• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 11:15
CEST 17:15
KST 00:15
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Code S Season 2 (2026): RO4 and Finals Preview11TL.net Map Contest #22 - Voting & Ladder Map Selection5Code S Season 2 (2026) - RO8 Preview5[ASL21] Finals Preview: Two Legacies21Code S Season 2 (2026) - RO12 Preview2
Community News
[BSL22] Non-Korean Championship from 13 to 28 June2Weekly Cups (May 25-31): Clem doubles, 2v2 circuit heads toward finale0StarCraft II 5.0.16 PTR Patch Notes may 26th151Weekly Cups (May 18-24): MaxPax wins doubles0Crank Gathers Season 4: BW vs SC2 Team League6
StarCraft 2
General
TL Poll: How do you feel about the 5.0.16 PTR balance changes? Code S Season 2 (2026): RO4 and Finals Preview What kind of tool would you be interested in? Oliveira Would Have Returned If EWC Continued TL.net Map Contest #22 - Voting & Ladder Map Selection
Tourneys
Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament GSL Code S Season 2 (2026) WardiTV Mondays Maestros of The Game 2 announcement and schedule ! Crank Gathers Season 4: BW vs SC2 Team League
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
[D]RTS in all its shapes and glory <3
External Content
The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 529 Opportunities Unleashed Mutation # 528 Infection Detected Welcome to the External Content forum
Brood War
General
25 Years Since Brood War Patch 1.08 FlaSh's ASL S21 Finals Review BW animated web series: seeking contributors BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ [BSL22] Non-Korean Championship from 13 to 28 June
Tourneys
[BSL22] Grand Finals - Sunday 21:00 CEST [ASL21] Grand Finals [Megathread] Daily Proleagues Escore Tournament StarCraft Season 2
Strategy
Why doesn't anyone use restoration? Any training maps people recommend? Muta micro map competition [G] Hydra ZvZ: An Introduction
Other Games
General Games
ZeroSpace Megathread Summer Games Done Quick 2026! Nintendo Switch Thread The Perfect Game Path of Exile
Dota 2
Looking for a Dota Mentor Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Trading/Investing Thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine YouTube Thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread
Fan Clubs
The herO Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
[Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books [TV/BOOK] *SPOILERS* Game of Thrones Discussion Movie Discussion! [Manga] One Piece
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread McBoner: A hockey love story Formula 1 Discussion TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread Facing Challenges in Mobile App Development
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
An Exploration of th…
waywardstrategy
I'm an arrogant trash talke…
FlaShFTW
Gauntlet SC2: A Retrospectiv…
Ctone23
Esportsmanship: How to NOT B…
TrAiDoS
Why RTS gamers make better f…
gosubay
ASL S21 English Commentary…
namkraft
StarCraft improvement
iopq
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 5121 users

Welcome to ZParcraft II - Page 64

Forum Index > SC2 General
1376 CommentsPost a Reply
Prev 1 62 63 64 65 66 69 Next
StackerTwo
Profile Joined February 2012
United States41 Posts
July 07 2014 23:18 GMT
#1261
On July 07 2014 13:19 Macbex wrote:
I think OP has very good understanding of current meta and very solid understanding of Terran, but not so much about Protoss and Zerg. I'll point out one.

I agree with most of arguments, especially widowmine nerf part and blink menace part.
However,
Show nested quote +

Losing at the lottery is one thing; an utterly inferior lategame is another; but for Terran, the most depressing aspect of the match-up is probably the massive contrast in control needed to handle a Protoss and a Terran army in large engagements.


this is not simply not true.

Amount of micro required for late-game Protoss army is about the same as late-game Terran army.
In ultimate Protoss deathball vs Terran Bio Deathball,

Terran have to do:
1. Split to minimize AoE damage. This is pretty hard, especially to dodge storm, but unless you caught off guard, you can always pre-split before the battle.
2. Kiting zealots. As fancy as it may looks, this is not hard at all.
3. Viking snipe colossi. Difficulty of this depends on upgrades and numbers. When there are at least 3 viking for one colossi, this is as simple as right click.
4. Ghost snipe and EMP HTs and rest of Protoss army. This, in my opinion, is the hardest part. Ghost does have longer range compare to HT (Snipe and EMP are both range 10, where Feedback and Storm are both range 9) and cloak, but Terran player have to remove majority, if not most, of HTs in time. Even a few storm can produce a devastating effect to Terran army.

You thought that was hard? Well, it is. Harder than Protoss? Not quite.
Well, let's look at Protoss part. Many Protoss micro are simply ignored because it's doesn't appear in screen.

