It was inevitable. In a game in which players arm themselves with three distinct factions, it was impossible for all of them to be created equal. Terran has the scrappy cowboys and mercenaries, while Zerg is characterized by endless waves of mindless horrors. Protoss has advanced technology to rely on and an air of sorrowful arrogance. As time went by, players, storylines and awe inspiring moments refined and reinforced the mythology around these races. As StarCraft II nears its eighth year their identity is more ossified than ever.
The community may be divided on all sorts of matters, but on some fronts, it’s established something resembling a consensus. Terran is the flamboyant showman of StarCraft II, defined by flourishes of brilliant micro that take your breath away. Scything army movements, harrying medivacs, and comebacks in the face of overwhelming odds—it is the swaggering peacock everyone adores. Zerg, too, is not without its appeal. One can quibble over the repetitive nature of larva injects in the race’s identity—we still agree there is some primal, visceral satisfaction in watching the Swarm sweep over the battlefield in a bloody wave of chitin and acid. It’s clear what makes these races great. Years of marine splitting and ling/bane/muta created the romantic ideal by which StarCraft II is measured.
Where is Protoss’ place in this schema, though?
Protoss doesn’t pass the eye test in the same way. Even the most ardent supporters of the venerable and ancient race would struggle to argue that games which end abruptly at the hands of adepts, oracles or blink stalkers feel fair. There’s something about the hopeless defense, the turret that came up a second late, the extra round of drones, and ultimately the inability to properly scout and prepare that leave players and spectators alike shaking their heads. How many times has one of those builds left the audience feeling like THEY were the ones who had been mugged?
StarCraft II is most noble in a proper macro game, but the filthy Aiur scum have other ideas. It’s behind this banner of disgust that the masses have rallied. Their propaganda and screeds have been smeared on forums and Twitch chats for years. Their slogan is a simple one, the purest encapsulation of their woe: P R O T O S S E D.
“OP overall. Force fields are OP, warp gates are OP.” -Flash
It could be that we’ve just seen the ‘perfectly executed’ Protoss timing-attack too many times. From the beginning of Wings of Liberty, warp gate tech made it dumb for Protoss players to not play aggressively, and they’ve gone on to figure out timings off countless combinations of units, upgrades, and bases. Forcefields influenced the outcome of battles disproportionately compared to their ease of use, allowing players far below the level of MC or PartinG to carve their way through the stoutest Zerg defenses.
But we’re not playing against DRG and Mvp, or more recently, soO and TY. When faced with a truly elite opponent, one can’t simply ride Protoss imbalance to victory. It takes precise execution to catch an opponent unaware. It takes the type of adepts splits that Neeb used to conquer Rogue to eke out advantages in skirmishes. It takes herO’s trademark warp-prism shenanigans to displace the defense.
Even forcefields, long-derided as Protoss’ free-win button, can’t be taken for granted. PartinG might be able to calmly placedozens of forcefields to tie a GSL finals from a 1-3 deficit, but there have been plenty of times when a champion-class Protoss blew a game because he could only summon ‘good’ when perfect was required.
For all the tens of thousands of players who called upon the Soul Train, only PartinG truly made it his own, the cornerstone of an entire match-up. Every Protoss under the sun tried out phoenix/adept in 2017, but it was herO alone who piloted it all the way to a trophy.
“There was no soul in his all-ins. He also improperly placed his force fields. That's how much soul he's lacking. He can't win.” -PartinG
Fights may look one-sided for Protoss players, but that’s because they have mastered precise micro and constant analysis of the situation. Protoss isn’t just about holding the “z” key down and painting some zealots on the map—it’s about knowing where to deploy which units for maximum efficiency. Sure, ramming as many adepts as you can down the opponent’s front door can be effective, even in a GSL final, but it’s not always so simple. Think all the way back to the summer of 2016 when Classic decided to kill the rocks on Apotheosis with dark templars, shutting out Dark’s army, giving his adepts free reign over Dark’s main and natural. By the time he cleaned it up, his fourth bases was under siege. Even the most zealous hater would have to admit Classic was more wily than despicable.
Speaking of wily, StarCraft II’s version of Wily E. Coyote is a prime example of the community’s love/hate relationship with Protoss. It’s downright perplexing how a player like sOs has managed to evade the anti-Protoss movement despite his extremely cheesy playstyle. He’s made a living off heinous stuff that would have seen a less charismatic Protoss crucified. Charisma is really central to the issue: people ultimately want to be entertained, though what constitutes ‘entertainment’ seems to vary wildly. Once a player has received the community’s favor, his games will always be seen in a favorable light. sOs is at worst a buffoon and certainly never the villain. MyuNgSiK is the lowest of the low and deserved to be brought to tears at Maru’s hands.
The prejudice extends to other races as well. A player like herO is vilified for his abusive flavor of the month play, but Dark has been leaning on the same ravager/ling all-in for the majority of Legacy of the Void. Whether a build is judged as wholesome or immoral is up to the whimsy of the community. When LITERAL GOAT Mvp resorted to SCV-pull timings in Wings of Liberty, it was seen as an act of desperation instead of what it really was: an exploitation of that era’s Protoss play style. Sometimes it really is possible to put lipstick on a pig.
“...They think Protoss is overpowered because of good skills.” -MC
On day 5 of SSL Premier Season 2, Classic and Dear introduced the Korean scene to mass oracle. It wasn’t anything new to foreign fans who knew it as one of Has’ gimmicks, but these Korean champions had turned a joke build into a fanged monstrosity.
The community immediately grabbed their pitchforks. If there was ever proof of Protoss imbalance, this had to be it. The height of absurdity was a game between Classic and Solar where Wolf wondered if 15 oracles were any sort of match for 30 hydralisks. When the dust settled, six oracles bobbed in the sky while all the hydralisks had been erased. If it looked stupid, that’s because it was. David Kim never had that in mind when the oracle was just a gleam in his eye.
It took time, but Zergs figured the build out. They developed a crisp, efficient response, and the triple stargate faded to the periphery. Protoss is a race that has to rely on these sort of things from time to time, and they deserve the fruits of their creativity. Because taking a risk is no guarantee of a reward.
sOs is all too familiar with this. His builds are meticulous and well-thought out. But for every cannon rush that puts him impossibly far ahead, remember there are also debacles like his game vs Bunny where two gold bases worth of zealots and oracles lost to a pair of supply depots. He can win a game by countering liberators with ranged phoenixes, but he’ll also throw away a GSL final by trying an unorthodox dark templar blink all-in.
“You have to play like a machine to win as Protoss. You can't make a single mistake.” -Rain
Dramatic all-ins and zany builds are one thing, but even the standard Protoss macro game has attracted much ire. What are Zerg and Terran supposed to do when faced with colossi, high templars and skytoss, while twelve zealots are warping into their main base? Everyone who has stared down that maxed-out Protoss army understands how unstoppable it seems. When fan-favorites and supposedly superior players like INnoVation, Dark or Maru lose in the same fashion to that very same army, it’s natural to feel despair.
As Maru was splitting his bio and vikings against storm while launching off emps, and Dark was controlling infestors, vipers and corruptors, it looked like the Protoss was just a-moving and spraying storms about willy-nilly. See that a few times and you might start to believe that’s all there is to Protoss once they reach the late game. But watch some of those fights again, because Protoss comes with its own set of challenges. A Protoss player is forced to manage blink stalkers, forcefields, shades, charge zealots, phoenixes and warp prisms in the mid game, many of these all at once. Enter the late game, and they have to control those same units as well as high templars, colossi and tempests. It looks easy because the result is so disastrous for the opponent, but it requires a level of proficiency that few in the world have maintained. Dark and maybe Rogue are the only Zergs who can handle similarly complex late game armies, but Protoss like Stats and Zest have been doing it for years to little acclaim. ShoWTimE made the easy look impossible against soO at GSL vs. The World when a recall that never happened left his carriers stranded and cost him what appeared to be a sure fire trip to the quarterfinals.
And if a Protoss player falls behind in a macro game? Good luck. Making up for a disadvantage is harder in Legacy of the Void than ever before and Protoss gets the worst end of it. Protoss is all about spreading resources in as many directions as possible in order to create an army with the complexity, force and size to conquer the opponent. When Dark’s zerglings killed herO’s third base in the WCS Global Finals, herO was forced to weigh every worker, unit, upgrade and tech structure to try to reclaim a position of strength. When a Zerg’s mineral line goes up in smoke, they hold down the “d” key and get back to business as usual as best they can. A Terran drops mules and continues production while seizing the initiative with drops and harassment. So what did herO do? Snipe a base, defend an attack and juggle archons in warp prisms like his life depended upon it. herO may not have had the classical tools available to the other races, but he allocated what he had precisely enough to allow him to take a third and stampede to victory with charge zealots.
“Delete Protoss. Start designing them again from scratch” -Scarlett
If Blizzard had a nickel for every time someone complained about Protoss, they could have doubled the BlizzCon prize pool. But the game has been around for eight years and Zergs are still dying to random hellion run-bys. A few queens out of position and ten to twenty workers go up in flames. It's the same result as a resonating glaives timing. When it's the Terran dealing the blow, blame—nay, mockery!—falls upon the Zerg for their inability to cope with such simple pressure. In another game the same hapless Zerg loses to adepts and cries of imbalance are heard around the world. Somehow, this is the fault of Protoss and its flawed design. There is no such thing as objectivity in a fandom divided three ways. A glass house has been constructed by which supporters of other races can clamor for Protoss' dismantling while ignoring the same problems within their own faction.
Protoss’ redeeming qualities are oft ignored. As we enter 2018, Protoss players possess an arsenal more varied than those of other races. Call it easy-mode or cheesy, but no other race is capable of such surgical all-ins and wild, off-the-wall strategies. Fans are too quick to recall Protoss at its worst, forgetting all the games that left them captivated with their mouths agape, or the sOs specials that made them howl in laughter. Yes, maybe there's some bullshit inherent to Protoss. But on the whole, Protoss isn't as bad as we make it out to be.
Blizzard is doing a good job at balacing protoss stupid play such as mass adept and mass oracle, but this single gif describres protoss in WoL and HotS:
When a Zerg’s mineral line goes up in smoke, they hold down the “d” key and get back to business as usual as best they can. A Terran drops mules and continues production while seizing the initiative with drops and harassment.
I mean, you could write an article about how well Hitler did unifying a Germany that was destroyed from WW1, but it wouldn't make everything else he did less horrible.
great article - as a Protoss player myself, I really enjoyed the read. It made me feel a bit better, given all the hate being spewed towards us lately.
On December 19 2017 00:41 ihatevideogames wrote: I mean, you could write an article about how well Hitler did unifying a Germany that was destroyed from WW1, but it wouldn't make everything else he did less horrible.
Did you just compare Protoss to Hitler...
On a more positive note, great article! Well written, and the content is so true, I was nodding my head in sad agreement all the way through the process of reading it.
