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There's also not really a type of map that is good for PvZ, because there's not really a specific thing that you exploit to win.
For PvT we look at how big the map is and how good drops are on it. For ZvT we look at chokepoints and open spaces. For PvZ... ??
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I'm really hoping that there will eventually be a balance patch, not that I necessarily expect it. There's never consensus on anything in terms of SC2 balance, but it feels like many of us agree that it would be nice if PvZ at the top level wasn't divided basically into adept all-ins with decreasing success rates or turtling into skytoss in order to create either a boring knife's edge standoff that is maybe their best chance at winning, or an instant zerg all-in. Balance issues aside, it's not a very dynamic meta.
Ideally, if it were possible without breaking all sorts of other things, I'd like to see protoss have more early game play, protoss ground being more viable against lurkers, and skytoss being a more situational niche strategy instead of a default.
I, for one, miss archon drops. I'd like to see prism range increased again so that queens alone can't easily defend archon harass.
I'd also like to see protoss-specific weakening of hive-tech lurkers. Here are some random probably bad ideas that could be considered: Give the colossus a second range upgrade to outrange lurkers that's gated by fleet beacon (after all, colossus have lots of counters and they're partially air units anyway). Make HT and archons immune to lurker spines because they hover, sort of like how vultures and workers aren't attacked by spider mines in brood war. Make force fields block lurker attacks, so that sentries and FF have a late game use to try to break the zerg lines.
Yeah, those are probably all dumb, but I'd like to see a dynamic more similar to TvZ, where the protoss will basically win a siege fight unless the zerg swarms out or flanks. I love that dramatic tension in TvZ, with the terran positioning and pushing while the zerg prepares to flood in and try to beat them back.
If we could get that dynamic right, where protoss armies could effectively push zerg positions under favorable circumstances in the late game, I think we would see more dynamic play from zerg earlier in the game and less skytoss stalemates. Obviously it might be accompanied by a nerf to voids or some such thing.
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On December 19 2021 22:01 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2021 17:14 NinjaNight wrote:On December 18 2021 20:00 Nebuchad wrote:On December 18 2021 17:17 NinjaNight wrote:On December 18 2021 00:21 Nebuchad wrote:On December 17 2021 17:55 NinjaNight wrote:On December 17 2021 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:On December 17 2021 03:47 NinjaNight wrote:On December 16 2021 21:26 Nebuchad wrote:On December 16 2021 10:57 MarianoSC2 wrote:
[quote]
He was right in his last post though. There is clear evidence that at the highest level, specifically talking about ZvP if both play perfectly, there is not chance for Protoss to win, no matter how they play. Toss can only rely on the Zerg to make a mistake in the perception of the game. Take Trap vs Reynor and Trap vs Serral as examples I think that tells the whole story.
Trap won against Reynor because he caught him off guard with timing attacks which the Zerg didnt anticipate properly = Zergs mistake, well punished. But against Serral, a lot more solid player with perfect game awareness, he looked like a diamond scrub, and he didnt necesarily even have to play trash, just he didnt manage to outsmart the Zerg.
Is this how they game is supposed to be? When both players play solid one race is clearly superior by design so they auto-win if they other race does not surprise them? Its bullshit, but its how it is.
I remember times in SC2 when even ZvT was eft up... Just get them before ultras or get them before brood/infestor. Those kind of things are just unfair because on the highest level where least mistakes are made they always favor the race which is the most forgiving and with the most macro potential.
Now in current state of the game ZvT is okay, but ZvP is a joke and everyone sees that. There is no protoss in the world who can beat a Zerg if both are highest level and both play an even game, no one. And its not like Serral is unbeatable, its just that in ZvP by design and macro mechanics its a requirement for Protoss to surprise this kind of player because they are playing at a disadvantage for most of the game. Its stupid.
Will it ever change? No, but why close our eyes against it?
To sum it up in RTS I think that on the highest level if one player has better tools at their disposal then the other, its a problem and clear inbalance and its what ZvP has been for ages. Those two races are polar opposites and while there are tactics the Protoss can use to exploit this in their advantages, they are less and less effective the higher level your opponent is. That is why there is such a huge discrepancy between standard ladder and top players. The skill cap of the Zerg is just too high compared to Protoss....
It is extremely obvious that at the top level of play protoss doesn't win, I've been saying that throughout the thread and it's the reason why I'm not watching Starcraft. This guy is trying to demonstrate to me that this can only be due to race and not to the fact that 5 or 6 people at the highest level are just better than the rest and happen to not play protoss, which he doesn't need to do and he obviously doesn't have evidence for because there's no way to have evidence for that. I think almost every single one of my posts in this thread contains the idea that protoss is weak at top level, it is kind of impressive that you would manage to miss that. Your refusal to accept anything as evidence doesn't mean evidence doesn't exist. You always ignore the Trap vs Serral conundrum for instance and cherry pick anything else to detract from the overall idea. Here you have a similarly skilled player getting demolished, it IS evidence even if its not perfect proof. Evidence doesn't mean the same thing as complete proof maybe thats your problem. As he said there's plenty of clear evidence that protoss relies on the zerg to make major mistakes in perception otherwise zerg will pretty much always win. If you don't have complete proof do you acknowledge that there's a possibility that the other scenario is right? Yes I wouldn't say its impossible but it should be very unlikely, and if you understand the game well you can tell from watching high level PvZs that its not purely inferior player skill and zerg truly does have the advantage. I see, so in summary when I said it was possible and you went after me for saying that for several pages, I was right and you were wrong? No I'm still saying we can tell its clearly not just player skill making it the weakest race, that doesn't mean it was impossible for that to happen. I'm just saying it is possible to see that this is not what's happening. And I don't mean to go after you I just strongly disagree with your viewpoint and enjoy discussing it. You're trying to have it both ways, arguing that we can clearly tell one is the correct answer and also that the other answer could be the correct one at the same time. A simpler way of describing this is just that both are possible and you think one is more likely than the other. I don't know why you take issue with this. Basically I don't see it as contradictory because I believe its possible but it doesn't matter that its possible because its clearly not what's really happening. I said I think it should be very unlikely but my reasoning isn't just based on that, also by observation we can use reality to confirm thats not whats happening. I only take issue with the concept that its impossible for anyone to see if protoss weakness is caused by lack of player skill or not, I don't think it is anywhere near impossible. You probably think so just because there's no obvious way to concretely measure that. There's no real way to "use reality" to confirm that's not what's happening, and there's also no "we". Zergs probably think that zerg is slightly too strong right now but it's not a big deal, and remember that terrans think terran is underpowered every single time any terran loses any game. Also if we could use reality to confirm that's not what's happening, then it would follow that it is impossible :p that's how words work. What we're saying is very similar but you insist on using a weaker framing for it.
Well... it would be incredibly difficult and impractical to come up with a very precise way to thoroughly prove its not, but it is possible to intuitively see and understand that its not imo. I meant we as in anyone who puts aside their racial bias and objectively evaluates the situation.
It took me a couple minutes staring to understand what you meant on the second part cause it made no sense? Just because reality confirms its not happening obviously doesn't mean it was impossible or are you trying to say something else? Things can be possible but still not happen.
Yea I guess we agree overall but just disagree on some specifics of how things work haha
Maybe its better to turn our attention to what exactly is going wrong with specific matchups like PvZ
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On December 21 2021 00:49 irvnasty wrote:
I'm really hoping that there will eventually be a balance patch, not that I necessarily expect it. There's never consensus on anything in terms of SC2 balance, but it feels like many of us agree that it would be nice if PvZ at the top level wasn't divided basically into adept all-ins with decreasing success rates or turtling into skytoss in order to create either a boring knife's edge standoff that is maybe their best chance at winning, or an instant zerg all-in. Balance issues aside, it's not a very dynamic meta.
Ideally, if it were possible without breaking all sorts of other things, I'd like to see protoss have more early game play, protoss ground being more viable against lurkers, and skytoss being a more situational niche strategy instead of a default.
I, for one, miss archon drops. I'd like to see prism range increased again so that queens alone can't easily defend archon harass.
I'd also like to see protoss-specific weakening of hive-tech lurkers. Here are some random probably bad ideas that could be considered: Give the colossus a second range upgrade to outrange lurkers that's gated by fleet beacon (after all, colossus have lots of counters and they're partially air units anyway). Make HT and archons immune to lurker spines because they hover, sort of like how vultures and workers aren't attacked by spider mines in brood war. Make force fields block lurker attacks, so that sentries and FF have a late game use to try to break the zerg lines.
Yeah, those are probably all dumb, but I'd like to see a dynamic more similar to TvZ, where the protoss will basically win a siege fight unless the zerg swarms out or flanks. I love that dramatic tension in TvZ, with the terran positioning and pushing while the zerg prepares to flood in and try to beat them back.
If we could get that dynamic right, where protoss armies could effectively push zerg positions under favorable circumstances in the late game, I think we would see more dynamic play from zerg earlier in the game and less skytoss stalemates. Obviously it might be accompanied by a nerf to voids or some such thing.
