, since there are a lot of allins that can just straight-up kill an unprepared opponent, and if Protoss gets away with certain greedy choices early on, they can hit incredibly powerful timings later than are nearly unstoppable (for example, 3/3 colossus timings in PvT if you get away with really early double forge). However, if you don't win the build order battle, it's way harder to win from behind through execution. Units like colossi, immortals, and void rays just don't have much use outside of just sitting in an army and being strong, which doesn't cut it when the other guy has a stronger army.
If you compare what Protoss can do with early units to what Terran or Zerg can, the differences should be fairly obvious. Look at what STLife can do with his zerglings. There is no Protoss unit that can accomplish half as much, no matter how well controlled. Look at Innovation's hellions. If a Protoss player could accomplish half that much with his stalkers and zealots early on, it would make a world of difference.
Looking back on the OP and several posts a few months later, I realize how deluded and confused people are. Let's be straight with each other: If one can argue Protoss is weak, it's because of 1) warp gate mechanics and 2) the slow move speed of protoss units.
Warpgate Mechanics: Warpgate is the most unique mechanic in the entire game as it costs minerals only and allows for a sudden burst of units. In comparison to terran, who has to build production buildings that 2/3 times cost gas and build units 1-2 at a time, you can see the problem is really the unit burst mechanic. In many people's eyes, this is unfair because it allows protoss to suddenly get a ton of production up very quickly and all-in very suddenly with a lot of units, which is why 2-base all-ins are commonplace. However, it has to be understood that because of the general cost inefficiency of protoss units (Yes, with equal or inferior upgrades, protoss has the least cost efficient units in the game, and I'll explain this more in the next section), protoss cannot simply commit to a little bit of pressure while expanding behind it. Protoss can put down 3-4 gateways and push or build a nexus + pylon + cannons. Because of how warpgate mechanics work, protoss can only either 1) attack or 2) expand while staying passive. I know, as a non-protoss player, you'll want to theorycraft and explain how I'm wrong, but you should know: In a passive environment, Protoss can EITHER add gateways and attack OR expand and stay passive.
Slow Movement Speed and Retreating: People keep trying to compare stalkers/zealots to marines/marauders and zerglings/roaches, but this is just wrong. First thing. Because of the big units, relatively slow rate of fire (low DPS), and most important, slow movement speed, protoss units in small numbers require a lot of micromanagement and attention. With the exception of chargelots and DTs, you cannot place units in an area and just "deal damage"; You have to spend the same amount of attention microing stalkers and immortals and sentries as you would doing a hellbat drop (except it's a lot more expensive). Overall, this means that you can't attack on several fronts before chargelots and the excess minerals. Multi-pronged harass is not viable until lategame on 4+ bases with tons of excess minerals.
Second thing. Survivability for protoss is abysmal. While zerg and terran have escape plans and can save units when an engagement goes bad, protoss only has MsC to rely on. FF are too temporary to fully retreat behind as protoss units move just far too slow to get away. This means that when protoss commits to pressure, they HAVE to do major damage and trade very cost efficiently or they will lose an entire [expensive] army. Zerg units can just run away, terran units can stim and run or pick up in speedvacs and boost away. Protoss doesn't have that luxury. This is fixed in part by the addition of the MsC, but the MsC is still a huge target in lategame situations and very vulnerable to corruptors/vikings, which are standard parts of zerg and terran lategame armies. In almost all high-level games, you'll see players run in to snipe the MsC then run away, even taking some losses in return for COMPLETELY shutting down any retreat options for protoss.
