My take: "#SaveHOTS"

Introduction

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Hello!

With all the 'save HOTS' stuff and teams coming to pass, I want to give my thoughts on the current state of the game. Some of my random thoughts/comparisons from BW will be given in this.

I made 3 tweets in support of 'save HOTS' and I want to back it up with my thoughts:



Why read?

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First, why should you even read this or give it a thought?
I think there's a huge challenge for incorporation of new units and progression in the game. I want to talk about it and branch out to the community.

About me and credibility:
I'm a North American Star League caster. I've watched tens of thousands of games. I've played thousands of games(not Kas amount of games yet!), and my single love is to analyze! I've reached #1 masters with all races so it gives me some sort of ideas about all the races and their matchups, and I can see some of the frustrations of all the races through experience and through friends/progamers venting to me. I'm a veteran of the game however I don't believe I'm 100% right with all my ideas. I know some of them have holes so please take all of this with a grain of salt. I'm trying to compile everything together right now.

How Protoss is balanced and the inherent problems

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Forcefield: So why is forcefield so frustrating to me as a caster/player/observer/thinker?

It boils down to the pushes that are just so lobsided.

It's so frustrating seeing game after game after game of 9:30 pushes with 3 immortals and warp prisms working time after time. In these battles, we marvel when squirtle does some awesome warp prism micro and it works so well! But isn't that what we should expect? Isn't this what we want to push our progamers to actually master?

Rather we watch progamers focusing of forcefielding, which let's be honest, it's how fast you can accurately left click. Don't get me wrong, that's a skill and it's hard to do sometimes, but that's very different than drop micro or even regular battle micro.

But the harder thing and more frustrating thing is when map makers message me and ask me my thoughts on a map. The #1 thing I say is it isn't playable because of one reason. Forcefield. It's overpowered in a lot of positions. Why? because it creates terrain that doesnt normally exist. How do you balance a map when the positions can change so drastically based on sentries in any matchup? Look at all of our maps and look at entrances to the third base. You'll see that it never has a small ramp. Why?

Think of maps in PvZ where 2 base allins are the most prevalent thing to do. Antiga, Cloud, Shakuras, etc. What do all of these have in common? look at the chokes where protoss normally attack the 3rd. How silly is it to be a map maker and have so many restrictions at 3rd bases. Not only distance, not only expansion layouts, but you always have to think forcefields. It's infuriating if you want to be innovative in map making.

Fact: Forcefield is a dominating spell that is essential for protoss. There is heavy reliance on this support spell.

Now let's look at the effects of what forcefields do: The power of forcefields allow you to curtail the map to whatever you want. So that means the other units need to be scaled down. How many times do you hear "Gateways units are trash" Now I don't necessarily believe that entirely, but still we hear it time and time again. Think about that for a second. I want you to play PvT PvP and PvZ without using forcefields or sentries and see the effects. You'll be wanting a buff of course. But buffing has other impacts.

However, people will argue that it's fine though because it's synergy! Support roles! I agree completely too! :D Supporting units are awesome! We see this in MOBA and that was drives people to really watch. The fact that you see all of this teamwork/synergy within your units makes it exciting and that's what makes it so cool!

But the difference is that the support in MOBA isn't the power. The power comes from your carries. If you dont undrestand that, i'm saying the power comes from non-sentry units, but in fact in SC2 we have managing the terrain be the #1 priority instead of relying on those critical units behind the forcefields.

In starcraft 2 we currently have two problems. Sentries are support but they're dominant support. They NEED to be there else all fails. It's a reliance rather than a luxury. You can look at the difference with the Raven. Early game TvT Ravens are a luxury. It's not totally necessary to incorporate them. Their uses are awesome, but it's stylistic to incorporate.

