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WombaT
Northern Ireland25245 Posts
It’s silly. It’s a framing that doesn’t correlate with reality. Trap’s 2019-21 results are outstanding by any metric. He’s been by a distance the best Protoss player. If Trap is getting bodied in GSL finals he’s either fucked up or the matchup is just brutal when it hits Bo7 I don’t think incidentally that Trap is quite at his level now, perhaps he’s dispirited or something, but he’s not playing as cleanly. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany15955 Posts
On December 09 2021 07:20 WombaT wrote: It’s a GSL finals, you still have to make it through the gauntlet. Taking out Maru in playoffs isn’t something you can do without some mental fortitude. His first two I think he performed fine, he just got brutalised, I don’t think he played well against Dark last time granted. I don’t really buy the tier 1/2 distinction outside of Katowice, and outside of latency considerations. Especially for a Protoss player, it’s harder to push through a bracket with Serral and Reynor added than not. Added Terrans are basically immaterial, they’re not going to be better than Maru (or Cure recently) TvP. Added Zergs well Serral especially is an absolute ZvP monster Field and bracket dependent of course, but especially for Protoss given PvZ issues. Serral and Reynor are leagues above the rest of Korea unless you’re called Dark or Rogue. I’d rate both Katowice and international tournaments above Code S at present. If we’re purely talking TvZ Clem is one of the absolute best outside of maybe Maru, and Reynor and Serral are a tier above every other Zerg outside of Rogue and Dark It’s not peak Kespa era where international players were filling the spots of better players at international tournaments, Code S is missing some of the best talent in the scene. not sure what your point is, I didn't differentiate between Code S and IEM Katowice? The complain by Protoss players is that they haven't won a 'tier 1' tournament (more specifically Code S and Katowice) in forever and I think one of the reasons for that is that Trap in particular chokes quite a lot in those two tournament circuits while he for a while dominated the field in any other tournament. Especially in the last finals vs Dark and his series vs Cure it was apparent that he didn't play at his usual skill level | ||
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RKC
2848 Posts
But Trap is basically losing every true premier final the same way that other top Toss pros like Stats and Zest have for the last 3 or so years - collapsing in epic tragic fashion (eg dying to ling runby). The reality is that this type of losing by 'choking' almost always happens to Toss. So either all Toss are 'chokers', or there's something inherent in the game design that makes Toss players more likely to 'choke' than other races. I do see Terran players also capable of 'choking' in their own way. But it's quite clear (to me, at least) that Zergs have many failsafes against 'choking' or more opportunities to comeback from 'choking'. (Also, I feel that people tend to overstate Zest not playing to his usual skill level. Zest usual level is clown fiesta and chaos mode. Zest winning Bo7 against Rogue is an outlier result, not the norm. The way that Zest lost against Cure is typical Zest playing in a premier final rather than Zest 'choking'. And I'm saying this as a semi Zest fan. The larger point here is that people tend to pick outlier Toss wins as the norm and Toss 'choking' as an exception, where the opposite is closer to reality.) | ||
BisuDagger
Bisutopia19234 Posts
On December 09 2021 10:13 RKC wrote: Not sure what 'choking' here means. But Trap is basically losing every true premier final the same way that other top Toss pros like Stats and Zest have for the last 3 or so years - collapsing in epic tragic fashion (eg dying to ling runby). The reality is that this type of losing by 'choking' almost always happens to Toss. So either all Toss are 'chokers', or there's something inherent in the game design that makes Toss players more likely to 'choke' than other races. I do see Terran players also capable of 'choking' in their own way. But it's quite clear (to me, at least) that Zergs have many failsafes against 'choking' or more opportunities to comeback from 'choking'. (Also, I feel that people tend to overstate Zest not playing to his usual skill level. Zest usual level is clown fiesta and chaos mode. Zest winning Bo7 against Rogue is an outlier result, not the norm. The way that Zest lost against Cure is typical Zest playing in a premier final rather than Zest 'choking'. And I'm saying this as a semi Zest fan.) An alternative is that they aren’t choking and are the underdog in every finals. Therefore the results meet the expected outcome of the matchup. I believe this to be true so Trap hasn’t choked in the finals because him winning would have been an upset. | ||
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Sprog
New Zealand83 Posts
