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If we're going by "merit/skill", i always feel that protoss needs to pull off insane feats and balls of steel to compete. And that it's the easiest for them to take game ending damage due to small slip ups.
It takes SO much effort (unit control, micro, decision making, good defense and timing) for Protoss to defend early Terran pushes for example, meanwhile it's very easy for the Terran to group everything up and siege up, stim, and start forcing tons of pressure and mistakes. (I play Terran too, so I'm not biased, i really do feel it is relatively much simpler and easy).
Protoss units have a high ceiling, and you need to use each of their strengths to the fullest to defend a lot of things.
For example blink stalkers can't just blink on tanks and shoot, you also need to split their fire to not overkill Tanks, it's THAT demanding. Whereas if you're Terran, you don't have to worry about that even, and your positioning is way less important and punishing. One wrong blink, one wrong read, you can lose. Remember they have fog of war, they're not spectators, they often have to guess where to run and flank and blink, they don't know where the tanks are.
This is one reason why we should consider making units slightly less hard-countery (something Blizzard agreed was a big lesson learned over the years for SC2). Because for example, if Immortals are super strong vs Tanks but not marines, and Colossus super strong vs Marines but not Marauder/Tank, then the unit control will always be demanding because it's balanced around them firing against the right units and not wasting shots. If it's balanced to account for pros having an imperfect level of micro, then they'll be too strong in other situations.
Protoss units move at such different speeds too, and there is so much to control. Guardian shield, blink stalker, don't block your chargelots, don't let chargelots glitch out, also turn on your Oracle laser or lift stuff up with Phoenixes, make sure your Immortal doesn't waste 2 shots on a marine because that could have been 1 tank, now they have a 2nd tank reinforcing and you no longer can engage with your 5 gateway units, and now you lose ! etc.
It all just feels so incredibly punishing.
It's not each of these individually in a vacuum that is that difficult or complicated. It's that it's like you have all these ingredients in your recipe, and they ALL have to do their job as planned, because if 1 ingredient fails, everything else might fall apart. Or you might have a chance if you can figure out instantly what to do differently in the engagement, but it takes so much more difficult problem solving and quick thinking than Terran army control and micro does, which is way more straightforward. There's no such thing as like, oh you stimmed 1 second too late and you lost the fight hard. Or you decided to split 5 marines to the left when you should have ran to the right, and now suddenly you have to sac all your tanks. Or like oh you lose 1-2 support units and now you don't have the pieces you need to fight. You can still fight and attack with your Terran army even if things go wrong, it's never as punishing or game ending as Protoss army control.
I'm always wow'd whenever I see Creator defend a Terran or Zerg push. I really love the way he plays, it screams merit and skill (when he's doing well, sure sometimes he's sloppy). Imagine the amount of risk and skill is needed to have HTs loaded up in your WPs and very carefully trying to feedback their raven or get a storm off to dodge EMPs and vikings. Think about how punishing and difficult it is to try to position it in a place that can avoid dying while also getting those feedback/storms off. I can't ever imagine maining Protoss. And on top of that, you have to have your army split between your natural and third, with just the right amount and just the right control. Blink stalkers have to be at the 3rd so you can kite and poke the terran army from behind or the side and delay the push, colossus have to not get picked off, you have to choose where to use your 1 Overcharge correctly and not let it get picked off, and also hopefully you build it in the correct location for the angle they decided to push, you also have to be ready to FF your natural if they try to go up there, and also watch out for drops in the main! Don't let your colossus or observers get sniped!
If anything goes slightly wrong, you better think fast and come up with just the right solution to save yourself, otherwise everything falls apart and Terran will punish heavily.
And all this just to survive, it's not like doing all this means you crush the push and gain a big advantage.
Maybe this is why I'm not a protoss player, but as a terran player it just screams skill and precision. It's so sad to me seeing zerglings glitch by a zealot/adept and causing game ending damage. Or a protoss to defend crackling/baneling runby after runby, only to finally lose 15 probes to 1 runby, and suddenly they don't have the econ anymore to keep trading evenly with the Zerg and get overwhelmed.
