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Hi guys i dont want this thread to devolve into the usual Balance Rant or this or that race is the easiest or hardest, and whoever plays this or that doesnt deserve X or Y spot, so keep that in mind please.
No, this thread has a different scope. Its more on the grass is always greener kind of post. Ill try to explain.
When i started playing SC2 i was Terran, and for me, Zerg was super OP, it was easier telling myself that, that admitting i just sucked, this was back near LOTV launch. Although yeah Swarm hosts were kinda OP, most often than not it was that i sucked.
Recently came back to SC2, in december, and been having a blast. Selected Zerg, it was hard approach at the beginning but sometimes vs Protoss i felt they were sometimes just amoving. Again not acknolwedging that i just sucked.
Now been diving into Protoss, and its clear to me that its all a matter of perspective, things that seemed really easy are not so easy.
Fast forward to know, im finding myself in a weird spot. It seems the majority of consensus in the Starcraft 2 (And also BW), community is that Protoss is the easiest race by far, then Zerg, and finally with Terran being the hardest.
So, here i come to ask, is this extremely objective, is there something behind this than mere feelings?
Am i wired differently ? Because for me the hardest by far is Protoss..., with Terran second, and Zerg being the easiest.
Am i just "Zerg Wired" ? that i dont get Protoss? and being the most opposite to Zerg i suck at it. (Zerg is my best race btw), with Protoss my second and Terran my third, but i barely play Terran (Sorry but i hate TvT), and i feel its way easier. WIth Protoss i feel that if i lose a unit, or a tiny mistake, its pretty much game over ...
What are your views, and what is the hardest race for YOU ?
And do you have anything to add as to why Protoss may be the hardest for me ?
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I'm a Terran Mech player and i think protoss is so cool but godamn i'm never going to be able to split my 2 zealot 1 stalker 1 sentry 1 colossus 1 oracle 1 phoenix to my 3rd, and my other 2 sentry 1 immortal 1 colossus at my nat, and also have 1 HT in a WP flying around trying to dodge Interference Matrix and Vikings while also trying to time it perfectly so that Storm and Charge finish in time and command all my units to attack, drop HT and storm, guardian shield before hand, lift up tanks, and fix the chargelots if they're glitching out. I know I said that in completely the wrong order of things, but i think that goes to show how difficult it is to know what order of things you should do in a split second scenario, and how much can go wrong if 1 thing doesn't line up.
I know I'm also exaggerating the scenario a bit, but i think the pro games I see are not too far from this. It's an insane amount of different units with very different movements and abilities to time and control, and so much pressure cus if you fail you don't hold and lose.
Being Terran is so much easier, you just stim before hand, everything is in 1 control group, if you have any tanks or libs you can set them up before hand, if you have viking or raven that's like the only 1 other thing u need to actively control just to target colossus or their air units and maybe interference matrix something. And if you're like a bit out of position you can just move a bit. With Protoss if you fuck up your phoenix lift or your charge or you tried to drop your HT from your WP to storm but it got sniped or you missed then well fuck gg.
(And if you're playing Mech it's even less apm to control. And with Cyclones it's EVEN LESS now.)
Protoss is objectively the least A-move race since it has the most active abilities on their units, and i wish people would stop meming it is. I know the WoL PTSD is strong but it's not been true for years.
Also though when people say Protoss is the "easiest", many people are referring to mostly just that it's the easiest to get to a masters or GM level with. (And i think most of the rest of people are just hating on Toss).
If we're talking about getting into high GM it's probably around the same, and if we're talking about mid or high pro level it's easily the hardest IMO.
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Protoss hardest at master and above
One small mistakes it’s literally game ending. For example widow mine drop, zeolot missing one pixel on hold position which results in lings getting in etc
Terran in general is the most forgiving race. They don’t get punished for any major mistakes. For example, lose 20-30 scvs triple mules still put them on even grounds. Forgot detection? Scans NP. Supply block? Np emergency supply recall
The “myth” that scan cost minerals needs to die. Terran don’t lose minerials for using scans, they just lose the “opportunity” to mine those minerals faster
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I play Terran D1, have broken into M in the past. Zerg is hardest for me. Terran is easiest for me.
