On September 20 2025 08:08 Hider wrote: The more I think about the more I like the patch.
This is a redesign of Psi Storm. Should it be redesigned? My initial reaction was why? But the more I think about the more it probably makes sense to make it a zoning tool. If the TvP Meta is protoss having many more bases than the terran then it means the terran can never afford to be hit by a huge psi storm. Thus the game must be balanced with the terran almost being capable of EMP'ing beforehand and it's just not that fun.
Making it a zoning tool could work. And I think most people are getting this wrong. Yes it's not gonna deal a large amount of instant damage. However, terrans can't take fights in it. And terrans really can't afford to just stim past it (that's not how bio works).
2 Psi storm should generally result in a huge positional advantage for the protoss player. The difference is that TvP won't be as one-sided with one fight potentially ended the game. But rather more back and forth and tactical plays.
TvZ is interesting as well because the counter to the Shroud is Psi Storm. The change to both abilities will make fights longer as well.
lol zoning? You need to go look at some ptr testing clips.
Bio ball and lings literally can rush past 3 storms and still have half hp
Toss rely on the storm to do dps. Without it their splash damage is literally garbage. If they wanted to nerf storm to the ground, they needed to buff gateway units and Robo
But there's probably something wrong in the PTR currently, right? Like when you go through storms with lings some of them don't get damaged at all, there's nothing in the change that says this. Think this is just bugged.
Yeah it's bugged, they fucked up the damage zones so if you move through the storm even if the animations looks like it should be dealing damage it isnt.
On September 20 2025 08:08 Hider wrote: The more I think about the more I like the patch.
This is a redesign of Psi Storm. Should it be redesigned? My initial reaction was why? But the more I think about the more it probably makes sense to make it a zoning tool. If the TvP Meta is protoss having many more bases than the terran then it means the terran can never afford to be hit by a huge psi storm. Thus the game must be balanced with the terran almost being capable of EMP'ing beforehand and it's just not that fun.
Making it a zoning tool could work. And I think most people are getting this wrong. Yes it's not gonna deal a large amount of instant damage. However, terrans can't take fights in it. And terrans really can't afford to just stim past it (that's not how bio works).
2 Psi storm should generally result in a huge positional advantage for the protoss player. The difference is that TvP won't be as one-sided with one fight potentially ended the game. But rather more back and forth and tactical plays.
TvZ is interesting as well because the counter to the Shroud is Psi Storm. The change to both abilities will make fights longer as well.
Zone them to do, what? Toss eventually have to kill their opponent’s army. Forcefields are already a potent zoning option, but are very situationally deployed in TvP and kinda get phased out. Disruptors were extremely potent zoning tools and got nerfed to be less effective in that capacity.
And Toss in this meta go pretty Zealot heavy too, so I mean eventually you have to engage. With units that kinda go where they want when they charge.
I could see it being situationally useful, absolutely. But it’s also an absolutely core ability in killing things in direct engagements. So nerfing it in that capacity is gigantic.
If you wanted to experiment, give Temps two different flavours of Storm, or buff something that would synergise with these changes.
In a crude sense, Zerg want to get on top of you at all times, provided it’s not suicidal. Toss want to keep the bugs away from them most times, and jump on top of Terran. Terran are the race that want to engage at a distance across the board.
Giving Toss a potent zoning tool, but neutering its ability to quickly kill things, might be somewhat potent in PvZ. But in PvT, where you want to get up close and personal, I don’t see how it works, in general. It would obviously be strong in delaying pushes and buying time to reinforce to crush it, but more generally it’s not something that feels synergises with how the faction plays in that matchup
I share your concerns for PvZ as the zerg is happy to rush through the zones into melee range. However, storm is also bugged now so a bit hard to evaluate exactly how it plays out.
Vs ranged units it's different and that's all terran have. Protoss can use to gain control of certain positions. Move forward, to attack a base. Protoss storms the area preventing the terran from defending the base. It could be used almost like a Siege Tank where you gradually gain control of a new area.