On December 19 2017 00:41 ihatevideogames wrote: I mean, you could write an article about how well Hitler did unifying a Germany that was destroyed from WW1, but it wouldn't make everything else he did less horrible.
Did you just compare Protoss to Hitler...
On a more positive note, great article! Well written, and the content is so true, I was nodding my head in sad agreement all the way through the process of reading it.
And really, how can be protoss weaker? How can capital alien space ships lose against texans with rifles or some random animals with a high reproduction rate. It simply does no sense. The game works as intended.
Another thing that contributes to this quite a bit are the PEOPLE that play protoss. There are a lot more quirky protoss players that try crazy things and write detailed guides on how to do said things. Just look at the great big book of protoss bullshit - I don't see a zerg or terran equivalent anywhere.
I'm sure just as much zerg and terran BS exist, but there are not nearly as many guides on them so people don't use them as much.
Warp gate is the worst idea one could have, I entirely blame most of SCII issues on it.
Sidenote on a protoss question that buzzed me : "Aiur" sounds like "ailleurs" which means "elsewhere" in French but I've not seen any word on it, maybe it's just a random homophony.
I was just complaining about hellions the other day, and people were saying it was weird to do so. But now I have an article to help validate my opinion in a roundabout way. Perfect
All seriousness, Protoss is a bit too strong due to the new chrono. After the patch, it will be better. Skytoss is still super strong but what else is new? As a Z, I find Terran is more OP race but again no one cares given Terran whining is too strong compared to other races' whining.
Pleasurable read! So many times I have witnessed pro games where those devils won because of what seemed like an unfair advantage, but I know in my heart it just feels like that because I have lost countless ladder games to Protoss. Please Protoss players : Keep on fighting!
Nothing surprising, since all people complain about other races being OP and their race being weak, it's obvious Protoss as the least represented race on ladder is the most OP race.
On December 19 2017 01:16 nojok wrote: Warp gate is the worst idea one could have, I entirely blame most of SCII issues on it.
Sidenote on a protoss question that buzzed me : "Aiur" sounds like "ailleurs" which means "elsewhere" in French but I've not seen any word on it, maybe it's just a random homophony.
And Aiur land sounds like "ireland", the plot thickens...
Some love for protoss, i like it :> though i hate sOs :p
there's a lot of truth to this, especially in LOTV. maybe at one time in HOTS there was a time when, for example, in pvz you could pretty easily just cannon rush/nexus first into a very safe 2 base allin that's hard to stop even when scouted, and force field metas made playing against toss feel like a meteorite just fell on your house. but IMO toss has a lot of vulnerabilities in LOTV that leveled the playing field, and there is an unfair enduring stigma that doesn't apply to the modern game
i say this as someone who has been high diamond MMR with both Z and P since HOTS. in HOTS i got tons of free wins with really brutal and annoying cheese, like at one point i was beating master terrans with proxy gateway in the middle of 4p maps into proxy stargate and blink, and i fully admit that was crap design. but when my cheeses work these days more often i can identify things my opponent could have done to identify my build and play more defensively, and i don't feel like i flipped the troll coin and got lucky. many toss complain about hydra bane, but as a Z/P i actually think it greatly improved the matchup by making it harder to turtle into abusive skytoss comps. of course it's still possible to play skytoss, but zerg has a more intimidating midgame and you have to play more skillfully to get past it
as for pvt, i can't be as objective because my terran is probably plat level and i dislike the race, but i do think liberators gave terrans a tool they can use to clamp down with some really brutal pushes that require every specific execution to defend, much like protoss traditionally had with their allins. pvt is in a weird place right now and i agree with the chrono upgrade nerfs, so we'll see where how the matchup evolves, but like pvz it doesn't feel as easy to simply allin or create a deathball - to their credit even diamond terrans have gotten very very good at finding damage with drops and using tanks and libs for space control
i think modern protoss is more fair and less frustrating than in the past. but eventually you have to just let the whiners whine - there will always be thousands of people who just have shit attitudes and think their race is UP
Not to long ago it was innovation - SoS gsl finals and SoS was pulling out some awesome strategies vs. innovation's same marine - tank midgame push he did most of the games.
Mass oracle to defend marine tank push (lol what), double expand with a gold base and massing chargelots catching innovation off guard as soon as he left the base. He was pulling off even more some interesting stuff, some that didn't work (the blink dt build for example).
and I ended up going to the forums to see people saying ohhh it's SoS, he is playing cheesy again, protoss bullshit, ect.
My point is, I do hate the bias towards protoss when do stuff different.
strategy != bullshit is something that people still haven't learned.
How much skill playing protoss requires depends on how common Collossi are in the meta. When protoss plays a mass gateway immortal templar style it requires just as much skill as the other races.
That said I think in Lotv I've heard it much more often that Zerg is the easiest race to play. Why is this thread about Protoss?
On December 19 2017 02:20 youngjiddle wrote: Not to long ago it was innovation - SoS gsl finals and SoS was pulling out some awesome strategies vs. innovation's same marine - tank midgame push he did most of the games.
Mass oracle to defend marine tank push (lol what), double expand with a gold base and massing chargelots catching innovation off guard as soon as he left the base. He was pulling off even more some interesting stuff, some that didn't work (the blink dt build for example).
and I ended up going to the forums to see people saying ohhh it's SoS, he is playing cheesy again, protoss bullshit, ect.
My point is, I do hate the bias towards protoss when do stuff different.
strategy != bullshit is something that people still haven't learned.
I will listen to the top korean terrans who are saying TvP is a problem. thanks
On December 19 2017 01:16 nojok wrote: Warp gate is the worst idea one could have, I entirely blame most of SCII issues on it.
Warpgate was a bad idea, but SC2 has many other design flaws, on macromechanics terran mules and zerg injects and creep spread are disastrous in terms of design; in my opinion another of the failures of SC2 is the multiple building selection, and that you can put an entire army into a single control group, in fact I see quite a few zergs in the Master League that only use the F2 key and I have also seen Some GM (one that was even in GSL) constantly using the F2 key.
On December 19 2017 02:20 youngjiddle wrote: Not to long ago it was innovation - SoS gsl finals and SoS was pulling out some awesome strategies vs. innovation's same marine - tank midgame push he did most of the games.
Mass oracle to defend marine tank push (lol what), double expand with a gold base and massing chargelots catching innovation off guard as soon as he left the base. He was pulling off even more some interesting stuff, some that didn't work (the blink dt build for example).
and I ended up going to the forums to see people saying ohhh it's SoS, he is playing cheesy again, protoss bullshit, ect.
My point is, I do hate the bias towards protoss when do stuff different.
strategy != bullshit is something that people still haven't learned.
I will listen to the top korean terrans who are saying TvP is a problem. thanks
Hmm, seeing as whining is typically directed towards the victor, I'd say it's a pretty cheap price to pay for victory.
Anyhow, the larger issue is straightforward as can be. Simply put, people cheer for what they like, and a lot of people don't like Protoss. Sure it's not fair, but if you are seriously hung up on that, then I have some mindblowing news for you:
I was disappointed by the quality of the article. It's a very interesting subject, but it could have been written better. I was looking forward for good points and arguments with which I might agree or disagree, but instead I was left wondering what was the point of each paragraph, and which sentence was a joke and which wasn't.
Cool article, and for the most part I agree. Complaining about Protoss bullshit is the same as complaining about Terran target firing banes or Zerg having creep spread across the entire map imo, it's just playing to the strengths of the race.
Doesn't make it any less frustrating to play against XD
On December 19 2017 02:59 Tuczniak wrote: I was disappointed by the quality of the article. It's a very interesting subject, but it could have been written better. I was looking forward for good points and arguments with which I might agree or disagree, but instead I was left wondering what was the point of each paragraph, and which sentence was a joke and which wasn't.
My thoughts exactly.
Instead of trying to analyse why do people have this feeling when watching protoss play, the point of this bleak article is that "Yes, maybe there's some bullshit inherent to Protoss. But on the whole, Protoss isn't as bad as we make it out to be." (last sentence of said article).
Well alright but that's not why people are so annoyed or amazed at protoss play. For instance, one matter that could have been a serious topic is how people used, back in WOL, to be amazed by pro players warp prism control, and how the 6 range prism completely shattered that.
Anyway, disappointed by an article base on an interesting subject, but brings, in the end, absolutely nothing to the table.
On December 19 2017 02:59 Tuczniak wrote: I was disappointed by the quality of the article. It's a very interesting subject, but it could have been written better. I was looking forward for good points and arguments with which I might agree or disagree, but instead I was left wondering what was the point of each paragraph, and which sentence was a joke and which wasn't.
My thoughts exactly.
Instead of trying to analyse why do people have this feeling when watching protoss play, the point of this bleak article is that "Yes, maybe there's some bullshit inherent to Protoss. But on the whole, Protoss isn't as bad as we make it out to be." (last sentence of said article).
Well alright but that's not why people are so annoyed or amazed at protoss play. For instance, one matter that could have been a serious topic is how people used, back in WOL, to be amazed by pro players warp prism control, and how the 6 range prism completely shattered that.
Anyway, disappointed by an article base on an interesting subject, but brings, in the end, absolutely nothing to the table.
That's a really great review you just wrote, what have you contributed recently?
On December 19 2017 02:59 Tuczniak wrote: I was disappointed by the quality of the article. It's a very interesting subject, but it could have been written better. I was looking forward for good points and arguments with which I might agree or disagree, but instead I was left wondering what was the point of each paragraph, and which sentence was a joke and which wasn't.
My thoughts exactly.
Instead of trying to analyse why do people have this feeling when watching protoss play, the point of this bleak article is that "Yes, maybe there's some bullshit inherent to Protoss. But on the whole, Protoss isn't as bad as we make it out to be." (last sentence of said article).
Well alright but that's not why people are so annoyed or amazed at protoss play. For instance, one matter that could have been a serious topic is how people used, back in WOL, to be amazed by pro players warp prism control, and how the 6 range prism completely shattered that.
Anyway, disappointed by an article base on an interesting subject, but brings, in the end, absolutely nothing to the table.
That's a really great review you just wrote, what have you contributed recently?
Soooo I'm not "allowed" to dislike the new star wars movie because i'm not a film maker?
On December 19 2017 03:34 captainwaffles wrote: Yes, maybe there's some bullshit inherent to Protoss.
There, thats it. The article can be reduced to that one sentence.
You completely missed the point, congratz
Did he really though? Mizenhauer's article–while well-written–doesn't bring anything groundbreaking to the table. He is just defending Protoss, and while he does a pretty good job of it, I doubt that very many people will be convinced if for no other reason than the narrative of Protoss bullshit is deeply entrenched after years of attention.
Protoss does have some inherent bullshit (which is not to say that T/Z don't), and this article doesn't change that.