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Protoss is objectively the least A-move race since it has the most active abilities on their units, and i wish people would stop meming it is. I know the WoL PTSD is strong but it's not been true for years.
Also though when people say Protoss is the "easiest", many people are referring to mostly just that it's the easiest to get to a masters or GM level with.
But how is this true tho ? Is it really the easiest to get to GM ? im finding it the hardest to get to Diamond, let alone GM ....
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United States1875 Posts
I really don't think there's a better race as far as ladder goes. The ladder isn't really a reflection of skill for many reasons. One such reapn is disparity in matchups. Ive beaten multiple zergs that are 5300 plus (while being 4800ish mmr mydelf), but I genuinely struggle against a masters 3 toss.
My advice is to chose the race whose base mechanics agree with you. I can spread creep, inject and defend all at once as z and it's actually one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game personally because I like the rhythm and pace.
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On February 14 2024 01:36 Mizenhauer wrote:
I can spread creep, inject and defend all at once as z
Zerg confirmed OP kappa
I'm having an identity crisis with the loss of PDD, positional mech getting weaker in LotV, and Protoss getting so much more cool stuff (many of them defensive/zoning like batteries, stasis ward, disruptors, etc.) and being much more designed (i think in WoL, Terran was the most designed/fleshed out, and now all 3 races match each other pretty equally, with Terran changing the least).
I love the feeling of warping in units and using batteries/overcharge, but Terran feels so much more forgiving in terms of having scans, not worrying about ling runbys ending the game if your wall isn't plugged, being able to call down extra supply, and especially being able to take bases at a slower rate and bank up OCs to spam MULEs later. I love taking minerals from bases on the opponent's side of the map by spamming MULEs especially, one of the most satisfying things to me because it makes playing that game of attrition so much more in my favor.
Maybe if i go by base mechanics i should stay with Terran hmmm
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I think it depends on how I want to play tbh but zerg is the easiest overall for me too. Toss is also the hardest to me if I want to play macro.
If I cheese/all in, toss is def the easiest and funniest to me as I find things like prism and blink micro extremely easy and powerful (to an extent obv)
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I think it depends on how I want to play tbh but zerg is the easiest overall for me too. Toss is also the hardest to me if I want to play macro.
If I cheese/all in, toss is def the easiest and funniest to me as I find things like prism and blink micro extremely easy and powerful (to an extent obv)
I always try to learn and have knowledge of the different cheeses and stuff. However i think kind of a cheater playing cheese.
In a way im a lot stubborn, and as im finding my Protoss the hardest, and so much easier with Zerg, i also feel like a cheater if i play Zerg, i kind of feel obligued to get my Protoss at least to the same level of my Zerg
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On February 14 2024 00:07 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Protoss is objectively the least A-move race since it has the most active abilities on their units, and i wish people would stop meming it is. I know the WoL PTSD is strong but it's not been true for years.
Also though when people say Protoss is the "easiest", many people are referring to mostly just that it's the easiest to get to a masters or GM level with. (And i think most of the rest of people are just hating on Toss). For whatever it's worth, I think a lot of the "Protoss easy A-move race" meming and general antipathy towards Protoss players carried over from Brood War into Wings of Liberty.
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Bisutopia19239 Posts
Terran has always been my hardest race to play. Zerg is the easiest. This answer applies to SC1 and SC2 for me.
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Hardest for me to play is terran and beat is zerg
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Zerg and Protoss actually need unit composition knowledge
While terran can pretty much just make bio Stim A move against anything/everything until they reach high diamond. After that then they need to start to add in ghost/libs
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For whatever it's worth, I think a lot of the "Protoss easy A-move race" meming and general antipathy towards Protoss players carried over from Brood War into Wings of Liberty.