On December 09 2021 07:27 kingism wrote: With the current meta already figured out, all possible early game harassment strategies against zerg are figured out and can be defended. Cannons are a good option. Pylon, Forge, block nat, cannon their next expo (nat placed at third.) Delay your own gas hope they dont go roaches/ravagers  It would be really nice if there were some decent ways to put pressure on greedy zergs early. | ||
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Xain0n
Italy3963 Posts
An undeniable fact is that all of the top Protoss players(but Trap) saw their record in Premier finals(which I guess, include t1 and t2 tournaments following the nomenclature you have been using) definitely worsened since the last Code S won by Stats. sOs was 5-2 before that and went 0-2, Zest was 6-2 and went 0-4, Stats was 4-4 and went 1-6, Classic was 3-0 and went 2-2 whereas Trap was 0-2 and went 6-6(with his amazing streak of six consecutive wins from December 2021 to June 2020); it's definitely not Trap's fault and it can't also be said that the players I am listing are not same tier as those of the other races. Curiously, since that last Code S triumph, the same Protoss player performed well in finals of tournaments labeled as Major on Liquipedia(I guess we could call them tier 3): Zest went 6-1, Classic won two of those, Trap and Stats won one. It's true that PvZ, the matchup that was played the most in Premier finals, has been favourable to Zerg at the highest level more often than not during the period we are looking at, being borderline unplayable in the second half of 2019. It's also true that in these last four years the Zerg race has been gifted with the birth of three new top tier Zerg contenders, Rogue, Serral and Reynor while seeing Dark transition from Kong(2-8 in Premier finals) to champion(5-1 after that date winning a BlizzCon and a Code S). Something similar has occurred to Maru for Terran from 2018 onwards as previously discussed. Bisudagger suggested that Protoss were the underdogs in almost every final they played and, while form isn't stable in Sc2, I beg to differ. Classic looked like the best player in the world in January 2018 and was crushed by Rogue who, while being the reigning BlizzCon champ at the time, wasn't expected to win; sOs was taken down by Scarlett at IEM Pyeongchang shortly after, an upset again. While Stats had the misfortune of being repeatedly stopped in 2018 by Serral and Maru enjoying the best year of their careers in series in which he performed very well, he ultimately choked at Katowice in 2019 when he was smashing Zerg left and right and the matchup was even(even if Nydus spam was being used awfully too often), getting swept by soO, the prince of kongs in Sc2, after being ahead 2-0. Trap lost his first Code S final at the end of the Protoss spring in 2019, he was on the rise but hadn't really transitioned yet to a top player entirely, he played well but Dark played slightly better; however, his third and most recent loss(skipping the horrendous abuse Rogue perpetrated in Trap's second final) took place when Trap's streak of victories was still open and Dark far from being the terror he was at the end of 2019. Trap played awfully, much below the standards he had set just few months before, and we could safely say he choked that day(so sad...). Zest has been a very unstable player since his Code S title in 2016 and he wasn't really supposed to reach the Code S final in which Maru destroyed him or the last two finals at Katowice. In 2021 he showed more consistency and, just as Trap's form waned, became the best Protoss in the world, leading him to break Rogue's offline bo7 streak and rightfully earning a place in Code S S3 finals only to play uninspiringly and be unexpectedly defeated by Cure(who, has to be said, was looking sharp in TvP). I would say that after all only unfortunate coincidences kept Protoss from winning a t1 tournament recently, I think they should have won at least Code S and Katowice once in these last four years. With korean army being preying so heavily on Protoss' top players, ZvP looking Zerg favoured again and balance udpates posponed indefinitely I think it will be harder than ever for Protoss to win in 2022; an appropriate set of maps could help, the biggest hope is the rise of MaxPax(who is a very young and rapidly improving player, no wonder he hasn't been in a final yet) but we could also be surprised by Zoun's growth or herO's(Classic's, maybe?) return to greatness. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany15955 Posts
On December 09 2021 10:13 RKC wrote: Not sure what 'choking' here means. But Trap is basically losing every true premier final the same way that other top Toss pros like Stats and Zest have for the last 3 or so years - collapsing in epic tragic fashion (eg dying to ling runby). The reality is that this type of losing by 'choking' almost always happens to Toss. Not really, Maru for example choked the same way in the GSL finals vs Rogue. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany15955 Posts