I really enjoyed this article. I actually almost stopped reading it after the first 4-5 paragraphs because I was getting annoyed at the tone but I'm glad I stuck through and realized it was just proving that exact point. Cards on the table, I'm a protoss player, but I definitely thought it did a nice job of delivering its point.
On December 19 2017 03:45 Velr wrote: And actually the issue is simple.
The guy that tought having warpgate as standard production should have been fired and locked away in an austrian basement since wol beta.
Protoss has a great long list of bullshit gimmicks, but warpgate is the original sin.
So long as it remains in the game, Protoss will never be able to reach a stable equilibrium. Number tweaking can bring about a temporary and tenuous balance, but nothing more.
On December 19 2017 02:59 Tuczniak wrote: I was disappointed by the quality of the article. It's a very interesting subject, but it could have been written better. I was looking forward for good points and arguments with which I might agree or disagree, but instead I was left wondering what was the point of each paragraph, and which sentence was a joke and which wasn't.
My thoughts exactly.
Instead of trying to analyse why do people have this feeling when watching protoss play, the point of this bleak article is that "Yes, maybe there's some bullshit inherent to Protoss. But on the whole, Protoss isn't as bad as we make it out to be." (last sentence of said article).
Well alright but that's not why people are so annoyed or amazed at protoss play. For instance, one matter that could have been a serious topic is how people used, back in WOL, to be amazed by pro players warp prism control, and how the 6 range prism completely shattered that.
Anyway, disappointed by an article base on an interesting subject, but brings, in the end, absolutely nothing to the table.
That's a really great review you just wrote, what have you contributed recently?
Soooo I'm not "allowed" to dislike the new star wars movie because i'm not a film maker?
Alright buddy, seems like a fair point.
Well it was your "This brings nothing to the table" bit at the very end that rubbed me the wrong way
It most certainly does, it brings a good starcraft II article to the table.
Your welcome to agree or disagree with it, but "this brings nothing to the table" is at best hypocritical and at worst just a dick comment to make
Good read, but it's not entirely clear what this article's main idea is exactly? That there are lots of prejudices and stereotypes towards Protoss? Sure, but there are not less towards other races. Most common of Terran you can hear from literally everywhere are things like "newb race" or "easy micro". For Zerg most popular is "mindless zerg rush", "no macro" which made it onto pretty much every other RTS. When player goes for specific unit spam, he's branded as "zerg rusher" immediately. It's pretty surprising to see that this article points out Toss as some sort of cheese kings, while I really doubt other two races have less cheese than Protoss. I've seen plenty from all the races by now I think. And seriously, when someone goes for cheese strat in this game, it's pretty much always some brutal all-in or trade off which if you fail, and there's no way back. So when player is losing against cheese, it's not his opponent to blame, there's always a chance to scout and prepare accordingly. When I lose to these kinds of strats, I feel myself like an idiot every single time.
Really hate those kinds of stereotypes thrown around about races. Not any kind of pro here, just average player. Fell in love with Protoss from the first time I've seen them in original SC many-many years ago. Each and every race in this game requires very specific mindset and approach to play from times immemorial. Playing as Toss is very intuitional and satisfying for me. It's micro intensive, sure, but Terran or Zerg really doesn't feel less micro intensive tbh, and even if it is, personally I can't rewire my mind to play Terran or Zerg properly, I just don't understand how to, and every single interaction feels "wrong", "inefficient", "blunt", while playing main race feels like harmonious melody. There are some players who mastered 2 races or randoms by nature, and that's phenomenal, but I'm pretty sure overwhelming majority develops affinity which is hard to kick and transfer. So branding any race with inappropriate cliches at very least cannot be taken seriously.
Toss is in the best place now and will pretty much be inline when Chrono is nerfed. The main hate against toss originates from 4gate/ cannon cheese in WOL.
I don't play toss, don't hate them. Have a strong dislike for the type of players that play them. Toss is the best race too cheese with.... thanks for the good read!
On December 19 2017 01:46 yht9657 wrote: Nothing surprising, since all people complain about other races being OP and their race being weak, it's obvious Protoss as the least represented race on ladder is the most OP race.
Its more obvious that Protoss as the least represented race on ladder is the least fun race to play.
On December 19 2017 02:59 Tuczniak wrote: I was disappointed by the quality of the article. It's a very interesting subject, but it could have been written better. I was looking forward for good points and arguments with which I might agree or disagree, but instead I was left wondering what was the point of each paragraph, and which sentence was a joke and which wasn't.
My thoughts exactly.
Instead of trying to analyse why do people have this feeling when watching protoss play, the point of this bleak article is that "Yes, maybe there's some bullshit inherent to Protoss. But on the whole, Protoss isn't as bad as we make it out to be." (last sentence of said article).
Well alright but that's not why people are so annoyed or amazed at protoss play. For instance, one matter that could have been a serious topic is how people used, back in WOL, to be amazed by pro players warp prism control, and how the 6 range prism completely shattered that.
Anyway, disappointed by an article base on an interesting subject, but brings, in the end, absolutely nothing to the table.
That's a really great review you just wrote, what have you contributed recently?
Soooo I'm not "allowed" to dislike the new star wars movie because i'm not a film maker?
Alright buddy, seems like a fair point.
Well it was your "This brings nothing to the table" bit at the very end that rubbed me the wrong way
It most certainly does, it brings a good starcraft II article to the table.
Your welcome to agree or disagree with it, but "this brings nothing to the table" is at best hypocritical and at worst just a dick comment to make
This article has a great subject, but doesn't answer it at all, and doesn't bring much to the table overall ; that's my opinion. If you don't agree with it, present some legitimate counterpoints other than "you're a dick/hypocrite for saying that" or "it rubbed me the wrong way" : but if you're particularly anal about this for no real reason, please don't try to justify it fraudulently.
For me, Protoss is the best race of this game, the most complete, and the most competitive.
You can ever cheese, play greedy, play safe, or wait for the long lategame where you can't hardly lose.
Zerg is kind a bad at cheesing, and need to nearly always go for the macro game, even after a cheese/pressure.
Terran is usually on a timer and needs to be agressive and finish the game as fast as he can at all cost.
Protoss, can play all the kind of game he wants : agressive, defensive, reactive and on a tournament where you need to surprise the other and be unpredictible, protoss is ahead at this game.
Of course, it's not invincible, and when you play the mind game you can fail very hard.
Zerg is probably the deadliest enemy of protoss because he can adapt to all the protoss strategy if he knows it's coming, then PvZ is more about poker than micro/mecanism.
On December 19 2017 02:59 Tuczniak wrote: I was disappointed by the quality of the article. It's a very interesting subject, but it could have been written better. I was looking forward for good points and arguments with which I might agree or disagree, but instead I was left wondering what was the point of each paragraph, and which sentence was a joke and which wasn't.
My thoughts exactly.
Instead of trying to analyse why do people have this feeling when watching protoss play, the point of this bleak article is that "Yes, maybe there's some bullshit inherent to Protoss. But on the whole, Protoss isn't as bad as we make it out to be." (last sentence of said article).
Well alright but that's not why people are so annoyed or amazed at protoss play. For instance, one matter that could have been a serious topic is how people used, back in WOL, to be amazed by pro players warp prism control, and how the 6 range prism completely shattered that.
Anyway, disappointed by an article base on an interesting subject, but brings, in the end, absolutely nothing to the table.
That's a really great review you just wrote, what have you contributed recently?
Soooo I'm not "allowed" to dislike the new star wars movie because i'm not a film maker?
Alright buddy, seems like a fair point.
Well it was your "This brings nothing to the table" bit at the very end that rubbed me the wrong way
It most certainly does, it brings a good starcraft II article to the table.
Your welcome to agree or disagree with it, but "this brings nothing to the table" is at best hypocritical and at worst just a dick comment to make
This article has a great subject, but doesn't answer it at all, and doesn't bring much to the table overall ; that's my opinion. If you don't agree with it, present some legitimate counterpoints other than "you're a dick/hypocrite for saying that" or "it rubbed me the wrong way" : but if you're particularly anal about this for no real reason, please don't try to justify it fraudulently.
Oh it has a great subject! that's good, glad you found it to be great!
By the way my counterpoint for why it brings something to the table is in my previous post, feel free to re-read
When I play toss myself I kinda just want to deathball, but I don't see that at all in progamers, they all have such unique styles and bring alot of flair to the race. And who really cares what happens on the ladder :p
There's so much false equivalency here, but let me just point out the obvious one that got me to react. Hellions and Adepts.
Hellions have been nerfed repeatedly since WoL. Queens have been buffed REPEATEDLY since WoL. Adepts were overpowered and deserved to be nerfed in LoTV.
You want to talk about how there's no difference between Adepts and Hellions, then let's talk about it shall we?
Hellions cannot function as a massable army unit, they are a harassment specialist only. When HoTS came out they became a unit that could also function as a damage sponge and little else.
Adepts are nimble, standard combat units that also function terrifically as a harassment unit. Hellions have nothing gimmicky in their design, they are fast, fragile, and deal minsicule damage to anything that isn't labeled "Light". Adepts are beefy, close range damage dealers that can use invulnerable hallucinations in order to move to another area or not to, a single adept can be a simultaneous threat to two locations, a single hellion cannot.
And then there's the elephant in the room. Adepts can be warped in, across the map in huge numbers. Hellions can't.
So you'll forgive me, if I call shenanigans on your implication that Adepts have been nerfed just because people hate Protoss for irrational reasons. No. Adepts have been nerfed repeatedly because they are a gimmicky unit design that was too strong for a very long time. Maybe now that they are in their current iteration people won't hate them as much, much the same way that everyone hated Blue Flame Hellions or Helbat drops for a long while before those strats got rightfully nerfed as well.
But no, I guess it's just that the community has an irrational totally unjustified reason to hate Protoss design elements. I'm sure that's a better explanation.
This brought up some valid points though. Especially the part about Protoss havng very little chance of catching back up in a macro game. Terran has mules to keep them going even if their base is sniped. Zerg can always just re-drone after larva injects. Protoss? Not really any real options but to all-in when a crucial 3rd base gets sniped.
Is the race 'gimmicky'? Sure. But that's kind of the identity of Protoss to 'outsmart' and 'trick' your opponent. Because in a straight-up macro-fest, it's hard to beat Terran with all its mules and Zerg with their macro mechanics to drone up to 60 workers.
Imagine if it was really just Terran and Zerg. It'd be very much so a scissors/paper/rock kind of situation with builds. Having Protoss in the mix with its unpredictable nature adds a twist to the otherwise monotonous game play.
I agree this article hardly offers any new or arguments. It does describe the issue pretty well, and highlights the injust treatment protoss players are getting, but I wouldn't say it's an interesting development of the debate. More like a review of the literature.
An article named after a porn site, in defense of the worst, most egregious design flaw in sc2.
Protoss was a mistake.