I think at the very least by far most people can see Lurkers being too effective vs protoss ground for this matchup to work properly is a problem.
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On December 21 2021 01:19 NinjaNight wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2021 22:01 Nebuchad wrote:On December 19 2021 17:14 NinjaNight wrote:On December 18 2021 20:00 Nebuchad wrote:On December 18 2021 17:17 NinjaNight wrote:On December 18 2021 00:21 Nebuchad wrote:On December 17 2021 17:55 NinjaNight wrote:On December 17 2021 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:On December 17 2021 03:47 NinjaNight wrote:On December 16 2021 21:26 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]
It is extremely obvious that at the top level of play protoss doesn't win, I've been saying that throughout the thread and it's the reason why I'm not watching Starcraft. This guy is trying to demonstrate to me that this can only be due to race and not to the fact that 5 or 6 people at the highest level are just better than the rest and happen to not play protoss, which he doesn't need to do and he obviously doesn't have evidence for because there's no way to have evidence for that.
I think almost every single one of my posts in this thread contains the idea that protoss is weak at top level, it is kind of impressive that you would manage to miss that. Your refusal to accept anything as evidence doesn't mean evidence doesn't exist. You always ignore the Trap vs Serral conundrum for instance and cherry pick anything else to detract from the overall idea. Here you have a similarly skilled player getting demolished, it IS evidence even if its not perfect proof. Evidence doesn't mean the same thing as complete proof maybe thats your problem. As he said there's plenty of clear evidence that protoss relies on the zerg to make major mistakes in perception otherwise zerg will pretty much always win. If you don't have complete proof do you acknowledge that there's a possibility that the other scenario is right? Yes I wouldn't say its impossible but it should be very unlikely, and if you understand the game well you can tell from watching high level PvZs that its not purely inferior player skill and zerg truly does have the advantage. I see, so in summary when I said it was possible and you went after me for saying that for several pages, I was right and you were wrong? No I'm still saying we can tell its clearly not just player skill making it the weakest race, that doesn't mean it was impossible for that to happen. I'm just saying it is possible to see that this is not what's happening. And I don't mean to go after you I just strongly disagree with your viewpoint and enjoy discussing it. You're trying to have it both ways, arguing that we can clearly tell one is the correct answer and also that the other answer could be the correct one at the same time. A simpler way of describing this is just that both are possible and you think one is more likely than the other. I don't know why you take issue with this. Basically I don't see it as contradictory because I believe its possible but it doesn't matter that its possible because its clearly not what's really happening. I said I think it should be very unlikely but my reasoning isn't just based on that, also by observation we can use reality to confirm thats not whats happening. I only take issue with the concept that its impossible for anyone to see if protoss weakness is caused by lack of player skill or not, I don't think it is anywhere near impossible. You probably think so just because there's no obvious way to concretely measure that. There's no real way to "use reality" to confirm that's not what's happening, and there's also no "we". Zergs probably think that zerg is slightly too strong right now but it's not a big deal, and remember that terrans think terran is underpowered every single time any terran loses any game. Also if we could use reality to confirm that's not what's happening, then it would follow that it is impossible :p that's how words work. What we're saying is very similar but you insist on using a weaker framing for it. It took me a couple minutes staring to understand what you meant on the second part cause it made no sense? Just because reality confirms its not happening obviously doesn't mean it was impossible or are you trying to say something else? Things can be possible but still not happen.
When something is possible and it doesn't happen, we cannot use reality to determine it's not happening, since it could happen within the context of reality 
If you have Aces vs Kings, you cannot use reality to determine that you're going to win this time, since it's also possible that you don't win. What we can do is use what we know of reality to determine the likelihood of it happening, in this case 82%. It's only when something is impossible that we can use reality to determine that it isn't happening.
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On December 20 2021 19:26 tigera6 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2021 14:06 QOGQOG wrote:On December 20 2021 12:52 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 20 2021 12:44 WaesumNinja wrote:On December 20 2021 11:58 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 20 2021 11:50 WaesumNinja wrote:
The "maybe protoss players are just worse" or "protoss just doesn't have a strong top contender right now" arguments just don't hold, and it's baffling that this rhetoric keeps coming up after all this time. If protoss are underrepresented at the highest level of play then that is a very strong indication that something is not right.
Yeah sure Protoss has less mechanically demanding compositions which means that below pro level protoss will be more popular but I don't see why this somehow makes it fair that stronger players should have less tools? Like it's some sort of "ladder revenge".
Why are gateway units (barring early game trickery?) still garbage? Sure people like to whine about protoss aoe and mass air but what other options do they have since "midgame" is barely a thing anymore? Go ahead and name a Protoss player that you think is as skilled as Maru, Dark, Rogue, Serral or Reynor? Go ahead and name someone that is consistently a top performer as those 5 are. Protoss DOES NOT have a consistent performer right now. They just don't. You can't name a player that you can say without embarassing yourself that has shown to have the same level of skill that those 5 players I mentioned have. That's a bit of a catch-22 though, isn't it? You can't deflect "there is a problem with high level play" with "there just aren't any top protoss players" because "the top protoss players don't perform as well". With what metric do you measure someone's skill/performance? Wins, right? Because there are inherent problems saying things like "Maru demolished Zest, but Zest is actually more skilled". You just couldn't tell unless he starts consistently beating him, right? We have only one indisputable metric, and everything else is just theorycrafters saying things like "he has more control groups, so he's better" and other nonsense. This argument has been shit since people started using it in the GomTvT days. Yeah, we can't name any "top performers", that's what we are talking about. No. That's a bunch of crap. I don't judge skill based on only results and anyone that does is wrong to do so. It's the same as when people treat aligulac as anything other than just a tool in a toolkit. Its rankings are not law and they never have ever been. I judge skill based on what I see. On mechanics, on timings, on strategies, on executions, on decision making while under pressure etc. etc. I judge that and then I compare it to results and I use the aggregate to judge how good someone is at the top level. Trap really is the best Protoss player in the world, WHEN he is playing well, but he's not consistent and that has more to do with his fragile nerves than anything that has to do with the race. I haven't seen any Protoss player currently playing that is not in the South Korean army at the moment that has anything close to level of skill that Trap does. Nowhere close. And Trap just is not as good as any of the elite 5 players I mentioned before. Trap isn't as good as Maru, he isn't as good as Rogue, he isn't as good as Dark. He just isn't. And there is no other Protoss player that can measure up to the level of skill that Trap has. Try and name one. You can't do it because one doesn't exist. Not right now anyway. I'm hoping that Classic or HerO (who just got BACK from the South Korean army) can get back into shape soon and I hope players like Maxpax or Goblin develop (unlikely) the way that Reynor or Clem did but aside from those things happening I just do not see any big influx of skilled Protoss players coming to the scene anytime soon. Trap is the best they have and he just isn't as good as the elite 5 are. Maru: 1 Premier tournament win in 2021. Dark: 1 Premier tournament win in 2021. Rogue: 3 Premier tournament wins in 2021. Serral: 3 Premier tournament wins in 2021. Reynor: 2 Premier tournament wins in 2021. And these guys are in a completely different class than Trap, who... won 5 Premier tournaments in 2021? Why? How? For a follow up question: Do you know how to count? Why exactly do you think that arguing Protoss players can't consistently compete at high levels is any sort of evidence against Protoss bring weaker, balance-wise? About Trap, its clearly a matter of consistency. I mean, what was the difference between when he won those Premiere tournament and when he get eliminated early in other tournaments, other than himself? Trap plays a style of "Modern Protoss" that rely heavily on his early game micro with the Stargate opening. He needs to get his early Oracle/Phoenix build to deal worker damage and snowball that into a win. And when it doesnt work, either from Trap making mistake or his opponent play clean defense, Trap just couldnt get the advantage he wanted and eventually die out every time.
So Trap is not top tier because he's inconsistent whereas players like Rogue, Dark, and Reynor are top tier because they're so consistent?
Also, Protoss basically always has to get damage done early, at least against Zerg. It's one of the main things that's been discussed ad nauseum in this thread. So I'm not sure why "Trap can't always pull out worker damage his opponents know must be coming" is really a strike against him.
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There really is nothing to be discussed with zerg bois who, after watching top level starcraft for so long, still think zvp is a balanced matchup. In case it isn't obvious enough, many others and myself have explained why earlier in this thread. Yet all we get back from zerg boiiiis are them avoiding the issues head on and saying retarded things like OH THERE JUST ARENT ANY GD PROTOSS PLAYERS or NOTHING SHOULD BE CHANGED BECAUSE GOLD LEAGUE WILL HAVE TOO MANY PROTOSSES.
Honestly, even if protoss started with just 1 worker and had all units cost twice the amount, zerg bois are so blinded they will still believe that zvp is a balanced matchup.
Keep kidding yourself that Serral's ridiculously high win rate against any protoss in a best of 5 is because he is technically and strategically soo much better than any koreans who train many hours more and have far better players to practice with.