This is just talking about Protoss defending vs Terran, but i feel like Protoss is like this in general as a race. How about mass liberators? Takes an insane amount of effort to fight against than it does for Terran to spam liberation zones and leapfrog. You need such precision, it's really saddening how people meme that Protoss is "easy" or "low APM" or whatever. It's no longer the A-move deathball it used to be. Sure you might say that they have Disruptors, but Disruptors are not always that consistent, and you don't need perfect splits to compete against them. You can even take 1-2 perfect disruptor shots here and there and still have an even game.
One thing that i think might be being forgotten, is that Protoss units are weaker at defense by design. Why? Because if units were strong, attacking with Warpgate would be too imbalanced. So Gateway units have to be slightly weak so that Warpgate attacks aren't too powerful. This means that at home when defending, where Warpgate isn't really relevant, your army is weaker than Terran/Zerg's army. That's why Batteries and Overcharge were added, and it's really confounding to me how the balance council thought that nerfing Overcharge and buffing the ability to get more Interference Matrixes earlier, wouldn't fuck up PvT. Did they really think that AA missile reducing 1 less armor was going to make up for nerfed Overcharge and buffed Interference Matrix? Or that slightly faster Obs would compensate? Or that getting +1 upgrades a few seconds earlier was going to help? There was no raw power given to Protoss to compensate for what was taken away.
Even many people on TL called it and said it looks like it will be even harder for Protoss to defend, and look what happened? PvT winrate dropped to 40%, and so many Protoss struggle vs Terran now. Just because players hated waiting 10 seconds for Overcharge to run out, and wanted to be able to attack into Overcharge and overpower it. So they attack into it, lose a fight, then say that Overcharge is OP. You could have just waited 10 seconds... it's not like Terran or Zerg loses the game if you don't end the game 10 seconds earlier. Yes, 10 seconds can matter in an all-in or timing attack, but attacking into it certainly isn't better than waiting it out (unless you Bile it or such).
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The bane double nerf is a bit much
The cyclone is a bit stupid
The medivacs buff tho is one of the dumbest shit I ever saw on a patch note. David Kim would be proud.
Feels like a bronze terran made it
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Northern Ireland24250 Posts
@Yoshi a fine post sir. In a crude sense to me it feels Terran is meant to be the glass cannon race, and in many ways it is.
But it is Protoss that is the exceedingly brittle race. Partly due to core design, this has just got worse over time as players improvised. Partly due to being a race held together by various band aids.
With a perfect game, with great execution the top folks can still pull it off, but even a Serral or a Maru don’t play optimally every game.
Case in point, super batteries/formerly MSC. I was never a fan of either but on the flip side Protoss would just outright die most games without even getting properly started. Those are huge band aids.
I actually love a bunch of Protoss units, they’re IMO some of the better in the game as they have pretty defined strengths, weaknesses and need skill to use. But oh boy do many of them not scale well.
Either they just melt as terrible terrible damage kicks in the higher supply goes, or they’re too difficult to use as part of a workable late game composition through simply requiring too many manually triggered abilities.
Ever seen stellar Phoenix control at the same time as fine blink micro? Pretty much doesn’t happen when there’s more than a handful of units. To take just one example, it’s prohibitively difficult to do given how fast engagements go down, perhaps in a game that slows it down a la Stormgate you could have a faction so reliant on spells and abilities.
In combination this all makes them rather brittle and on a knife edge. I think you could take two decent pros of the various races into Archon mode and the Terran/Zergs aren’t going to be hugely better than a Maru or Serral in controlling an army, but the Protoss archon is going to be able to do things considerably beyond any single member of the Protoss pantheon
Also ‘bonus material’, lazy copy paste of a response on the Reddit thread, feel I may as well!:
Exactly. Is it a style, or is it ‘stuff that comes from factories’? People can’t even seem to decide on that!
I’d argue that while not a 1:1 similarity, historic Zerg styles especially slow pushes with swarmhost backing, or some Airtoss styles shared a lot in common with BW mech come the lategame.
But people hated those styles and wanted them patched out
I’d also argue that battlemech, while I find it fine as a style shares very little in common with BW mech, and the cyclone in general doesn’t synergise well with any tank backbone very well.
What is a cyclone good at? Staying at max lock-on range and kiting constantly. What is a tank good at? Zoning a position at range while being static and hopefully you can keep various tank killers at a distance.
