Was Protoss given the same design focus?

On December 11 2020 06:03 dUTtrOACh wrote:
You'll only get speculative responses on that here. Who else but the insiders at Blizzard who worked on the design aspect of each race would really know? How would you define "fair" (man hours or some other metric)?

On December 11 2020 05:07 TaeTae wrote:
Do you think Protoss was let down on the design floor and has had to rely on novel niche builds?

On December 11 2020 06:31 Andi_Goldberger wrote:
I feel like in the WoL release it definitely was underdeveloped compared to the other races, especially terran. but like the other poster said, only the designers themselves can confirm this fully - maybe in some interview in 10 years.

On May 29 2023 00:39 Nebuchad wrote:
No. The design of terran is really stupid and it's the core issue with the game. You shouldn't be able to force a tech up from the other side simply by building your core units.

On May 29 2023 02:09 vOdToasT wrote:


Brood War Terran: Sweats profusely
Brood War Zerg: Sweats profusely against Protoss

On May 29 2023 01:24 Beelzebub1 wrote:
No, definitely not initially, but over time those design flaws were imo marginalized, or at least covered up by a different unit/composition's strengths. Protoss seems pretty versatile in their strategic repertoire lately and it's been fun to watch.

On May 29 2023 00:39 Nebuchad wrote:
No. The design of terran is really stupid and it's the core issue with the game. You shouldn't be able to force a tech up from the other side simply by building your core units.

On December 11 2020 06:03 dUTtrOACh wrote:
You'll only get speculative responses on that here. Who else but the insiders at Blizzard who worked on the design aspect of each race would really know? How would you define "fair" (man hours or some other metric)?

On May 29 2023 00:39 Nebuchad wrote:
No. The design of terran is really stupid and it's the core issue with the game. You shouldn't be able to force a tech up from the other side simply by building your core units.

On May 30 2023 11:37 BronzeKnee wrote:


I feel like this is a joke. The designers thought the Colossus would be this amazing cliff walking harass unit to decimate enemy work lines...

I'm sure they thought everything was just fine.

On May 30 2023 17:19 Slydie wrote:


No, and they don't. Stim, combat shields, concussive shells, +1+1, reactor medivacs, tanks and ravens are all tech.

There were long stretches when Protoss could mass blink stalkers on 2 base and easily pick Terran defences apart. Fighting complete Triple-Splash-Toss Deathballs with bio is really hard too!

On May 31 2023 01:08 Nebuchad wrote:


Blink is also tech according to your definition then

Medivacs, tanks and ravens are tech, and sure you're going to get those because why wouldn't you. But you're not forced to get those unless there's tech on the other side. If I make a bunch of zealots and stalkers with upgrades and you make a bunch of marines and marauders with upgrade, you're going to win. I don't have an option but to counter what you're doing. The design of terran forces the protoss to make an active choice to counter the standard build-up of a terran army, and the terran can then scout that choice and react accordingly. I'm sure we've seen Serral play for long enough to know that the person reacting has an advantage in this game.
I recently came across a fantastic blog that focused on the top UX Design Agencies. It was a serendipitous find that opened up a world of possibilities for me. The blog featured in-depth reviews and case studies of various agencies, highlighting their expertise in creating exceptional user experiences. I was thrilled to discover a centralized resource that helped me understand the key players in the industry and their click here unique approaches to UX design. This blog has become an invaluable source of inspiration and knowledge as I navigate the field of user experience.
And for a sidenote, fighting complete triple-splash toss deathballs with bio shouldn't be really hard, it should be 100% impossible. It is a sign that terran is badly designed that it is really hard.

On July 23 2023 12:25 AssyrianKing wrote:
One thing I always wondered was, the base units for Terran or Zerg have either similar strength or are a bit beefier, whereas for Protoss they have slightly less HP or Shields.

I am aware that both units now have special abilities or more micro potential. But Marines/Zerglings are better already due to better pathing in Starcraft 2.

I personally think the base units should be a bit beefier and then to balance Protoss around those changes.

On July 23 2023 16:06 Slydie wrote:


The goal of the race was always to make Protoss time and space manipulators. It turned out to be much harder to balance than expected, and a lot of abilities were too game breaking, like black hole/vortex, missile slow down field and even pylon warp-ins, which had to be heavily nerfed.

I think the developers did necessarily give P less focus, but the whole concept of the race was much harder to get right when matched against the other two. Protoss still attracts players who enjoy a race with lots of trickery, the highest skillcap micro ability in the game, several devastating AOE options and massive air fleets.

We’d like to revert this change we made earlier in the year, as we feel the frustration caused by barely not catching Observers did not make up for the benefits of the speed increase.