Here we go:
1. Positioning and engagement timing. Majority of people watching late-game Protoss army thinks all Protoss player have to do is group and a-move and drop few storms. This is simply wrong. If that's all you do, you hardly make above Plat. If positioned incorrectly, more than half of late game Protoss death-ball won't shooting at all. Also, if you placed all your zealot in front (wait? aren't we suppose to do so? well...not quite), all of them will hit by EMP and instantly lose near half of your tank and possible you lose your game as well. Ideally, you want to portion of your archon and zealots to go in first to get EMPed. Of course, you have to move back your colossi so stalkers can deal with the viking, protect immortals/MSC/sentries, etc. This can be as difficult as split, but since it's not so fancy on screen, most people won't even notice the difference. Also, like split, you can do most of work before the engagement.
2. Blink and target fire vikings with stalkers. This is about the same difficulty as kiting zealots.
3. Guardian shield. No-brainer.
4. Time warp. Half no-brainer.
5. Forcefield. Difficulty depends of actual scenario. Forcefield can be really no-brainer or it can be the hardest thing in SC2.
6. Avoiding Ghosts and drop storm. This is as difficult as Ghost EMP/Sniping HT, if not more difficult. But as mentioned above, a few good storm will wreck Terran bio ball, so Ghost vs HTs usually won't end well for Terran. However, skill required is about the same.

Different micros are required for different race. OP simply presenting what he knows and understand, ignoring what he doesn't know or pretend like it doesn't exist.


The skill to emp, and the skill to storm is exactly the same. One hotkey, one click. The problem is the risk/rewards are not equal...
pure.Wasted
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
Canada4701 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-07-07 23:31:08
July 07 2014 23:30 GMT
#1262
On July 07 2014 13:19 Macbex wrote:
I think OP has very good understanding of current meta and very solid understanding of Terran, but not so much about Protoss and Zerg. I'll point out one.

I agree with most of arguments, especially widowmine nerf part and blink menace part.
However,
Show nested quote +

Losing at the lottery is one thing; an utterly inferior lategame is another; but for Terran, the most depressing aspect of the match-up is probably the massive contrast in control needed to handle a Protoss and a Terran army in large engagements.


this is not simply not true.

Amount of micro required for late-game Protoss army is about the same as late-game Terran army.
In ultimate Protoss deathball vs Terran Bio Deathball,

Terran have to do:
1. Split to minimize AoE damage. This is pretty hard, especially to dodge storm, but unless you caught off guard, you can always pre-split before the battle.
2. Kiting zealots. As fancy as it may looks, this is not hard at all.
3. Viking snipe colossi. Difficulty of this depends on upgrades and numbers. When there are at least 3 viking for one colossi, this is as simple as right click.
4. Ghost snipe and EMP HTs and rest of Protoss army. This, in my opinion, is the hardest part. Ghost does have longer range compare to HT (Snipe and EMP are both range 10, where Feedback and Storm are both range 9) and cloak, but Terran player have to remove majority, if not most, of HTs in time. Even a few storm can produce a devastating effect to Terran army.

You thought that was hard? Well, it is. Harder than Protoss? Not quite.
Well, let's look at Protoss part. Many Protoss micro are simply ignored because it's doesn't appear in screen.

Here we go:
1. Positioning and engagement timing. Majority of people watching late-game Protoss army thinks all Protoss player have to do is group and a-move and drop few storms. This is simply wrong. If that's all you do, you hardly make above Plat. If positioned incorrectly, more than half of late game Protoss death-ball won't shooting at all. Also, if you placed all your zealot in front (wait? aren't we suppose to do so? well...not quite), all of them will hit by EMP and instantly lose near half of your tank and possible you lose your game as well. Ideally, you want to portion of your archon and zealots to go in first to get EMPed. Of course, you have to move back your colossi so stalkers can deal with the viking, protect immortals/MSC/sentries, etc. This can be as difficult as split, but since it's not so fancy on screen, most people won't even notice the difference. Also, like split, you can do most of work before the engagement.
2. Blink and target fire vikings with stalkers. This is about the same difficulty as kiting zealots.
3. Guardian shield. No-brainer.
4. Time warp. Half no-brainer.
5. Forcefield. Difficulty depends of actual scenario. Forcefield can be really no-brainer or it can be the hardest thing in SC2.
6. Avoiding Ghosts and drop storm. This is as difficult as Ghost EMP/Sniping HT, if not more difficult. But as mentioned above, a few good storm will wreck Terran bio ball, so Ghost vs HTs usually won't end well for Terran. However, skill required is about the same.

Different micros are required for different race. OP simply presenting what he knows and understand, ignoring what he doesn't know or pretend like it doesn't exist.

For example, for Jjakji vs Elfi game. OP said that
Show nested quote +
jjakji controls every part of his army: bio, Vikings, Ghosts; elfi doesn't even try to protect his Colossi from free shots and focuses nothing particular with his Stalkers. The superiority of Protoss' design..;


I'm pretty sure "superiority of Protoss design" gives Protoss player free upgrade advantage and army supply as well.
Elfi completed 3/3 near 5 minutes before the engagement and was working on shield upgrade. Jjakji, on the other hand, had only 2/2 and 3/3 was not even half way done. Not mentioning that Elfi had near 30 more army supply up. That's why zealots are not dying...they outnumbered and out-upgraded Terran bio. OP mentioned none of these.