In some ways it's better because Protoss can storm before the battle occurs preventing any type of EMP impact. I am very curious how it plays out. There is a scenario where it's broken vs terran after protoss have adjusted their playstyle.
Bio ball and lings literally can rush past 3 storms and still have half hp
Are you thinking through the implications of what you are saying? Terran stimming throug to get into melee range vs protoss? That's how you imagine terrans will react to that and terrans will win?
But your comment is the perfect example with why are think ppl are getting this wrong. You all think of the storm as being balanced around the guaranteed damage impact. But new storm is about forcing the opponent into a situation where he has no good options. Stim through and to zealots/archon? Try and split which results in suboptimal concave for an extended period? Move back to fight later?
He's saying everyone will just ignore the storm damage regardless if their units are supposed to kite, hold position or advance in given situation. It's not a real zoning tool like liberator fields or the older, wider disruptor nova balls. The storm damage is too low to matter.
Speaking purely as a spectator, I like a lot of these changes. Storm currently comes across as much too strong and easy-to-use compared to the splash damage available to T and Z, particularly after energy battery made it much more ubiquitous.
Similarly, I've always thought of ling-bane-muta as one of the most aesthetically pleasing and entertaining playstyles, and seeing it get some love is great.
On my admittedly limited knowledge, this might tilt the balance in favor of Z, which I guess is either badly needed or ridiculous, depending on whether you like to see the game balanced around a certain Finnish player or the struggling field below him.
On September 20 2025 02:36 Lexender wrote: So its pretty much confirmed that the council no longer exists and this is a Blizzard patch, so you guys got to find a new target to bitch about (maybe whatever interns made this patch will become the new David Kims?).
"pretty much confirmed"? After searching several times i haven't found any evidence of this on TL or other forums like reddit.
If it's Blizzard's sole doing you'd expect people to come out and say that this crazy patch has nothing to do with them.
If that is the case, Blizz should not screw with the game like this either.
We as a community can and should use our own design/balance (such as using all of the numbers from X prior patch) in the event of Blizz making wildly inappropriate changes to the game, but it would be a shame for them to ruin the ladder as we can't really replace that.
On the flipside of the medal we also don't have any indication this patch was conjured up by externals, so maybe we should refrain from presenting our assumptions as facts?
On September 20 2025 02:36 Lexender wrote: So its pretty much confirmed that the council no longer exists and this is a Blizzard patch, so you guys got to find a new target to bitch about (maybe whatever interns made this patch will become the new David Kims?).
"pretty much confirmed"? After searching several times i haven't found any evidence of this on TL or other forums like reddit.
If it's Blizzard's sole doing you'd expect people to come out and say that this crazy patch has nothing to do with them.
If that is the case, Blizz should not screw with the game like this either.
We as a community can and should use our own design/balance (such as using all of the numbers from X prior patch) in the event of Blizz making wildly inappropriate changes to the game, but it would be a shame for them to ruin the ladder as we can't really replace that.
On the flipside of the medal we also don't have any indication this patch was conjured up by externals, so maybe we should refrain from presenting our assumptions as facts?
I think it's fair to assume status quo until evidence to the contrary exists. This has been the way that things have worked for quite some time, and it's fairly trivial for somebody involved (or not involved) to post and say "yo guys not us".
On September 20 2025 18:39 Admiral Yang wrote: Speaking purely as a spectator, I like a lot of these changes. Storm currently comes across as much too strong and easy-to-use compared to the splash damage available to T and Z, particularly after energy battery made it much more ubiquitous.
The race that relies on tier 3 splash damage to deal with tier 1 units from Terran and Zerg has better splash damage than the other races that don't rely on that? Gee Willikers, Batman!
On September 20 2025 08:08 Hider wrote: The more I think about the more I like the patch.
This is a redesign of Psi Storm. Should it be redesigned? My initial reaction was why? But the more I think about the more it probably makes sense to make it a zoning tool. If the TvP Meta is protoss having many more bases than the terran then it means the terran can never afford to be hit by a huge psi storm. Thus the game must be balanced with the terran almost being capable of EMP'ing beforehand and it's just not that fun.