Well, Protoss on WOL were busted.. specially Void Rays ...
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Northern Ireland25334 Posts
Protoss probably, doesn’t stop me trying!
Things I am (relatively) decent at - Micro (relative to my level easily my number 1 attribute), macro and multitasking, at least offensively
Things I am bad at - In-game reads, killer instinct and just going and winning a game I’m ahead in. I just don’t really like all-inning either.
When I look at replays versus my in-game sense, when in the latter I think I’m ahead, I’m ’please go kill them’ levels of ahead. When I think I’m even, I’m comfortably ahead, and often when I think I’m behind, I’m absolutely even
So, if you were reading the above and wondering ‘why the fuck does he play Protoss?’ look, you’re not alone, I wonder this myself.
I got my T to close to the level of my main in a couple of weeks of proper grinding, which was fun, although I do think Zerg, despite being my least favourite race would probably be my best race if I grinded.
If the option was there I would 100% race pick and play PvT, TvZ and TvP. My PvZ has always been garbage and TvZ is at least fun, and my PvT is my historic best matchup, and the flipside was my TvP was always pretty good too.
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Just wanted to clear this dubious thing of "Protoss being the easiest", im certainly surprised after playing it myself, as how hard and punishing it can be ...
I think Zerg is the easiest, but i also reckon that it will probably keep switching as my level of play increases ...
In any case though, ive decided that ill level them up all up to at least 3.500 MMR before deciding to stick with one, feels the fairer thing to do.
I also dont want to thing i took the "easy path" just picking whatever was easier for me ..
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Played Z to master a couple years ago. Then i quit for a long time. Came back and started playing a bit of random and z. But then i just stuck with random. For me it's a good feeling to try the other races cause I rage hard when i lose to stupid stuff, as I'm probably not the only one. And when I can try that against myself and fail epically with that too I understand the 'loser' I lost to was probably not so bad. Apparently good enough.
I also think the overall level of understanding and skill on the ladder is alot higher now than a few years ago. Might be wrong here but It's my feeling.
First I can say that at the moment some matchups are worse than others. In pvz i'm terrible, somehow. Pvt is way easier. Guess I't's because my level is soo bad. Tvp is also terrible, I have no sense of how to micro my units and can get in a good spot and just lose all my army in 2 sec. That is frustrating.
So for races, z>p>t for me.
I've always had a really hard time playing terran. But now i win sometimes. Thats fun.
I've always hated protoss alot for all the losses while grinding z. They got so many easy wins it's just f*n unfair.. but now with p i suck vs z... So guess they were'nt so bad...
And with z at the moment i cruise cause i play r. I sometimes lose and then i get mad cause in my head i should just 'win every game at this lvl' 
Game is fun! Never forget! :D
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Northern Ireland25334 Posts
On February 14 2024 05:00 CerebrateHector wrote:
Just wanted to clear this dubious thing of "Protoss being the easiest", im certainly surprised after playing it myself, as how hard and punishing it can be ...
I think Zerg is the easiest, but i also reckon that it will probably keep switching as my level of play increases ...
In any case though, ive decided that ill level them up all up to at least 3.500 MMR before deciding to stick with one, feels the fairer thing to do.
I also dont want to thing i took the "easy path" just picking whatever was easier for me ..
I think a lot has to do with how you want to play.
If you want to play a reactive, straight-up macro style I’d argue Protoss is the hardest race to play. I mean I tried enough back in the day. It’s a very brittle race, to play like that requires decent knowledge of opponent build progression and the timings it opens as well as execution, and you can’t be caught out of position or you just die.
If you just want to win ladder games, and learn like 2/3 all-ins and learn to execute them well, Protoss is the easiest race to play, and playing like that doesn’t really level off until you’re pretty comfortable in GM.