You are wrong.

Allow me to demonstrate.

I decided to tally up every single action I could see during two huge late game engagements by Maru vs. Zest in RO16, two reigning champions of their races, both renowned for their battle control (I think only Parting might have Zest beat amongst the Protoss). I typed in "Maru vs Zest," clicked the first game I saw, jumped forward in time until the late game was upon us (~37 minutes into the vid), and then I started counting every single action I could see in combat.

Maru - individually positions 6 Widow Mines as the battle starts, each in a different location, I counted 8 separate actions
Zest - Blink (1 click)
Zest - Zealot runby (1 click)
Maru - Stim and small poke to pull Protoss army, kites once, reinforces with another small group (that means he's not relying on hotkeys). During this entire time, Zest issued a single move command to stop his army from getting pulled out of position. Minimum 6-7 clicks for Maru.
Maru - Intercepts Zealot runby, two EMPs, moves Ghosts to keep them safe - minimum of 4 clicks. Zest doesn't try to chase the Ghosts or anything fancy, no micro.
Zest - Blink, places HTs in Warp Prism and moves it around menacingly, that's 4-5 clicks
Maru - kites 4 times (8 click)
Maru - small poke (minimum 2 click)
Zest - Storm x2
Maru - split x2
Zest - did something with the Warp Prism HT that I couldn't find, let's say it's a Storm (2 click)
Maru - kite x4 (8 click)
Zest - pulls back half of his army (1 click), Guardian Shield, Blink x2

Second battle starts:

Maru - small poke, HT snipe (2-3 clicks)
Zest - Storm, Archon morph, Guardian Shield, PO (4 clicks)
Maru - Scan, EMP x2
Zest - Blink
Maru - Scan, EMP x3, kites 6 times (16 click)
Zest - Feedback, HTs poke
Maru - EMP, Ghosts poke, Ghost retreat
Zest - Archon morph, Storm
Maru - Scan, EMP x2
Zest - Blink, Storm x2

And then it turns out that Maru was macroing perfectly the entire time and Zest has a bank of 1500/600, so Zest gets rolled despite taking both fights.

Going with conservative estimates on all of Maru's micro, that was 67 separate actions. Plus there were at least 3 Stims throughout those fights, so let's give him a nice, round 70. Let's go the generous estimates for Zest. Twenty eight. 70 vs. 28. With somewhere between a third and a half of Maru's actions, Zest favorably takes the first engagement and comes out around even in the second.

Are there clicks that I'm not seeing? You'd better find 40 for Zest somewhere between those two engagements if you want me to seriously take your claim that Protoss, in the hands of the most micro-intensive players the race has, no less, takes as much control as Terran.
INna Maru-da-FanTa, Bbaby, TY Dream that I'm Flashing you
CakeSauc3
Profile Joined February 2011
United States1437 Posts
July 07 2014 23:38 GMT
#1263
On July 08 2014 08:30 pure.Wasted wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 07 2014 13:19 Macbex wrote:
I think OP has very good understanding of current meta and very solid understanding of Terran, but not so much about Protoss and Zerg. I'll point out one.

I agree with most of arguments, especially widowmine nerf part and blink menace part.
However,

Losing at the lottery is one thing; an utterly inferior lategame is another; but for Terran, the most depressing aspect of the match-up is probably the massive contrast in control needed to handle a Protoss and a Terran army in large engagements.


this is not simply not true.

Amount of micro required for late-game Protoss army is about the same as late-game Terran army.
In ultimate Protoss deathball vs Terran Bio Deathball,

Terran have to do:
1. Split to minimize AoE damage. This is pretty hard, especially to dodge storm, but unless you caught off guard, you can always pre-split before the battle.
2. Kiting zealots. As fancy as it may looks, this is not hard at all.
3. Viking snipe colossi. Difficulty of this depends on upgrades and numbers. When there are at least 3 viking for one colossi, this is as simple as right click.
4. Ghost snipe and EMP HTs and rest of Protoss army. This, in my opinion, is the hardest part. Ghost does have longer range compare to HT (Snipe and EMP are both range 10, where Feedback and Storm are both range 9) and cloak, but Terran player have to remove majority, if not most, of HTs in time. Even a few storm can produce a devastating effect to Terran army.

You thought that was hard? Well, it is. Harder than Protoss? Not quite.
Well, let's look at Protoss part. Many Protoss micro are simply ignored because it's doesn't appear in screen.