For the zerg boiiis who plan on replying to my post (and someone please do reply, because if no one replies, I will assume I am correct), but this time, instead of focusing on something irrelevant ("Who are the zerg bois you are referring to", "Why use hyberbole" etc lol), just cut the crap and go straight to the heart of the matter: how on earth do you still think zvp at the highest level is a balanced matchup? I'm genuinely very curious to see your reasoning because otherwise we must be playing and watching two different versions of starcraft.
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On December 21 2021 04:34 QOGQOG wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2021 19:26 tigera6 wrote:On December 20 2021 14:06 QOGQOG wrote:On December 20 2021 12:52 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 20 2021 12:44 WaesumNinja wrote:On December 20 2021 11:58 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 20 2021 11:50 WaesumNinja wrote:
The "maybe protoss players are just worse" or "protoss just doesn't have a strong top contender right now" arguments just don't hold, and it's baffling that this rhetoric keeps coming up after all this time. If protoss are underrepresented at the highest level of play then that is a very strong indication that something is not right.
Yeah sure Protoss has less mechanically demanding compositions which means that below pro level protoss will be more popular but I don't see why this somehow makes it fair that stronger players should have less tools? Like it's some sort of "ladder revenge".
Why are gateway units (barring early game trickery?) still garbage? Sure people like to whine about protoss aoe and mass air but what other options do they have since "midgame" is barely a thing anymore? Go ahead and name a Protoss player that you think is as skilled as Maru, Dark, Rogue, Serral or Reynor? Go ahead and name someone that is consistently a top performer as those 5 are. Protoss DOES NOT have a consistent performer right now. They just don't. You can't name a player that you can say without embarassing yourself that has shown to have the same level of skill that those 5 players I mentioned have. That's a bit of a catch-22 though, isn't it? You can't deflect "there is a problem with high level play" with "there just aren't any top protoss players" because "the top protoss players don't perform as well". With what metric do you measure someone's skill/performance? Wins, right? Because there are inherent problems saying things like "Maru demolished Zest, but Zest is actually more skilled". You just couldn't tell unless he starts consistently beating him, right? We have only one indisputable metric, and everything else is just theorycrafters saying things like "he has more control groups, so he's better" and other nonsense. This argument has been shit since people started using it in the GomTvT days. Yeah, we can't name any "top performers", that's what we are talking about. No. That's a bunch of crap. I don't judge skill based on only results and anyone that does is wrong to do so. It's the same as when people treat aligulac as anything other than just a tool in a toolkit. Its rankings are not law and they never have ever been. I judge skill based on what I see. On mechanics, on timings, on strategies, on executions, on decision making while under pressure etc. etc. I judge that and then I compare it to results and I use the aggregate to judge how good someone is at the top level. Trap really is the best Protoss player in the world, WHEN he is playing well, but he's not consistent and that has more to do with his fragile nerves than anything that has to do with the race. I haven't seen any Protoss player currently playing that is not in the South Korean army at the moment that has anything close to level of skill that Trap does. Nowhere close. And Trap just is not as good as any of the elite 5 players I mentioned before. Trap isn't as good as Maru, he isn't as good as Rogue, he isn't as good as Dark. He just isn't. And there is no other Protoss player that can measure up to the level of skill that Trap has. Try and name one. You can't do it because one doesn't exist. Not right now anyway. I'm hoping that Classic or HerO (who just got BACK from the South Korean army) can get back into shape soon and I hope players like Maxpax or Goblin develop (unlikely) the way that Reynor or Clem did but aside from those things happening I just do not see any big influx of skilled Protoss players coming to the scene anytime soon. Trap is the best they have and he just isn't as good as the elite 5 are. Maru: 1 Premier tournament win in 2021. Dark: 1 Premier tournament win in 2021. Rogue: 3 Premier tournament wins in 2021. Serral: 3 Premier tournament wins in 2021. Reynor: 2 Premier tournament wins in 2021. And these guys are in a completely different class than Trap, who... won 5 Premier tournaments in 2021? Why? How? For a follow up question: Do you know how to count? Why exactly do you think that arguing Protoss players can't consistently compete at high levels is any sort of evidence against Protoss bring weaker, balance-wise? About Trap, its clearly a matter of consistency. I mean, what was the difference between when he won those Premiere tournament and when he get eliminated early in other tournaments, other than himself? Trap plays a style of "Modern Protoss" that rely heavily on his early game micro with the Stargate opening. He needs to get his early Oracle/Phoenix build to deal worker damage and snowball that into a win. And when it doesnt work, either from Trap making mistake or his opponent play clean defense, Trap just couldnt get the advantage he wanted and eventually die out every time. So Trap is not top tier because he's inconsistent whereas players like Rogue, Dark, and Reynor are top tier because they're so consistent? Also, Protoss basically always has to get damage done early, at least against Zerg. It's one of the main things that's been discussed ad nauseum in this thread. So I'm not sure why "Trap can't always pull out worker damage his opponents know must be coming" is really a strike against him.
Yeah, isnt that how you differentiate top of the world athlete from others? They show up when it matter most. Trap had no business losing to Cure in GSL S3 after beating Maru, but he did, and in a pretty sad fashion as well. Rogue can be a duds in many smaller tournaments, but when he shows up on the biggest stage, he just murdering everyone in cold blood.
As for the other part, I dont feel you need to deal major early worker damage to opponent to win as Protoss. Sure picking off a couple units here and there with some Adept and/or Oracle is nice, but I have seen Protoss players won without it. I just dont feel it with Trap often enough, like he either crush his opponent after getting that early attack and kill many workers, or he would die because it doesnt work and the opponent counter. Look at Zest, he mix in shitload of build from extreme pressure, to defensive build, to harassments build, to cheese build and it works for him well enough.
That is not to say Trap doesnt try to mix in build, but he just doesnt do it often enough, and has clear favor-ism toward certain opening (glaive Adept in PvZ and Stargate Phoenix/Oracle in PvT) that doesnt work because his opponent knew it and defended it well.
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On December 21 2021 15:34 kingism wrote:
There really is nothing to be discussed with zerg bois who, after watching top level starcraft for so long, still think zvp is a balanced matchup. In case it isn't obvious enough, many others and myself have explained why earlier in this thread. Yet all we get back from zerg boiiiis are them avoiding the issues head on and saying retarded things like OH THERE JUST ARENT ANY GD PROTOSS PLAYERS or NOTHING SHOULD BE CHANGED BECAUSE GOLD LEAGUE WILL HAVE TOO MANY PROTOSSES.
Honestly, even if protoss started with just 1 worker and had all units cost twice the amount, zerg bois are so blinded they will still believe that zvp is a balanced matchup.
Keep kidding yourself that Serral's ridiculously high win rate against any protoss in a best of 5 is because he is technically and strategically soo much better than any koreans who train many hours more and have far better players to practice with.
For the zerg boiiis who plan on replying to my post (and someone please do reply, because if no one replies, I will assume I am correct), but this time, instead of focusing on something irrelevant ("Who are the zerg bois you are referring to", "Why use hyberbole" etc lol), just cut the crap and go straight to the heart of the matter: how on earth do you still think zvp at the highest level is a balanced matchup? I'm genuinely very curious to see your reasoning because otherwise we must be playing and watching two different versions of starcraft.
Since you used only my criticism of you in this post, that would imply that I am the Zerg boy.
If I am the Zerg boy and I am writing about ways to aid Protoss in PvZ, what are you even on about? It seems to me that you are either a troll, you do not understand what people are writing about, or you are ignoring the discussion in order to simply complain.
If it is the middle option, please say so. Ask for clarification of arguments. You can use the quote funtion and single out the parts that are confusing like this:
how on earth do you still think zvp at the highest level is a balanced matchup?
This is a part that seems central to your beliefs, that there is a large amount of people who think PvZ is balanced on the highest level. There is discussion going on about part of this in a comment thread with Waesum, Vindicare and tigera6, among others. Jump into that discussion specifically and you may find an answer.
Posting the question deep down in a stand-alone comment that starts with a rant, continuing with a hyperbole/something objectively wrong, and a defensive paragraph ahead of the actual content of your post is not helpful for your cause. You antagonize nearly everyone with that start. No one will want to discuss with you.
This is about you and how nobody has taught you how to have a discussion.
-You need some sort of etiquette to be included.
-You also need to formulate your points clearly. This mean that a lot of your thoughts have to be put aside in order for the true content to show.
-Lastly, your text need to relate to the people you are discussing with. Case in point: what I started this comment with. You related the text to me, but asked about something else. I'll clarify with an allegory:
The Queen of England said that we needed patience. Why does she want us to rush?
I am on the team of PvZ is not balanced on the highest level (the Queen wants patience). You ask why I think PvZ is balanced (why does she want to rush?). It is not making sense.
I urge you to read and understand what others are writing, and reread your own post before submitting it.
However, if it isn't about a lack on your part but a willful thing then you should just stop. You do not add anything to the discussion. The only thing you contribute is negativity.