Final note: Liquid`HerO is really brilliant about keeping a small army very far forward and retreating with his large units while trading zealots for time, but this is the ONLY way for protoss to retreat aside from Recall. Having a smaller main army allows him the ability to do clever things like immortal/colossus drops or drops in the main while also buying him time to set up defenses at home in case of an incoming attack. But again, because of the slow movement speed of protoss units and the general fragility of being caught out of position, playing a style like this requires A TON of concentration and minimap awareness. That being said, I don't think that protoss is flawed and reliant on gimmicks, but just relatively unexplored. There's a lot more we can do as protoss, but we really need to clear up the misconceptions that forcefields deny micro and are terrible, that warpgate is a gimmick only, that protoss players do 2-base all-ins because they can't play macro, that retreating for protoss is easy, that harassing on multiple fronts is not as difficult for protoss as for zerg or terran, that protoss can just take a non-committal expansion, etc., etc.
On June 02 2013 16:17 Evangelist wrote: I can count the number of "non-committal engagements" I've seen from toss players on one hand. I've rarely if ever seen a toss do multipronged aggression despite having the strongest units per supply. Warp prisms are used more for massively committal doom drops than they are for more limited aggression despite being far faster than any unit capable of catching them. There is little to no use of Recall despite the fact that a toss who loses 15 zealots and two stalkers but retains his colossus/void ray/templar count is massively head of a terran who takes similar losses to his own units. Instead we see protoss after protoss commit to engagements they think they can win by dropping a largely useless slowing field to stop their zealots (the expendable bit of their army) being kited.
Save the damn energy for recalls.
Use two or three warp prisms to drop multiple expansions.
Don't automatically deploy a warp prism every single time you think you've got an edge. Move it to support your push and throw in flanks.
There is no fundamental disadvantage to protoss which means they have to all in or they don't win straight up engagements. This is a myth which people back up by veiled references to "mechanics". A protoss coming at you from three flanks will probably win no matter what you do.
Not even pros use the full potential of warp prisms. The reason they don't is because they mostly don't have to.
Terrans and Zerg know how to disengage fluidly and how to save units. Protoss only seem to do this for blink stalkers and I have no idea why. How often does a protoss disengage their colossi from an obviously lost engagement? Plenty of terrans/zerg pull back their medivacs or their infestors to safer ground if they are losing yet for some reason Protoss don't do the same despite having far stronger abilities to do so. I've never understood it.
Oh and then there's the forcefield use. 80% of your FF energy used to stop a group of units retreating that want to frontally engage you. Makes sense against a numerically superior force where you have a number of strong units that you want to counter their units with (immortals/colossi). Makes absolutely no sense to bisect an enemy force that is literally backed into their own production structures and have a shorter supply line than you. Use the damn things to retreat, regroup and pressure on multiple fronts. Don't just spam chargelots and assume you HAVE to kill him right now. You don't.
LOL...recall takes time..in big engagements that you mentioned the core won't survive. Also the radius isn't big enough. The reason you don't see more warp prisms is that they're supply taken away from the main army and they're not useful in the main fight. You can't mass them like you can with medivacs or mutas. It's not like medivacs, hellbats, mines or mutas who are excellent at harass but is also useful with the main army. The only reason why you see warp prism harass at all is because Protoss is hungry for gas and so they can dump their minerals in gasless units like the prism and zealot run-bys. Zealot runbys are also rarely cost effective. It's just done to buy time for Protoss to readjust their composition.
It is logic like this which results in people thinking protoss harass is broken.
1. Keep the damn mothership core behind your army and retreat to it. 2. Marines/zerglings serve the same purpose for terran and zerg. They are a mineral dump that can do damage. 3. The reason they don't harass is they never really needed to. This is despite having arguably the strongest harassment mechanic in the game (storm drops).
You don't need to mass them. You make 2 or 3 like a terran does when doing hellbat drops or mech. It's 4 to 6 supply with another 8 invested in every drop. This is vastly superior to investing 8 supply then warping in 18 sacrificial supply on top of an opponent's production buildings or worse, a planetary fortress. Drop in 3 different locations, warp in at a 4th.
Protoss has plenty of completely unused harassment mechanics. Maybe they need to be more accessible but they have plenty of them.
Yep. You have no clue what you are talking about. I have not seen a worthwhile storm drop since BW.