The second problem is that they are throw away units. Not on purpose of course! But when EMP and Fungal exist, sentries die. It's a fact. Ask TT1, Naniwa, (insert protoss). You're left with garbage. That being said there needs to be something to replace the sentry to keep relevant in the game. But WAIT WAIT WAIT

We balanced a lot of the game around this forcefield! This single spell that keeps us safe in the beginning and gives us synergy later on is gone D: Now i'm not saying zealots, stalkers, and immortals need to be buffed, i'm just pointing out their roles are mostly based on FF. When you remove the FF, you have a problem. You have a syngergy problem. This is the time a lot of zergs have taken advantage of in this day's metagame. This is the time when Terrans know they have more options and they can outmicro protoss.

PvZ Aside

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I believe this matchup comes down to the distance between sentry tech and mothership tech. The longer this time is extended, the more of an advantage Zergs have. The best Protosses' in the world will reduce this gap as much as possible, and try to fill this void with a trade of some sort to encourage passivity in both parties. Some protoss just defend the whole game but Zergs are catching onto this and realizing they can go absurdly fast broodlords to hit before mothership, and sidestep engagements regarding forcefields all together.

Think of this:
Assume 50% in ZvP. (which it isn't)
Think of the power of archon toilet. Think of how many lost games you've seen won because of it.
Now we ask, do we want to be incorporating this outlier into our statistics. Because that's what it is. An outlier. Theres nothing stronger in the game currently than an archon toilet. Micro at end game is based on archon toilet, yet these statistics incorporate archon toilet being used.

If we remove it, think about how low PvZ will drop. Why should we balance a game on whether or not this spell works?
Now consider Zergs have an advantage on Protoss. What does that say about the state of PvZ? What can we do to actually tackle this problem?

Now some protoss are really good at doing this, and some protoss just can't seem to connect these fluidly. But just try to flash back to all the games you've seen or had and you'll realize when you see protoss aggressive and when you see them back off.
So you see this problem? The matchup isn't balanced on all units really. It's balanced based on two spells: Forcefield and Vortex. These are dominating in PvZ. End game timings are based when mothership is out/has vortex. Same goes with Sentries and how many forcefields you may have.

How Protoss is Balanced (cont.)

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When you balance other units based on something so dominant, like forcefield and vortex, the introduction of new units becomes ten times harder. If you want an attacking unit such as a zealot or stalker, the new units become redundant since you can't make something too strong else the synergy between sentry and the new unit will dominate the field and make all other options obsolete. Hence we have little innovation. Blizzard designers are relegated to add units that don't really work into the ball or suplement the ball rather than using attacking units because those would come at the expense of already designed units.

Do you guys not see the problem? We put so much emphasis on these spell casters to balance Protoss that the other units become a bunch of misfits. We need to get the balance of the units opposite of this with Protoss if we want the styles to flourish. Right now Protoss has so little choices not because they don't want to expand their ideas, rather the principles remain the same. Forcefield synergy is a must in early game, Mothership is important end game.

TLDR How Protoss is Balanced

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• Balance is based on sentries and forcefields in beginning game.
  
• Terran and Zerg have ways of eliminating or disabling sentries leaving a hole in synergy.
  
• Because of the strength of forcefield, equal strength and power must replace that void.
  
• Balance is stressed onto non-sentry units due to inherent power and are not considered for standalone. example stalker immortal zealot are not balanced as standalone. Balance currently assumes free damage done by these units with forcefields.
  
• Stalkers/zealots/immortals are balanced against multiple units, whether it be collo, hts, motherships, carriers, sentry. A very dauting task.
  
• Becacuse of different strengths of power units, it swaps the main gateway units to support rather than strength. Maybe not a problem but putting it out there
  
• New units that do the same role as zealots/stalkers/immortals will be at the expense of at least one of the three.
  
  Hence:
  
• Innovation for new units is pigeon holed.