I tried finding a forum rule that you would be breaking. I found this:
Terms of use, prohibited conduct
Duplicate or excessively repeated submissions in one or more areas
This isn't your first post with basically the same content. Is it duplicate? Yes. Is it excessive? Yes. Is it grounds for a warning? I do not know where the mods draw the line, but I think it is.
I have not reported you because I believe that you can do better.
Note that I didn't discuss with you at all. Your start is dissuading me from doing that.
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On December 21 2021 16:56 tigera6 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2021 04:34 QOGQOG wrote:On December 20 2021 19:26 tigera6 wrote:On December 20 2021 14:06 QOGQOG wrote:On December 20 2021 12:52 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 20 2021 12:44 WaesumNinja wrote:On December 20 2021 11:58 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 20 2021 11:50 WaesumNinja wrote:
The "maybe protoss players are just worse" or "protoss just doesn't have a strong top contender right now" arguments just don't hold, and it's baffling that this rhetoric keeps coming up after all this time. If protoss are underrepresented at the highest level of play then that is a very strong indication that something is not right.
Yeah sure Protoss has less mechanically demanding compositions which means that below pro level protoss will be more popular but I don't see why this somehow makes it fair that stronger players should have less tools? Like it's some sort of "ladder revenge".
Why are gateway units (barring early game trickery?) still garbage? Sure people like to whine about protoss aoe and mass air but what other options do they have since "midgame" is barely a thing anymore? Go ahead and name a Protoss player that you think is as skilled as Maru, Dark, Rogue, Serral or Reynor? Go ahead and name someone that is consistently a top performer as those 5 are. Protoss DOES NOT have a consistent performer right now. They just don't. You can't name a player that you can say without embarassing yourself that has shown to have the same level of skill that those 5 players I mentioned have. That's a bit of a catch-22 though, isn't it? You can't deflect "there is a problem with high level play" with "there just aren't any top protoss players" because "the top protoss players don't perform as well". With what metric do you measure someone's skill/performance? Wins, right? Because there are inherent problems saying things like "Maru demolished Zest, but Zest is actually more skilled". You just couldn't tell unless he starts consistently beating him, right? We have only one indisputable metric, and everything else is just theorycrafters saying things like "he has more control groups, so he's better" and other nonsense. This argument has been shit since people started using it in the GomTvT days. Yeah, we can't name any "top performers", that's what we are talking about. No. That's a bunch of crap. I don't judge skill based on only results and anyone that does is wrong to do so. It's the same as when people treat aligulac as anything other than just a tool in a toolkit. Its rankings are not law and they never have ever been. I judge skill based on what I see. On mechanics, on timings, on strategies, on executions, on decision making while under pressure etc. etc. I judge that and then I compare it to results and I use the aggregate to judge how good someone is at the top level. Trap really is the best Protoss player in the world, WHEN he is playing well, but he's not consistent and that has more to do with his fragile nerves than anything that has to do with the race. I haven't seen any Protoss player currently playing that is not in the South Korean army at the moment that has anything close to level of skill that Trap does. Nowhere close. And Trap just is not as good as any of the elite 5 players I mentioned before. Trap isn't as good as Maru, he isn't as good as Rogue, he isn't as good as Dark. He just isn't. And there is no other Protoss player that can measure up to the level of skill that Trap has. Try and name one. You can't do it because one doesn't exist. Not right now anyway. I'm hoping that Classic or HerO (who just got BACK from the South Korean army) can get back into shape soon and I hope players like Maxpax or Goblin develop (unlikely) the way that Reynor or Clem did but aside from those things happening I just do not see any big influx of skilled Protoss players coming to the scene anytime soon. Trap is the best they have and he just isn't as good as the elite 5 are. Maru: 1 Premier tournament win in 2021. Dark: 1 Premier tournament win in 2021. Rogue: 3 Premier tournament wins in 2021. Serral: 3 Premier tournament wins in 2021. Reynor: 2 Premier tournament wins in 2021. And these guys are in a completely different class than Trap, who... won 5 Premier tournaments in 2021? Why? How? For a follow up question: Do you know how to count? Why exactly do you think that arguing Protoss players can't consistently compete at high levels is any sort of evidence against Protoss bring weaker, balance-wise? About Trap, its clearly a matter of consistency. I mean, what was the difference between when he won those Premiere tournament and when he get eliminated early in other tournaments, other than himself? Trap plays a style of "Modern Protoss" that rely heavily on his early game micro with the Stargate opening. He needs to get his early Oracle/Phoenix build to deal worker damage and snowball that into a win. And when it doesnt work, either from Trap making mistake or his opponent play clean defense, Trap just couldnt get the advantage he wanted and eventually die out every time. So Trap is not top tier because he's inconsistent whereas players like Rogue, Dark, and Reynor are top tier because they're so consistent? Also, Protoss basically always has to get damage done early, at least against Zerg. It's one of the main things that's been discussed ad nauseum in this thread. So I'm not sure why "Trap can't always pull out worker damage his opponents know must be coming" is really a strike against him. Yeah, isnt that how you differentiate top of the world athlete from others? They show up when it matter most.
If that was all then the USA is using a very strange method to chose with athletes are going to the Olympics. Athletes that are to compete in hurdles, pole vault, javelin etc. have a competition before the Olympics to decide. It is called the United States Olympic qualifier. This means that the US athletes need to perform better than the rest before the Olympics. With how form works in the athletics world is that you can not be in top form for both events. Their physique cannot optimized for both. The athletes have to choose when to perform their best. Do they want to make sure that they get to compete in the Olympics at all, or are they confident enough that they'll qualify and can perform their best at the Olympics.
I may be wrong about this, but I think a world record has been broken in the US Olympic qualifiers without an Olympic medal, not even bronze, for that athlete.
I just wanted to both give an example of the difficulty of knowing what matters and to make a point that it isn't always the best player that wins a match. Upsets happen often.
MeomaikA vs Maru, 2-0, with a prize of $150 000 for winning the tournament; Scarlett vs Rogue in code S, a tournament Rogue should advance far in if he was a consistent player (according to your metric); ShoWTimE vs the ByuN man army at WCS Global finals, 2-0 in ShoWTimE's favour with a possibility of ByuN being eliminated before the ro8 at Blizzcon in 2016.
Arguing that the best players are best when it matters says more about your view of what it means to be best than the actual ability of the players. Only 1 player can win. If that is the best player, then it is impossible to say who the second best player is since there are several players that only lost vs the winner. A ro8 finish is therefore identical to a ro2 exit, with that metric. We can take the extreme example of 2016 GSL season 1. Zest won. Maru was a favourite to go far and he only lost to Zest. Maru lost the code A match. That was a 60 player code A, with 2 players already qualified to code S. Is that a ro60 or a ro62 finish? Maru, like TY, only lost vs Zest. One was a ro62, the other a ro2.
The metric of winning when it matters is very strange. You need way more to gauge ability.
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
On December 21 2021 18:45 Drfilip wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2021 16:56 tigera6 wrote:On December 21 2021 04:34 QOGQOG wrote:On December 20 2021 19:26 tigera6 wrote:On December 20 2021 14:06 QOGQOG wrote:On December 20 2021 12:52 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 20 2021 12:44 WaesumNinja wrote:On December 20 2021 11:58 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 20 2021 11:50 WaesumNinja wrote:
The "maybe protoss players are just worse" or "protoss just doesn't have a strong top contender right now" arguments just don't hold, and it's baffling that this rhetoric keeps coming up after all this time. If protoss are underrepresented at the highest level of play then that is a very strong indication that something is not right.
Yeah sure Protoss has less mechanically demanding compositions which means that below pro level protoss will be more popular but I don't see why this somehow makes it fair that stronger players should have less tools? Like it's some sort of "ladder revenge".