Making it a zoning tool could work. And I think most people are getting this wrong. Yes it's not gonna deal a large amount of instant damage. However, terrans can't take fights in it. And terrans really can't afford to just stim past it (that's not how bio works).
2 Psi storm should generally result in a huge positional advantage for the protoss player. The difference is that TvP won't be as one-sided with one fight potentially ended the game. But rather more back and forth and tactical plays.
TvZ is interesting as well because the counter to the Shroud is Psi Storm. The change to both abilities will make fights longer as well.
Zone them to do, what? Toss eventually have to kill their opponent’s army. Forcefields are already a potent zoning option, but are very situationally deployed in TvP and kinda get phased out. Disruptors were extremely potent zoning tools and got nerfed to be less effective in that capacity.
And Toss in this meta go pretty Zealot heavy too, so I mean eventually you have to engage. With units that kinda go where they want when they charge.
I could see it being situationally useful, absolutely. But it’s also an absolutely core ability in killing things in direct engagements. So nerfing it in that capacity is gigantic.
If you wanted to experiment, give Temps two different flavours of Storm, or buff something that would synergise with these changes.
In a crude sense, Zerg want to get on top of you at all times, provided it’s not suicidal. Toss want to keep the bugs away from them most times, and jump on top of Terran. Terran are the race that want to engage at a distance across the board.
Giving Toss a potent zoning tool, but neutering its ability to quickly kill things, might be somewhat potent in PvZ. But in PvT, where you want to get up close and personal, I don’t see how it works, in general. It would obviously be strong in delaying pushes and buying time to reinforce to crush it, but more generally it’s not something that feels synergises with how the faction plays in that matchup
I share your concerns for PvZ as the zerg is happy to rush through the zones into melee range. However, storm is also bugged now so a bit hard to evaluate exactly how it plays out.
Vs ranged units it's different and that's all terran have. Protoss can use to gain control of certain positions. Move forward, to attack a base. Protoss storms the area preventing the terran from defending the base. It could be used almost like a Siege Tank where you gradually gain control of a new area.
In some ways it's better because Protoss can storm before the battle occurs preventing any type of EMP impact. I am very curious how it plays out. There is a scenario where it's broken vs terran after protoss have adjusted their playstyle.
Bio ball and lings literally can rush past 3 storms and still have half hp
Are you thinking through the implications of what you are saying? Terran stimming throug to get into melee range vs protoss? That's how you imagine terrans will react to that and terrans will win?
But your comment is the perfect example with why are think ppl are getting this wrong. You all think of the storm as being balanced around the guaranteed damage impact. But new storm is about forcing the opponent into a situation where he has no good options. Stim through and to zealots/archon? Try and split which results in suboptimal concave for an extended period? Move back to fight later?
I’m reminded of that scene in the Phantom Menace where Obi-Wan keeps getting trapped behind forcefields, as Darth Maul stares menacingly at him. Yes, Darth Maul can’t get at him in those periods, but equally he’s not going anywhere.
Similarly here, Toss have a zoning tool, but they still have to eventually deal with Darth Maul, and Blizz have taken away their lightsaber to boot.
Terran has potent healing and a ton of damage output. And are ranged. So a higher duration, lower tick storm isn’t gonna do all that much. You can’t force them to eat the storm for an extended set of ticks in the way you can force Zergs to, or force a disengage if say they’re attacking a base.
Past a point, Toss needs a way to shave units off quickly with AoE, as bio outscales the gateway core. One of those options being storm, the others in Colossus and Disruptors have been tweaked and nerfed over time.
Situationally, yeah there’s utility for this tweaked storm, but it’s replacing the existing storm which is a pretty core ability.
So either in a defensive or offensive posture, locking down an area, splitting a path off to manoeuvre around, yeah pretty good in theory.
In others? Especially an open field engagement out on the map? Where you don’t have time or position to set traps up, I suspect you’ll just see Terran kiting Toss to death, or enveloping them and surrounding them depending on the scenario and comp.