Also the idea of have 6 supply in dropships that dont add anything to your force while taking robo production time. There's so much wrong going on here it's painful. People seem to prefer timewarps to recalling out. It is the right idea to run into the recall rather than lea with your core out. Dunno how well this works with vikings later on though.
It's a shame really, HerO's style should be the optimal way to play Protoss, instead of a stylistic exception to the way many Protoss play.
We do have tools, but they don't really mesh with the current timings and build progressions that exist in the game. For example. storm drops arepotent, but by the time you have the infrastructure to execute them, especially in PvZ, killing a bunch of drones isn't really all that helpful against a Zerg who is maxed with a whole lot of larvae ready to go.
We do have tools, but they don't really mesh with the current timings and build progressions that exist in the game. For example. storm drops arepotent, but by the time you have the infrastructure to execute them, especially in PvZ, killing a bunch of drones isn't really all that helpful against a Zerg who is maxed with a whole lot of larvae ready to go.
Genuine question. What do you think ends up being more effective ( assuming the min line gets cleared). Storm drop or hellbats?
We do have tools, but they don't really mesh with the current timings and build progressions that exist in the game. For example. storm drops arepotent, but by the time you have the infrastructure to execute them, especially in PvZ, killing a bunch of drones isn't really all that helpful against a Zerg who is maxed with a whole lot of larvae ready to go.
Genuine question. What do you think ends up being more effective ( assuming the min line gets cleared). Storm drop or hellbats?
Hellbats every time. The risk of loosing hellbats and a single medivac is only that, it costs a bunch of minerals and a little bit of gas and can hit pre 13 minutes in a standard game. Also you likely would already have a medivac.
Templars cost a lot more in tech, cost tons of gas, you have to charge their energy before the drop and the drop ship itself you would never have in your primary composition to start with as it is just cheaper and requires less micro to put down proxy pylons. The time it costs in the robo equates to about a half of a colossus and it is pretty supply heavy too. If loose a templar drop you loose so much more than a hellbat drop.
We do have tools, but they don't really mesh with the current timings and build progressions that exist in the game. For example. storm drops arepotent, but by the time you have the infrastructure to execute them, especially in PvZ, killing a bunch of drones isn't really all that helpful against a Zerg who is maxed with a whole lot of larvae ready to go.
Genuine question. What do you think ends up being more effective ( assuming the min line gets cleared). Storm drop or hellbats?
Super lategame a 2 templar drop I find can actually roast more drones, but like I said you can get huge amounts of drone kills at that time and all you are doing sometimes is freeing up army supply.
Hellbats potency comes from how early they come out, plus especially Zerg's bad anti-air at those timings.
We do have tools, but they don't really mesh with the current timings and build progressions that exist in the game. For example. storm drops arepotent, but by the time you have the infrastructure to execute them, especially in PvZ, killing a bunch of drones isn't really all that helpful against a Zerg who is maxed with a whole lot of larvae ready to go.
Genuine question. What do you think ends up being more effective ( assuming the min line gets cleared). Storm drop or hellbats?
Super lategame a 2 templar drop I find can actually roast more drones, but like I said you can get huge amounts of drone kills at that time and all you are doing sometimes is freeing up army supply.
Hellbats potency comes from how early they come out, plus especially Zerg's bad anti-air at those timings.
I think Hellbats just are flat out more effective than storm with the size of storm and the ticks. Or atleast on par. I don't think it's a timing issue. Still I'll give it a shot then and check it out. It's been awhile since I tried storm dropping.
I still think toss' ability to put pressure back when being pinned is pretty gimped in the curent SoTG. I wish we had something we could drop, tweak with pickup and just micro an edge into the game /while/ we get our tech going or while we're being poked at the front.
We do have tools, but they don't really mesh with the current timings and build progressions that exist in the game. For example. storm drops arepotent, but by the time you have the infrastructure to execute them, especially in PvZ, killing a bunch of drones isn't really all that helpful against a Zerg who is maxed with a whole lot of larvae ready to go.