Why are gateway units (barring early game trickery?) still garbage? Sure people like to whine about protoss aoe and mass air but what other options do they have since "midgame" is barely a thing anymore? Go ahead and name a Protoss player that you think is as skilled as Maru, Dark, Rogue, Serral or Reynor? Go ahead and name someone that is consistently a top performer as those 5 are. Protoss DOES NOT have a consistent performer right now. They just don't. You can't name a player that you can say without embarassing yourself that has shown to have the same level of skill that those 5 players I mentioned have. That's a bit of a catch-22 though, isn't it? You can't deflect "there is a problem with high level play" with "there just aren't any top protoss players" because "the top protoss players don't perform as well". With what metric do you measure someone's skill/performance? Wins, right? Because there are inherent problems saying things like "Maru demolished Zest, but Zest is actually more skilled". You just couldn't tell unless he starts consistently beating him, right? We have only one indisputable metric, and everything else is just theorycrafters saying things like "he has more control groups, so he's better" and other nonsense. This argument has been shit since people started using it in the GomTvT days. Yeah, we can't name any "top performers", that's what we are talking about. No. That's a bunch of crap. I don't judge skill based on only results and anyone that does is wrong to do so. It's the same as when people treat aligulac as anything other than just a tool in a toolkit. Its rankings are not law and they never have ever been. I judge skill based on what I see. On mechanics, on timings, on strategies, on executions, on decision making while under pressure etc. etc. I judge that and then I compare it to results and I use the aggregate to judge how good someone is at the top level. Trap really is the best Protoss player in the world, WHEN he is playing well, but he's not consistent and that has more to do with his fragile nerves than anything that has to do with the race. I haven't seen any Protoss player currently playing that is not in the South Korean army at the moment that has anything close to level of skill that Trap does. Nowhere close. And Trap just is not as good as any of the elite 5 players I mentioned before. Trap isn't as good as Maru, he isn't as good as Rogue, he isn't as good as Dark. He just isn't. And there is no other Protoss player that can measure up to the level of skill that Trap has. Try and name one. You can't do it because one doesn't exist. Not right now anyway. I'm hoping that Classic or HerO (who just got BACK from the South Korean army) can get back into shape soon and I hope players like Maxpax or Goblin develop (unlikely) the way that Reynor or Clem did but aside from those things happening I just do not see any big influx of skilled Protoss players coming to the scene anytime soon. Trap is the best they have and he just isn't as good as the elite 5 are. Maru: 1 Premier tournament win in 2021. Dark: 1 Premier tournament win in 2021. Rogue: 3 Premier tournament wins in 2021. Serral: 3 Premier tournament wins in 2021. Reynor: 2 Premier tournament wins in 2021. And these guys are in a completely different class than Trap, who... won 5 Premier tournaments in 2021? Why? How? For a follow up question: Do you know how to count? Why exactly do you think that arguing Protoss players can't consistently compete at high levels is any sort of evidence against Protoss bring weaker, balance-wise? About Trap, its clearly a matter of consistency. I mean, what was the difference between when he won those Premiere tournament and when he get eliminated early in other tournaments, other than himself? Trap plays a style of "Modern Protoss" that rely heavily on his early game micro with the Stargate opening. He needs to get his early Oracle/Phoenix build to deal worker damage and snowball that into a win. And when it doesnt work, either from Trap making mistake or his opponent play clean defense, Trap just couldnt get the advantage he wanted and eventually die out every time. So Trap is not top tier because he's inconsistent whereas players like Rogue, Dark, and Reynor are top tier because they're so consistent? Also, Protoss basically always has to get damage done early, at least against Zerg. It's one of the main things that's been discussed ad nauseum in this thread. So I'm not sure why "Trap can't always pull out worker damage his opponents know must be coming" is really a strike against him. Yeah, isnt that how you differentiate top of the world athlete from others? They show up when it matter most. If that was all then the USA is using a very strange method to chose with athletes are going to the Olympics. Athletes that are to compete in hurdles, pole vault, javelin etc. have a competition before the Olympics to decide. It is called the United States Olympic qualifier. This means that the US athletes need to perform better than the rest before the Olympics. With how form works in the athletics world is that you can not be in top form for both events. Their physique cannot optimized for both. The athletes have to choose when to perform their best. Do they want to make sure that they get to compete in the Olympics at all, or are they confident enough that they'll qualify and can perform their best at the Olympics. I may be wrong about this, but I think a world record has been broken in the US Olympic qualifiers without an Olympic medal, not even bronze, for that athlete. I just wanted to both give an example of the difficulty of knowing what matters and to make a point that it isn't always the best player that wins a match. Upsets happen often. MeomaikA vs Maru, 2-0, with a prize of $150 000 for winning the tournament; Scarlett vs Rogue in code S, a tournament Rogue should advance far in if he was a consistent player (according to your metric); ShoWTimE vs the ByuN man army at WCS Global finals, 2-0 in ShoWTimE's favour with a possibility of ByuN being eliminated before the ro8 at Blizzcon in 2016. Arguing that the best players are best when it matters says more about your view of what it means to be best than the actual ability of the players. Only 1 player can win. If that is the best player, then it is impossible to say who the second best player is since there are several players that only lost vs the winner. A ro8 finish is therefore identical to a ro2 exit, with that metric. We can take the extreme example of 2016 GSL season 1. Zest won. Maru was a favourite to go far and he only lost to Zest. Maru lost the code A match. That was a 60 player code A, with 2 players already qualified to code S. Is that a ro60 or a ro62 finish? Maru, like TY, only lost vs Zest. One was a ro62, the other a ro2. The metric of winning when it matters is very strange. You need way more to gauge ability.
Using Meomaika vs MAru is dumb. Despite the loss Maru ended first in the group and later on was defeated in semis by Inno. So while he lost to a much weaker player, at the same time he delivered when it mattered.
Using the Byun loss at Blizzcon he won is bad as well. because he then delivered.
And while yes, Rogue lost to Scarlett, in the other times he delivered. His trophey case is by far the most packed one and most of it was done in the past 7 years, actually majority in the past 4 or so.
If you want to use sport analogy, let's use it. Check how good German national football team was in the past 10 years. And while they were the favorite to win anything they entered, they had some hiccups.
Nobody can deliver all the time. The issue with Trap or Zest is, they don't deliver most of the time. This is the issue which Stats or Classic didn't face. And mind you many Code S champs were defeated the next season of the Code S 
Edit> Actually this is new for Zest. He used to deliver in the past. He used to be a very solid player, for some reason this doesn't apply nowadays. We can ask what happened, if he has fallen, has form swings or if the game progressed so far the #ZestMacro suddenly matters more.
Edit 2> And to be fair the non top Trap comment comes mostly in comparison to the top vs the hardest tournaments where for some reason Trap couldn't win a title. Trap v Maru -> Trap v Cure is the best example we have of this. The best PvT player just beat the best Terran to have a really bad day in finals. WHY? PvZ wasn't the issue, BO7 wasn't the issue(he did beat Maru in a BO7 ) and that's why so many people blame his nerves.
ALthough I wouldn't say Trap is not the top or not consistent, unless you compare it to the real top players, who simply win the big games.
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On December 21 2021 16:56 tigera6 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2021 04:34 QOGQOG wrote:On December 20 2021 19:26 tigera6 wrote:On December 20 2021 14:06 QOGQOG wrote:On December 20 2021 12:52 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 20 2021 12:44 WaesumNinja wrote:On December 20 2021 11:58 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 20 2021 11:50 WaesumNinja wrote:
The "maybe protoss players are just worse" or "protoss just doesn't have a strong top contender right now" arguments just don't hold, and it's baffling that this rhetoric keeps coming up after all this time. If protoss are underrepresented at the highest level of play then that is a very strong indication that something is not right.
Yeah sure Protoss has less mechanically demanding compositions which means that below pro level protoss will be more popular but I don't see why this somehow makes it fair that stronger players should have less tools? Like it's some sort of "ladder revenge".
Why are gateway units (barring early game trickery?) still garbage? Sure people like to whine about protoss aoe and mass air but what other options do they have since "midgame" is barely a thing anymore? Go ahead and name a Protoss player that you think is as skilled as Maru, Dark, Rogue, Serral or Reynor? Go ahead and name someone that is consistently a top performer as those 5 are. Protoss DOES NOT have a consistent performer right now. They just don't. You can't name a player that you can say without embarassing yourself that has shown to have the same level of skill that those 5 players I mentioned have. That's a bit of a catch-22 though, isn't it? You can't deflect "there is a problem with high level play" with "there just aren't any top protoss players" because "the top protoss players don't perform as well". With what metric do you measure someone's skill/performance? Wins, right? Because there are inherent problems saying things like "Maru demolished Zest, but Zest is actually more skilled". You just couldn't tell unless he starts consistently beating him, right? We have only one indisputable metric, and everything else is just theorycrafters saying things like "he has more control groups, so he's better" and other nonsense. This argument has been shit since people started using it in the GomTvT days. Yeah, we can't name any "top performers", that's what we are talking about. No. That's a bunch of crap. I don't judge skill based on only results and anyone that does is wrong to do so. It's the same as when people treat aligulac as anything other than just a tool in a toolkit. Its rankings are not law and they never have ever been. I judge skill based on what I see. On mechanics, on timings, on strategies, on executions, on decision making while under pressure etc. etc. I judge that and then I compare it to results and I use the aggregate to judge how good someone is at the top level. Trap really is the best Protoss player in the world, WHEN he is playing well, but he's not consistent and that has more to do with his fragile nerves than anything that has to do with the race. I haven't seen any Protoss player currently playing that is not in the South Korean army at the moment that has anything close to level of skill that Trap does. Nowhere close. And Trap just is not as good as any of the elite 5 players I mentioned before. Trap isn't as good as Maru, he isn't as good as Rogue, he isn't as good as Dark. He just isn't. And there is no other Protoss player that can measure up to the level of skill that Trap has. Try and name one. You can't do it because one doesn't exist. Not right now anyway. I'm hoping that Classic or HerO (who just got BACK from the South Korean army) can get back into shape soon and I hope players like Maxpax or Goblin develop (unlikely) the way that Reynor or Clem did but aside from those things happening I just do not see any big influx of skilled Protoss players coming to the scene anytime soon. Trap is the best they have and he just isn't as good as the elite 5 are. Maru: 1 Premier tournament win in 2021. Dark: 1 Premier tournament win in 2021. Rogue: 3 Premier tournament wins in 2021. Serral: 3 Premier tournament wins in 2021. Reynor: 2 Premier tournament wins in 2021. And these guys are in a completely different class than Trap, who... won 5 Premier tournaments in 2021? Why? How? For a follow up question: Do you know how to count? Why exactly do you think that arguing Protoss players can't consistently compete at high levels is any sort of evidence against Protoss bring weaker, balance-wise? About Trap, its clearly a matter of consistency. I mean, what was the difference between when he won those Premiere tournament and when he get eliminated early in other tournaments, other than himself? Trap plays a style of "Modern Protoss" that rely heavily on his early game micro with the Stargate opening. He needs to get his early Oracle/Phoenix build to deal worker damage and snowball that into a win. And when it doesnt work, either from Trap making mistake or his opponent play clean defense, Trap just couldnt get the advantage he wanted and eventually die out every time. So Trap is not top tier because he's inconsistent whereas players like Rogue, Dark, and Reynor are top tier because they're so consistent? Also, Protoss basically always has to get damage done early, at least against Zerg. It's one of the main things that's been discussed ad nauseum in this thread. So I'm not sure why "Trap can't always pull out worker damage his opponents know must be coming" is really a strike against him. Yeah, isnt that how you differentiate top of the world athlete from others? They show up when it matter most. T rap had no business losing to Cure in GSL S3 after beating Maru, but he did, and in a pretty sad fashion as well. Rogue can be a duds in many smaller tournaments, but when he shows up on the biggest stage, he just murdering everyone in cold blood. As for the other part, I dont feel you need to deal major early worker damage to opponent to win as Protoss. Sure picking off a couple units here and there with some Adept and/or Oracle is nice, but I have seen Protoss players won without it. I just dont feel it with Trap often enough, like he either crush his opponent after getting that early attack and kill many workers, or he would die because it doesnt work and the opponent counter. Look at Zest, he mix in shitload of build from extreme pressure, to defensive build, to harassments build, to cheese build and it works for him well enough. That is not to say Trap doesnt try to mix in build, but he just doesnt do it often enough, and has clear favor-ism toward certain opening (glaive Adept in PvZ and Stargate Phoenix/Oracle in PvT) that doesnt work because his opponent knew it and defended it well.