Storm also becomes quite bad as a reactive defensive tool. Those ‘oh shit there’s a red blip on my minimap’ and a panicked storm or two. It simply won’t kill much of anything if the opponent is paying attention to their force.
Indeed, more generally this version of storm lends itself to kind of pre-planned engagements, or ones where at least you know roughly how you want to exploit the map architecture. I can see its potency there.
That’s not every engagement in SC2, plenty of times you’ll either completely lose track of your opponent’s force, or have a rough idea of where it is, but not its full composition, nor where it’s coming from. And boom there it is, maybe from the side you weren’t expecting, or maybe they’ve set up a surround
In those kind of scenarios, you’ll throw down your storms, sub-optimally in most times, so not perfectly zoning out the big threats, and your opponent’s army will just run through them and crush you. Or around.
Most fundamentally, there’s a real problem with this change with synergy IMO, and indeed, the ‘why?’ it was made.
What is the core combat unit in PvT? The Manlot. What do they like to do? Charge uncontrollably into combat and smack things with their mind swords. How does storm intersect with that? Be the T attacking into you, or you chasing, stick storms down and pump out that damage as Zealots close, thinning the numbers down considerably, or softening them up so Zealots can do their thing. Zealots may take some friendly fire from storm, but generally not too much as it dissipates pretty well, and good players tend to place them well. With this proposed change? You’ve a storm that doesn’t burst down bio quickly unless either forced or unforced your opponent just stands in the storm. More, healthier bio to gun down the manly Manlots of Aiur. I also highly suspect, especially in a scenario where you’re chasing a retreating/kiting Terran that it’s going to be hard to cast effective storms on your opponent and not have your Zealots actually eat more damage.
Finally, the ‘why?’. Cool, let’s give Toss a zoning tool, that’s a neat change. Except, Toss already have some of the best zoning tools in the game! Forcefields, stasis traps, Tempests, Disruptors, the ability to those units to exploit their range when combined with observers and revelation. They’re not lacking there at all
On September 20 2025 08:08 Hider wrote: The more I think about the more I like the patch.
This is a redesign of Psi Storm. Should it be redesigned? My initial reaction was why? But the more I think about the more it probably makes sense to make it a zoning tool. If the TvP Meta is protoss having many more bases than the terran then it means the terran can never afford to be hit by a huge psi storm. Thus the game must be balanced with the terran almost being capable of EMP'ing beforehand and it's just not that fun.
Making it a zoning tool could work. And I think most people are getting this wrong. Yes it's not gonna deal a large amount of instant damage. However, terrans can't take fights in it. And terrans really can't afford to just stim past it (that's not how bio works).
2 Psi storm should generally result in a huge positional advantage for the protoss player. The difference is that TvP won't be as one-sided with one fight potentially ended the game. But rather more back and forth and tactical plays.
TvZ is interesting as well because the counter to the Shroud is Psi Storm. The change to both abilities will make fights longer as well.
Zone them to do, what? Toss eventually have to kill their opponent’s army. Forcefields are already a potent zoning option, but are very situationally deployed in TvP and kinda get phased out. Disruptors were extremely potent zoning tools and got nerfed to be less effective in that capacity.
And Toss in this meta go pretty Zealot heavy too, so I mean eventually you have to engage. With units that kinda go where they want when they charge.
I could see it being situationally useful, absolutely. But it’s also an absolutely core ability in killing things in direct engagements. So nerfing it in that capacity is gigantic.
If you wanted to experiment, give Temps two different flavours of Storm, or buff something that would synergise with these changes.
In a crude sense, Zerg want to get on top of you at all times, provided it’s not suicidal. Toss want to keep the bugs away from them most times, and jump on top of Terran. Terran are the race that want to engage at a distance across the board.