Here we go:
1. Positioning and engagement timing. Majority of people watching late-game Protoss army thinks all Protoss player have to do is group and a-move and drop few storms. This is simply wrong. If that's all you do, you hardly make above Plat. If positioned incorrectly, more than half of late game Protoss death-ball won't shooting at all. Also, if you placed all your zealot in front (wait? aren't we suppose to do so? well...not quite), all of them will hit by EMP and instantly lose near half of your tank and possible you lose your game as well. Ideally, you want to portion of your archon and zealots to go in first to get EMPed. Of course, you have to move back your colossi so stalkers can deal with the viking, protect immortals/MSC/sentries, etc. This can be as difficult as split, but since it's not so fancy on screen, most people won't even notice the difference. Also, like split, you can do most of work before the engagement.
2. Blink and target fire vikings with stalkers. This is about the same difficulty as kiting zealots.
3. Guardian shield. No-brainer.
4. Time warp. Half no-brainer.
5. Forcefield. Difficulty depends of actual scenario. Forcefield can be really no-brainer or it can be the hardest thing in SC2.
6. Avoiding Ghosts and drop storm. This is as difficult as Ghost EMP/Sniping HT, if not more difficult. But as mentioned above, a few good storm will wreck Terran bio ball, so Ghost vs HTs usually won't end well for Terran. However, skill required is about the same.

Different micros are required for different race. OP simply presenting what he knows and understand, ignoring what he doesn't know or pretend like it doesn't exist.

For example, for Jjakji vs Elfi game. OP said that
jjakji controls every part of his army: bio, Vikings, Ghosts; elfi doesn't even try to protect his Colossi from free shots and focuses nothing particular with his Stalkers. The superiority of Protoss' design..;


I'm pretty sure "superiority of Protoss design" gives Protoss player free upgrade advantage and army supply as well.
Elfi completed 3/3 near 5 minutes before the engagement and was working on shield upgrade. Jjakji, on the other hand, had only 2/2 and 3/3 was not even half way done. Not mentioning that Elfi had near 30 more army supply up. That's why zealots are not dying...they outnumbered and out-upgraded Terran bio. OP mentioned none of these.


You are wrong.

Allow me to demonstrate.

I decided to tally up every single action I could see during two huge late game engagements by Maru vs. Zest in RO16, two reigning champions of their races, both renowned for their battle control (I think only Parting might have Zest beat amongst the Protoss). I typed in "Maru vs Zest," clicked the first game I saw, jumped forward in time until the late game was upon us (~37 minutes into the vid), and then I started counting every single action I could see in combat.

Maru - individually positions 6 Widow Mines as the battle starts, each in a different location, I counted 8 separate actions
Zest - Blink (1 click)
Zest - Zealot runby (1 click)
Maru - Stim and small poke to pull Protoss army, kites once, reinforces with another small group (that means he's not relying on hotkeys). During this entire time, Zest issued a single move command to stop his army from getting pulled out of position. Minimum 6-7 clicks for Maru.
Maru - Intercepts Zealot runby, two EMPs, moves Ghosts to keep them safe - minimum of 4 clicks. Zest doesn't try to chase the Ghosts or anything fancy, no micro.
Zest - Blink, places HTs in Warp Prism and moves it around menacingly, that's 4-5 clicks
Maru - kites 4 times (8 click)
Maru - small poke (minimum 2 click)
Zest - Storm x2
Maru - split x2
Zest - did something with the Warp Prism HT that I couldn't find, let's say it's a Storm (2 click)
Maru - kite x4 (8 click)
Zest - pulls back half of his army (1 click), Guardian Shield, Blink x2

Second battle starts:

Maru - small poke, HT snipe (2-3 clicks)
Zest - Storm, Archon morph, Guardian Shield, PO (4 clicks)
Maru - Scan, EMP x2
Zest - Blink
Maru - Scan, EMP x3, kites 6 times (16 click)
Zest - Feedback, HTs poke
Maru - EMP, Ghosts poke, Ghost retreat
Zest - Archon morph, Storm
Maru - Scan, EMP x2
Zest - Blink, Storm x2

And then it turns out that Maru was macroing perfectly the entire time and Zest has a bank of 1500/600, so Zest gets rolled despite taking both fights.

Going with conservative estimates on all of Maru's micro, that was 67 separate actions. Plus there were at least 3 Stims throughout those fights, so let's give him a nice, round 70. Let's go the generous estimates for Zest. Twenty eight. 70 vs. 28. With somewhere between a third and a half of Maru's actions, Zest favorably takes the first engagement and comes out around even in the second.

Are there clicks that I'm not seeing? You'd better find 40 for Zest somewhere between those two engagements if you want me to seriously take your claim that Protoss, in the hands of the most micro-intensive players the race has, no less, takes as much control as Terran.


That must have taken a lot of time to put together.

Wish there was a way to do this quickly using the computer to get a similar analysis out of dozens or hundreds of games. Have always been curious to see just how many clicks it takes for a Terran army to be controlled vs the other two races.

I also know Zerg macro takes a fair amount of clicks. Want to see that tallied up as well in some kind of comparison scenario vs Terran macro.
neptunusfisk
Profile Blog Joined July 2012
2286 Posts
July 07 2014 23:59 GMT
#1264
What does Boxer, Flash, Thorzain, Ganzi, TLO, Taeja, Scarlett and MMA have in common?