There’s pretty obvious overlap and you end up with two main scenarios (and ok notches in between)
1. The Cyclone is too brittle, not tanky enough or just not cost efficient enough to shield tank positions well, so mech still isn’t especially viable.
2. The Cyclone is potent and supply/cost efficient enough, mobile and can shoot up. Why build a tank-based core of your army in the first place? If there is ONE general consensus on what mech is, the iconic siege tank features heavily. What you’d likely see is a bunch of timings of Cyclone/Hellion or Cyclone/Bio. A change in meta sure but not one that IMO constitutes the ‘mech’ that is the continued complaint and rationale for these changes.
So what kind of ‘mech’ is this cyclone buff meant to make viable?
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On September 21 2023 21:07 Swaann wrote:
I took the 5 top ranked player by race on aligulac.
Toss : herO, Maxpax, Classic, Showtime, Creator
Terran : Maru, Clem, Cure, Byun, Heromarine
Zerg : Serral, Dark, Reynor, Solar, Ragnarok
Sorry but i don't feel this is same quality sample.
herO is good, but never has been considered a top top player like Serral, Maru, Dark etc. Maxpax is only doing online tournament. Classic still struggle since military. Showtime and Creator ...
So yeah, i think the real issue is here.
Holy "bad word I can't type on TL forums." You can not be serious. Consider that maybe for a second, the reason these Protoss players aren't as accomplished as the ones from the other two races could have something to do with balance?
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On September 22 2023 10:45 CicadaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2023 21:07 Swaann wrote:
I took the 5 top ranked player by race on aligulac.
Toss : herO, Maxpax, Classic, Showtime, Creator
Terran : Maru, Clem, Cure, Byun, Heromarine
Zerg : Serral, Dark, Reynor, Solar, Ragnarok
Sorry but i don't feel this is same quality sample.
herO is good, but never has been considered a top top player like Serral, Maru, Dark etc. Maxpax is only doing online tournament. Classic still struggle since military. Showtime and Creator ...
So yeah, i think the real issue is here. Holy "bad word I can't type on TL forums." You can not be serious. Consider that maybe for a second, the reason these Protoss players aren't as accomplished as the ones from the other two races could have something to do with balance?
Imo, balance plays a factor but so do the players skill. Most of the top Protoss players retired: Zest, Stats, and PartinG for example.
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On September 22 2023 11:38 geokilla wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2023 10:45 CicadaSC wrote:On September 21 2023 21:07 Swaann wrote:
I took the 5 top ranked player by race on aligulac.
Toss : herO, Maxpax, Classic, Showtime, Creator
Terran : Maru, Clem, Cure, Byun, Heromarine
Zerg : Serral, Dark, Reynor, Solar, Ragnarok
Sorry but i don't feel this is same quality sample.
herO is good, but never has been considered a top top player like Serral, Maru, Dark etc. Maxpax is only doing online tournament. Classic still struggle since military. Showtime and Creator ...
So yeah, i think the real issue is here. Holy "bad word I can't type on TL forums." You can not be serious. Consider that maybe for a second, the reason these Protoss players aren't as accomplished as the ones from the other two races could have something to do with balance? Imo, balance plays a factor but so do the players skill. Most of the top Protoss players retired: Zest, Stats, and PartinG for example.
Okay and life, rogue, jaedong, soulkey retired as well I don't see your point. Players retire, it happens, my point is you balance around who IS playing the game, not who was.
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On September 22 2023 10:45 CicadaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2023 21:07 Swaann wrote:
I took the 5 top ranked player by race on aligulac.
Toss : herO, Maxpax, Classic, Showtime, Creator
Terran : Maru, Clem, Cure, Byun, Heromarine
Zerg : Serral, Dark, Reynor, Solar, Ragnarok
Sorry but i don't feel this is same quality sample.
herO is good, but never has been considered a top top player like Serral, Maru, Dark etc. Maxpax is only doing online tournament. Classic still struggle since military. Showtime and Creator ...
So yeah, i think the real issue is here. Holy "bad word I can't type on TL forums." You can not be serious. Consider that maybe for a second, the reason these Protoss players aren't as accomplished as the ones from the other two races could have something to do with balance?