Giving Toss a potent zoning tool, but neutering its ability to quickly kill things, might be somewhat potent in PvZ. But in PvT, where you want to get up close and personal, I don’t see how it works, in general. It would obviously be strong in delaying pushes and buying time to reinforce to crush it, but more generally it’s not something that feels synergises with how the faction plays in that matchup
I share your concerns for PvZ as the zerg is happy to rush through the zones into melee range. However, storm is also bugged now so a bit hard to evaluate exactly how it plays out.
Vs ranged units it's different and that's all terran have. Protoss can use to gain control of certain positions. Move forward, to attack a base. Protoss storms the area preventing the terran from defending the base. It could be used almost like a Siege Tank where you gradually gain control of a new area.
In some ways it's better because Protoss can storm before the battle occurs preventing any type of EMP impact. I am very curious how it plays out. There is a scenario where it's broken vs terran after protoss have adjusted their playstyle.
Bio ball and lings literally can rush past 3 storms and still have half hp
Are you thinking through the implications of what you are saying? Terran stimming throug to get into melee range vs protoss? That's how you imagine terrans will react to that and terrans will win?
But your comment is the perfect example with why are think ppl are getting this wrong. You all think of the storm as being balanced around the guaranteed damage impact. But new storm is about forcing the opponent into a situation where he has no good options. Stim through and to zealots/archon? Try and split which results in suboptimal concave for an extended period? Move back to fight later?
You do know the Terrans can literally just sit in the storm and still steam though the toss army. With the nerf dps on storm and heal from medivac. As long as Terrans commits to the attack they don’t need to split or do anything. Just literally Stim a move and roll over the toss army. Without the storm dps the toss cannot kill the terran ball fast enough. You seem to underestimate how much dps and fast a terran bio ball do.
They literally can destroy a toss army within 5 sec. Even if they sit in storm the whole time it’s like what 25damage? With medivac support healing maybe only 10damage?
This new storm doesn’t force shit. In your “hypothetical situation” the only way to force situations is to give storm a casting range of a siege tank or tempest
On September 20 2025 08:08 Hider wrote: The more I think about the more I like the patch.
This is a redesign of Psi Storm. Should it be redesigned? My initial reaction was why? But the more I think about the more it probably makes sense to make it a zoning tool. If the TvP Meta is protoss having many more bases than the terran then it means the terran can never afford to be hit by a huge psi storm. Thus the game must be balanced with the terran almost being capable of EMP'ing beforehand and it's just not that fun.
Making it a zoning tool could work. And I think most people are getting this wrong. Yes it's not gonna deal a large amount of instant damage. However, terrans can't take fights in it. And terrans really can't afford to just stim past it (that's not how bio works).
2 Psi storm should generally result in a huge positional advantage for the protoss player. The difference is that TvP won't be as one-sided with one fight potentially ended the game. But rather more back and forth and tactical plays.
TvZ is interesting as well because the counter to the Shroud is Psi Storm. The change to both abilities will make fights longer as well.
Zone them to do, what? Toss eventually have to kill their opponent’s army. Forcefields are already a potent zoning option, but are very situationally deployed in TvP and kinda get phased out. Disruptors were extremely potent zoning tools and got nerfed to be less effective in that capacity.
And Toss in this meta go pretty Zealot heavy too, so I mean eventually you have to engage. With units that kinda go where they want when they charge.
I could see it being situationally useful, absolutely. But it’s also an absolutely core ability in killing things in direct engagements. So nerfing it in that capacity is gigantic.
If you wanted to experiment, give Temps two different flavours of Storm, or buff something that would synergise with these changes.
In a crude sense, Zerg want to get on top of you at all times, provided it’s not suicidal. Toss want to keep the bugs away from them most times, and jump on top of Terran. Terran are the race that want to engage at a distance across the board.
Giving Toss a potent zoning tool, but neutering its ability to quickly kill things, might be somewhat potent in PvZ. But in PvT, where you want to get up close and personal, I don’t see how it works, in general. It would obviously be strong in delaying pushes and buying time to reinforce to crush it, but more generally it’s not something that feels synergises with how the faction plays in that matchup
I share your concerns for PvZ as the zerg is happy to rush through the zones into melee range. However, storm is also bugged now so a bit hard to evaluate exactly how it plays out.