-My thoughts on how to rearrange Protoss

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So how do we even tackle this problem? Well the main thing is to reverse the role of protoss units. This is why Forcefield/Guardian shield needs to be reworked. That also means all protoss units will have to be tinkered slightly to account for the sentry nerf. It sucks because all the data we've collected in 2 years will be useless data if we do something like this. But starting over has to be on the table at some point. The mothership core and the oracle are awesome, but it doesn't change the fact that you're still going to be playing a very similar style to WoL. This is because of the sentry, how it's balanced in the beginning, how it effects the starting units, and how the sentry affects the later power units. It's not feasible to balance and have different styles of play. I haven't delved into too many ways to actually balance the game because that's a much bigger obstacle to tackle. I just want to raise awareness of this. I think Blizzard chose a very bold way to create protoss and they had no previous data to suggest it was a bad idea. I don't think they could've known of the problems going into this and I don't think the community should bash on the designers, rather we should encourage the designers that Protoss might need a make over. Do not take this off the table

As an end note, think of the impact if you rearranged the role of the initial gateway units. When you don't balance around forcefield, you end up not having to fill that void that sentries leave behind. When this happens, Protoss units don't have to be so powerful. Real synergy can take place, and such powerful/overpowered things such as the archon toilet don't have to be in the game.

Note:
I would love to go into PvT but I think this will get too long since there's so many other things I want to talk about in this. Please theorycraft for yourself on how sentries affect this matchup, and how protoss innovation is stunted.

The problems with casting units

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Simple, their power.

I'll give you an example of how it's done right and how it's done wrong.
Right: ZvT Mech vs Roach/Neural.
Wrong: ZvT Funal vs Marine
Right: TvT Mech/PDD vs Marine/Marauder
Wrong: TvP Blanket EMP vs Anything Protoss
Wrong: PvZ Protoss pre-mothership/ht vs Fungal Growth

Ok first think of TvP
Think of ghosts cloaked EMPing everything. Here's the worst situation. After you see the EMPs go off, you know the game is over. If the armies clash, even though there's 200 vs 200, you know Terran will wreck everything. You know the game is over before conflict has really started.

Repeat for:

TvZ

• Fungals
  
• EMP
  
• Seeker Missle

PvZ

• Fungals
  
• Feedback
  
• Vortex
  
• Forcefield

The games are over when the spells are casted. Most of these are instant. Most of end game micro isn't how well you surround. It isn't how well you micro and spread, it's making sure you get every high templar, while stimming and attacking. It's getting that clutch vortex, or those money fungals.

We're again balancing the game on things that become too dominant and too instant. They're extreme dominating tools in the respective races and it's tough to justify different styles. We now see how innovative people can be to prevent the dominating strengths of each race from flourishing whether it be cloaked high templars denying neural parasite/fungal, or cloaked banshees harasssing infestor energy to be used. We've just found styles of sidestepping and delyaing the strengths of the opposing race but theres no way to stray off of these important casters.

Everything listed above needs to change. It affects the matchups too much and makes them so silly. We need to start having casting units be more support rather than relying on them so much.

What I would do?

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The process that I'd do it?

Rebalance Protoss. Make forcefield a slow rather than an object. Empower the stalker and zealot a bit more. Along with the Immortal. Now you can actually incorpoarte a 3-4 range mid tier unit in HotS that can add to the ball since protoss needs a buff at larger supplies.

Make fungal growth a slow and non instant/slower than EMP.
EMP is off of ghosts. It shouldn't be a standard, it should be a luxury at higher tier similar to Science Vessels. Remove HSM and put EMP on Raven.
Therefore, rework Ghost to have slightly higher DPS or ability to plant widow mines. This will make Ghosts not such a pigeonhole unit where they just emp and die. Now they support with DPS and spacing/positioning.

Take out Mothership altogether. Replace back with unit that can do cloaking field. This will be a main way Protoss can defend expos since you can make multiple at high gas cost. Will be balanced based on new Protoss .

I hope to encourage talk about this.

Ending Note

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For the record, I do not think I could've come up with this until after all the data has been reviewed. I'm not innovative or forward thinking enough to actually have come up with this to prevent something like this. I wish I could offer a stronger set of fixes rather than just going off what I don't like.