So when the top 10 Protoss players retire, there is a law that says the next ten players have to magically jump in skill to catch up to the rest?
Rogue retired and Ragnarok (or Solar) got into the Top 5 zergs because of that. Doesn't mean Ragnarok is suddenly as good as Rogue. Same for terran. TY and Innovation dropped out, so Heromarine could jump in - a player that has not won a Premier tournament in his career. But sure, the reason Showtime and Creator are not as good as peak Zest, Stats and PartinG is a balance-issue...
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On September 22 2023 12:13 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2023 10:45 CicadaSC wrote:On September 21 2023 21:07 Swaann wrote:
I took the 5 top ranked player by race on aligulac.
Toss : herO, Maxpax, Classic, Showtime, Creator
Terran : Maru, Clem, Cure, Byun, Heromarine
Zerg : Serral, Dark, Reynor, Solar, Ragnarok
Sorry but i don't feel this is same quality sample.
herO is good, but never has been considered a top top player like Serral, Maru, Dark etc. Maxpax is only doing online tournament. Classic still struggle since military. Showtime and Creator ...
So yeah, i think the real issue is here. Holy "bad word I can't type on TL forums." You can not be serious. Consider that maybe for a second, the reason these Protoss players aren't as accomplished as the ones from the other two races could have something to do with balance? So when the top 10 Protoss players retire, there is a law that says the next ten players have to magically jump in skill to catch up to the rest? Rogue retired and Ragnarok (or Solar) got into the Top 5 zergs because of that. Doesn't mean Ragnarok is suddenly as good as Rogue. Same for terran. TY and Innovation dropped out, so Heromarine could jump in - a player that has not won a Premier tournament in his career. But sure, the reason Showtime and Creator are not as good as peak Zest, Stats and PartinG is a balance-issue...
The amount of intentional dishonesty and framing here is appalling.
First of all, when those guys were all still playing Protoss was still underperforming in tournaments, 2nd of all stats is back, 3rd of all why are u comparing the lowest players to the best and saying they have to match why not say Classic/herO instead of creator/showtime? I think we all know why. 4th no matter what, balance of the game should be around who IS playing the game, not who WAS playing the game. Saying welp, protoss, you're out of luck because no one talented is playing your race is a horrible mindset, and horrible for game health assuming ~33% of players play Protoss.
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On September 22 2023 00:33 tigera6 wrote:
I mean, at some point in the game, we saw too many medivac on the field and its cutting into the army supply of the Terran. So having the upgrade might allow Terran to get more fighting unit out. The cost 250/250 (Fusion Core + Upgrade) might be worth it at 3 base economy.
I think, this will be an upgrade that terrans get on their way to ranged libs, will also allow for more bio or libs on the field over medivacs. Either way a massive buff to late game terran.
What baffles me is the first statement of them trying to help mid-late game protoss vs terran, and then they nerf the one unit that was actually good at that stage, without giving anything else.
Like this change wont magically makes colossi better vs mass marauder. My one hope is that with the change immortal is getting it will be better performing in the matchup.
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France12761 Posts
On September 22 2023 12:14 CicadaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2023 12:13 Balnazza wrote:On September 22 2023 10:45 CicadaSC wrote:On September 21 2023 21:07 Swaann wrote:
I took the 5 top ranked player by race on aligulac.
Toss : herO, Maxpax, Classic, Showtime, Creator
Terran : Maru, Clem, Cure, Byun, Heromarine
Zerg : Serral, Dark, Reynor, Solar, Ragnarok
Sorry but i don't feel this is same quality sample.
herO is good, but never has been considered a top top player like Serral, Maru, Dark etc. Maxpax is only doing online tournament. Classic still struggle since military. Showtime and Creator ...