Vs ranged units it's different and that's all terran have. Protoss can use to gain control of certain positions. Move forward, to attack a base. Protoss storms the area preventing the terran from defending the base. It could be used almost like a Siege Tank where you gradually gain control of a new area.
In some ways it's better because Protoss can storm before the battle occurs preventing any type of EMP impact. I am very curious how it plays out. There is a scenario where it's broken vs terran after protoss have adjusted their playstyle.
Bio ball and lings literally can rush past 3 storms and still have half hp
Are you thinking through the implications of what you are saying? Terran stimming throug to get into melee range vs protoss? That's how you imagine terrans will react to that and terrans will win?
But your comment is the perfect example with why are think ppl are getting this wrong. You all think of the storm as being balanced around the guaranteed damage impact. But new storm is about forcing the opponent into a situation where he has no good options. Stim through and to zealots/archon? Try and split which results in suboptimal concave for an extended period? Move back to fight later?
I’m reminded of that scene in the Phantom Menace where Obi-Wan keeps getting trapped behind forcefields, as Darth Maul stares menacingly at him. Yes, Darth Maul can’t get at him in those periods, but equally he’s not going anywhere.
Similarly here, Toss have a zoning tool, but they still have to eventually deal with Darth Maul, and Blizz have taken away their lightsaber to boot.
Terran has potent healing and a ton of damage output. And are ranged. So a higher duration, lower tick storm isn’t gonna do all that much. You can’t force them to eat the storm for an extended set of ticks in the way you can force Zergs to, or force a disengage if say they’re attacking a base.
Past a point, Toss needs a way to shave units off quickly with AoE, as bio outscales the gateway core. One of those options being storm, the others in Colossus and Disruptors have been tweaked and nerfed over time.
Situationally, yeah there’s utility for this tweaked storm, but it’s replacing the existing storm which is a pretty core ability.
So either in a defensive or offensive posture, locking down an area, splitting a path off to manoeuvre around, yeah pretty good in theory.
In others? Especially an open field engagement out on the map? Where you don’t have time or position to set traps up, I suspect you’ll just see Terran kiting Toss to death, or enveloping them and surrounding them depending on the scenario and comp.
Storm also becomes quite bad as a reactive defensive tool. Those ‘oh shit there’s a red blip on my minimap’ and a panicked storm or two. It simply won’t kill much of anything if the opponent is paying attention to their force.
Indeed, more generally this version of storm lends itself to kind of pre-planned engagements, or ones where at least you know roughly how you want to exploit the map architecture. I can see its potency there.
That’s not every engagement in SC2, plenty of times you’ll either completely lose track of your opponent’s force, or have a rough idea of where it is, but not its full composition, nor where it’s coming from. And boom there it is, maybe from the side you weren’t expecting, or maybe they’ve set up a surround
In those kind of scenarios, you’ll throw down your storms, sub-optimally in most times, so not perfectly zoning out the big threats, and your opponent’s army will just run through them and crush you. Or around.
Most fundamentally, there’s a real problem with this change with synergy IMO, and indeed, the ‘why?’ it was made.
What is the core combat unit in PvT? The Manlot. What do they like to do? Charge uncontrollably into combat and smack things with their mind swords. How does storm intersect with that? Be the T attacking into you, or you chasing, stick storms down and pump out that damage as Zealots close, thinning the numbers down considerably, or softening them up so Zealots can do their thing. Zealots may take some friendly fire from storm, but generally not too much as it dissipates pretty well, and good players tend to place them well. With this proposed change? You’ve a storm that doesn’t burst down bio quickly unless either forced or unforced your opponent just stands in the storm. More, healthier bio to gun down the manly Manlots of Aiur. I also highly suspect, especially in a scenario where you’re chasing a retreating/kiting Terran that it’s going to be hard to cast effective storms on your opponent and not have your Zealots actually eat more damage.