On July 24 2023 07:08 Kyadytim wrote:
I think it's always been pretty clear that Protoss never really received the same attention or consideration as Terran or Zerg. Major problems with the race's design were addressed by a series of bandaids and specific counter units. Early game fragility and inability to win early fights was a big one.

First we had the Sentry, because Protoss couldn't win fights without being all in or having Colossi. Most of Wings of Liberty PvT involved the Protoss camping at the top of their main or natural ramp and using forcefields to prevent any sort of engagement until they had Colossi.

Then came the mothership core and photon overcharge, followed by the shield battery and battery overcharge. Because Protoss just does not have the tools to survive without over committing to defense outside of these clunky bandaids.

One nice example of a specific counter unit is the Tempest, which were originally designed as having massive air to air splash to address Mutalisks, but eventually arrived as long range siege units with bonus damage to massive units as a solution to Brood Lords. They eventually gained a little versatility, but were not conceived of as anything except a solution to a single problem faced by Protoss. Later, when Mutalisk regeneration was buffed because of Widow Mines and Protoss started dying to massive flocks of Mutalisks, Phoenix range was increased and Anion Pulse Crystals was added. Both times, instead of addressing the issues in Protoss design that led to these problems, Blizzard gave Protoss a specific unit to build in response.

Also, I'd like to give an honorable mention to Blizzard's handling of Chronoboost. It's hard to compare unit build times, but Protoss upgrade times are longer than the other races, and their research times are usually longer than comparable research from other races, too. For example, Extended Thermal Lance takes 100 seconds. Other siege unit ranges upgrades are Advanced Ballistics at 79 seconds and Seismic Spines at 57 seconds. It should really not surprise anybody that Protoss strategies are heavy on using chronoboost to rush out a single research for a timing attack or all in.

Finally, I'd like to remind everybody of the time Blizzard told the community that they'd prefer to see Protoss players frustrated over barely losing an observer to a scan over Terran player's frustrated over barely not killing an observer as a reason for nerfing observer speed.
news.blizzard.com

In conclusion, while Protoss remains a (technically) functional race that can maintain representation in tournaments, I think it's pretty clear that the race never received the same attention, consideration, or polish that Terran and Zerg did.

On July 24 2023 07:08 Kyadytim wrote:
I think it's always been pretty clear that Protoss never really received the same attention or consideration as Terran or Zerg. Major problems with the race's design were addressed by a series of bandaids and specific counter units. Early game fragility and inability to win early fights was a big one.

First we had the Sentry, because Protoss couldn't win fights without being all in or having Colossi. Most of Wings of Liberty PvT involved the Protoss camping at the top of their main or natural ramp and using forcefields to prevent any sort of engagement until they had Colossi.

Then came the mothership core and photon overcharge, followed by the shield battery and battery overcharge. Because Protoss just does not have the tools to survive without over committing to defense outside of these clunky bandaids.

One nice example of a specific counter unit is the Tempest, which were originally designed as having massive air to air splash to address Mutalisks, but eventually arrived as long range siege units with bonus damage to massive units as a solution to Brood Lords. They eventually gained a little versatility, but were not conceived of as anything except a solution to a single problem faced by Protoss. Later, when Mutalisk regeneration was buffed because of Widow Mines and Protoss started dying to massive flocks of Mutalisks, Phoenix range was increased and Anion Pulse Crystals was added. Both times, instead of addressing the issues in Protoss design that led to these problems, Blizzard gave Protoss a specific unit to build in response.

Also, I'd like to give an honorable mention to Blizzard's handling of Chronoboost. It's hard to compare unit build times, but Protoss upgrade times are longer than the other races, and their research times are usually longer than comparable research from other races, too. For example, Extended Thermal Lance takes 100 seconds. Other siege unit ranges upgrades are Advanced Ballistics at 79 seconds and Seismic Spines at 57 seconds. It should really not surprise anybody that Protoss strategies are heavy on using chronoboost to rush out a single research for a timing attack or all in.

Finally, I'd like to remind everybody of the time Blizzard told the community that they'd prefer to see Protoss players frustrated over barely losing an observer to a scan over Terran player's frustrated over barely not killing an observer as a reason for nerfing observer speed.
news.blizzard.com

In conclusion, while Protoss remains a (technically) functional race that can maintain representation in tournaments, I think it's pretty clear that the race never received the same attention, consideration, or polish that Terran and Zerg did.

On July 24 2023 06:18 Fubika24 wrote:


I think the issue is that the other 2 races also have all those tools, and they're better than what toss has.
Imagine if nova did half of any units hp but it was instant, that's what ghosts feel like for example.

On July 24 2023 07:49 Beelzebub1 wrote:


This is a pretty good write up, I agree.

Hope we get a balance patch soon, a slightly stronger Protoss would just lead to better tournament diversity anyways. I still would love to, at the least, see the Sentry get a bit of a buff, because I feel like they were never properly compensated for FF being so severely gimped in ZvP with Corrosive Bile. On top of that, Protoss looks really fragile in the early game against Terran and seem to have very limited opportunity to create map control outside of committed timing attacks.