On a second read through I find this article even more offensive as it entirely misses the point behind the criticism of sc2 races. The fundamental building blocks of the game have been replaced by "unique identities" behind each race, which is all well and good but we're playing an rts not a moba - cool down based macro production should not exist in the game, nor should borderline 0 risk for enourmous reward abilities, which end up becoming the expected standard - such as adepts, or queen injects, or dropping 10 mules at once.
Protoss gets so much hate because it's the biggest offender, and only so much of it can be explained away by being "wily" or clever - of which it is not more clever necessarily to take advantage of the obvious implications behind certain skills. An army of adepts strolling up to a base early game and becoming invulnerable while it travels to another base (maybe, who knows these things right?) places the defender at an impossible decision - go and defend that base or this one.
Lauding this sort of decision making as clever entirely misses the point behind actual clever decisions, such as the entire drg vs innovation series, or pretty much everything life ever did, or mvp, or stephano. Which is ironically somewhat harsh on protoss, as it leaves the viewer wondering if what they saw was genuine cleverness, or just another protoss player reaching into the bag of bullshit and pulling out yet another gimmicky build. My condolences to rain, who really managed games exceptionally and will never receive the praise he deserves.
Protoss is the biggest pimple on a face that already looks like the moon.
People often forget about the weaknesses of Protoss:
1) Pylons are outright terrible (they die = your shit does not work).
2) Army splitting is the worst for Protoss out of the races. One strong Protoss army divided by two = two shit armies, each less powerful than half the original army.
3) Protoss relies on heavy units (more so than the other races) Immortals, colos, disruptors etc... that if sniped can crumble the Protoss army.
4) Army composition is the most important for Protoss. Terran bio scales efficiently into late game, Zerg can Hydra+ Zergling into late game but P must very carefully build select compositions of late game armies of at least 6-7 unit types.
5) Expanding for P is the most difficult of the races: Terran can build and float + planet, Zerg hatch is only 300 mins and easy to defend because of creep + Z unit speed. P must warp in Nexus, pylons, cannons and or batteries for a single expo most times (600-700 mins of easily snipeable buildings). This also relates to the P behind in macro issue mentioned in the article.
6) Unit abilities are extremely strong for Protoss but the precision with which they must be used to gain maximum efficacy has a gradient. Sure a good P player can hit some decent storms, forcefields, blink micro, efficient oracle tags etc but the small margin between their ability usage/ positioning and the Protoss god players represents a massive difference in damage dealt etc... This is not easily appreciated and the article by Mizen does well to elaborate this point.
7) Workers: SCVs repair shit, Drones can morph into structures to protect themselves and regen complete health, Probes pop like popcorn and have a shitty shield, true they can warp in buildings and go back to work, but of the workers they are indisputably the worst.
There are more but this is enough to highlight the point. P is strong with a great arsenal of builds, but all of them have great weaknesses.
Just a quick pointer: anything that is inherently broken would have clear indication and huge spike in statistics, such as winrate f.e. If winrates are generally float around ~40-60%, that logically mean that something may be strong, but not brokenly OP and can be successfully countered, like many different pro players do, as well as it may just indicate simple (temporary) statistical inaccuracy. There's nothing so IMBA that Protoss can pull off and always have 100% win, while certain pros have close to perfect execution skills. In all games there are always many issues with design and balance, but I don't see real big problem here in SC2 in that regard tbh.
On December 19 2017 08:35 AxiomBlurr wrote: People often forget about the weaknesses of Protoss:
1) Pylons are outright terrible (they die = your shit does not work).
2) Army splitting is the worst for Protoss out of the races. One strong Protoss army divided by two = two shit armies, each less powerful than half the original army.
3) Protoss relies on heavy units (more so than the other races) Immortals, colos, disruptors etc... that if sniped can crumble the Protoss army.
4) Army composition is the most important for Protoss. Terran bio scales efficiently into late game, Zerg can Hydra+ Zergling into late game but P must very carefully build select compositions of late game armies of at least 6-7 unit types.
5) Expanding for P is the most difficult of the races: Terran can build and float + planet, Zerg hatch is only 300 mins and easy to defend because of creep + Z unit speed. P must warp in Nexus, pylons, cannons and or batteries for a single expo most times (600-700 mins of easily snipeable buildings). This also relates to the P behind in macro issue mentioned in the article.
6) Unit abilities are extremely strong for Protoss but the precision with which they must be used to gain maximum efficacy has a gradient. Sure a good P player can hit some decent storms, forcefields, blink micro, efficient oracle tags etc but the small margin between their ability usage/ positioning and the Protoss god players represents a massive difference in damage dealt etc... This is not easily appreciated and the article by Mizen does well to elaborate this point.
7) Workers: SCVs repair shit, Drones can morph into structures to protect themselves and regen complete health, Probes pop like popcorn and have a shitty shield, true they can warp in buildings and go back to work, but of the workers they are indisputably the worst.
There are more but this is enough to highlight the point. P is strong with a great arsenal of builds, but all of them have great weaknesses.
Protosses weaknesses and strengths keep the race like a yoyo, it's either winning or being dumped on.
On December 19 2017 03:34 captainwaffles wrote: Yes, maybe there's some bullshit inherent to Protoss.
There, thats it. The article can be reduced to that one sentence.
You completely missed the point, congratz
I think he chose to ignore the point, which in fact strengthens the point of what the articles is about, which is very funny.
This^ All races have inherent bullshit, this whole article seems to me, a response to the proxy gate memes that have been making us all laugh on reddit.
There was no point to this article, every player with half a brain know all races take the same ammount of skill, everybody who said otherwise were just trolling in purpose. So people who already knew this learn nothing new and catering to trolls is like try to to empty the ocean with a glass.
At the end it seems whiny, its just a "you whine we whine now" except the person writing this is supposed to be informed and level headed.
The protoss meme has infiltrated its way into the collective and its not going to go away, but centring the attention into the 12 year olds that give importance to stuff like that serves no purpose at all.
At the end you give your best line, a contradicting line here:
"How many times has one of those builds left the audience feeling like THEY were the ones who had been mugged?"
Protoss is a complex and hard race to play, but starcraft, a game more designed for watching than for playing, don't showcase that very well. Sometimes very simple things look amazing and others really intricate actions seems easy and effortless.
THAT is the crux of protoss design, wheter you like it or not, and it is Blizzard fault, even if not for designing protoss in the way they did, for designing the game the way they did.
On December 19 2017 00:51 FilthyRake wrote: great article - as a Protoss player myself, I really enjoyed the read. It made me feel a bit better, given all the hate being spewed towards us lately.
I got the same feeling. Great read, and some honey on the wound that is all the hate coming down on the Protoss players. Nice job, Mizenhauer!
On December 19 2017 00:51 FilthyRake wrote: great article - as a Protoss player myself, I really enjoyed the read. It made me feel a bit better, given all the hate being spewed towards us lately.
I got the same feeling. Great read, and some honey on the wound that is all the hate coming down on the Protoss players. Nice job, Mizenhauer!
Personally, I would gladly trade victory for hate, but maybe that's just me......
Whining about whining always struck me as supremely petty–at least whining itself usually has some (small) kernel of a legitimate justification buried at the heart, when the meta is actually imbalanced. Whining about whining is just bitching for the sake of it.
Expecting people not to whine about losing in an imbalanced meta is just trying to have your cake and eat it too.
On December 19 2017 00:51 FilthyRake wrote: great article - as a Protoss player myself, I really enjoyed the read. It made me feel a bit better, given all the hate being spewed towards us lately.
I got the same feeling. Great read, and some honey on the wound that is all the hate coming down on the Protoss players. Nice job, Mizenhauer!
Personally, I would gladly trade victory for hate, but maybe that's just me......
Whining about whining always struck me as supremely petty–at least whining itself usually has some (small) kernel of a legitimate justification buried at the heart, when the meta is actually imbalanced. Whining about whining is just bitching for the sake of it.
Expecting people not to whine about losing in an imbalanced meta is just trying to have your cake and eat it too.
People whine about protoss regardless of the meta tho
On December 19 2017 00:51 FilthyRake wrote: great article - as a Protoss player myself, I really enjoyed the read. It made me feel a bit better, given all the hate being spewed towards us lately.
I got the same feeling. Great read, and some honey on the wound that is all the hate coming down on the Protoss players. Nice job, Mizenhauer!
Personally, I would gladly trade victory for hate, but maybe that's just me......
Whining about whining always struck me as supremely petty–at least whining itself usually has some (small) kernel of a legitimate justification buried at the heart, when the meta is actually imbalanced. Whining about whining is just bitching for the sake of it.
Expecting people not to whine about losing in an imbalanced meta is just trying to have your cake and eat it too.
People whine about protoss regardless of the meta tho
Oh of course people always whine about Protoss. And Terran and Zerg and the sky being blue. But I don't think it's all that difficult to ignore (baseless) whine when it's mostly restricted to twitch chat and the occasional bm opponent.
It's when there's actual imbalance that reddit posts spring up like weeds, aligulac winrates become trending topics, the community updates get hundreds of replies, etc, etc. The increase in frequency/intensity of whining is pretty significant.
Adept/Phoenix, I think, would be the best example in recent memory, the forums were completely on fire. Yes there was an incredible amount of whine, but an underlying issue did exist. Mass Oracle is another example.
On December 19 2017 07:59 bo1b wrote: An article named after a porn site, in defense of the worst, most egregious design flaw in sc2.
Protoss was a mistake.
On a second read through I find this article even more offensive as it entirely misses the point behind the criticism of sc2 races. The fundamental building blocks of the game have been replaced by "unique identities" behind each race, which is all well and good but we're playing an rts not a moba - cool down based macro production should not exist in the game, nor should borderline 0 risk for enourmous reward abilities, which end up becoming the expected standard - such as adepts, or queen injects, or dropping 10 mules at once.
Protoss gets so much hate because it's the biggest offender, and only so much of it can be explained away by being "wily" or clever - of which it is not more clever necessarily to take advantage of the obvious implications behind certain skills. An army of adepts strolling up to a base early game and becoming invulnerable while it travels to another base (maybe, who knows these things right?) places the defender at an impossible decision - go and defend that base or this one.
Lauding this sort of decision making as clever entirely misses the point behind actual clever decisions, such as the entire drg vs innovation series, or pretty much everything life ever did, or mvp, or stephano. Which is ironically somewhat harsh on protoss, as it leaves the viewer wondering if what they saw was genuine cleverness, or just another protoss player reaching into the bag of bullshit and pulling out yet another gimmicky build. My condolences to rain, who really managed games exceptionally and will never receive the praise he deserves.
Protoss is the biggest pimple on a face that already looks like the moon.
Wow you really tore apart that strawman, nice job! Reread these paragraphs and see how they sound nothing like what you are talking about. Nobody thinks that simply shading from one base to another is an example of clever play.