Genuine question. What do you think ends up being more effective ( assuming the min line gets cleared). Storm drop or hellbats?
Super lategame a 2 templar drop I find can actually roast more drones, but like I said you can get huge amounts of drone kills at that time and all you are doing sometimes is freeing up army supply.
Hellbats potency comes from how early they come out, plus especially Zerg's bad anti-air at those timings.
I think Hellbats just are flat out more effective than storm with the size of storm and the ticks. Or atleast on par. I don't think it's a timing issue. Still I'll give it a shot then and check it out. It's been awhile since I tried storm dropping.
I still think toss' ability to put pressure back when being pinned is pretty gimped in the curent SoTG. I wish we had something we could drop, tweak with pickup and just micro an edge into the game /while/ we get our tech going or while we're being poked at the front.
I think you are referencing widow mine drops. I'd argue the Protoss equivalent are oracles to help get tech going since with decent micro they do the same general thing early game. However, oracles are easier to defend than widow mines (and cost more), but they also do more damage.
you can have amazing micro as protoss. you load 4 stalkers in a warp prism and do drop and reload, blink back and forth micro( like 2 tanks in a medivac but then harder). is it effective? no. you can load collosus in a warp prism and do drops/load unload harras. is it effective? no.
try comparing both to marine drops or hellbat drops or storm drops /zealot drops, ling runby's or mutas. which are all 10 times easier to execute, AND cheaper.
try comparing phoenix harras to muta harras. do you ever see mass phoenix win games in other then PvP? on other hand, PvZ. mass muta DO win games. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- what bothers me aswell, is that all of protoss harrassment (warp prism to some extent) tools are mainly shut down by 1 thing: turrets or spore crawlers. wanted to do a mix of oracles and phoenixes and dts?
protoss unit are slow. what is the most mobile ground unit to date in the protoss arsenal? blink stalker. yet it still risky to be out on the map with them since speedlings/marauder can still catch up with them. speedling runby? oh entrance is blocked, guess ill head back home.
zealot/stalker do not have this option without the mothership core. so you can harras every 75 energy without 'commiting'. and not even multipronged attack, because you risk to lose those units when you do. mothership core can only save 1 army. so that makes every protoss harrasment a RISK. yes, oracles, phoenix, warp prism. pretty fast. but as i said before, shut down by 1 thing. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- in the end, it doesnt matter as much if u you have insane skill and multitasking. if you dont do hit your forcefields and timing pushes, or do some !@#$ty gimmick as cannon rush, dt's or hiding your tech, hiding a proxy pylon, or catching your opponent off-guard etc. you will be playing protoss at a disadvantage vs zerg.
protoss does not reward skill in the right ways,instead, it rewards deathball'ish 1a timing pushes with precise forcefields. it's nothing more then point and click accuracy. sure, same thing you can argue for EMP, feedback and such. but at least you have to split and a back and forth dance of storm/emp/feedback/snipe going on.