So yeah, i think the real issue is here. Holy "bad word I can't type on TL forums." You can not be serious. Consider that maybe for a second, the reason these Protoss players aren't as accomplished as the ones from the other two races could have something to do with balance? So when the top 10 Protoss players retire, there is a law that says the next ten players have to magically jump in skill to catch up to the rest? Rogue retired and Ragnarok (or Solar) got into the Top 5 zergs because of that. Doesn't mean Ragnarok is suddenly as good as Rogue. Same for terran. TY and Innovation dropped out, so Heromarine could jump in - a player that has not won a Premier tournament in his career. But sure, the reason Showtime and Creator are not as good as peak Zest, Stats and PartinG is a balance-issue... The amount of intentional dishonesty and framing here is appalling. First of all, when those guys were all still playing Protoss was still underperforming in tournaments, 2nd of all stats is back, 3rd of all why are u comparing the lowest players to the best and saying they have to match why not say Classic/herO instead of creator/showtime? I think we all know why. 4th no matter what, balance of the game should be around who IS playing the game, not who WAS playing the game. Saying welp, protoss, you're out of luck because no one talented is playing your race is a horrible mindset, and horrible for game health assuming ~33% of players play Protoss.
I don't think protoss was underperforming at the time?
In 2022, protoss won more money than terran, albeit slightly  Winnings/2022
In 2021, protoss won the most money, even more than zerg Winnings/2021
In 2020, protoss won more money than terran Winnings/2020
In 209, zerg won an absurd amount of money, but protoss still won more money than terran Winnings/2019
Same in 2018
Only in 2023 protoss has underperformed money wise Winnings/2023 ; which is partly explained by the departure of Neeb and the KR protoss (Zoun, Trap, PartinG, Zest, etc.)
In 2022, SHoWTimE was #9 in earnings and he is #5 in 2023 since there are far less top protoss around. Heck, MC is now in the rankings because of gamers8, and #9 / #10 protoss earners are trigger and SKillous.
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On September 22 2023 16:33 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2023 12:14 CicadaSC wrote:On September 22 2023 12:13 Balnazza wrote:On September 22 2023 10:45 CicadaSC wrote:On September 21 2023 21:07 Swaann wrote:
I took the 5 top ranked player by race on aligulac.
Toss : herO, Maxpax, Classic, Showtime, Creator
Terran : Maru, Clem, Cure, Byun, Heromarine
Zerg : Serral, Dark, Reynor, Solar, Ragnarok
Sorry but i don't feel this is same quality sample.
herO is good, but never has been considered a top top player like Serral, Maru, Dark etc. Maxpax is only doing online tournament. Classic still struggle since military. Showtime and Creator ...
So yeah, i think the real issue is here. Holy "bad word I can't type on TL forums." You can not be serious. Consider that maybe for a second, the reason these Protoss players aren't as accomplished as the ones from the other two races could have something to do with balance? So when the top 10 Protoss players retire, there is a law that says the next ten players have to magically jump in skill to catch up to the rest? Rogue retired and Ragnarok (or Solar) got into the Top 5 zergs because of that. Doesn't mean Ragnarok is suddenly as good as Rogue. Same for terran. TY and Innovation dropped out, so Heromarine could jump in - a player that has not won a Premier tournament in his career. But sure, the reason Showtime and Creator are not as good as peak Zest, Stats and PartinG is a balance-issue... The amount of intentional dishonesty and framing here is appalling. First of all, when those guys were all still playing Protoss was still underperforming in tournaments, 2nd of all stats is back, 3rd of all why are u comparing the lowest players to the best and saying they have to match why not say Classic/herO instead of creator/showtime? I think we all know why. 4th no matter what, balance of the game should be around who IS playing the game, not who WAS playing the game. Saying welp, protoss, you're out of luck because no one talented is playing your race is a horrible mindset, and horrible for game health assuming ~33% of players play Protoss. I don't think protoss was underperforming at the time? In 2022, protoss won more money than terran, albeit slightly Winnings/2022In 2021, protoss won the most money, even more than zerg Winnings/2021In 2020, protoss won more money than terran Winnings/2020In 209, zerg won an absurd amount of money, but protoss still won more money than terran Winnings/2019Same in 2018 Only in 2023 protoss has underperformed money wise Winnings/2023 ; which is partly explained by the departure of Neeb and the KR protoss (Zoun, Trap, PartinG, Zest, etc.) In 2022, SHoWTimE was #9 in earnings and he is #5 in 2023 since there are far less top protoss around. Heck, MC is now in the rankings because of gamers8, and #9 / #10 protoss earners are trigger and SKillous.