Answer: they all developed wrist problems while playing terran. Except Scarlett, she's playing zerg.

Clearly terran players are just the weaker physiques that can't handle a exhausting game like starcraft as well as the zerg and protoss.
maru G5L pls
pure.Wasted
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
Canada4701 Posts
July 08 2014 00:06 GMT
#1265
On July 08 2014 08:59 neptunusfisk wrote:
What does Boxer, Flash, Thorzain, Ganzi, TLO, Taeja, Scarlett and MMA have in common?

Answer: they all developed wrist problems while playing terran. Except Scarlett, she's playing zerg.

Clearly terran players are just the weaker physiques that can't handle a exhausting game like starcraft as well as the zerg and protoss.


Maru and TLO (not sure if he was Terran or Zerg at the time) round out the list as far as I know.
INna Maru-da-FanTa, Bbaby, TY Dream that I'm Flashing you
ZAiNs
Profile Joined July 2010
United Kingdom6525 Posts
July 08 2014 00:09 GMT
#1266
On July 08 2014 08:59 neptunusfisk wrote:
What does Boxer, Flash, Thorzain, Ganzi, TLO, Taeja, Scarlett and MMA have in common?

Answer: they all developed wrist problems while playing terran. Except Scarlett, she's playing zerg.

Clearly terran players are just the weaker physiques that can't handle a exhausting game like starcraft as well as the zerg and protoss.

Thorzain, who played a lot slower than most progamers?
royalroadweed
Profile Joined April 2013
United States8301 Posts
July 08 2014 00:23 GMT
#1267
On July 08 2014 08:59 neptunusfisk wrote:
What does Boxer, Flash, Thorzain, Ganzi, TLO, Taeja, Scarlett and MMA have in common?

Answer: they all developed wrist problems while playing terran. Except Scarlett, she's playing zerg.

Clearly terran players are just the weaker physiques that can't handle a exhausting game like starcraft as well as the zerg and protoss.

Flash had wrist problems since bw. BW terran was extremely mechanically demanding as well.
"Nerfing Toss can just make them stronger"
Xor.
Profile Joined September 2012
24 Posts
July 08 2014 00:27 GMT
#1268
the article's genius, theDwf always has such good input
"Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker." -- Miles Davis summarizing the history of jazz
jellyjello
Profile Joined March 2011
Korea (South)664 Posts
July 08 2014 01:02 GMT
#1269
On July 08 2014 08:30 pure.Wasted wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 07 2014 13:19 Macbex wrote:
I think OP has very good understanding of current meta and very solid understanding of Terran, but not so much about Protoss and Zerg. I'll point out one.

I agree with most of arguments, especially widowmine nerf part and blink menace part.
However,

Losing at the lottery is one thing; an utterly inferior lategame is another; but for Terran, the most depressing aspect of the match-up is probably the massive contrast in control needed to handle a Protoss and a Terran army in large engagements.


this is not simply not true.

Amount of micro required for late-game Protoss army is about the same as late-game Terran army.
In ultimate Protoss deathball vs Terran Bio Deathball,

Terran have to do:
1. Split to minimize AoE damage. This is pretty hard, especially to dodge storm, but unless you caught off guard, you can always pre-split before the battle.
2. Kiting zealots. As fancy as it may looks, this is not hard at all.
3. Viking snipe colossi. Difficulty of this depends on upgrades and numbers. When there are at least 3 viking for one colossi, this is as simple as right click.
4. Ghost snipe and EMP HTs and rest of Protoss army. This, in my opinion, is the hardest part. Ghost does have longer range compare to HT (Snipe and EMP are both range 10, where Feedback and Storm are both range 9) and cloak, but Terran player have to remove majority, if not most, of HTs in time. Even a few storm can produce a devastating effect to Terran army.

You thought that was hard? Well, it is. Harder than Protoss? Not quite.
Well, let's look at Protoss part. Many Protoss micro are simply ignored because it's doesn't appear in screen.

Here we go:
1. Positioning and engagement timing. Majority of people watching late-game Protoss army thinks all Protoss player have to do is group and a-move and drop few storms. This is simply wrong. If that's all you do, you hardly make above Plat. If positioned incorrectly, more than half of late game Protoss death-ball won't shooting at all. Also, if you placed all your zealot in front (wait? aren't we suppose to do so? well...not quite), all of them will hit by EMP and instantly lose near half of your tank and possible you lose your game as well. Ideally, you want to portion of your archon and zealots to go in first to get EMPed. Of course, you have to move back your colossi so stalkers can deal with the viking, protect immortals/MSC/sentries, etc. This can be as difficult as split, but since it's not so fancy on screen, most people won't even notice the difference. Also, like split, you can do most of work before the engagement.
2. Blink and target fire vikings with stalkers. This is about the same difficulty as kiting zealots.
3. Guardian shield. No-brainer.
4. Time warp. Half no-brainer.
5. Forcefield. Difficulty depends of actual scenario. Forcefield can be really no-brainer or it can be the hardest thing in SC2.
6. Avoiding Ghosts and drop storm. This is as difficult as Ghost EMP/Sniping HT, if not more difficult. But as mentioned above, a few good storm will wreck Terran bio ball, so Ghost vs HTs usually won't end well for Terran. However, skill required is about the same.