"But we’re not playing against DRG and Mvp, or more recently, soO and TY. When faced with a truly elite opponent, one can’t simply ride Protoss imbalance to victory. It takes precise execution to catch an opponent unaware. It takes the type of adepts splits that Neeb used to conquer Rogue to eke out advantages in skirmishes. It takes herO’s trademark warp-prism shenanigans to displace the defense.
Fights may look one-sided for Protoss players, but that’s because they have mastered precise micro and constant analysis of the situation. Protoss isn’t just about holding the “z” key down and painting some zealots on the map—it’s about knowing where to deploy which units for maximum efficiency. Sure, ramming as many adepts as you can down the opponent’s front door can be effective, even in a GSL final, but it’s not always so simple. Think all the way back to the summer of 2016 when Classic decided to kill the rocks on Apotheosis with dark templars, shutting out Dark’s army, giving his adepts free reign over Dark’s main and natural. By the time he cleaned it up, his fourth bases was under siege. Even the most zealous hater would have to admit Classic was more wily than despicable."
On December 19 2017 01:46 yht9657 wrote: Nothing surprising, since all people complain about other races being OP and their race being weak, it's obvious Protoss as the least represented race on ladder is the most OP race.
Its more obvious that Protoss as the least represented race on ladder is the least fun race to play.
'fun' is obviously a subjective standard, some people enjoy dirty cheese while some enjoy standard macro, it all comes down to the attitude of individual player. Saying a race is not fun to play doesn't make much sense.
On December 19 2017 12:53 bo1b wrote: Before criticizing someones reading comprehension, you might want to take a good look at your own.
I didn't criticise your reading comprehension, I criticised your strawmaning of what you read, now your reading comprehension is failing too.
Do you think that strawmans are created out of a lack of comprehension? Assume I understand exactly what was written, why would I create such a strawman if I understood the article?
On December 19 2017 12:53 bo1b wrote: Before criticizing someones reading comprehension, you might want to take a good look at your own.
I didn't criticise your reading comprehension, I criticised your strawmaning of what you read, now your reading comprehension is failing too.
Do you think that strawmans are created out of a lack of comprehension? Assume I understand exactly what was written, why would I create such a strawman if I understood the article?
Strawmen are almost always created to be torn apart, just fyi, I think that was his point.
On December 19 2017 12:53 bo1b wrote: Before criticizing someones reading comprehension, you might want to take a good look at your own.
I didn't criticise your reading comprehension, I criticised your strawmaning of what you read, now your reading comprehension is failing too.
Do you think that strawmans are created out of a lack of comprehension? Assume I understand exactly what was written, why would I create such a strawman if I understood the article?
Strawmen can be created from lack of comprehension, but more often, they are used out of bias or laziness in order to create an easier argument to argue against and make your point seem stronger than it is.
I don't know why you would create such a strawman, you seem to be trying to reduce Protoss cleverness to just gimmicky abuse, and you claim to understand both the point in criticising races and in clever decisions which apparently the writer has "entirely missed". I don't know, whatever your point was supposed to be I'm not convinced.
On December 19 2017 13:24 bo1b wrote: "Reread these paragraphs and see how they sound nothing like what you are talking about"
Does that indicate comprehension or not?
The point is to highlight the difference, you may have comprehended when you read them but are too blinded by your bias or how "offensive" the article was to make a coherent counter argument.
On December 19 2017 15:51 Fleetfeet wrote: Counterpoint :
Min Chul is the most beloved and best sc2 progamer of all time, and played protoss. If you disagree, that is because you like being wrong.
Your move.
To whom are you speaking?
Generally towards the miasma of butthurt and salt that occupies this thread.
OP was an enjoyable read that did not actually make any compelling (new) points but did not need to. People are having stupid arguments about stupid things because the internet. Rather than participate in stupid discussions, declare MC > all.
That's generally the modus operandi of protoss apologists, enter a thread declare all arguments you disagree with stupid, and then say something objectively false - Drg > all.
I just think one thing : Protos Morghulis; a good protoss is a protoss who lose, there is some protoss that I enjoyed seeing play but in general, and it's probably because of the designe, I just hate the way they win.
Never enjoyed any protoss gameplay too while as a zerg,I love terran streams. Seeing those "magnificent" timing attacks is quite frustrating, this gameplay is only about tricks, gimmicks, timings, tactical depth of zvt or tvt is absent with any mu on pro game and the late game is so freaking dull but it is nowhere near the feeling of losing to toss, blink stalker, colossus, skytoss, phoenix, there is no pleasure to see or play against this. I basically stopped the game for 1 years because of this race, I do no more than 10 games per month since then and it is quite obvious that a very large chunk of players stopped or did not even play the game because of this design. If only there was a option to not play against a particular race on ladder... The boycot could be massive.
On December 19 2017 17:29 bo1b wrote: That's generally the modus operandi of protoss apologists, enter a thread declare all arguments you disagree with stupid, and then say something objectively false - Drg > all.
I'm a zerg player, and have a screenshot somewhere of my zvp winrate being ~25% while my zvz and vt are 60%. I also got tempbanned on my previous account for balance whining about toss. I also openly hate toss.
And it is the entire argument that is stupid, not any particular part of it. I can't disagree with an entire argument taking place.
Here's a random game of MC beating DRG, just because it adds credibility to my argument.
wow, just wow, the protoss hate as a whole still exists and not only the article but the comments in this thread is great proof. really triggered some people to come out and admit it.
losing never feels good, but I think for low level players losing to strategies and micro is more frustrating than losing to being outmacroed. In this way, they hate protoss.
It's you're fault and only you're fault if you can't learn the game, the race, and the ins and outs of it. For example I was frustrated with widow mine drops until I learned the timing at which they could arrive (4:30 or whatever it's going to be earlier now) and the strategy no longer was frustrating to lose to.
Yet low level zerg players fail to scout with their overlords to see 8 gates on 2 bases super fast ect. ect. ect.
get good or whine about the race as a whole I guess is still their answer.
On December 19 2017 22:41 stilt wrote: Seeing those "magnificent" timing attacks is quite frustrating, this gameplay is only about tricks, gimmicks, timings
On December 20 2017 13:56 youngjiddle wrote: wow, just wow, the protoss hate as a whole still exists and not only the article but the comments in this thread is great proof. really triggered some people to come out and admit it.
losing never feels good, but I think for low level players losing to strategies and micro is more frustrating than losing to being outmacroed. In this way, they hate protoss.
It's you're fault and only you're fault if you can't learn the game, the race, and the ins and outs of it. For example I was frustrated with widow mine drops until I learned the timing at which they could arrive (4:30 or whatever it's going to be earlier now) and the strategy no longer was frustrating to lose to.
Yet low level zerg players fail to scout with their overlords to see 8 gates on 2 bases super fast ect. ect. ect.
get good or whine about the race as a whole I guess is still their answer.
On December 19 2017 22:41 stilt wrote: Seeing those "magnificent" timing attacks is quite frustrating, this gameplay is only about tricks, gimmicks, timings
strategy isn't a gimmick, nor is it a trick.
You're missing the point.
Mizenhauer's article isn't talking about how people losing to Protoss, or hatred of Protoss in general. It's talking about how the fans dislike watching Protoss play, specifically how they dislike watching professionals win with Protoss.
How many times has one of those builds left the audience feeling like THEY were the ones who had been mugged?
This line is obviously not referring to ladder losses, but rather community disgust towards Protoss bullshit at the highest levels of competitive SC2. Same goes for the rest of the article.
You're just attacking a strawman of "lol everyone who disagrees is a noob and needs to get good," and come off as a Protoss apologist (deliberately or not I will not speculate).
Now it's certainly possible, even probable, that the hostile comments and such are from people who hate Protoss as a result of losing on ladder........but that's an unproven (and unprovable) assumption. Characterizing them all as such without a shred of proof is the very definition of a strawman.
And I believe the popular term for Protoss "strategy" would be "bullshit." Why that term is popular at all is the real question here.
Remember that one time that Scarlett won against DRG using protoss? Or that one time she put so many stasis ward on the map that I thought sc2 would crash, because the bs level was so high.
You never see someone saying to a terran: when behind, ghost academy or banshee Or to a zerg: when behind, burrowed infestor or roach... But protoss? When behind, Dark shrine. Don`t know how many times it saved protoss players life. The only unit I don`t rage is the zealot, because he is like a cool warrior. Every other protoss unit almost gave me heart attack of stress sometime between those 7 years of sc2, chrono boost and warp in mechanic, photon overcharge, MSC and proxy pylon shenanigans (I`m looking at you, cliff of shakuras plateau) included.
On December 20 2017 16:27 CharAznable2 wrote: Remember that one time that Scarlett won against DRG using protoss? Or that one time she put so many stasis ward on the map that I thought sc2 would crash, because the bs level was so high.
You never see someone saying to a terran: when behind, ghost academy or banshee Or to a zerg: when behind, burrowed infestor or roach... But protoss? When behind, Dark shrine. Don`t know how many times it saved protoss players life. The only unit I don`t rage is the zealot, because he is like a cool warrior. Every other protoss unit almost gave me heart attack of stress sometime between those 7 years of sc2, chrono boost and warp in mechanic, photon overcharge, MSC and proxy pylon shenanigans (I`m looking at you, cliff of shakuras plateau) included.
Are you seriously blaming Protoss for having a way of coming back from behind in a lost game ? Terrans have literally been winning lost games since forever with mules. This is the worst thing about Protoss you could have complained about, congratz !
On December 20 2017 13:56 youngjiddle wrote: wow, just wow, the protoss hate as a whole still exists and not only the article but the comments in this thread is great proof. really triggered some people to come out and admit it.
losing never feels good, but I think for low level players losing to strategies and micro is more frustrating than losing to being outmacroed. In this way, they hate protoss.
It's you're fault and only you're fault if you can't learn the game, the race, and the ins and outs of it. For example I was frustrated with widow mine drops until I learned the timing at which they could arrive (4:30 or whatever it's going to be earlier now) and the strategy no longer was frustrating to lose to.
Yet low level zerg players fail to scout with their overlords to see 8 gates on 2 bases super fast ect. ect. ect.
get good or whine about the race as a whole I guess is still their answer.
On December 19 2017 22:41 stilt wrote: Seeing those "magnificent" timing attacks is quite frustrating, this gameplay is only about tricks, gimmicks, timings
strategy isn't a gimmick, nor is it a trick.
You're missing the point.
Mizenhauer's article isn't talking about how people losing to Protoss, or hatred of Protoss in general. It's talking about how the fans dislike watching Protoss play, specifically how they dislike watching professionals win with Protoss.
How many times has one of those builds left the audience feeling like THEY were the ones who had been mugged?
This line is obviously not referring to ladder losses, but rather community disgust towards Protoss bullshit at the highest levels of competitive SC2. Same goes for the rest of the article.
You're just attacking a strawman of "lol everyone who disagrees is a noob and needs to get good," and come off as a Protoss apologist (deliberately or not I will not speculate).