Earnings are never really an accurate measurement for balance state. Tell me how (no offense to any of these players, they are all great) but someone like pilipili winning $600 dollars in the NA regional is the same as DRG being eliminated in the ro24 of GSL after having to face Cure and Dark. However, if you are going to go off earnings as a metric, what would matter most is global winnings which you still see other races outperforming the toss. Furthermore take a look at the Aligulac balance report and see which race is lagging and for how long. Tell me that is just a coincidence or cough up any sort of rationale. http://aligulac.com/periods/ . It's a complete joke. I swear part of the reasoning people want to argue toss is not underpowered is because they lose to protoss in their 4k/5k ladder games. Like, JUST LOOK AT THE DATA. /rant
in what you linked btw,
2023: a single toss in top 10 of global earnings
2022: a single toss
2021: 3
2020: 2
2019: 4 (and the one time they are not underrepresented they place in the bottom 4 earners where first place (zerg) earned more than all four of them combined.)
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France12761 Posts
On September 22 2023 16:37 CicadaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2023 16:33 Poopi wrote:On September 22 2023 12:14 CicadaSC wrote:On September 22 2023 12:13 Balnazza wrote:On September 22 2023 10:45 CicadaSC wrote:On September 21 2023 21:07 Swaann wrote:
I took the 5 top ranked player by race on aligulac.
Toss : herO, Maxpax, Classic, Showtime, Creator
Terran : Maru, Clem, Cure, Byun, Heromarine
Zerg : Serral, Dark, Reynor, Solar, Ragnarok
Sorry but i don't feel this is same quality sample.
herO is good, but never has been considered a top top player like Serral, Maru, Dark etc. Maxpax is only doing online tournament. Classic still struggle since military. Showtime and Creator ...
So yeah, i think the real issue is here. Holy "bad word I can't type on TL forums." You can not be serious. Consider that maybe for a second, the reason these Protoss players aren't as accomplished as the ones from the other two races could have something to do with balance? So when the top 10 Protoss players retire, there is a law that says the next ten players have to magically jump in skill to catch up to the rest? Rogue retired and Ragnarok (or Solar) got into the Top 5 zergs because of that. Doesn't mean Ragnarok is suddenly as good as Rogue. Same for terran. TY and Innovation dropped out, so Heromarine could jump in - a player that has not won a Premier tournament in his career. But sure, the reason Showtime and Creator are not as good as peak Zest, Stats and PartinG is a balance-issue... The amount of intentional dishonesty and framing here is appalling. First of all, when those guys were all still playing Protoss was still underperforming in tournaments, 2nd of all stats is back, 3rd of all why are u comparing the lowest players to the best and saying they have to match why not say Classic/herO instead of creator/showtime? I think we all know why. 4th no matter what, balance of the game should be around who IS playing the game, not who WAS playing the game. Saying welp, protoss, you're out of luck because no one talented is playing your race is a horrible mindset, and horrible for game health assuming ~33% of players play Protoss. I don't think protoss was underperforming at the time? In 2022, protoss won more money than terran, albeit slightly Winnings/2022In 2021, protoss won the most money, even more than zerg Winnings/2021In 2020, protoss won more money than terran Winnings/2020In 209, zerg won an absurd amount of money, but protoss still won more money than terran Winnings/2019Same in 2018 Only in 2023 protoss has underperformed money wise Winnings/2023 ; which is partly explained by the departure of Neeb and the KR protoss (Zoun, Trap, PartinG, Zest, etc.) In 2022, SHoWTimE was #9 in earnings and he is #5 in 2023 since there are far less top protoss around. Heck, MC is now in the rankings because of gamers8, and #9 / #10 protoss earners are trigger and SKillous. Earnings are never really an accurate measurement for balance state. Tell me how (no offense to any of these players, they are all great) but someone like pilipili winning $600 dollars in the NA regional is the same as DRG being eliminated in the ro24 of GSL after having to face Cure and Dark. However, if you are going to go off earnings as a metric, what would matter most is global winnings which you still see other races outperforming the toss. Furthermore take a look at the Aligulac balance report and see which race is lagging and for how long. Tell me that is just a coincidence or cough up any sort of rationale. http://aligulac.com/periods/ . It's a complete joke. I swear part of the reasoning people want to argue toss is not underpowered is because they lose to protoss in their 4k/5k ladder games. Like, JUST LOOK AT THE DATA. /rant in what you linked btw, 2023: a single toss in top 10 of global earnings 2022: a single toss 2021: 3 2020: 2 2019: 4 (and the one time they are not underrepresented they place in the bottom 4 earners where first place (zerg) earned more than all four of them combined.)