Different micros are required for different race. OP simply presenting what he knows and understand, ignoring what he doesn't know or pretend like it doesn't exist.

For example, for Jjakji vs Elfi game. OP said that
jjakji controls every part of his army: bio, Vikings, Ghosts; elfi doesn't even try to protect his Colossi from free shots and focuses nothing particular with his Stalkers. The superiority of Protoss' design..;


I'm pretty sure "superiority of Protoss design" gives Protoss player free upgrade advantage and army supply as well.
Elfi completed 3/3 near 5 minutes before the engagement and was working on shield upgrade. Jjakji, on the other hand, had only 2/2 and 3/3 was not even half way done. Not mentioning that Elfi had near 30 more army supply up. That's why zealots are not dying...they outnumbered and out-upgraded Terran bio. OP mentioned none of these.


You are wrong.

Allow me to demonstrate.

I decided to tally up every single action I could see during two huge late game engagements by Maru vs. Zest in RO16, two reigning champions of their races, both renowned for their battle control (I think only Parting might have Zest beat amongst the Protoss). I typed in "Maru vs Zest," clicked the first game I saw, jumped forward in time until the late game was upon us (~37 minutes into the vid), and then I started counting every single action I could see in combat.

Maru - individually positions 6 Widow Mines as the battle starts, each in a different location, I counted 8 separate actions
Zest - Blink (1 click)
Zest - Zealot runby (1 click)
Maru - Stim and small poke to pull Protoss army, kites once, reinforces with another small group (that means he's not relying on hotkeys). During this entire time, Zest issued a single move command to stop his army from getting pulled out of position. Minimum 6-7 clicks for Maru.
Maru - Intercepts Zealot runby, two EMPs, moves Ghosts to keep them safe - minimum of 4 clicks. Zest doesn't try to chase the Ghosts or anything fancy, no micro.
Zest - Blink, places HTs in Warp Prism and moves it around menacingly, that's 4-5 clicks
Maru - kites 4 times (8 click)
Maru - small poke (minimum 2 click)
Zest - Storm x2
Maru - split x2
Zest - did something with the Warp Prism HT that I couldn't find, let's say it's a Storm (2 click)
Maru - kite x4 (8 click)
Zest - pulls back half of his army (1 click), Guardian Shield, Blink x2

Second battle starts:

Maru - small poke, HT snipe (2-3 clicks)
Zest - Storm, Archon morph, Guardian Shield, PO (4 clicks)
Maru - Scan, EMP x2
Zest - Blink
Maru - Scan, EMP x3, kites 6 times (16 click)
Zest - Feedback, HTs poke
Maru - EMP, Ghosts poke, Ghost retreat
Zest - Archon morph, Storm
Maru - Scan, EMP x2
Zest - Blink, Storm x2

And then it turns out that Maru was macroing perfectly the entire time and Zest has a bank of 1500/600, so Zest gets rolled despite taking both fights.

Going with conservative estimates on all of Maru's micro, that was 67 separate actions. Plus there were at least 3 Stims throughout those fights, so let's give him a nice, round 70. Let's go the generous estimates for Zest. Twenty eight. 70 vs. 28. With somewhere between a third and a half of Maru's actions, Zest favorably takes the first engagement and comes out around even in the second.

Are there clicks that I'm not seeing? You'd better find 40 for Zest somewhere between those two engagements if you want me to seriously take your claim that Protoss, in the hands of the most micro-intensive players the race has, no less, takes as much control as Terran.


Just want to add that most Korean Pro Terrans also micro their medivacs during engagements.
YyapSsap
Profile Joined September 2010
New Zealand1511 Posts
July 08 2014 02:33 GMT
#1270
Protoss just have won all three WCS tournies (EU, KOR, AM) this season.
Afterstar
Profile Joined November 2010
67 Posts
July 08 2014 02:50 GMT
#1271
Excellent editorial. I hope David Kim reads this and understand that the problem lies in the very limited options terran has, but I doubt he will bother.
Don't cry because it's over,smile because it happened.
Hortisimo
Profile Joined July 2014
4 Posts
July 08 2014 03:13 GMT
#1272
Great read. Hope it gets a view by Blizz staff.
SirPinky
Profile Joined February 2011
United States525 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-07-08 03:48:01
July 08 2014 03:47 GMT
#1273
On July 08 2014 08:59 neptunusfisk wrote:
What does Boxer, Flash, Thorzain, Ganzi, TLO, Taeja, Scarlett and MMA have in common?