Now it's certainly possible, even probable, that the hostile comments and such are from people who hate Protoss as a result of losing on ladder........but that's an unproven (and unprovable) assumption. Characterizing them all as such without a shred of proof is the very definition of a strawman.
And I believe the popular term for Protoss "strategy" would be "bullshit." Why that term is popular at all is the real question here.
This won't turn into a discussion because I'm not interested in having one, but I don't exactly appreciate it when someone tells another person what my article is about when they are just plain wrong.
The point of this article was to point out that the lack of understanding as to how playing Protoss brings a unique set of challenges that make the race difficult and rewarding to play as well as how the traits inherent to Protoss make the race interesting to watch at a professional level.
The reason I illustrated this with professional games is because it created a far better article then me lecturing readers while referencing "that one ladder game I played where the Protoss..." This way everyone can relate to the examples and remember how they felt when watching these games/moments and hopefully look at them in a different light having read the article.
I dislike skytoss and blink/immortal/high templar from the end of HotS as much as anyone, but the tldr of the article is that it's a mixed bag and it's worth it to take the good with the bad because Protoss isn't as bad as we all think.
On December 20 2017 16:27 CharAznable2 wrote: Remember that one time that Scarlett won against DRG using protoss? Or that one time she put so many stasis ward on the map that I thought sc2 would crash, because the bs level was so high.
You never see someone saying to a terran: when behind, ghost academy or banshee Or to a zerg: when behind, burrowed infestor or roach... But protoss? When behind, Dark shrine. Don`t know how many times it saved protoss players life. The only unit I don`t rage is the zealot, because he is like a cool warrior. Every other protoss unit almost gave me heart attack of stress sometime between those 7 years of sc2, chrono boost and warp in mechanic, photon overcharge, MSC and proxy pylon shenanigans (I`m looking at you, cliff of shakuras plateau) included.
Are you seriously blaming Protoss for having a way of coming back from behind in a lost game ? Terrans have literally been winning lost games since forever with mules. This is the worst thing about Protoss you could have complained about, congratz !
it's 2017 and some people still don't understand how Mules work..
On December 20 2017 13:56 youngjiddle wrote: wow, just wow, the protoss hate as a whole still exists and not only the article but the comments in this thread is great proof. really triggered some people to come out and admit it.
losing never feels good, but I think for low level players losing to strategies and micro is more frustrating than losing to being outmacroed. In this way, they hate protoss.
It's you're fault and only you're fault if you can't learn the game, the race, and the ins and outs of it. For example I was frustrated with widow mine drops until I learned the timing at which they could arrive (4:30 or whatever it's going to be earlier now) and the strategy no longer was frustrating to lose to.
Yet low level zerg players fail to scout with their overlords to see 8 gates on 2 bases super fast ect. ect. ect.
get good or whine about the race as a whole I guess is still their answer.
On December 19 2017 22:41 stilt wrote: Seeing those "magnificent" timing attacks is quite frustrating, this gameplay is only about tricks, gimmicks, timings
strategy isn't a gimmick, nor is it a trick.
You're missing the point.
Mizenhauer's article isn't talking about how people losing to Protoss, or hatred of Protoss in general. It's talking about how the fans dislike watching Protoss play, specifically how they dislike watching professionals win with Protoss.
How many times has one of those builds left the audience feeling like THEY were the ones who had been mugged?
This line is obviously not referring to ladder losses, but rather community disgust towards Protoss bullshit at the highest levels of competitive SC2. Same goes for the rest of the article.
You're just attacking a strawman of "lol everyone who disagrees is a noob and needs to get good," and come off as a Protoss apologist (deliberately or not I will not speculate).
Now it's certainly possible, even probable, that the hostile comments and such are from people who hate Protoss as a result of losing on ladder........but that's an unproven (and unprovable) assumption. Characterizing them all as such without a shred of proof is the very definition of a strawman.
And I believe the popular term for Protoss "strategy" would be "bullshit." Why that term is popular at all is the real question here.
This won't turn into a discussion because I'm not interested in having one, but I don't exactly appreciate it when someone tells another person what my article is about when they are just plain wrong.
The point of this article was to point out that the lack of understanding as to how playing Protoss brings a unique set of challenges that make the race difficult and rewarding to play as well as how the traits inherent to Protoss make the race interesting to watch at a professional level.
The reason I illustrated this with professional games is because it created a far better article then me lecturing readers while referencing "that one ladder game I played where the Protoss..." This way everyone can relate to the examples and remember how they felt when watching these games/moments and hopefully look at them in a different light having read the article.
I dislike skytoss and blink/immortal/high templar from the end of HotS as much as anyone, but the tldr of the article is that it's a mixed bag and it's worth it to take the good with the bad because Protoss isn't as bad as we all think.
On December 20 2017 16:27 CharAznable2 wrote: Remember that one time that Scarlett won against DRG using protoss? Or that one time she put so many stasis ward on the map that I thought sc2 would crash, because the bs level was so high.
You never see someone saying to a terran: when behind, ghost academy or banshee Or to a zerg: when behind, burrowed infestor or roach... But protoss? When behind, Dark shrine. Don`t know how many times it saved protoss players life. The only unit I don`t rage is the zealot, because he is like a cool warrior. Every other protoss unit almost gave me heart attack of stress sometime between those 7 years of sc2, chrono boost and warp in mechanic, photon overcharge, MSC and proxy pylon shenanigans (I`m looking at you, cliff of shakuras plateau) included.
Are you seriously blaming Protoss for having a way of coming back from behind in a lost game ? Terrans have literally been winning lost games since forever with mules. This is the worst thing about Protoss you could have complained about, congratz !
Im blaming how effective a last second dark shrine effect can have in comparison to a cloaked banshee or ghost that run out of energy or zerg units that need to unburrow to attack. Mules or idle larva are macro mechanics that can have a comeback effect, protoss had for 5 years a good chrono boost that could remake their probes too. It seems people forget about that fact.
What I am saying is protoss was balanced around bs spells and mechanics that gave rage to protoss players and protoss opponents alike. Nothing wrong to say that.
This simple graph says it all: http://aligulac.com/misc/balance/. There is no massive imbalance in the game. If one race is slightly OP all the time it might be Zerg. PvZ was almost all the years significantly below 50 %.
On December 20 2017 14:55 pvsnp wrote: This line is obviously not referring to ladder losses, but rather community disgust towards Protoss bullshit at the highest levels of competitive SC2. Same goes for the rest of the article.
You're just attacking a strawman of "lol everyone who disagrees is a noob and needs to get good," and come off as a Protoss apologist (deliberately or not I will not speculate).
Now it's certainly possible, even probable, that the hostile comments and such are from people who hate Protoss as a result of losing on ladder........but that's an unproven (and unprovable) assumption. Characterizing them all as such without a shred of proof is the very definition of a strawman.
And I believe the popular term for Protoss "strategy" would be "bullshit." Why that term is popular at all is the real question here.
no, rts fans don't call it bullshit, and you should grow up and stop calling it bullshit like a child.
I disagree with the idea of there even being a "Protoss apologist". You shouldn't have to apologize for playing one of the games main races, fuck off tbh.
On December 20 2017 13:56 youngjiddle wrote: wow, just wow, the protoss hate as a whole still exists and not only the article but the comments in this thread is great proof. really triggered some people to come out and admit it.
losing never feels good, but I think for low level players losing to strategies and micro is more frustrating than losing to being outmacroed. In this way, they hate protoss.
It's you're fault and only you're fault if you can't learn the game, the race, and the ins and outs of it. For example I was frustrated with widow mine drops until I learned the timing at which they could arrive (4:30 or whatever it's going to be earlier now) and the strategy no longer was frustrating to lose to.
Yet low level zerg players fail to scout with their overlords to see 8 gates on 2 bases super fast ect. ect. ect.
get good or whine about the race as a whole I guess is still their answer.
On December 19 2017 22:41 stilt wrote: Seeing those "magnificent" timing attacks is quite frustrating, this gameplay is only about tricks, gimmicks, timings
strategy isn't a gimmick, nor is it a trick.
You're missing the point.
Mizenhauer's article isn't talking about how people losing to Protoss, or hatred of Protoss in general. It's talking about how the fans dislike watching Protoss play, specifically how they dislike watching professionals win with Protoss.
How many times has one of those builds left the audience feeling like THEY were the ones who had been mugged?
This line is obviously not referring to ladder losses, but rather community disgust towards Protoss bullshit at the highest levels of competitive SC2. Same goes for the rest of the article.
You're just attacking a strawman of "lol everyone who disagrees is a noob and needs to get good," and come off as a Protoss apologist (deliberately or not I will not speculate).
Now it's certainly possible, even probable, that the hostile comments and such are from people who hate Protoss as a result of losing on ladder........but that's an unproven (and unprovable) assumption. Characterizing them all as such without a shred of proof is the very definition of a strawman.
And I believe the popular term for Protoss "strategy" would be "bullshit." Why that term is popular at all is the real question here.
This won't turn into a discussion because I'm not interested in having one, but I don't exactly appreciate it when someone tells another person what my article is about when they are just plain wrong.
The point of this article was to point out that the lack of understanding as to how playing Protoss brings a unique set of challenges that make the race difficult and rewarding to play as well as how the traits inherent to Protoss make the race interesting to watch at a professional level.
The reason I illustrated this with professional games is because it created a far better article then me lecturing readers while referencing "that one ladder game I played where the Protoss..." This way everyone can relate to the examples and remember how they felt when watching these games/moments and hopefully look at them in a different light having read the article.
I dislike skytoss and blink/immortal/high templar from the end of HotS as much as anyone, but the tldr of the article is that it's a mixed bag and it's worth it to take the good with the bad because Protoss isn't as bad as we all think.
thanks Mizenhauer, you're my heart shaker, shaker.
Some of this can actually be blamed on the terrans and zergs. Some of the "protoss bullshit" over the years has been things the other races could counter by playing safer. But they often feel entitled to playing a greedier build than they really should. They choose to play as greedy as possible and try to figure out the absolute minimum amount of defense necessary to survive with perfect play, and then they frequently don't have perfect play and they just lose. This isn't true of every protoss strategy. Some of them the other races are trying to hard counter from the start and it's still hard for them, but at least it's often fair, even if the games are unsatisfying. Like the article says, people forget how difficult it is for protoss and how perfectly they must play, and so they continually think of protoss success as the expected outcome, because XYZ protoss builds are bullshit, and they continually think of terran/zerg successful defense as exceptional victories. But the truth is both players are equally on the knife's edge and the win rates are there to prove it. Only a few individual players have risen above and they should get credit as individuals.
Anyway, getting back to my point, if terrans and zergs weren't always seeking out the perfect defense, which either means an instant loss if done incorrectly or a virtual free win if done correctly, then there would have been periods of more normal ZvP and TvP games, going into mid or late game with only a slight advantage for one player, and plenty of opportunity for each player to outplay the other in a more complete game.