Finally, the ‘why?’. Cool, let’s give Toss a zoning tool, that’s a neat change. Except, Toss already have some of the best zoning tools in the game! Forcefields, stasis traps, Tempests, Disruptors, the ability to those units to exploit their range when combined with observers and revelation. They’re not lacking there at all
Totally agreed to this, a zoning tool isn't something that P lacks and it's arguably worse in that than a lot of other options that just make an area impassable.
It also makes no sense vs T at all. T has the range advantage in all situations except colossus against 0 tanks, 0 vikings and 0 libs, so it's usually T that prods and then kites back. If you wanted to do a storm drop behind the army and force them to run through storm while kiting to present two loosing scenarios you already could do that and lower damage is just going to make this a lot less effective because the bio ball runs through the storm in seconds anyways. No T is going to not run through half-damage storms to stand and fight the P ball, unless they're already through the zealots and dissolving the P ball. And if they're dissolving the P ball you can't zone them away cause medivacs are outhealing whatever damage is coming for you.
I just don't really see what the new storm does that FF doesn't already do much better and FF comes from a cheaper, lower tech and lower priced unit that already only sees very little play. If they wanted it to be a pre-cast zoning tool it would have either needed significant buffs in other aspects (range, AoE, energy cost) or a positive interaction with anything (no damage on allied units, damage on units in stasis). And that disregards that a tickling zone isn't going to dissuade anybody to run over your gateway ball cause gateway ball sucks at fighting, so gateway ball probably would have needed a buff in exchange.
This is a question that should have been asked back during development of Wings of Liberty, but is worth asking now: What is the Protoss identity and how does it manifest itself in the game?
I would say the faction identity is of a few, elite warriors supported by advanced technology. They should be expensive, comparably slower, and terrifying en masse.
In game? They are expensive. They are comparably slower, but all seem to have some gimmick to make up for that. They were terrifying en masse (mainly due to Robo units because Warp Gate has rendered their Gateway units useless), but they've spent 15 years systematically deleting any power to the army except for Psionic Storm because players refused to learn that to play around an army you can't really engage. Now they are coming for Storm because it is the only tool Protoss has left.
Protoss did have an identity in WoL, that's why the Protoss deathball became a meme.
Blizzard decided in HotS to make harassment more of a priority, and added a bunch of faster harassment units to the game (or buffed those that were already present), which meant Protoss immobility became a problem. The first Protoss gimmick, the Mothership Core, was introduced to deal with this.
Blizzard decided in LotV to again make harassment more of a priority, but also decided to make expanding quickly a requirement by reducing the number of resources in each base, which meant Protoss spreading itself thinner against better harassment at an earlier point in the game. Cue even more bandaids and gimmicks aimed at making Protoss viable in such an environment, all of which have been heavily modified/removed since being introduced.
And this is why WoL (with the notable exception of BL/Infestor which Protoss could at least avoid using two-base timing-attacks) is a better designed game (for Protoss) than HotS and LotV.
On September 21 2025 00:14 RogueTheGOAT wrote: This is a question that should have been asked back during development of Wings of Liberty, but is worth asking now: What is the Protoss identity and how does it manifest itself in the game?
I would say the faction identity is of a few, elite warriors supported by advanced technology. They should be expensive, comparably slower, and terrifying en masse.
In game? They are expensive. They are comparably slower, but all seem to have some gimmick to make up for that. They were terrifying en masse (mainly due to Robo units because Warp Gate has rendered their Gateway units useless), but they've spent 15 years systematically deleting any power to the army except for Psionic Storm because players refused to learn that to play around an army you can't really engage. Now they are coming for Storm because it is the only tool Protoss has left.
The faction identity is twofold. It's the classical high templar society supported by heavy robotic technology on the one side. Basically the golden armada, zealots, HTs, elite super warriors that are slow and few in numbers, but pack overwhelming punch. On the other side there's the dark templar society that relies on stealth, mobility, indirect warfare. Units like the blinkstalker and the DT, who excel at harassing without getting caught but are much less potent in a direct confrontation. During the development of WoL David Kim thought that having an all-purpose backbone without micro gimmick wasn't what they were looking for, so they created the stalker. I believe Protoss is meant to be dance around some confrontations with gimmicks like mobility and stealth.