Protoss lacks the comeback mechanics other races have, so those first mistakes tend to stick harder. Playing Terran, which at my ‘peak’, low as it was, I had plenty of games where I pulled back a big deficit by just gambling on drops and microing like a god (for my relative level). Or with my even worse Zerg, I could take a bunch of damage and just gamble on hard, hardcore droning to get me back into the game. If it’s punished, which is less likely the further you go down in MMR, I mean you’re behind so you were going to lose anyway. If the gamble pays off you’re back in the game.
As a Protoss you don’t really have those, even bad players these days are aware of the ‘Shit I’m basically dead, let’s go for Hail Mary Days’ move.
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Zerg is my main race and definetly the one I'm "best" with (which is still terrible), but whenever I have a long break, I always feel like it is so much easier to get back into Protoss. Seems a little less hectic for me. So basically: Higher ceiling with Zerg, easier to get back into with Protoss.
Leaves Terran...which is by far the hardest to play for me. Not directly because of mechanics, just by design - I just hate Terran. I don't want to play it, I don't want to watch it. I don't like Marines, Medievacs, Tanks or Widow Mines - so basically everything.
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I’ve always wished I had committed to Zerg instead of Terran but after so many games with Terran it just clicks for me better then Zerg.
I think it’s partially that I just feel more comfortable reacting to situations as Terran I know what to do it’s just sometimes I fail to do it. With Zerg I don’t know what to do a lot of times. Understanding the optimal build path for every situation takes a ton of experience. I often find myself getting caught off guard. Zerg also requires you to scout and interpret information very effectively or you get mega punished by allins. Terran is a bit more forgiving with regards to this since you always have some units and with good micro can survive alot of bad situations.
I think Zerg is a bit easier/stronger to play in a very normal macro game but ladder is usually a crazy mess and has alot of hard to navigate games that require very specific adjustments to your plan.
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Low Master(EU): Zerg
At least for me its the hardest for the following reasons:
- Lava-management is almost a 3rd recource you need to control
- You have to defend 3rd bases very early with as few units as possbile
- and for the most part: its the most reacitve race: every race must scout and react to what opp does. however esp. in early game its far more essential for zerg. you can basicly kill yourself by building to much (at this point useless) units. Zerg starts with the weakest eco and needs to snowball it. Since you will never/rarely have complete information, you need to have good knowlege with the limited infromation. And while overlords/lings provide good map vision, scouting the main in early game can be denied rather easily. Both Protoss and Terran can scout with worker (drone scout is just to expensive) and have quick options to get into the base (reaper, air units, hallu-phoenix). Even if a reaper gets denied, you can at least scan if you feel like you need to. with the exception of a placed widow mine i dont see how you can deny a hallu-phoenix. As Zerg you often needs to figure out what going on without seeing the tech building and you almost never know if you have found all rax/gates. And the wrong conculision can easily lose you the game.
and this leads to:
- specialized units: i feel like zerg have the most specialized units and most of them can get countered very hard. units are not very versatile. most units cannot attack air or not attack ground. im pretty sure every zerg player has died hunderts or times with a broodlord army getting destroyed cause at the end of the decieding fight 2 or 3 airunits left or had to tap with a way bigger army value cause its corruptor cant attack ground units, or an allmost overwhelming roach ravager push get eaten up by two or three voids/banshees.
and finally:
- you just have to do more: creep spread and injects. sure, that not that difficoult. but even pro players sometimes die to lack of creep spread or lava when the early game is hectic.
Most of these points mainly affects the early game, so in my opinion Zerg becomes easier once you have all those powerfull hive units and a big eco to work with. Even though a maxed out Mech-Army or Skytoss-Deathball is difficult to kill, things might chance a bit in late game. The issue tough: Every game has and easly and midgame, only some have a late game.