Zergs especially have this idea of building every drone they possibly can, losing repeatedly because of too many drones, until they feel like they've determined the number of drones they're entitled to get. And if they lose with that many drones, they stop adjusting drone numbers but rather blame some imperfection in their play. They're not interested in styles that increase survival rates if it means they don't get a virtual free win after they repel the protoss bullshit.
Imho protoss doesn't fit well the actual lotv mechanics. Eco boost, new units and new mechanics made terrans and zergs way more similiar to each other: solid core of units (read cheap all-round good units) and units that add something powerful to the composition. Protoss is still old "rush-to-high-tier units" style like on wol and hots that were good since in early game on hots there was not so much aggression (or just protoss had good defensive options - FFE good times). Now protoss has to rely on gateway units to hold aggressive opening (boosted by new eco that helps especially cheap and fast mineral units - rines- lings) and to gain control of the game peace, with lots of subsequent problems. You buff a gate units and it changes heavy the early game, especially because terrans and zergs styles changes dramatically accordinly (protoss op hysteria).
So protoss are forced to run to high tier units, face overwhelming unit production from other races, need to outsmart or outmicro opponent to gain best benefit from poor designed gateway units in order to still run to storms, colossus, carriers.
An heavy redesign is still needed, but at concept level not at unit level. Protoss has to stop being the race with "less but powerful units" and being the race with another kind of identity that suits more the current game and the new peace.
On December 20 2017 14:55 pvsnp wrote: This line is obviously not referring to ladder losses, but rather community disgust towards Protoss bullshit at the highest levels of competitive SC2. Same goes for the rest of the article.
You're just attacking a strawman of "lol everyone who disagrees is a noob and needs to get good," and come off as a Protoss apologist (deliberately or not I will not speculate).
Now it's certainly possible, even probable, that the hostile comments and such are from people who hate Protoss as a result of losing on ladder........but that's an unproven (and unprovable) assumption. Characterizing them all as such without a shred of proof is the very definition of a strawman.
And I believe the popular term for Protoss "strategy" would be "bullshit." Why that term is popular at all is the real question here.
fuck off tbh
Your eloquence moves me. Truly moves me. The beauty, the intelligence, the sophistication.....
In my oppinion there are different kinds of skill, and the races just need different sets of abilities from players.
If repetetive and precise macro is your strength - and creating build orders & playing scrappy game is your weakness, you should play zerg.
If high APM in fights - micro & macro when it counts is your strength, and you like strong and agressive playstyles in the early to midgame - then Terran will perform well.
If you play reactively, know army compositions well and can devise strategies on the fly & thrive in a scrappy game - then protoss will do well.
What Mizen is saying in this article, if you actually read it, is that poetry from the second half of the 18th century is still incomplete. Also, I read his mind the other day, and he likes chocolate.
Good read, I liked the quotes and some of the examples but when it comes down to it, SC2 is just an unforgiving and brutal game for all match-ups, full stop. In my opinion, there are too many decisive check-mate or crippling moves that all sides can inflict on each other.
Didn't scout it coming? massive worker losses/ded Out of position? " " " " Not looking or slow reaction? " " " "
All races have the ability to annihilate worker lines for about 400-600 resources invested. Losing 16 workers in 10 seconds before the 8 minute mark is always going to be a pretty tough if your opponent doesn't make a significant fuck up or two. Yes we all whine but despite all this, Protoss does seem gets the most hate.
I think the main reason for this (aside from racist xenophobia ) is because of how the stantard protoss early/mid game aggression + harass mechanics play out and how they make you feel. It has nothing to with balance or being OP but rather the helpless sensation that results when P R O T O S S E D happens to you. For me personally, P > T > Z when it comes to each respective races ability to make me call BS. I also feel this way a lot when a ball of stimmed bio army shreds my ling/bling/queens while I'm waiting for hydras to come out.
Much of this stems from the warp-in mechanic but it's not pylon warp-ins themselves anymore, it's that pesky prism which is so fast, with it's super quick warp-in mechanic + ranged pick-up. If you're not there to shoo away the prism on the edge of your base, 8 zealots/adepts in your mineral line +/- a frontal attack.
In addition, having your army force-fielded then blinked on when you try to pick-up or whittled down while waiting for a ravager bile to clear them feels awful coz (before massive units are out) you can only counter it prior to it happening and once it's happened the counter play is not that effective (compared to say queens/spores vs. liberators. or splitting vs. banelines) I'm not saying the mechanics take don't take skill - Watching Parting execute his god tier soul-filled forcefields was breathtaking + effectively controlling large armies with multipe abilities/spell castors is also impressive.
Ultimately I think the bullshit feeling comes when Protoss catches you on the back foot, even ever so slightly. Be it a warp-prism in the mane, blink stalker attack, shade on top of your army + phoenix pick-up or oracles flying into your mineral line. Your army gets shredded and prism warp-ins make it very hard to re-take the initiative and once they're in, you feel like there's nothing you can do. ergo people call protoss bullshit.
In versions gone by, much of strength of protoss was offset (probably too much so in the early game) by the weakness of gateway units and the high cost + specialized nature of their tech. in WoL/HoTS you couldn't afford to get twilight and robo within 20s of each other, meaning you exposed yourself in other ways, to cloak for example. With LoTV econ, this exposure is greatly reduced. I've seen players open stargate, get twilight + dt shrine a robo + prism then drop a third and even if the DTs do minimal damage, P still transitions with at only a slight disadvantage and sometimes a worker lead. Compare this to a zerg who opts to go for units instead of drones, if you don't do damage the counter-attack can be crippling. Same goes for a 2-base terran push that fails to damage the economy or kill a base. I've played games in all of these situations, and I think you are a lot more behind as Z/T. Granted the situation was made worse by photon overcharge (see Zest's early LoTV games going up to 3 bases/8 gates/Twilight/Robo colossus/double forge off like 3-4 gateway units).
I agree with the sentiment that protoss needs to be respected and that many players are simply too greedy sometimes. This 1A sentiment is boring and old, I've missed a crucial forcefield, feedback, widow mine pickup enough times to know much of their strength rests on a knife edge. However, with the current patch at least in TvP at the moment, two base/5 rax Terrans with stim/+1/cs are being slaughtered by chargelot/blink/prism comps with no upgrades. This is not T being caught out on the map mind you, but with all units sitting at home behind a bunker. For me, it breaks the basic RTS concept that if you choose to invest in an extra bases/workers you shouldn't also be able to have the stronger army (at least until your econ advantage has kicked). For any race to be able to move out on three bases and kill you while you're defending on two bases with better tech and a larger army is not how RTS should work (with the exceptions of zerg needing an extra base by design and if you fuck up of course). Did you ever see a terran go fast 3 cc then move out and kill a two-base protoss with upgrades and tech in the early midgame?
Watching Maru vs. herO and Zest vs. TY IEM PyeongChang quals today, I became surer of this opinion. See game 2 of Maru vs. herO on Odessey especially. herO gets up three bases, a 15 worker advantage, then with un-upgraded blink, charge and a prism, proceeds to dismantle Maru who is on two bases with superior tech and upgrades. Yes, you can argue T should have built bunkers/turrets to survive but when you're already a base down and 15 workers should you really be investing in defensive structures? P will have their 4th up while you're building your third, chrono out double upgrades and head into their deadly endgame tech.
This meta needs time to settle and I don't think any further changes should be made yet. This isn't the place for design/balance suggestions but I think most of the Protoss BS arsenal is in a good state (oracles and adepts are in a better spot IMO and shield batteries are effective early game but not large armies) the main exceptions are the strength of the warp-prism and blink stalkers. I think to give the prism a 1-1.5s delay in transitioning in and out of pylon mode would be worth testing (think siege tank/liberator siege time) and possibly looking at either the cost of blink / its cooldown or its travel range would be good ways of avoiding a nerf to stalker damage because it's just too easy to burst things down and get away atm.
On December 18 2017 23:57 ihatevideogames wrote: The fact that this article even exists shows there's a serious issue with the race's design in the first place.
Careful captain obvious, every time I mentioned a flaw in Protoss design, although being so clearly visible its basically saying IN YOUR FACE - i was warned or banned. After years of trying to cope with toss I just concluded this is the way protoss is designed and then this game design doesn't fit what I expected of that game. So I quit playing SC2 MP. Since English isnt my native language, I had always trouble expressing my frustration without sounding biased. I played all 3 races from 2012 on, all macro games and diamond league. I hate cheese. But all these years 2012-2016 it was kinda obvious from a player and a viewer perspective, that protoss was DESIGNED to be gimmicky and therefore an annoyance to other players. It is designed to be "mean" or sometimes "unfair", since its execution is in some strategies way more easy then the scouting or defending. I pointed out many strategies that players can execute with 50 apm and no skill and still win, cause they hide something somewhere and surprise you. The amount of games I lost, although trying to be map aware, scout, micro/macro my heart out at 150+ APM (without spam clicking, at least that were the numbers what SC2 gears/sceleigh told me those days)... it was just frustrating. Thousands of hours put into a game, because whenever I complained here, I got tips like "you need to do this or that to prevent that", so I tried, I learned and I also learned Protoss players will find another loophole just to pull off another dirty game. The title suggests we need to understand something. No we really dont. There are players who are actually good at this game and players who are not. Those who are not will try to avoid the meta and a "fair" macro game and because of the game design and more "cheese" or "Bullsht" avaliable to protoss, those players will flee more to Protoss then to other races.
What if Protoss was designed more like the crybaby in me wanted? I guess those players would have switched... either races (then the game experience wouln't change at all, it would just become less predictable with other races) or the game (to an easier one).
Also in all those years playing Starcraft 2 from Bronze to Diamond (well I was even masters at some point, but only because I tried to prove that with BS tactics you can get to masters EZPZ... i won't mention the race I tried that with ;-) ) I did another fun research. At the game start I always asked something like "hey gl hf mate!"... and after a couple of seconds "may I ask where u from". And then I wrote down which country has which preferred strategy. You may think that is silly, but there are specific race choices (correlations that is) for each country in each level (gold, plat, dia) and then there are also strategy choices. So if you wanna be mean, I had a little advantage in some games.
So if we talk about Protoss... or bullshit... be aware that one of the most interesting correlations is with french and russian players. French usually play zerg or toss, not many play terran. Russians play all races across, mostly toss. IF you ever stumble accross a russian protoss... be aware of the cheese incoming. I couldnt believe it but out of over 1200 games I played against a player that said he is russian and was protoss, I actually only managed to play only 2 games that were pure macro based and didn't have any BS involved.