This presumes Maru is a better TvP player and that Maru hasnt had historical problems facing JinAir alumni. Trap beating Maru isnt really all that special, and doesn't really say much about either's form imo. Cure also basically TvPed his way to a win, I think its fair to say that at the time Cure's PvT was better than Maru's.
Also Zest is not an example of thinks working well, the dude is wildly inconsistent in basically every fathomable way, lol. The problem isn't that Protoss isnt mixing it up enough, its that you have to basically mix it up like Zest and pray it just so happens to work because Zests games and his record don't indicate to me hes some master-planner so much as pulling things out and hoping they work due to sheer unpredictability. Its not a reliable way to win, which is Protoss' problem, they don't have strong reliable ways to win, it either relies on Trap being in God Mode or a series of lucky die rolls, usually from Zest.
Protoss shouldnt have to basically pray their unpredictability lines up against their opponent, 1. its awful to watch, a player being blindsided is usually a crappy game, 2. it prevents top tier players from being able to truly compete, we can't have players like Maru or Serral who can win off raw ability consistently because Protoss is too unstable.
They should really (serious wishful thinking here) rearrange Protoss so Air Death Balls are worse, gateway units are better, and tech units are a little worse but reward micro more. Stalkers should be the Protoss marine, a great all-arounder unit that rewards micro (via Blink as opposed to splits, etc.) that can let a truly excellent player like Trap really differentiate himself.
And nerf Lurkers (Adaptive Talons is bad and it should feel bad), and maybe Queens in some small way (spread their healing out more, less immediate heal, more DoT or something?) because Zerg is also just flat out too good.
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On December 21 2021 20:12 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2021 18:45 Drfilip wrote:On December 21 2021 16:56 tigera6 wrote:On December 21 2021 04:34 QOGQOG wrote:On December 20 2021 19:26 tigera6 wrote:On December 20 2021 14:06 QOGQOG wrote:On December 20 2021 12:52 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 20 2021 12:44 WaesumNinja wrote:On December 20 2021 11:58 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 20 2021 11:50 WaesumNinja wrote:
The "maybe protoss players are just worse" or "protoss just doesn't have a strong top contender right now" arguments just don't hold, and it's baffling that this rhetoric keeps coming up after all this time. If protoss are underrepresented at the highest level of play then that is a very strong indication that something is not right.
Yeah sure Protoss has less mechanically demanding compositions which means that below pro level protoss will be more popular but I don't see why this somehow makes it fair that stronger players should have less tools? Like it's some sort of "ladder revenge".
Why are gateway units (barring early game trickery?) still garbage? Sure people like to whine about protoss aoe and mass air but what other options do they have since "midgame" is barely a thing anymore? Go ahead and name a Protoss player that you think is as skilled as Maru, Dark, Rogue, Serral or Reynor? Go ahead and name someone that is consistently a top performer as those 5 are. Protoss DOES NOT have a consistent performer right now. They just don't. You can't name a player that you can say without embarassing yourself that has shown to have the same level of skill that those 5 players I mentioned have. That's a bit of a catch-22 though, isn't it? You can't deflect "there is a problem with high level play" with "there just aren't any top protoss players" because "the top protoss players don't perform as well". With what metric do you measure someone's skill/performance? Wins, right? Because there are inherent problems saying things like "Maru demolished Zest, but Zest is actually more skilled". You just couldn't tell unless he starts consistently beating him, right? We have only one indisputable metric, and everything else is just theorycrafters saying things like "he has more control groups, so he's better" and other nonsense. This argument has been shit since people started using it in the GomTvT days. Yeah, we can't name any "top performers", that's what we are talking about. No. That's a bunch of crap. I don't judge skill based on only results and anyone that does is wrong to do so. It's the same as when people treat aligulac as anything other than just a tool in a toolkit. Its rankings are not law and they never have ever been. I judge skill based on what I see. On mechanics, on timings, on strategies, on executions, on decision making while under pressure etc. etc. I judge that and then I compare it to results and I use the aggregate to judge how good someone is at the top level. Trap really is the best Protoss player in the world, WHEN he is playing well, but he's not consistent and that has more to do with his fragile nerves than anything that has to do with the race. I haven't seen any Protoss player currently playing that is not in the South Korean army at the moment that has anything close to level of skill that Trap does. Nowhere close. And Trap just is not as good as any of the elite 5 players I mentioned before. Trap isn't as good as Maru, he isn't as good as Rogue, he isn't as good as Dark. He just isn't. And there is no other Protoss player that can measure up to the level of skill that Trap has. Try and name one. You can't do it because one doesn't exist. Not right now anyway. I'm hoping that Classic or HerO (who just got BACK from the South Korean army) can get back into shape soon and I hope players like Maxpax or Goblin develop (unlikely) the way that Reynor or Clem did but aside from those things happening I just do not see any big influx of skilled Protoss players coming to the scene anytime soon. Trap is the best they have and he just isn't as good as the elite 5 are. Maru: 1 Premier tournament win in 2021. Dark: 1 Premier tournament win in 2021. Rogue: 3 Premier tournament wins in 2021. Serral: 3 Premier tournament wins in 2021. Reynor: 2 Premier tournament wins in 2021. And these guys are in a completely different class than Trap, who... won 5 Premier tournaments in 2021? Why? How? For a follow up question: Do you know how to count? Why exactly do you think that arguing Protoss players can't consistently compete at high levels is any sort of evidence against Protoss bring weaker, balance-wise? About Trap, its clearly a matter of consistency. I mean, what was the difference between when he won those Premiere tournament and when he get eliminated early in other tournaments, other than himself? Trap plays a style of "Modern Protoss" that rely heavily on his early game micro with the Stargate opening. He needs to get his early Oracle/Phoenix build to deal worker damage and snowball that into a win. And when it doesnt work, either from Trap making mistake or his opponent play clean defense, Trap just couldnt get the advantage he wanted and eventually die out every time. So Trap is not top tier because he's inconsistent whereas players like Rogue, Dark, and Reynor are top tier because they're so consistent? Also, Protoss basically always has to get damage done early, at least against Zerg. It's one of the main things that's been discussed ad nauseum in this thread. So I'm not sure why "Trap can't always pull out worker damage his opponents know must be coming" is really a strike against him. Yeah, isnt that how you differentiate top of the world athlete from others? They show up when it matter most. If that was all then the USA is using a very strange method to chose with athletes are going to the Olympics. Athletes that are to compete in hurdles, pole vault, javelin etc. have a competition before the Olympics to decide. It is called the United States Olympic qualifier. This means that the US athletes need to perform better than the rest before the Olympics. With how form works in the athletics world is that you can not be in top form for both events. Their physique cannot optimized for both. The athletes have to choose when to perform their best. Do they want to make sure that they get to compete in the Olympics at all, or are they confident enough that they'll qualify and can perform their best at the Olympics. I may be wrong about this, but I think a world record has been broken in the US Olympic qualifiers without an Olympic medal, not even bronze, for that athlete. I just wanted to both give an example of the difficulty of knowing what matters and to make a point that it isn't always the best player that wins a match. Upsets happen often. MeomaikA vs Maru, 2-0, with a prize of $150 000 for winning the tournament; Scarlett vs Rogue in code S, a tournament Rogue should advance far in if he was a consistent player (according to your metric); ShoWTimE vs the ByuN man army at WCS Global finals, 2-0 in ShoWTimE's favour with a possibility of ByuN being eliminated before the ro8 at Blizzcon in 2016. Arguing that the best players are best when it matters says more about your view of what it means to be best than the actual ability of the players. Only 1 player can win. If that is the best player, then it is impossible to say who the second best player is since there are several players that only lost vs the winner. A ro8 finish is therefore identical to a ro2 exit, with that metric. We can take the extreme example of 2016 GSL season 1. Zest won. Maru was a favourite to go far and he only lost to Zest. Maru lost the code A match. That was a 60 player code A, with 2 players already qualified to code S. Is that a ro60 or a ro62 finish? Maru, like TY, only lost vs Zest. One was a ro62, the other a ro2. The metric of winning when it matters is very strange. You need way more to gauge ability. Edit 2> And to be fair the non top Trap comment comes mostly in comparison to the top vs the hardest tournaments where for some reason Trap couldn't win a title. Trap v Maru -> Trap v Cure is the best example we have of this. The best PvT player just beat the best Terran to have a really bad day in finals. WHY? PvZ wasn't the issue, BO7 wasn't the issue(he did beat Maru in a BO7 ) and that's why so many people blame his nerves. ALthough I wouldn't say Trap is not the top or not consistent, unless you compare it to the real top players, who simply win the big games.