On December 09 2021 10:23 BisuDagger wrote: An alternative is that they aren’t choking and are the underdog in every finals. Therefore the results meet the expected outcome of the matchup. I believe this to be true so Trap hasn’t choked in the finals because him winning would have been an upset. True for some cases but I think at least Zest's GSL finals vs Cure and Stats' Katowice finals vs soO SHOULD 100% have been won by them and they can only blame themselves for losing. Also Trap should have done a lot better in the last GSL finals vs Dark. If those 2 or 3 tournaments went to Protoss we may not even have this discussion here. So I don't really agree with the premise that Toss can never win a tier 1 tournament | ||
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Vindicare605
United States16071 Posts
Doesn't make sense to me that that would be a good solution. I think the problems are more A: Players that have never distinguished themselves as clear cut frontrunners of the race and B: inherent design problems like Warp Gate that haven't been properly addressed over the years. In all of this noise about how Protoss isn't winning anything, we can't forget that Protoss is absolutely crushing the ladder at the moment. That speaks to a more specific issue than "Protoss is weak" or whatever. It makes the problem a lot more subtle and specific in how it needs to be approached. | ||
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RKC
2848 Posts
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12172 Posts
On December 09 2021 22:32 Vindicare605 wrote: There's also the elephant in the room that is getting lost in this noise. Protoss is dominating GM league in all 3 regions at the moment (slightly less so in Korea.) So do we really WANT to just start handing them buffs when they are already the most representated race (by pure numbers) in most major or premier tournaments and are dominating the ladder? Doesn't make sense to me that that would be a good solution. I think the problems are more A: Players that have never distinguished themselves as clear cut frontrunners of the race and B: inherent design problems like Warp Gate that haven't been properly addressed over the years. In all of this noise about how Protoss isn't winning anything, we can't forget that Protoss is absolutely crushing the ladder at the moment. That speaks to a more specific issue than "Protoss is weak" or whatever. It makes the problem a lot more subtle and specific in how it needs to be approached. Even with the information that there might be another patch there is no particular reason to expect that "the problem" is going to be approached. All this dancing around is just giving hope to people that probably shouldn't have any, apart from an hypothetical godlike Maxpax in a few months/years. | ||
Poopi
France12873 Posts
On December 09 2021 22:32 Vindicare605 wrote: There's also the elephant in the room that is getting lost in this noise. Protoss is dominating GM league in all 3 regions at the moment (slightly less so in Korea.) So do we really WANT to just start handing them buffs when they are already the most representated race (by pure numbers) in most major or premier tournaments and are dominating the ladder? Doesn't make sense to me that that would be a good solution. I think the problems are more A: Players that have never distinguished themselves as clear cut frontrunners of the race and B: inherent design problems like Warp Gate that haven't been properly addressed over the years. In all of this noise about how Protoss isn't winning anything, we can't forget that Protoss is absolutely crushing the ladder at the moment. That speaks to a more specific issue than "Protoss is weak" or whatever. It makes the problem a lot more subtle and specific in how it needs to be approached. Even at pro level, they made the most money so buffing them would only propel them to 2019 zerg status. The real problem is design wise, especially in PvZ (the PvT issues with void rays seem to be solved with big maps, but that’s also a problem in itself to have such big maps). Let’s just hope Blizzard ends up patching the game after Katowice. EPT seems to be doing well and now that AoE4 is there, they should reconsider their investment to remain the top RTS title | ||
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Fanatic-Templar
Canada5819 Posts
On December 09 2021 22:32 Vindicare605 wrote: There's also the elephant in the room that is getting lost in this noise. Protoss is dominating GM league in all 3 regions at the moment (slightly less so in Korea.) So do we really WANT to just start handing them buffs when they are already the most representated race (by pure numbers) in most major or premier tournaments and are dominating the ladder? I did a quick google and the only result I got says that Terran is more represented in Grandmasters globally, as well as NA and Korea specifically? It also indicated Terran to be the most represented race in every league below Masters by far, so since you don't believe in balancing at the highest level, maybe we need to nerf Terran for the benefit of all these ladder players? | ||