There are reasons that this game isn't popular anymore. BS is one thing, not only Protoss BS but mostly I guess. The other thing is its being too complex for the current player generation. If you look at other games they are getting "consolized" left and right. And one other thing is it being way too volatile. Games you ought to win you lose in a second because of one little mistake, although you ganed your advantage 15 minutes long through little mistakese the opponent made and in the end you get rewarded by being protossed or whatever the terms are for the other races. But isnt that the case in every strategy game?
I recently started enjoying watchin SC:BW again. If you look at the battles, the game itself. The macro... Nothing there is volatile, everything seems skillbased. Noone loses a whole game because of a "single misclick" (which it usually isn't but it feels like it). The damage output is higher in some units, yet the battle needs much more control in many ways to actually win. Strategic positioning is more important and controls a map, not totally irrelevant like in sc2. Where you can set up tanks or whatever and still the opponent can walk over you in seconds if its the wrong race...
So... if we ban protoss does that mean we have to ban specific strategies... or nations... or leave the game be and conclude "well its the way the game is designed... we either deal with it (and that players (not judging their character here) or we move on to another game"
To me the combination of a wide variety of deadly cheeses (from cannon rushes at the lower skill bracket that you didnt scout to technical all ins later on) that you can easily miss or just the cheesu openings that randomly kill you(dts and oracles) combined with tge fact that their lategame is just unbeatable sometimes makes them the worst race to play against imo.
For every cheese you lose to, you probably hold and beat a cheese, from every time protoss wins because they randomly went super greedy you beat a protoss, for every lategame loss you might win easily in the midgame. All those losses just end up feeling terrible regardless.
See game 2 of Maru vs. herO on Odessey especially. herO gets up three bases, a 15 worker advantage, then with un-upgraded blink, charge and a prism, proceeds to dismantle Maru who is on two bases with superior tech and upgrades. Yes, you can argue T should have built bunkers/turrets to survive but when you're already a base down and 15 workers should you really be investing in defensive structures?
At first it seemed like protoss had builds that could survive anything, and also scout and counter, and ultimately put the protoss in an advantageous situation if no mistakes were made. But now protoss has to guess twice: once in the early game (up to about 4:30-5:00) and then again after terran has shown their early game hand (after 4:30-5:00).
You chose a game where herO essentially guessed right or got lucky on both of those occasions and also where he executed his build better (so maybe he deserves to win anyway). He happened to play the early game as greedy as possible while minimizing the damage a 2 widow mine drop could do. He also killed the medivac, which gives his stalkers a chance to walk across the map and gain some info by pressuring terran's front door.
Meanwhile I'm not even sure that Maru did his build correctly. He's cutting scv's well before he's saturated which then makes him weaker at a timing that matters. He rushed to 5rax with reactor factory and reactor starport but he can't afford to use every building. herO does his build well.
And then how does herO "dismantle" Maru? Nothing that was in herO's control. He gets lucky that a group of MMM had left just before his moment of attack. With those units out of position and with Maru's bad splits, terran can't defend. Watch the second time the prism comes in, how deep it goes in and how long it stays there exposed, long enough to do a warp-in. Just a small group of marines would deny that and have a chance of killing it if they were in the correct position. Of course, he was probably already losing because 12 SCV's had died at his natural, which was easy because those MMM had just left.
Why does Maru send out the MMM? Lack of scouting opportunities leading to rock-paper-scissors scenarios. It's not an issue of balance unless one race can consistently scout while the other can't. This used to seem to be the case in PvT but now terrans do builds that punish protoss who rush to observers. herO can't build as many stalkers, get blink so fast, build as many probes and get a 3rd as fast, if he wants to get an observer in time to scout the terran and choose a counter-build by 5:00-5:30. So herO is already committing to a low-gas, no research no tech surge of basic units before he knows what the terran is doing. And that can be countered by terran. A lot of the PvT's from this IEM qualifier consist of the protoss blind countering the terran at this point in the game.
Anyway Maru saw that the stalkers weren't in position to punish MMM harass so he sent the MMM out, but he didn't anticipate a warp prism about to come in with 8gate chargelots behind it. If Maru had been executing a 2 base power build a little better and had not taken this risk, he actually would've had a great fighting chance despite a really poor opening. His +1 MM and mines would have mowed down endless zealot/stalker that have no upgrades and no sentries supporting them. He just needed to not be caught out of position, especially not at the exact moment he did get caught out of position, because that was when herO was most powerful relative to Maru (when the 8gate and charge just finished and the warp prism got across the map).
Imo Protoss attracts a lot of hate because of their inherent design. Zerg and Terra both have different speed upgrades that allow them to contest mapcontrol in different ways and to go blow for blow without ending the game. Toss on the other hand is always slow and in risk of loosing their entire force after the initial speed upgrades hit. They can't just lift off half their force or just retreat with their fast units. So there's very little stimulus to split up the Protoss force and instead P players concentrate on timings when their full army is stronger.
Which results in all-ins and turtle into lategame. Which is very asymmetrical and not very interactive. So it isn't really fun.
Blizz definitely worked on this, they delayed WG, buffed prism and gateway, nerfed tech introduced mass recall and new harass options, but it's softened up, not gone.
On December 24 2017 04:30 Noonius wrote: there's more salt in this thread than in the Dead Sea, and it's beautiful
I love that that salt the game produced because of some "interesting" design decisions is basically what made the game almost irrelevant in todays esport-scene
Most people just meme, if something becomes a meme in the sc2 community they just regurgitate it endlessly no matter what changes. Protoss OP being one of those things.
Why does Maru send out the MMM? Lack of scouting opportunities leading to rock-paper-scissors scenarios. It's not an issue of balance unless one race can consistently scout while the other can't. This used to seem to be the case in PvT but now terrans do builds that punish protoss who rush to observers. herO can't build as many stalkers, get blink so fast, build as many probes and get a 3rd as fast, if he wants to get an observer in time to scout the terran and choose a counter-build by 5:00-5:30. So herO is already committing to a low-gas, no research no tech surge of basic units before he knows what the terran is doing. And that can be countered by terran. A lot of the PvT's from this IEM qualifier consist of the protoss blind countering the terran at this point in the game.
Anyway Maru saw that the stalkers weren't in position to punish MMM harass so he sent the MMM out, but he didn't anticipate a warp prism about to come in with 8gate chargelots behind it. If Maru had been executing a 2 base power build a little better and had not taken this risk, he actually would've had a great fighting chance despite a really poor opening. His +1 MM and mines would have mowed down endless zealot/stalker that have no upgrades and no sentries supporting them. He just needed to not be caught out of position, especially not at the exact moment he did get caught out of position, because that was when herO was most powerful relative to Maru (when the 8gate and charge just finished and the warp prism got across the map).
Thanks very much for taking the time to share your insights. Things will settle as T adapts but the whining will continue. Just letting my Maru fanboydom bias me. Would it be wrong to say that herO's timing attacks are probably the sharpest in the business these days? Makes me harken back and reminisce about MC murdering nerds with those 2 base gateway attacks of his, bouncing in his chair all the while
On December 24 2017 17:24 Heartland wrote: Most people just meme, if something becomes a meme in the sc2 community they just regurgitate it endlessly no matter what changes. Protoss OP being one of those things.
It's not about the strength, it's about what the strengths are
On December 24 2017 17:24 Heartland wrote: Most people just meme, if something becomes a meme in the sc2 community they just regurgitate it endlessly no matter what changes. Protoss OP being one of those things.
Yes it's just a meme, everything is fine since the patch.
On December 24 2017 17:24 Heartland wrote: Most people just meme, if something becomes a meme in the sc2 community they just regurgitate it endlessly no matter what changes. Protoss OP being one of those things.
Yes it's just a meme, everything is fine since the patch.
On December 24 2017 17:24 Heartland wrote: Most people just meme, if something becomes a meme in the sc2 community they just regurgitate it endlessly no matter what changes. Protoss OP being one of those things.
Good article. I never really understood the cries of protoss imbalance to be honest, apart from when blink stalkers were so good back in late 2014ish I think. I think it's more boring as a viewer to watch the same builds over and over, and protoss has the most builds. If something should be redesigned, it should be the other two races so they have the build and strategy diversity of protoss.
On December 25 2017 08:30 zealotstim wrote: Good article. I never really understood the cries of protoss imbalance to be honest, apart from when blink stalkers were so good back in late 2014ish I think. I think it's more boring as a viewer to watch the same builds over and over, and protoss has the most builds. If something should be redesigned, it should be the other two races so they have the build and strategy diversity of protoss.
And even back then it was mostly about stupid MSC with Mothership vision(what can go wrong? ), bad map pool and idiotict time warp(unless I'm confused about years )
I just lost a TvT, a proxy reaper, it's in this kind of bullshit when you see clearly that this game is a disaster in terms of design. It is not fun because it is impossible to overcome a situation like this and it is unfair because this can be done by a player with much less skill than you. The macro of SC2 is too easy, the problem is not only Protoss, the three races stink in this game. I'm done with this game, unfortunately there are not many alternatives in the RTS games.
On December 28 2017 01:59 Hannibaal wrote: I just lost a TvT, a proxy reaper, it's in this kind of bullshit when you see clearly that this game is a disaster in terms of design. It is not fun because it is impossible to overcome a situation like this and it is unfair because this can be done by a player with much less skill than you. The macro of SC2 is too easy, the problem is not only Protoss, the three races stink in this game. I'm done with this game, unfortunately there are not many alternatives in the RTS games.
How do you lose to proxy reaper without making a big mistake yourself?
On December 28 2017 01:59 Hannibaal wrote: I just lost a TvT, a proxy reaper, it's in this kind of bullshit when you see clearly that this game is a disaster in terms of design. It is not fun because it is impossible to overcome a situation like this and it is unfair because this can be done by a player with much less skill than you. The macro of SC2 is too easy, the problem is not only Protoss, the three races stink in this game. I'm done with this game, unfortunately there are not many alternatives in the RTS games.
How do you lose to proxy reaper without making a big mistake yourself?
You blame the game, the enemy, the lags, the balance team, the design team, the weather, the weatherwoman form Mexico and mexican staring frog from southern sri lanka
I really like the style of writting, mixing real fact or opinions with funny stuff.
I agree overall with the point the writter is making. I would have liked figures of majors tournaments wins overall to show race power over time and games expansion.
EPT
by mizenhauer![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/bird_blue_16.png)
- Mizenhauer
![[image loading]](http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/de/ded3f431954bceffa67ed3526470213d9a0fe5f6bbec8da4949902dd4d38ae54.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Cuowd1W.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/TXxQbyh.gif)
) is because of how the stantard protoss early/mid game aggression + harass mechanics play out and how they make you feel. It has nothing to with balance or being OP but rather the helpless sensation that results when P R O T O S S E D happens to you. For me personally, P > T > Z when it comes to each respective races ability to make me call BS. I also feel this way a lot when a ball of stimmed bio army shreds my ling/bling/queens while I'm waiting for hydras to come out.
), bad map pool and idiotict time warp(unless I'm confused about years 