Earnings is what is ultimately important for the players. It's a decent proxy for balance, as the earnings were completely skewed in favor of zerg when zerg was at its most OP.
I don't see how "winning a GSL" is a good proxy for balance btw.
This year, the earnings being lower for protoss are partly explained by the high number of top protoss that stopped playing, and might also be partly explained by balance. But to think that protoss has been underpowered for years is kinda dishonest, it's just not true
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If there were ever a top Protoss in modern SC2 (LotV), that was able to be in the top echelon of players like Maru, Serral, Rogue... then the evidence and data would suggest that the rest of the Protoss players are just lacking in skill, and that it's very possible and realistic for Protoss to compete at the top top level.
However, what we see is there is not a single Protoss that is or was ever on that level. It's much more reasonable to conclude that Protoss is a weak race at the top level, rather than that Protoss players are just worse than Terran and Zerg players. You could say Classic and Stats each had some good eras in LotV, and Zest even won a couple things occasionally, but it's nowhere close to Terran and Zerg. Especially Zerg, which we've known was overpowered for much of LotV and it took many nerfs (and the last community patch thankfully) to finally bring them back down to what seems like a fairly good state now.
Even though Trap was also very consistent in LotV for 1-2 years, he never won any GSL Code S. Why? (Other than PvZ being too hard for years). Is it because he chokes? It's most likely that Protoss as many people think and agree, is simply hard to be consistent at the top top level, and because it's such a punishing race to play.
Sure Protoss players seem less consistent and make slip ups, but do you really think it's just because they're all bad? Or is it because the race is more demanding to play? People criticize players like Creator fumbling an attack or throwing the game due to 1 bad engagement etc. Yes, it looks sloppy and terrible when things don't go well. But did you consider that maybe, Protoss has to regularly make bold risky and committal moves? And that's why occasionally, you're going to get a bad read and make a mistake? How about the other side of things, their incredible feats and unit micro. Manuevering a WP with HTs in it to try to feedback Ravens and storm Bio, while trying to avoid EMP, interference matrix, and viking fire. Why is it that they can do very very difficult things, yet tend to make game ending mistakes that Terran/Zerg don't have as often? It seems clear that it's just the race to me. If they keep making these slipups so often, it's simply because the race is more demanding to play than the others. Assuming that all Protoss players are just bad is a pretty shitty conclusion.
And with the recent community patch, Protoss is in an even weaker state...
If the argument is that Protoss was fine before, well as of the last community patch Protoss definitely isn't fine. They clearly got nerfed after the patch, it was clear just from the patch notes alone, no testing or results were needed.
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France12761 Posts
On September 22 2023 17:14 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
If there were ever a top Protoss in modern SC2 (LotV), that was able to be in the top echelon of players like Maru, Serral, Rogue... then the evidence and data would suggest that the rest of the Protoss players are just lacking in skill, and that it's very possible and realistic for Protoss to compete at the top top level.
However, what we see is there is not a single Protoss that is or was ever on that level. It's much more reasonable to conclude that Protoss is a weak race at the top level, rather than that Protoss players are just worse than Terran and Zerg players. You could say Classic and Stats each had some good eras in LotV, and Zest even won a couple things occasionally, but it's nowhere close to Terran and Zerg. Especially Zerg, which we've known was overpowered for much of LotV and it took many nerfs (and the last community patch thankfully) to finally bring them back down to what seems like a fairly good state now.
Even though Trap was also very consistent in LotV for 1-2 years, he never won any GSL Code S. Why? (Other than PvZ being too hard for years). Is it because he chokes? It's most likely that Protoss as many people think and agree, is simply hard to be consistent at the top top level, and because it's such a punishing race to play.
Sure Protoss players seem less consistent and make slip ups, but do you really think it's just because they're all bad? Or is it because the race is more demanding to play?
And with the recent community patch, Protoss is in an even weaker state...