Answer: they all developed wrist problems while playing terran. Except Scarlett, she's playing zerg.

Clearly terran players are just the weaker physiques that can't handle a exhausting game like starcraft as well as the zerg and protoss.


You forgot MVP. And I don't think he ever played at the same level after his surgery. See Terran is bad for your health!
How much better to get wisdom than gold; to get insight rather than silver!
Fission
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Canada1184 Posts
July 08 2014 03:49 GMT
#1274
On July 08 2014 05:01 Penguinator wrote:
Premier Tournaments won by a Terran in 2014: 2
Premier Tournaments won by a Zerg in 2014: 2
Premier Tournaments won by a Protoss in 2014: 11

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Premier_Tournaments

Draw your own conclusions

P players are better at winning tournaments? You know, it's not really sufficient to just post stats and say "hey, OBVIOUSLY there's an issue here". We need to establish that winning more tournaments actually is a result of imbalance.
SirPinky
Profile Joined February 2011
United States525 Posts
July 08 2014 03:57 GMT
#1275
On July 08 2014 12:49 Fission wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 08 2014 05:01 Penguinator wrote:
Premier Tournaments won by a Terran in 2014: 2
Premier Tournaments won by a Zerg in 2014: 2
Premier Tournaments won by a Protoss in 2014: 11

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Premier_Tournaments

Draw your own conclusions

P players are better at winning tournaments? You know, it's not really sufficient to just post stats and say "hey, OBVIOUSLY there's an issue here". We need to establish that winning more tournaments actually is a result of imbalance.


LOL what? Then why the significantly skewed statistics? That's like saying, "We find a correlation between smokers and lung cancer, but we need people to keep smoking to find an exact mortality rate based on consumption."
How much better to get wisdom than gold; to get insight rather than silver!
Fission
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Canada1184 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-07-08 04:39:19
July 08 2014 04:33 GMT
#1276
On July 08 2014 12:57 SirPinky wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 08 2014 12:49 Fission wrote:
On July 08 2014 05:01 Penguinator wrote:
Premier Tournaments won by a Terran in 2014: 2
Premier Tournaments won by a Zerg in 2014: 2
Premier Tournaments won by a Protoss in 2014: 11

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Premier_Tournaments

Draw your own conclusions

P players are better at winning tournaments? You know, it's not really sufficient to just post stats and say "hey, OBVIOUSLY there's an issue here". We need to establish that winning more tournaments actually is a result of imbalance.


LOL what? Then why the significantly skewed statistics? That's like saying, "We find a correlation between smokers and lung cancer, but we need people to keep smoking to find an exact mortality rate based on consumption."

Maybe the skewed statistics are due to the fact that P players, on a whole, are better than their Z and T counterparts

.+ Show Spoiler +
I don't actually believe this
mongoose22
Profile Joined July 2012
174 Posts
July 08 2014 04:40 GMT
#1277
On July 08 2014 12:57 SirPinky wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 08 2014 12:49 Fission wrote:
On July 08 2014 05:01 Penguinator wrote:
Premier Tournaments won by a Terran in 2014: 2
Premier Tournaments won by a Zerg in 2014: 2
Premier Tournaments won by a Protoss in 2014: 11

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Premier_Tournaments

Draw your own conclusions

P players are better at winning tournaments? You know, it's not really sufficient to just post stats and say "hey, OBVIOUSLY there's an issue here". We need to establish that winning more tournaments actually is a result of imbalance.


LOL what? Then why the significantly skewed statistics? That's like saying, "We find a correlation between smokers and lung cancer, but we need people to keep smoking to find an exact mortality rate based on consumption."


Getting cancer is not a skill-based activity. Plus, how would you balance smoking so people can smoke more without getting cancer?
Foreverkul
Profile Joined March 2014
United States1649 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-07-08 05:05:34
July 08 2014 05:04 GMT
#1278
Terran is undeniably the most mechanically demanding of the races, thus giving it the highest skill ceiling. Perhaps Blizzard should experiment with ways to either make it less demanding, or make other races more demanding (like storm become a channel ability). Why would you play the race that needs to watch 4 screens at once and command 4 separate armies to be effective when I can just swarm or death ball? The only equivalent strategy that Terran has is Mech, which is not used because there's no support for it.
Heartland
Profile Blog Joined May 2012
Sweden24604 Posts
July 08 2014 07:55 GMT
#1279
On July 08 2014 06:23 pure.Wasted wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 08 2014 02:43 Heartland wrote:
Protoss late game PvT is centered around retreating from the Terran army while performing a complicated set of tasks revolving around whittling the Terran army down. It involves flanking Templars from every potential direction, Blink Stalkers to snipe off Vikings, Medivacs and Ghosts. The Protoss army tries to find a favourable engagement against the Terran, but it is extremely stressful. Getting EMPed, or having your Colossus bunch up and lose one or two volleys as they get shot by Vikings often means the end of the game.