This is mainly for PvT(recently every time I watch a pro PvT the protoss always loses, I know it could be subjective but I just have to spit this out)
I would argue that the biggest problem with protoss is that a protoss player's ability to do anything at all hangs around that key set of few units. If you want to defend a certain attack you need your one single msc as well as a certain number of forcefields available otherwise you die If you want to attack a terran in the mid game you need either storm or colossi, and if they are somehow neutralised your attack just fails If you want to execute this mid game push vs a zerg you need to have a certain amount of force fields available, otherwise you just cant do anything Whatever you do, your game depends on whether these units(sentries, colossi, high templars) can do the things they have to do, if they can, then its a win, if they fail, then no matter how many chargelot archon you have, no matter how sick your blink stalker control is, even if you are economically even, you lose. This dependence on a few 'power units' is, in my very humble opinion, why protoss performances have been inconsistent. It is very easy to kill an entire terran army with crazy splash damage, yet it is equally easy to slip up and lose all your splash damage then proceed to get rolled over. This is I believe what makes protoss performance so volatile: these units are control dependent and, to an extent, luck based that a protoss player only has to over extend just that one tiny bit to lose the key piece of his army and lose the game, while a terran and a zerg, I would argue, has a greater margin of error in that their army lacks the crucial part, that achilles heel, and every part of the army is equally expandable. Where as in protoss, the gateway units only serve as a buffer, and while losing the gateway units doesnt matter that much, losing the splash/forcefield part of the army means that a protoss army's engage directly is ridiculously reduced, even if these parts are very small ones in terms of resources the dependence on these 'power units' is also possibly why protosses rely on gimmicks and tricks in order to maximize the potential of these few units. Because again, these units are very control dependent and perhaps luck based, thus to maximize their effect, protosses use gimmicks to catch opponents off guard. Another side effect of this 'power unit dependence' is the limitations placed upon a protoss's tech tree. In a normal macro game there is only one single ideal composition that you can go for because you need that crucial power unit part in your army, otherwise you die. This severely limits what a protoss player can do in terms of tech choices, in particular skytoss. In fact, now that I think about it, this is exactly why we almost never saw skytoss in WoL, because there is only one way to win. I would not say that protoss is imbalanced, but its obviously a design flaw, one that I hope the blizzard fixes in LotV. The way to fix this power unit dependence is to make the original, buffer units more important and play a bigger part in an army and minimize the parts played by the power units, in essence redistribute the army strength within the protoss ranks. By weakening the colossi, sentries and high templars and buffing zealots and stalkers, or maybe even carriers, a protoss army can rely less on the splash part, and with this control based and rather luck dependent part of the army being less crucial, more options will be available for a protoss as gas spent on these power units can be spent elsewhere. The key is to make the entire protoss army equally expandable instead of emphasizing on those few power units. Now obviously the warp in mechanic will pose problems but that can be dealt with later by buffing other races/nerfing warpgate. the point is to solve the protoss gimmick/deathball problem and I think buffing zealot stalker and nerfing colossi, forcefields and storms is one step in the right direction.
On June 02 2013 16:17 Evangelist wrote: I can count the number of "non-committal engagements" I've seen from toss players on one hand. I've rarely if ever seen a toss do multipronged aggression despite having the strongest units per supply. Warp prisms are used more for massively committal doom drops than they are for more limited aggression despite being far faster than any unit capable of catching them. There is little to no use of Recall despite the fact that a toss who loses 15 zealots and two stalkers but retains his colossus/void ray/templar count is massively head of a terran who takes similar losses to his own units. Instead we see protoss after protoss commit to engagements they think they can win by dropping a largely useless slowing field to stop their zealots (the expendable bit of their army) being kited.
Save the damn energy for recalls.
Use two or three warp prisms to drop multiple expansions.
Don't automatically deploy a warp prism every single time you think you've got an edge. Move it to support your push and throw in flanks.
There is no fundamental disadvantage to protoss which means they have to all in or they don't win straight up engagements. This is a myth which people back up by veiled references to "mechanics". A protoss coming at you from three flanks will probably win no matter what you do.
Not even pros use the full potential of warp prisms. The reason they don't is because they mostly don't have to.
Terrans and Zerg know how to disengage fluidly and how to save units. Protoss only seem to do this for blink stalkers and I have no idea why. How often does a protoss disengage their colossi from an obviously lost engagement? Plenty of terrans/zerg pull back their medivacs or their infestors to safer ground if they are losing yet for some reason Protoss don't do the same despite having far stronger abilities to do so. I've never understood it.
Oh and then there's the forcefield use. 80% of your FF energy used to stop a group of units retreating that want to frontally engage you. Makes sense against a numerically superior force where you have a number of strong units that you want to counter their units with (immortals/colossi). Makes absolutely no sense to bisect an enemy force that is literally backed into their own production structures and have a shorter supply line than you. Use the damn things to retreat, regroup and pressure on multiple fronts. Don't just spam chargelots and assume you HAVE to kill him right now. You don't.