My proposal is simple, FF now requires 2 biles to destroy, forcing the Zerg to make a choice between eliminating the FF or attacking the army.

And, Guardian Shield.

-Increase bubble size from 4 to 5, allowing the Sentry to hang back a bit more and not be so exposed.
-Increase ranged damage reduction from 2 to 3 to primarily strengthen Protoss early game vs. Terran, as the reduction would feel pretty useless against Zerg for the most part. One less damage from a Roach is meaningless and Hydras already excel against Gateway units as a whole and I don't think even 1 less damage per shot would really change the dynamic between GW armies and Hydralisks.
-All units inside bubble gain 20% movement speed. An increase in damage would be too OP, this would allow GW armies to close the distance faster, and engage and retreat with a bit more agility in the early/mid game.

Remenber Patch 4.0.0 and 4.1.4

Damage 10 + 4 armored to 15 + 6 armored then 13 + 5 (actually)

Reverse to 15 + 6 and decrease hp from 80/80 to 70/70 (adept health pool)

+ Light armor

On July 24 2023 16:21 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:


I agree with the Guardian Shield buff from 2 dmg reduction to 3. As you said it'd primarily target Terran. It'd help Protoss not fold to Hydralisks as easily in case the Protoss is a bit behind. It'd make Sentries stronger and more supply efficient, and require Protoss less Sentries to be effective, thus saving them gas.

As for FF buff, I would suggest to allow the bile to only be able to clear 1 FF at a time, AND allow the FF to protect a building from bile. Imagine using FF to protect your shield batteries and battery overcharge from being sniped immediately. Also, you could use FF to potentially open with Forge Fast Expands again.

I also propose Stalker damage be changed from 13 (+5 armored) to 14 (+4 armored). This would help Gateway armies vs MMM and help defend earlier pushes. This would also help Stalkers slightly more vs Mutalisks. To keep the Stalker vs Hellion dynamic, and to also give Mech a slight buff in versatility and mobility and compensate for the AA missile nerf, also change Hellion damage from 8 (+6 Light) to 9 (+5 Light).

Good points from Kyadytim too, I don't like how Protoss is kind of forced into very specific responses like getting Phoenix + Range just to fend off Mutalisks, or getting Tempsts vs BLs/Liberators. And if they're a little behind or don't have the proper "counters" in place, their base units aren't good enough and they can easily die. It's very punishing, especially because even with Phoenix Range or the Tempests, it's not like you're rewarded with the investment+anticipation by being able to shut them down or hard counter them and get an opportunity to punish, it feels more like you need to do it just to fend it off and stay in the game on an even footing.

I think buffing Stalkers would be a great way to help buff PvT early game and Gateway vs MMM, and make Protoss more resilient overall and rely slightly less on specific tech counters. It would also help Protoss Gateway armies vs Queens/Ravagers, and give more potential push power, making Zerg have to respect threats more and not blow their economy up as fast. It would work well as a slight buff to Protoss overall without leading to any degenerate strategies.

On July 24 2023 15:18 Azzur wrote:
Imo, the fundamental design issue with protoss is the warpgate. As it allows reinforcements to be delivered to the frontlines without travel time, negating the already perilous (e.g. high ground is not as powerful, compared to BW) defenders advantage. As this allowed protoss to conduct many powerful all-ins this meant that everything had to be designed around it, e.g. gateway units made weaker, etc.

A possible solution would've been to make the gateway/warpgate a toggle and rebalance the units:
- Units build quicker/cheaper if it's in gateway mode.
- Warpgate allows quick reinforcements but with the cost of increased build times or maybe increased unit cost?

Or maybe even get rid of the warpgate altogether and rebalance around that.

On July 29 2023 00:07 Drahkn wrote:
Blizzard just never had the balls to remove warpgate tech, if they did they could buff stalkers and zealots , make main usage of sentry guardian shield. Followed by removing force field from the game and buffing Immortals.

If this happened we would see high tempo constant fighting in pvz and pvt because Protoss could go zealot stalker templar and you would see lots of trading all the time and the games would more naturally move to late game instead of like now where protoss either all inns or turtles to late game

On July 29 2023 00:51 QOGQOG wrote:

I don't think they should remove warpgate, but it should be a later game tech. If units were rebalanced around that idea. Who knows, maybe they could even make Zealots not terrible then.

zealot/stalker/templar would get melted by banelings without forcefield.

I'd like to see them un-nerf the shield battery (massively reduced the range of early game builds... for a race that relies on catching opponents by surprise). My dream would be for them to remove the Mothership and add in Arbiters (which are already in the game, just not in competitive) as a support for lategame ground. But as with significant changes to warp-ins that's unlikely to happen.