In battle you have to make sure that Stalkers and Archons fight off vikings, that you storm, use 5+ abilities, that Colossus don't bunch up, that Templars don't all get EMPed or sniped, etc.

So no, it's not fucking a-move.


I wrote up a very large post, but before I post it, I'd like to be sure...

Are you just pissed off that people are saying that engaging as Protoss takes absolutely no skill? Or are you implying (as I thought when I started my writeup) that Protoss is as, or close to as, mechanically demanding as Terran?

Cuz if it's just the former, then I agree completely and I just wasted 20 minutes. :D


Right here I am just saying the former.
Big J
Profile Joined March 2011
Austria16289 Posts
July 08 2014 08:05 GMT
#1280
On July 08 2014 14:04 Foreverkul wrote:
Terran is undeniably the most mechanically demanding of the races, thus giving it the highest skill ceiling. Perhaps Blizzard should experiment with ways to either make it less demanding, or make other races more demanding (like storm become a channel ability). Why would you play the race that needs to watch 4 screens at once and command 4 separate armies to be effective when I can just swarm or death ball? The only equivalent strategy that Terran has is Mech, which is not used because there's no support for it.


It's pretty undeniable that Terran has the most stupid players when readimg these kinds of posts and gets one thinking whether the true reason why they are underperforming is that their players are selfentitled scrubs that think shift clicking a dropship is controlling 4 screens. But then again, there's a ton of reasonable Terrans as well and i shouldnt be drawing conclusions from Foreverkul to someone like Taeja.

User was warned for this post
Prev 1 62 63 64 65 66 69 Next
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 8h 45m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
Ryung 275
ProTech99
Codebar 85
StarCraft: Brood War
Calm 6062
Shuttle 1950
EffOrt 1319
Hyuk 492
Mini 462
Rush 232
Soulkey 231
firebathero 205
ggaemo 197
hero 83
[ Show more ]
Sea.KH 78
Free 78
Pusan 71
Hyun 60
Backho 44
scan(afreeca) 41
JYJ 40
ToSsGirL 38
Aegong 33
Barracks 28
GoRush 22
sorry 20
zelot 18
IntoTheRainbow 16
Rock 15
Terrorterran 13
ajuk12(nOOB) 10
SilentControl 9
Hm[arnc] 9
soO 4
Dota 2
Gorgc8297
qojqva2294
Dendi1759
Fuzer 144
League of Legends
Reynor70
Counter-Strike
fl0m6741
zeus312
Super Smash Bros
hungrybox605
Mew2King44
Other Games
gofns18563
tarik_tv9109
singsing2708
Lowko877
hiko641
byalli566
B2W.Neo480
DeMusliM368
crisheroes171
C9.Mang0130
Hui .118
QueenE67
ArmadaUGS60
Liquid`VortiX56
Trikslyr21
fpsfer 1
Organizations
Other Games
BasetradeTV219
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
[ Show 17 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• poizon28 27
• IndyKCrew
• sooper7s
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• Migwel
• intothetv
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Kozan
StarCraft: Brood War
• HerbMon 13
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
• BSLYoutube
Dota 2
• lizZardDota228
League of Legends
• Nemesis3993
• Jankos2034
• TFBlade729
Other Games
• WagamamaTV214
Upcoming Events
PiGosaur Cup
8h 45m
Replay Cast
17h 45m
Kung Fu Cup
19h 45m
Maestros of the Game
23h 45m
Classic vs Lambo
Clem vs Maru
Replay Cast
1d 8h
The PondCast
1d 18h
Maestros of the Game
1d 23h
Serral vs Rogue
herO vs SHIN
OSC
2 days
Replay Cast
2 days
Maestros of the Game
2 days
[ Show More ]
Replay Cast
3 days
CranKy Ducklings
3 days
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
3 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
4 days
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
4 days
OSC
5 days
Wardi Open
5 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

BSL Season 22
2026 GSL S2
Heroes Pulsing #1

Ongoing

IPSL Spring 2026
KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 2
Acropolis #4
CSCL: Masked Kings S4
YSL S3
Acropolis #4 - GSB
SCTL 2026 Spring
WardiTV Spring 2026
Maestros of the Game 2
uThermal 2v2 2026 Main Event
Murky Cup 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2
CS Asia Championships 2026
Asian Champions League 2026
IEM Atlanta 2026
PGL Astana 2026
BLAST Rivals Spring 2026
IEM Rio 2026
PGL Bucharest 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 1
BLAST Open Spring 2026

Upcoming

BSL 22 Non-Korean Championship
CSLAN 4
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
CranK Gathers Season 4: BW vs SC2 Team League
HSC XXIX
Douyu Cup 2026
Heroes Pulsing #3
Heroes Pulsing #2
Esports World Cup 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.