small correction: Trap beat Maru in the ro8 in a bo5, then lost to Cure in the ro4 who beat Zest in the finals.
But yeah - I think everyone agrees that Trap and Zest can only blame themselves for not winning that season.
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[+ Show Spoiler +QUOTE] On December 21 2021 20:12 deacon.frost wrote:On December 21 2021 18:45 Drfilip wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2021 16:56 tigera6 wrote:On December 21 2021 04:34 QOGQOG wrote:On December 20 2021 19:26 tigera6 wrote:On December 20 2021 14:06 QOGQOG wrote:On December 20 2021 12:52 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 20 2021 12:44 WaesumNinja wrote:On December 20 2021 11:58 Vindicare605 wrote:On December 20 2021 11:50 WaesumNinja wrote:
The "maybe protoss players are just worse" or "protoss just doesn't have a strong top contender right now" arguments just don't hold, and it's baffling that this rhetoric keeps coming up after all this time. If protoss are underrepresented at the highest level of play then that is a very strong indication that something is not right.
Yeah sure Protoss has less mechanically demanding compositions which means that below pro level protoss will be more popular but I don't see why this somehow makes it fair that stronger players should have less tools? Like it's some sort of "ladder revenge".
Why are gateway units (barring early game trickery?) still garbage? Sure people like to whine about protoss aoe and mass air but what other options do they have since "midgame" is barely a thing anymore? Go ahead and name a Protoss player that you think is as skilled as Maru, Dark, Rogue, Serral or Reynor? Go ahead and name someone that is consistently a top performer as those 5 are. Protoss DOES NOT have a consistent performer right now. They just don't. You can't name a player that you can say without embarassing yourself that has shown to have the same level of skill that those 5 players I mentioned have. That's a bit of a catch-22 though, isn't it? You can't deflect "there is a problem with high level play" with "there just aren't any top protoss players" because "the top protoss players don't perform as well". With what metric do you measure someone's skill/performance? Wins, right? Because there are inherent problems saying things like "Maru demolished Zest, but Zest is actually more skilled". You just couldn't tell unless he starts consistently beating him, right? We have only one indisputable metric, and everything else is just theorycrafters saying things like "he has more control groups, so he's better" and other nonsense. This argument has been shit since people started using it in the GomTvT days. Yeah, we can't name any "top performers", that's what we are talking about. No. That's a bunch of crap. I don't judge skill based on only results and anyone that does is wrong to do so. It's the same as when people treat aligulac as anything other than just a tool in a toolkit. Its rankings are not law and they never have ever been. I judge skill based on what I see. On mechanics, on timings, on strategies, on executions, on decision making while under pressure etc. etc. I judge that and then I compare it to results and I use the aggregate to judge how good someone is at the top level. Trap really is the best Protoss player in the world, WHEN he is playing well, but he's not consistent and that has more to do with his fragile nerves than anything that has to do with the race. I haven't seen any Protoss player currently playing that is not in the South Korean army at the moment that has anything close to level of skill that Trap does. Nowhere close. And Trap just is not as good as any of the elite 5 players I mentioned before. Trap isn't as good as Maru, he isn't as good as Rogue, he isn't as good as Dark. He just isn't. And there is no other Protoss player that can measure up to the level of skill that Trap has. Try and name one. You can't do it because one doesn't exist. Not right now anyway. I'm hoping that Classic or HerO (who just got BACK from the South Korean army) can get back into shape soon and I hope players like Maxpax or Goblin develop (unlikely) the way that Reynor or Clem did but aside from those things happening I just do not see any big influx of skilled Protoss players coming to the scene anytime soon. Trap is the best they have and he just isn't as good as the elite 5 are. Maru: 1 Premier tournament win in 2021. Dark: 1 Premier tournament win in 2021. Rogue: 3 Premier tournament wins in 2021. Serral: 3 Premier tournament wins in 2021. Reynor: 2 Premier tournament wins in 2021. And these guys are in a completely different class than Trap, who... won 5 Premier tournaments in 2021? Why? How? For a follow up question: Do you know how to count? Why exactly do you think that arguing Protoss players can't consistently compete at high levels is any sort of evidence against Protoss bring weaker, balance-wise? About Trap, its clearly a matter of consistency. I mean, what was the difference between when he won those Premiere tournament and when he get eliminated early in other tournaments, other than himself? Trap plays a style of "Modern Protoss" that rely heavily on his early game micro with the Stargate opening. He needs to get his early Oracle/Phoenix build to deal worker damage and snowball that into a win. And when it doesnt work, either from Trap making mistake or his opponent play clean defense, Trap just couldnt get the advantage he wanted and eventually die out every time. So Trap is not top tier because he's inconsistent whereas players like Rogue, Dark, and Reynor are top tier because they're so consistent? Also, Protoss basically always has to get damage done early, at least against Zerg. It's one of the main things that's been discussed ad nauseum in this thread. So I'm not sure why "Trap can't always pull out worker damage his opponents know must be coming" is really a strike against him. Yeah, isnt that how you differentiate top of the world athlete from others? They show up when it matter most. If that was all then the USA is using a very strange method to chose with athletes are going to the Olympics. Athletes that are to compete in hurdles, pole vault, javelin etc. have a competition before the Olympics to decide. It is called the United States Olympic qualifier. This means that the US athletes need to perform better than the rest before the Olympics. With how form works in the athletics world is that you can not be in top form for both events. Their physique cannot optimized for both. The athletes have to choose when to perform their best. Do they want to make sure that they get to compete in the Olympics at all, or are they confident enough that they'll qualify and can perform their best at the Olympics. I may be wrong about this, but I think a world record has been broken in the US Olympic qualifiers without an Olympic medal, not even bronze, for that athlete. I just wanted to both give an example of the difficulty of knowing what matters and to make a point that it isn't always the best player that wins a match. Upsets happen often. MeomaikA vs Maru, 2-0, with a prize of $150 000 for winning the tournament; Scarlett vs Rogue in code S, a tournament Rogue should advance far in if he was a consistent player (according to your metric); ShoWTimE vs the ByuN man army at WCS Global finals, 2-0 in ShoWTimE's favour with a possibility of ByuN being eliminated before the ro8 at Blizzcon in 2016. Arguing that the best players are best when it matters says more about your view of what it means to be best than the actual ability of the players. Only 1 player can win. If that is the best player, then it is impossible to say who the second best player is since there are several players that only lost vs the winner. A ro8 finish is therefore identical to a ro2 exit, with that metric. We can take the extreme example of 2016 GSL season 1. Zest won. Maru was a favourite to go far and he only lost to Zest. Maru lost the code A match. That was a 60 player code A, with 2 players already qualified to code S. Is that a ro60 or a ro62 finish? Maru, like TY, only lost vs Zest. One was a ro62, the other a ro2. The metric of winning when it matters is very strange. You need way more to gauge ability. Using Meomaika vs MAru is dumb. Despite the loss Maru ended first in the group and later on was defeated in semis by Inno. So while he lost to a much weaker player, at the same time he delivered when it mattered. Using the Byun loss at Blizzcon he won is bad as well. because he then delivered.And while yes, Rogue lost to Scarlett, in the other times he delivered. His trophey case is by far the most packed one and most of it was done in the past 7 years, actually majority in the past 4 or so. If you want to use sport analogy, let's use it. Check how good German national football team was in the past 10 years. And while they were the favorite to win anything they entered, they had some hiccups. Nobody can deliver all the time. The issue with Trap or Zest is, they don't deliver most of the time. This is the issue which Stats or Classic didn't face. And mind you many Code S champs were defeated the next season of the Code S Edit> Actually this is new for Zest. He used to deliver in the past. He used to be a very solid player, for some reason this doesn't apply nowadays. We can ask what happened, if he has fallen, has form swings or if the game progressed so far the #ZestMacro suddenly matters more. Edit 2> And to be fair the non top Trap comment comes mostly in comparison to the top vs the hardest tournaments where for some reason Trap couldn't win a title. Trap v Maru -> Trap v Cure is the best example we have of this. The best PvT player just beat the best Terran to have a really bad day in finals. WHY? PvZ wasn't the issue, BO7 wasn't the issue(he did beat Maru in a BO7 ) and that's why so many people blame his nerves. ALthough I wouldn't say Trap is not the top or not consistent, unless you compare it to the real top players, who simply win the big games.