LOL...recall takes time..in big engagements that you mentioned the core won't survive. Also the radius isn't big enough. The reason you don't see more warp prisms is that they're supply taken away from the main army and they're not useful in the main fight. You can't mass them like you can with medivacs or mutas. It's not like medivacs, hellbats, mines or mutas who are excellent at harass but is also useful with the main army. The only reason why you see warp prism harass at all is because Protoss is hungry for gas and so they can dump their minerals in gasless units like the prism and zealot run-bys. Zealot runbys are also rarely cost effective. It's just done to buy time for Protoss to readjust their composition.
It is logic like this which results in people thinking protoss harass is broken.
1. Keep the damn mothership core behind your army and retreat to it. 2. Marines/zerglings serve the same purpose for terran and zerg. They are a mineral dump that can do damage. 3. The reason they don't harass is they never really needed to. This is despite having arguably the strongest harassment mechanic in the game (storm drops).
You don't need to mass them. You make 2 or 3 like a terran does when doing hellbat drops or mech. It's 4 to 6 supply with another 8 invested in every drop. This is vastly superior to investing 8 supply then warping in 18 sacrificial supply on top of an opponent's production buildings or worse, a planetary fortress. Drop in 3 different locations, warp in at a 4th.
Protoss has plenty of completely unused harassment mechanics. Maybe they need to be more accessible but they have plenty of them.
You are completely wrong. Protoss players don't do harass because it's rarely useful. Zealots barely kill 1-2 workers before they are pulled, and every other unit costs way too much gas to be worth sacrificing for the amount of damage it would do. HT's can't even storm until they've collected enough energy.
We do have tools, but they don't really mesh with the current timings and build progressions that exist in the game. For example. storm drops arepotent, but by the time you have the infrastructure to execute them, especially in PvZ, killing a bunch of drones isn't really all that helpful against a Zerg who is maxed with a whole lot of larvae ready to go.
Genuine question. What do you think ends up being more effective ( assuming the min line gets cleared). Storm drop or hellbats?
Hellbats every time. The risk of loosing hellbats and a single medivac is only that, it costs a bunch of minerals and a little bit of gas and can hit pre 13 minutes in a standard game. Also you likely would already have a medivac.
Templars cost a lot more in tech, cost tons of gas, you have to charge their energy before the drop and the drop ship itself you would never have in your primary composition to start with as it is just cheaper and requires less micro to put down proxy pylons. The time it costs in the robo equates to about a half of a colossus and it is pretty supply heavy too. If loose a templar drop you loose so much more than a hellbat drop.
We do have tools, but they don't really mesh with the current timings and build progressions that exist in the game. For example. storm drops arepotent, but by the time you have the infrastructure to execute them, especially in PvZ, killing a bunch of drones isn't really all that helpful against a Zerg who is maxed with a whole lot of larvae ready to go.
Genuine question. What do you think ends up being more effective ( assuming the min line gets cleared). Storm drop or hellbats?
Hellbats every time. The risk of loosing hellbats and a single medivac is only that, it costs a bunch of minerals and a little bit of gas and can hit pre 13 minutes in a standard game. Also you likely would already have a medivac.
Templars cost a lot more in tech, cost tons of gas, you have to charge their energy before the drop and the drop ship itself you would never have in your primary composition to start with as it is just cheaper and requires less micro to put down proxy pylons. The time it costs in the robo equates to about a half of a colossus and it is pretty supply heavy too. If loose a templar drop you loose so much more than a hellbat drop.
Yes. It is more expensive in gas, which is more important for the Protoss than minerals. If you go for a Templar mid game, it will still hit later than a Hellbat drop. If you go Colossus, it'll only hit when the toss has 3 bases. The damage comparison is disgustingly in the T favour - if there are no worker pulls then the HT will kill a good chunk of the workers, but so will the hellbats. If there is a worker pull, the HT will kill a couple of workers (also meaning one less potential storm in a big fight) whereas the Terran will still get a few kills AND can chase down the probes with medivacs. Also you have to pull quicker to avoid Hellbat drops (I think.) Also, the Robo usage is key. If P loses a WP and tries to go for another one, then this will cut into Colossus production - T loses a Medivac then they can just use another of the 6 or so they already have, and are often producing already. Even the first WP will cut into Observer production, although this is sort of countered by the fact you will be able to put pressure on more easily and as such do not need as much of a defensive advantage.