Well, ofc everyone has a different skill set. But tbh its hard for me to understand if anyone below like 4.5k MMR has a different opinion. I guess those guys never played enough games with all three races and have no "POV"-look at it. Anyways, with higher MMR all my points become more and more less impactfull and once players realy master their race things def. change. I could see Protoss becoming in GM the most difficoult race (but i can only guess here) and ultimatly... in this 7k area, in the circle of the absolute best players in the world... Zerg is broken i think.
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Well, ofc everyone has a different skill set. But tbh its hard for me to understand if anyone below like 4.5k MMR has a different opinion. I guess those guys never played enough games with all three races and have no "POV"-look at it. Anyways, with higher MMR all my points become more and more less impactfull and once players realy master their race things def. change. I could see Protoss becoming in GM the most difficoult race (but i can only guess here) and ultimatly... in this 7k area, in the circle of the absolute best players in the world... Zerg is broken i think.
Im not in the 4.5k Area, but around 3k. But i feel Protoss is extremely unforgiving, more so than the other races.
Stuff takes too long to build, and its basic units are trash in the mid game. Also somehow stuff clumps up too much and it dies to stuff like siege tanks, mines, lurkers a lot ...
Ive able to play Zerg pretty much with F2 unless i get infestor or vipers. Same with terran MMM, NOT so much with Protoss ...., only Skytoss, but getting there is the challenge ...
My only real take through all this is that grass is always greener on the other side ...
Btw, Protoss vs Zerg is kinda balanced, but versus Terran 1 tiny mistake and its gg....
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Northern Ireland25334 Posts
This has turned out to be quite an interesting thread in terms of showing different skill sets and preferences can give totally different perspectives on the 3 races. And I guess it’s testament to Blizz doing such a good job in making them very distinct and different (if not always balanced), something many other RTS games I’ve tried haven’t really nailed.
I was expecting it to be half full of balance whining, but pleasantly surprised it has not been!
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Hands down Protoss. Mainly because of the micro to not just have that one F2 A deathball, cause that is how you lose games.
EDIT: And defending with Protoss is a nightmare.
Oh Zerg has Mutas? Well how about I run around like a headless chicken trying to catch them until I die.
Oh Terran has a medivac in my natural and two medivacs in my main? Well how about I gather my army and finish him...ouch tank... ouch mine ... ouch I'm dead
Oh Protoss has a hidden DT shrine. Good thing I have two observers across the map and one on my ramp. Well DTs are split up and now there are some Zealots in my main as well. O.o
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Terran hardest for me by far. I've played random, zerg, and protoss, the only reason I stopped playing random is I found terran just SO difficult with the amount of multitasking required. For zerg I can focus on macro and reacting (with a little multitasking with my muta harass, but all my production is in one control group so it's easier that way too), for protoss I can micro my deathball or (in the earlier days) my immortal sentry all-in. For terran I gotta be loading and unloading medivacs to harass, sieging and unsieging tanks, etc. When playing the races solo, I would get to high plat with Zerg or Protoss, but was pretty solidly gold as Terran. Terran is the race I play when I'm going easy on my friends.
Overall, I think at high levels the balance is pretty good at the moment. Maybe protoss is a little underpowered at the top level.
Edit: As I read these comments, I wonder whether this has changed over the eras of starcraft 2. Protoss was a lot easier in the days where sentries reigned supreme. I still think that for me, even in 2024 late game as protoss is easier than EITHER of the other two races. For Zerg I find eventually I start missing my injects in the late game, and as terran I just rarely have enough production structures to thrive in the late game. For Protoss I can slowly trade out my ground forces for the Golden Armada and it's usually GG fairly shortly after that. Though I like early and mid game more as Zerg these days.