On August 17 2023 02:01 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
I agree it does suck that Protoss doesn't have something equivalent to mass OC or mass Queen, and they don't have a way to make their armies have higher value in the endgame, they at least can build forward batteries with a Nexus for Overcharge but that's it.

I guess mass Warpgate is a soft equivalent to mass OC or mass Queen. You could have 30 Gateways lategame and instantly be warping in 30 Stalkers while your army is still fighting.

I had a crazy idea, what if instead of making a Battery overcharge ability, it was built into chronoboost? You could chronoboost multiple batteries or even canons to speed up their shield regen or attack speed. It would be weaker than an overcharge though ofc. It could open up new ways to balance things, you could even come up with a 3rd ability for the Nexus.

On August 17 2023 02:43 WombaT wrote:

It’s just so crazy it might work!

I quite like the idea, tbh I’ve always felt chrono was a bit weak anyway as a macro mechanic outside of optimising early BOs. Giving it some more utility would be nice. It just doesn’t keep up in scale with mules or inject/larva in lategame.

Hell why not make it castable on certain units? It could act as a handy mana booster or something for when you desperately need dat storm.

On August 17 2023 12:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


Warpgate is great for having reinforcements quickly on the frontlines, but the fact that you can't queue warpgate units (the same way that you could queue barracks units) means that it's a lot more likely you'll mess up macro if you're preoccupied with fighting or doing something else. It's an interesting trade-off, but Protoss macro via warpgate units requires hitting timings more consistently than Terran barracks units, which makes Protoss macro harder to execute in general.

On August 18 2023 16:11 xPrimuSx wrote:
I've actually thought a lot about chrono and think a neat way to make it better and actually be reflective of "more is more" would be to make it stack in stages, kinda like the old Void Ray attack where if you don't keep chronoing the target you lose the benefits, maybe have something like, must chrono within 5-8 seconds, something that gives a decent window but isn't overly easy to maintain

Current CB is a flat 50% boost for 20 seconds at 50 energy. My idea would be something like Stage1: 20% boost -> Stage 2: 40% boost -> Stage 3: 80% boost, with chrono now lasting 15 seconds and costing 25 energy. Time averaged current CB gets you 50% boost for 60s with minimal effort for 150 energy, while my change would get you 55% over the same time at 100 energy and a lot more effort. However, every boost after that would be dramatically better, provided you have the energy to keep chrono going and don't miss a chrono and get reset to Stage 1.

I think this could also help Toss pros with comeback potential since if you can stall for say 2 minutes you could chrono up multiple structures to rebuild whatever you might have lost. It would also be something that mostly rewards pros (the people with the APM to pull it off routinely) while reducing Protoss power in lower leagues

On August 18 2023 21:57 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:


Definitely like the ideas behind this! Could give Protoss more potential to be threatening early on if the opponent fails to harass them and make them burn Chrono on remaking probes, if the Protoss wants to go for some specific creative timing. Would further flesh out Protoss's emphasis on tech (increasing trickery and focus on build order planning).

On August 17 2023 12:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


Warpgate is great for having reinforcements quickly on the frontlines, but the fact that you can't queue warpgate units (the same way that you could queue barracks units) means that it's a lot more likely you'll mess up macro if you're preoccupied with fighting or doing something else. It's an interesting trade-off, but Protoss macro via warpgate units requires hitting timings more consistently than Terran barracks units, which makes Protoss macro harder to execute in general.

On August 19 2023 23:44 Kyadytim wrote:
Let's be realistic. One Protoss player would figure out a strong all-in or two involving this mechanic, get second place in GSL, and everything they did would immediately be nerfed into the ground.

On August 20 2023 10:10 Sabu113 wrote:
Lot of talk to get back to what was obvious when the warhound came out in wol beta. The design team was bad. Sc2 is a badly designed game. They failed to understand the value of constraints.

And just to underline the point, people like mvp are hilariously overrated for a massive racial buff.

On August 20 2023 10:10 Sabu113 wrote:
Lot of talk to get back to what was obvious when the warhound came out in wol beta. The design team was bad. Sc2 is a badly designed game. They failed to understand the value of constraints.

And just to underline the point, people like mvp are hilariously overrated for a massive racial buff.

On August 21 2023 03:07 Slydie wrote:


Look up the basics before posting, please. The Warhound was a part of the "Heart of the Swarm" beta, and the difference is very important. That the unit was scratched is sign that the design team is at least not terrible, removing it after release would have been a real disastre. Remember how the Tempest was intended as a Muta counter with massive splash? Or the High Templar energy upgrade alongside Warp Gate? Or Motherships casting "planet cracker and "black hole"?

Whichever idea gets tried in testing should not be held against the developers imo.