We do have tools, but they don't really mesh with the current timings and build progressions that exist in the game. For example. storm drops arepotent, but by the time you have the infrastructure to execute them, especially in PvZ, killing a bunch of drones isn't really all that helpful against a Zerg who is maxed with a whole lot of larvae ready to go.
Genuine question. What do you think ends up being more effective ( assuming the min line gets cleared). Storm drop or hellbats?
Hellbats every time. The risk of loosing hellbats and a single medivac is only that, it costs a bunch of minerals and a little bit of gas and can hit pre 13 minutes in a standard game. Also you likely would already have a medivac.
Templars cost a lot more in tech, cost tons of gas, you have to charge their energy before the drop and the drop ship itself you would never have in your primary composition to start with as it is just cheaper and requires less micro to put down proxy pylons. The time it costs in the robo equates to about a half of a colossus and it is pretty supply heavy too. If loose a templar drop you loose so much more than a hellbat drop.
Yes. It is more expensive in gas, which is more important for the Protoss than minerals. If you go for a Templar mid game, it will still hit later than a Hellbat drop. If you go Colossus, it'll only hit when the toss has 3 bases. The damage comparison is disgustingly in the T favour - if there are no worker pulls then the HT will kill a good chunk of the workers, but so will the hellbats. If there is a worker pull, the HT will kill a couple of workers (also meaning one less potential storm in a big fight) whereas the Terran will still get a few kills AND can chase down the probes with medivacs. Also you have to pull quicker to avoid Hellbat drops (I think.) Also, the Robo usage is key. If P loses a WP and tries to go for another one, then this will cut into Colossus production - T loses a Medivac then they can just use another of the 6 or so they already have, and are often producing already. Even the first WP will cut into Observer production, although this is sort of countered by the fact you will be able to put pressure on more easily and as such do not need as much of a defensive advantage.
Yes, but those are tactical flaws, not resource ones.
8 marines will not realistically threaten to kill a base but 1 Warp Prism can. It requires a stronger response than dropship play.
I really don't want to switch races because I love protoss, but sometimes the way our race works is so annoying. Artosis was taking about this on meta one time, and it really is the truth: it is hard to find a game where a protoss beat a zerg where they do not sneak a pylon up early or all in.
I shouldn't HAVE to get the pylon up because that is something the zerg should be able to shut down, but you have to surprise them somehow to get an advantage. Especially on maps with open thirds.
I dont know but it feels like toss is a race were you can get GM pretty easily (compared to other races ofc) but it is hard for a good toss to seperate from medicore toss players that basically just play the same premade standardbos over and over again without any reaction to get cheap wins.
Toss needs some mechanics that enable them to do rewarding play that cannot be done by mediocre toss players. At the same time the mediocre toss players must use this "rewarding play" to beat good zerg or terran players instead of a moving or allining them. Ofc i m really generalising here but i think this is what toss needs if you break it down into simple words.
I think forcefields and units like collossi are terrible for the game, i also dont like the "suddenly an army appears" warpgate mechanic. Their race also seems to be a bit gimmicky, always hiding stuff and "hoping" the other player doesnt scout it in time.
But there is hope for toss right now, in proleague toss is doing really good and good players seem to get rewarded. The only thing i dont like is that really slow and "bad" toss players still get "high up" there in the ladder.
I really like the play of rain and parting (also i hated his soultrainshit in WOL), so lets hope that in the next expansion blizzard will add some units and mechanics for toss that will require a lot of skill so the really good players will shine and the "bad" players will fall down.
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