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On February 14 2024 23:41 TheDougler wrote:
Terran hardest for me by far. I've played random, zerg, and protoss, the only reason I stopped playing random is I found terran just SO difficult with the amount of multitasking required. For zerg I can focus on macro and reacting (with a little multitasking with my muta harass, but all my production is in one control group so it's easier that way too), for protoss I can micro my deathball or (in the earlier days) my immortal sentry all-in. For terran I gotta be loading and unloading medivacs to harass, sieging and unsieging tanks, etc. When playing the races solo, I would get to high plat with Zerg or Protoss, but was pretty solidly gold as Terran. Terran is the race I play when I'm going easy on my friends.
Overall, I think at high levels the balance is pretty good at the moment. Maybe protoss is a little underpowered at the top level.
Edit: As I read these comments, I wonder whether this has changed over the eras of starcraft 2. Protoss was a lot easier in the days where sentries reigned supreme. I still think that for me, even in 2024 late game as protoss is easier than EITHER of the other two races. For Zerg I find eventually I start missing my injects in the late game, and as terran I just rarely have enough production structures to thrive in the late game. For Protoss I can slowly trade out my ground forces for the Golden Armada and it's usually GG fairly shortly after that. Though I like early and mid game more as Zerg these days.
if you struggle with multitasking, you ever considered to play mech?
in general i wonder why so many mention micro certain armys. i think every race has army-comps which are harder or easier to control.
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On February 15 2024 03:08 StabiloBoss20 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2024 23:41 TheDougler wrote:
Terran hardest for me by far. I've played random, zerg, and protoss, the only reason I stopped playing random is I found terran just SO difficult with the amount of multitasking required. For zerg I can focus on macro and reacting (with a little multitasking with my muta harass, but all my production is in one control group so it's easier that way too), for protoss I can micro my deathball or (in the earlier days) my immortal sentry all-in. For terran I gotta be loading and unloading medivacs to harass, sieging and unsieging tanks, etc. When playing the races solo, I would get to high plat with Zerg or Protoss, but was pretty solidly gold as Terran. Terran is the race I play when I'm going easy on my friends.
Overall, I think at high levels the balance is pretty good at the moment. Maybe protoss is a little underpowered at the top level.
Edit: As I read these comments, I wonder whether this has changed over the eras of starcraft 2. Protoss was a lot easier in the days where sentries reigned supreme. I still think that for me, even in 2024 late game as protoss is easier than EITHER of the other two races. For Zerg I find eventually I start missing my injects in the late game, and as terran I just rarely have enough production structures to thrive in the late game. For Protoss I can slowly trade out my ground forces for the Golden Armada and it's usually GG fairly shortly after that. Though I like early and mid game more as Zerg these days. if you struggle with multitasking, you ever considered to play mech? in general i wonder why so many mention micro certain armys. i think every race has army-comps which are harder or easier to control.
I mostly played terran pre-LoTV, where mech in TvP just wasn't working. I might give it a try again, I actually DO quite enjoy the mech style. It feels powerful, especially at lower leagues where opponents will sometimes just hurl their armies at your position.
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I'm a master 3 zerg (M1 a couple of years ago), who has been doing PiG's B2GMs to learn the other races. Protoss has been really easy (I'm D2 after about 50 games, probably get to D1 in a week or so), but Terran has been a real gruelling experience, I'm nearly at D3 now, but my god is that race faffy to play.
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I play random (started out as a Terran main). There's different aspects of the game that I find harder for some races and easier for others, so it's difficult for me to pick one race as overall the hardest. Here's how I'd personally rank the races from hardest to easiest in different categories.
Macro:
1 - Terran
2 - Protoss
3 - Zerg
Scouting:
1 - Protoss
2 - Terran
3 - Zerg
I was going to try to rank micro, but I realized I can't since the difficulty in micro is more dependent on the army compositions of both you and your opponent than it is on race.
So yeah, I guess I personally find Zerg to be the easiest in terms of the core mechanics of the game, but how you actually use your army can be equally difficult or easy across all the races.
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Ive gotten way better at playing Protoss with the standard robo build. My only issue are randoms as they can be Protoss and cheese...
From now on im cannon Rushing Random players....
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EPT