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datastuff
31 Posts
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/FHbRACM.png) | ||
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Fanatic-Templar
Canada5819 Posts
On December 09 2021 23:41 datastuff wrote: Blizzard api is fucked and apparently it's above the intern's pay grade to fix it. Use starcraft2.com Ok, thanks. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25245 Posts
On December 09 2021 22:32 Vindicare605 wrote: There's also the elephant in the room that is getting lost in this noise. Protoss is dominating GM league in all 3 regions at the moment (slightly less so in Korea.) So do we really WANT to just start handing them buffs when they are already the most representated race (by pure numbers) in most major or premier tournaments and are dominating the ladder? Doesn't make sense to me that that would be a good solution. I think the problems are more A: Players that have never distinguished themselves as clear cut frontrunners of the race and B: inherent design problems like Warp Gate that haven't been properly addressed over the years. In all of this noise about how Protoss isn't winning anything, we can't forget that Protoss is absolutely crushing the ladder at the moment. That speaks to a more specific issue than "Protoss is weak" or whatever. It makes the problem a lot more subtle and specific in how it needs to be approached. There is also this. One suggestion I did like was raiseable/or phasing in/out of existence batteries. The amount of frustrating losses caused by ling runbys in big finals, sometimes adepts being pushed out of seemingly solid wall offs was a little annoying over the last while. I couldn’t see this bumping the level of the average ladder Toss, but it could make them a little more reliable against frustrating losses at the highest level. I can’t think of many other tweaks that wouldn’t augment Toss at at lower levels. I can’t really think of many ways to make Protoss’ ceiling higher and the floor lower, short of wholesale ambitious redesigns, and ultimately that seems to be what most people would want m. | ||
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Beelzebub1
1004 Posts
Damn thanks for this I knew Protoss was the most populous ladder race but good lord look at those EU numbers :O I don't think any of this invalidates the primary topic though, which is (correct me if I'm mistaken) that while Protoss remains strong and well balanced/maybe a tad OP in certain specific scenarios at the casual level of play they are the weakest race at the tip top level of play. To which, I repeat a sentiment that I think holds at least a small amount of merit # 1. Perfect balance at the top is hard to achieve, there will always be a dominant race and a weakest race as evidenced by Brood War where I do believe that Protoss is also a bit of an underperformer in at the highest level. # 2. Power creep has finally caught up, and the highest level Zergs are using their full arsenal at the highest level. Deathballs were a problem back in the day, now we've had years to perfect Viper usage to fight them. Lurkers were at first under utilized when LOTV dropped, but those days are long gone and pretty much the end game go to and reigns supreme. My solutions are simple, and could be easily implemented by Blizzard in a variety of ways that people who are much better at crunching fine numbers then me could figure out. - Nerf Lurker HP so that Psi Storm and Immortals can deal with them more reliably. I think this nerf would be a more ZvP centric change because for the most part Terrans engage Lurkers with Liberators, Ghost snipe, and Siege Tanks. I don't know the exact numbers on the tank shots but I'm pretty sure an HP reduction wouldn't affect the way snipe interacts with the Lurker because the damage is instant and ability damage. Feel free to correct me on this though. - Remove Adaptive Talons from the game entirely so that Zergs must take a risk when deciding to burrow Lurkers, fwiw I think back in the day it was okay to have this upgrade in the game but not anymore, this could be a riskier way to nerf the Lurker though because then Ghosts will potentially become very dominant against them. I don't think you can remove or nerf Subterranean Spines though, it would change the way the unit itself works too much, I think a targeted ZvP nerf is in order. | ||
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Pentarp
219 Posts