The problem is that due to the marine buffs in WoL and the lack of a scaling gateway backbone of the army P doesn't really feel elite. There are certain units in both matchups that can make your ball really deadly, but they also have hardcounters, so they're always on a timer. I believe the idea is that P counteracts that with mobility and harassment, but stalkers struggle with that against Z where lings and the vision provided by creep kinda counter them for backstabbing and against T you're always one bad fight away from loosing the game, so it's pretty difficult to spend large amounts of resources on harass.
I think the oracle is as close to a solution as we're gonna get, but yeah, it's pretty mandatory against Z as a result and against T you still don't really have the resources.
On September 19 2025 04:01 [PkF] Wire wrote: Alright, I was a HUGE advocate of Protoss nerfs, but I'm pretty sure that is going way overboard (especially the storm one). I like the general trend and the underlying ideas, but man will a P ever win something again ?
(HM is jokingly saying in his stream "Ah, Harstem is now in charge", but notice a lot of those changes actually were in a Harstem balance change ideas : . Harstem = balance council confirmed )
- Asians for Affirmative Action - Gays for Palestine - Chickens for KFC - Harstem for Protoss balance
I’ll put it this way: this game doesn’t just need radical changes, they’re absolutely necessary. The list of things to fix could go on and on: the lack of AA units for Zerg on tier 1; the overly versatile Oracle; the awful and unnecessary Disruptor; the highly questionable Tempest; the overly versatile Ghost, which literally counters every Zerg unit except maybe Banelings; the dreadful TvT because of tanks being so strong that the matchup is unplayable without them (some players even learned another race just to avoid playing TvT); the almost completely destroyed strategic diversity (most games play out in exactly the same way—how often do you see a PvZ opener that isn’t Stargate?). And these are only the most pressing issues—if you dig deeper, it gets even worse.
So the problem isn’t that the proposed changes are too radical, but that patches are far too rare and far too minor. The game needs frequent and large-scale updates to keep the meta fresh and prevent it from stagnating into just two viable builds, which is exactly what’s happening lately.
On September 21 2025 06:32 BlackEyed wrote: I’ll put it this way: this game doesn’t just need radical changes, they’re absolutely necessary. The list of things to fix could go on and on: the lack of AA units for Zerg on tier 1; the overly versatile Oracle; the awful and unnecessary Disruptor; the highly questionable Tempest; the overly versatile Ghost, which literally counters every Zerg unit except maybe Banelings; the dreadful TvT because of tanks being so strong that the matchup is unplayable without them (some players even learned another race just to avoid playing TvT); the almost completely destroyed strategic diversity (most games play out in exactly the same way—how often do you see a PvZ opener that isn’t Stargate?). And these are only the most pressing issues—if you dig deeper, it gets even worse.
So the problem isn’t that the proposed changes are too radical, but that patches are far too rare and far too minor. The game needs frequent and large-scale updates to keep the meta fresh and prevent it from stagnating into just two viable builds, which is exactly what’s happening lately.
I completely agree with this sentiment.
9 out of 10 redditors and TL users complaining about the patch don't even play sc2 anymore. their only excuse for whining is that they are overly concerned about prize money, trophies, and an even distribution of races in the ro4 of major tournaments.
sure, that plays a factor - but what really breaths life into a game is making it fun and interesting enough for regular players to enjoy on ladder.
you gave some very strong examples of tedious unit interactions, tedious match-ups, stale meta and the almost complete removal of strategy from sc2. if the people around here actually played sc2, they would understand what you mean.
the only time that strategy ever mattered in sc2 was when we were playing a major new patch or expansion, when stuff was still being figured out. that's the biggest problem for the long-term survival of this game.
it's a very tall task, but I would love to see sc2 discover its "final form" no matter how many tumultuous balance patches that might take. I hope this PTR is just a starting point for another set of radical changes further down the road
EPT
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