If the argument is that Protoss was fine before, well as of the last community patch Protoss definitely isn't fine. They clearly got nerfed after the patch, it was clear just from the patch notes alone, no testing or results were needed.
Zest was at that level for sure, he was the best protoss and in the same tier of players as Maru, Rogue, Dark.
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On September 21 2023 04:36 CicadaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2023 04:30 nullrd wrote:
nine ladder maps? cant remember TLMC has those maps Alcyone LE and Radhuset Station LE. must be renamed oh yeah isn't it normally 7? wtf
they've did the same with BW
9 maps instead of 7. It's a Good change, imo.
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R.I.P. protoss btw 
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On September 22 2023 17:19 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2023 17:14 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
If there were ever a top Protoss in modern SC2 (LotV), that was able to be in the top echelon of players like Maru, Serral, Rogue... then the evidence and data would suggest that the rest of the Protoss players are just lacking in skill, and that it's very possible and realistic for Protoss to compete at the top top level.
However, what we see is there is not a single Protoss that is or was ever on that level. It's much more reasonable to conclude that Protoss is a weak race at the top level, rather than that Protoss players are just worse than Terran and Zerg players. You could say Classic and Stats each had some good eras in LotV, and Zest even won a couple things occasionally, but it's nowhere close to Terran and Zerg. Especially Zerg, which we've known was overpowered for much of LotV and it took many nerfs (and the last community patch thankfully) to finally bring them back down to what seems like a fairly good state now.
Even though Trap was also very consistent in LotV for 1-2 years, he never won any GSL Code S. Why? (Other than PvZ being too hard for years). Is it because he chokes? It's most likely that Protoss as many people think and agree, is simply hard to be consistent at the top top level, and because it's such a punishing race to play.
Sure Protoss players seem less consistent and make slip ups, but do you really think it's just because they're all bad? Or is it because the race is more demanding to play?
And with the recent community patch, Protoss is in an even weaker state...
If the argument is that Protoss was fine before, well as of the last community patch Protoss definitely isn't fine. They clearly got nerfed after the patch, it was clear just from the patch notes alone, no testing or results were needed. Zest was at that level for sure, he was the best protoss and in the same tier of players as Maru, Rogue, Dark.
During the only period of SC2 history where protoss was strong Zest won a bunch of stuff playing protoss. And then he got destroyed in the last five years like everyone else.
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France12761 Posts
On September 22 2023 19:19 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2023 17:19 Poopi wrote:On September 22 2023 17:14 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
If there were ever a top Protoss in modern SC2 (LotV), that was able to be in the top echelon of players like Maru, Serral, Rogue... then the evidence and data would suggest that the rest of the Protoss players are just lacking in skill, and that it's very possible and realistic for Protoss to compete at the top top level.
However, what we see is there is not a single Protoss that is or was ever on that level. It's much more reasonable to conclude that Protoss is a weak race at the top level, rather than that Protoss players are just worse than Terran and Zerg players. You could say Classic and Stats each had some good eras in LotV, and Zest even won a couple things occasionally, but it's nowhere close to Terran and Zerg. Especially Zerg, which we've known was overpowered for much of LotV and it took many nerfs (and the last community patch thankfully) to finally bring them back down to what seems like a fairly good state now.
Even though Trap was also very consistent in LotV for 1-2 years, he never won any GSL Code S. Why? (Other than PvZ being too hard for years). Is it because he chokes? It's most likely that Protoss as many people think and agree, is simply hard to be consistent at the top top level, and because it's such a punishing race to play.
Sure Protoss players seem less consistent and make slip ups, but do you really think it's just because they're all bad? Or is it because the race is more demanding to play?
And with the recent community patch, Protoss is in an even weaker state...
If the argument is that Protoss was fine before, well as of the last community patch Protoss definitely isn't fine. They clearly got nerfed after the patch, it was clear just from the patch notes alone, no testing or results were needed. Zest was at that level for sure, he was the best protoss and in the same tier of players as Maru, Rogue, Dark. During the only period of SC2 history where protoss was strong Zest won a bunch of stuff playing protoss. And then he got destroyed in the last five years like everyone else.
He reached several Katowice finals / GSL finals and even beat Rogue in an offline bo7.
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EPT