On December 10 2021 00:23 WombaT wrote: There is also this. One suggestion I did like was raiseable/or phasing in/out of existence batteries. The amount of frustrating losses caused by ling runbys in big finals, sometimes adepts being pushed out of seemingly solid wall offs was a little annoying over the last while. I couldn’t see this bumping the level of the average ladder Toss, but it could make them a little more reliable against frustrating losses at the highest level. I can’t think of many other tweaks that wouldn’t augment Toss at at lower levels. I can’t really think of many ways to make Protoss’ ceiling higher and the floor lower, short of wholesale ambitious redesigns, and ultimately that seems to be what most people would want m. We watched Maru die to ling/bane runbys in GSL ST finals. It happens. Sometimes players make the decision to prioritize units over defenses at the third to keep the Zerg honest. Frankly, Zerg's larva and creep mechanics were designed for the era of early WoL. Capping the number of Queens is needed. A supply increase would be a good start to create a soft cap. Queens are out of control. I don't completely hate it because Toss air is also out-of-control without the threat of queen walks. But game shouldn't be in a state where the most effective strategy is to walk "defensive" queens up to the enemy base. This is similar to cannon rush being the best strategy. It's cheesy at best. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25245 Posts
On December 10 2021 00:24 Beelzebub1 wrote: Damn thanks for this I knew Protoss was the most populous ladder race but good lord look at those EU numbers :O I don't think any of this invalidates the primary topic though, which is (correct me if I'm mistaken) that while Protoss remains strong and well balanced/maybe a tad OP in certain specific scenarios at the casual level of play they are the weakest race at the tip top level of play. To which, I repeat a sentiment that I think holds at least a small amount of merit # 1. Perfect balance at the top is hard to achieve, there will always be a dominant race and a weakest race as evidenced by Brood War where I do believe that Protoss is also a bit of an underperformer in at the highest level. # 2. Power creep has finally caught up, and the highest level Zergs are using their full arsenal at the highest level. Deathballs were a problem back in the day, now we've had years to perfect Viper usage to fight them. Lurkers were at first under utilized when LOTV dropped, but those days are long gone and pretty much the end game go to and reigns supreme. My solutions are simple, and could be easily implemented by Blizzard in a variety of ways that people who are much better at crunching fine numbers then me could figure out. - Nerf Lurker HP so that Psi Storm and Immortals can deal with them more reliably. I think this nerf would be a more ZvP centric change because for the most part Terrans engage Lurkers with Liberators, Ghost snipe, and Siege Tanks. I don't know the exact numbers on the tank shots but I'm pretty sure an HP reduction wouldn't affect the way snipe interacts with the Lurker because the damage is instant and ability damage. Feel free to correct me on this though. - Remove Adaptive Talons from the game entirely so that Zergs must take a risk when deciding to burrow Lurkers, fwiw I think back in the day it was okay to have this upgrade in the game but not anymore, this could be a riskier way to nerf the Lurker though because then Ghosts will potentially become very dominant against them. I don't think you can remove or nerf Subterranean Spines though, it would change the way the unit itself works too much, I think a targeted ZvP nerf is in order. 1 and 2 I largely agree. Perfect balance with genuinely different races is impossible. Even at the highest level, but especially when we consider both all levels of play, as well as things like being equally fun/rewarding to play too. I don’t think there necessarily has to be a dominant race though, Protoss can end up the whipping boys for a variety of factors. Probably more so in BW than SC2 I’m speaking in rough generalisations so, don’t slaughter me folks! You have 3 matchups to play. At the very tip top level PvT feels pretty even, PvZ a little in the Zerg’s favour perhaps. Then add in the most volatile mirror, although it’s not so bad overall. Numbers probably don’t back this up, going from the eye test and the very, very best. Zerg have a good matchup in ZvP and an even matchup in ZvT, Terrans have two pretty even matchups. Generally in ZvZ and TvT the top Zergs reliably win their mirrors two. With a pretty small scene and matchup variance brackets end up being pretty important, probably why last GSL was so disappointing, the stage very much felt set for Trap or Zest to take it. A scenario where P>T>Z>P could be considerably less balanced than what we have now, and probably not as fun, but you’d cut out there being a dominant and a lagging race in a rock/paper/scissor sense Bisu flipped the switch for a while in BW and won quite a lot by turning PvZ on its head for a while, and being solid in the other two matchups. Periods previous and subsequently where things were more solidly Z>P it’s difficult On lurker nerfs, someone more diligent than me would need to crunch the numbers on interactions, but adaptive talons feels too potent and I just don’t like a siege type unit having so little setup time. If anything default burrow is maybe a bit slow, talons are way too fast. Perhaps make their passive burrow just a little speedier and remove talons? | ||
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Moonerz
United States445 Posts
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