I know that you are not the primary target that I am trying to reach with this, deacon.frost. You seem to be more about being good when it matters. That was not the part I was trying to argue. Although, you had a line that can aid in another thing that I would like to argue.
Nobody can deliver all the time. The issue with Trap or Zest is, they don't deliver most of the time. This is the issue which Stats or Classic didn't face. And mind you many Code S champs were defeated the next season of the Code S
Not everyone can deliver all the time and many code S champs fell off the following season. What does that say about players who consistently place high in code S? Trap has the best track record in code S for the last 3 years. Everyone else has placed lower than 5-8th, but not Trap. Trap beats all Koreans, even those that are supposed to be more consistent. That is a top tier tournament that Trap is performing in while everyone else fails. Trap is performing year after year no matter what season. I know that he isn't winning code S, but he is consistent. He is a top player.
Arguing that Trap isn't consistent implies that it is you that have an odd meaning of the word "consistent".
In recent times Trap has won the most premier tournaments and he has placed best in code S for even longer. He is consistently good in a way that only Serral can compete with. Rogue is having major ups and downs. Dark is swaying less wildly than Rogue, but he has had a long period of being just below the top. Maru can have major lows for a few matches between his excellent games in the same day/week. Reynor had a very high peak but had a long period of showing lower skill level after that.
When the others are missing a code S here or there by failing to qualify, Trap is there. He qualified and he gets past a lot of the supposed elite.
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On December 21 2021 17:54 Drfilip wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2021 15:34 kingism wrote:
There really is nothing to be discussed with zerg bois who, after watching top level starcraft for so long, still think zvp is a balanced matchup. In case it isn't obvious enough, many others and myself have explained why earlier in this thread. Yet all we get back from zerg boiiiis are them avoiding the issues head on and saying retarded things like OH THERE JUST ARENT ANY GD PROTOSS PLAYERS or NOTHING SHOULD BE CHANGED BECAUSE GOLD LEAGUE WILL HAVE TOO MANY PROTOSSES.
Honestly, even if protoss started with just 1 worker and had all units cost twice the amount, zerg bois are so blinded they will still believe that zvp is a balanced matchup.
Keep kidding yourself that Serral's ridiculously high win rate against any protoss in a best of 5 is because he is technically and strategically soo much better than any koreans who train many hours more and have far better players to practice with.
For the zerg boiiis who plan on replying to my post (and someone please do reply, because if no one replies, I will assume I am correct), but this time, instead of focusing on something irrelevant ("Who are the zerg bois you are referring to", "Why use hyberbole" etc lol), just cut the crap and go straight to the heart of the matter: how on earth do you still think zvp at the highest level is a balanced matchup? I'm genuinely very curious to see your reasoning because otherwise we must be playing and watching two different versions of starcraft. Since you used only my criticism of you in this post, that would imply that I am the Zerg boy. If I am the Zerg boy and I am writing about ways to aid Protoss in PvZ, what are you even on about? It seems to me that you are either a troll, you do not understand what people are writing about, or you are ignoring the discussion in order to simply complain. If it is the middle option, please say so. Ask for clarification of arguments. You can use the quote funtion and single out the parts that are confusing like this: Show nested quote +how on earth do you still think zvp at the highest level is a balanced matchup? This is a part that seems central to your beliefs, that there is a large amount of people who think PvZ is balanced on the highest level. There is discussion going on about part of this in a comment thread with Waesum, Vindicare and tigera6, among others. Jump into that discussion specifically and you may find an answer. Posting the question deep down in a stand-alone comment that starts with a rant, continuing with a hyperbole/something objectively wrong, and a defensive paragraph ahead of the actual content of your post is not helpful for your cause. You antagonize nearly everyone with that start. No one will want to discuss with you. This is about you and how nobody has taught you how to have a discussion. -You need some sort of etiquette to be included. -You also need to formulate your points clearly. This mean that a lot of your thoughts have to be put aside in order for the true content to show. -Lastly, your text need to relate to the people you are discussing with. Case in point: what I started this comment with. You related the text to me, but asked about something else. I'll clarify with an allegory: The Queen of England said that we needed patience. Why does she want us to rush?I am on the team of PvZ is not balanced on the highest level (the Queen wants patience). You ask why I think PvZ is balanced (why does she want to rush?). It is not making sense. I urge you to read and understand what others are writing, and reread your own post before submitting it. However, if it isn't about a lack on your part but a willful thing then you should just stop. You do not add anything to the discussion. The only thing you contribute is negativity. I tried finding a forum rule that you would be breaking. I found this: Show nested quote +Terms of use, prohibited conduct
Duplicate or excessively repeated submissions in one or more areas This isn't your first post with basically the same content. Is it duplicate? Yes. Is it excessive? Yes. Is it grounds for a warning? I do not know where the mods draw the line, but I think it is. I have not reported you because I believe that you can do better. Note that I didn't discuss with you at all. Your start is dissuading me from doing that.
Hey Doc, a word of advice (since you seem to LOVE giving advice) after reading another post from you that is 99% meaningless and a waste of time towards the discussion of pvz balance: less is more.
Oh also, just because your username is Doc doesn't mean you can take the high ground of lecturing someone here lolz. fyi, I got a 2350 in my SATs and went to the best college in the States (Sorry Harvard), I would say that I know a thing or two about debates and discussions.
Still waiting for a zerg boiii to explain to me how on earth he believes that zvp is balanced at the moment. Tick Tok.
Fyi, If you can't formulate your view in a sentence or two and instead tell me to read older threads, all that proves is that you are totally clueless / unable to defend your view (Bamm! Here goes another great piece of advice for you Doc. Alright, I'll stop here with the "giving out advice" thing, since you are most likely a very sensitive being IRL lol).
User was temp banned for this post.
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My two cents concerning Trap:
I have been watching Trap and before him Stats play like a god sometimes and then lose like a noob.
For years I hoped and waited for a great consistent protoss champion to rise.
But it never happened.
If you watch the game a lot and play some protoss it's pretty easy to understand why:
Protoss is not consistent, the basic core protoss army is trash, it's mobility is shit too.
It always has to be tricks and surprises, early game damage or dangerous defending miracles until you get enough AoE tools. And it's still a constant gamble of being in position with an army that always has to have a good composition with enough splash and is also very slow (will die on retreat) and cannot be split up.
I can go on but the smart readers will catch the drift.
One thing to note is that early damage is required vs zerg not necessarily vs terran.But I think a terran in peak form with peak micro will always beat the protoss, because in the end protoss units are just too slow and weak to keep up in multipronged battles or pure macro games (without landing great Storms or Novas which again depends on the terran messing up).
It's not Stats or Trap that are inconsistent, it's the race that lacks a stable playing style which will keep you safe from most threats while not making you autolose in the late game.
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I got a 2350 in my SATs and went to the best college in the States (Sorry Harvard), I would say that I know a thing or two about debates and discussions.
Wow, you sure don't type like you do. I expected more from someone who only associated with the highest of the intellectual elites during his formative years.
Still waiting for a zerg boiii to explain to me how on earth he believes that zvp is balanced at the moment. Tick Tok.
Can't speak for everyone but is anyone here actually implying that they think ZvP is balanced at the highest level? All I see is reasons why people think Protoss is a bit UP or Zerg a bit OP then there is the fringe people on this thread like you that seem to just be accusing everyone of not agreeing with you as, "Zerg boiis" despite at least one of them explicitly stating that he's a Protoss player himself.
edit because now I realize reading the post that made you make sure we all knew you were good at math and english was in fact written by a guy who admits that even he doesn't think PvZ is balanced at the highest level lol
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Give Toss war hounds and it'll all be alright
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Bring back Mothership Core, make 3rd bases with chokes, eliminate negative space behind main bases. The balance is so easy. As a BW player, I'm so sick of every SC2 map feeling the exact same for 5 years
BW map makers solved all these problems back in 2007
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EPT
