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Please try to keep the discussion civil. And while I can't ask everyone to write a huge essay like tree.hugger, try to write out your opinions in a substantive, well-thought way. |
On September 09 2011 22:34 CurrrBell wrote: Nice article, but I'm not sure I agree with all the imbalance cries. I'm a Protoss player, so I feel his pain, but there's about a million other variables that contribute to his losses other than imbalance. Yeah Protoss sucks right now but Zerg sucked a few months ago and I really don't think it was all because of the Infestor buff. All that did was spur Zergs to give up on Roach/Hydra/Corruptor. We just need a new strat. I have to bring up HuK. The article said he "can't" win, but I'm sorry, he thrashed nerds and lost to MVP, the best, if not 2nd best, player in the world who just happens to play Terran. He said himself that MVP was the better player and that it wasn't imbalance that made him lose. I just don't want to see my race become as whiny as the Zergs all were. So please, Protoss, suck it up and innovate What do you want Protoss to innovate? Every single viable unit composition has already been tried. What do you want them to do, go Phoenix immortal zealot?
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+ Show Spoiler +On September 09 2011 21:15 Evangelist wrote: I'll preface this by saying I'm a Silver League terran, so this is more or less how I feel about things. It's not indicative of actual balance, just what I think as a terran that likes to dabble in playing random.
In my opinion, I feel like protoss requires too long to tech on those occasions I play it. Every single building has multiple layers of redundency and multiple upgrades.
An example. I reckon to trade like for like, you probably need zealot charge to deal with stimmed MMM and to deal with seige tanks. It seems silly that I build a cyber core, then build a twilight council, and THEN research charge for a unit I got coming out of a gateway. As a terran, I throw down a tech lab and I have full access to all upgrades for my marines, my basic strong unit. In order to fully upgrade a zealot, I require 3 additional buildings, all of which come at a significant mineral and time cost. I can't think "right, I'm going to push with 8 zealots and have charge ready really early at the cost of warp gate".
As terran, I throw a tech lab down, research stim/combat, then trade it off and use the tech lab for a later factory, and the only cost to me is that I can't produce two marines instead of one. Compensating for this reduction costs me 150 minerals. The tech lab costs me almost nothing to produce and can be reused. What does building a twilight council really do for me? I build it because I need to - it lets me upgrade. There's no link between the building itself and what it does. It's just there to stop protoss units being strong in the early game.
Whenever I play protoss I feel like my openings are profoundly limited. With terran I can go 111, 2 rax bunker rush, 3 rax, 1 rax maurader expand, any one of about 3 mech openings of varying natures, and two starport. Not all of them are very good, but I can pretty much do all of them. When I open as protoss I decide if I want to go gateway or.. uh.. starport? And the starport units aren't like banshees. Sure, void rays are a ridiculously stupid unit but playing against any terran who builds marines and knows how to push makes you short on luck. Phoenix are annoying, but not so annoying that they instantly cripple you like if you don't scout a cloaked banshee.
I also think that the demand on the Robotics Bay is a little much. It builds their detectors, their tank unit, and their big space control unit. Terran detectors come from the Starport, the space control unit from the factory, and the meatshield from the Barracks. It also produces their drop units, and said drop units don't find much use - if you've got a robo, shouldn't it be pumping out colossi?
The same is true of gateway units. High templar are an amazingly powerful unit but seem to have their priorities screwed up. Both ghosts and infestors come with their real heavy duty ability already researched. Couldn't they exchange Feedback and Storm, so that HTs can come out earlier and even up the ridiculous early ghost pushes?
I feel protoss don't have any options while opening. In the late game I don't think there's much of a problem - there's a lot of whining about EMP which I think needs to be nerfed a little, but protoss death balls are hard to deal with and there's a reason why so many terrans go 1/1/1 to win a game in the first 8 minutes because trying to take out deathballs with ten storms availible and 6 colossi at 3/3 is asking for trouble. Similarly, chronoboost means that a well macroed protoss is always ahead in upgrades, which is asking for trouble given how powerful colossi are.
If I were to suggest changes from my terrible Silver league level, I'd personally say:
- shift Hallucination to the Twilight Council - put zealot charge on the cybernetics core (giving protoss an early option that can deal with large marine pushes) - make Feedback researchable, and give Templars Storm for free - make Warp Prisms better
That's just my opinion, though.
Really well written. Would be nice to see some changes even though i dont agree with the storm change thingy. Would be nice to have kyderian amulet back tho
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On September 09 2011 13:34 Soulish wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 12:16 Amui wrote:On September 09 2011 11:53 Jago wrote:If you haven't noticed that protoss sucks against terran, and has profound cost-efficiency difficulties against zerg, it’s because you're blind. What the hell are you talking about? Go into unit tester and just amove low to medium amounts of gateway with a bit of support vs mass roach. Make sure that unit costs are the same, not necessarily supply. Without good to great forcefields, the roaches win every time. What allows protoss to be cost efficient is forcefields, without them protoss units are just squishy and suck. Protoss is supply efficient against most zerg comps, it's not cost efficient. That's part of what makes toss play for 200/200. The terran problems have been discussed earlier. Zergs don't have colossus, and my archon zealot rips through mass roach just fine
You know that Mass Roach is the hard counter to Archon / Zealot right?
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Hey great Article, really great.
It may have seemed a bit biased but that's just because the current state of the game is so depressing, that even non protoss players begin to see that something is not altogether right.
I have been playingProtoss since BW but when the SC2 beta started, it was already noticable how the terran arsenal surpassed the other races selection of skills and units by far.
After a while I switched to random because protoss play was rather limited and always seemed to hinge on perfect FF placements.
Playing zerg I feel u can really kick a terrans ass with muta bling or inf roach, with toss its just frustrating, especially now that our pampered Terran brethren finally deigned to start using all their units, like the ghost and raven. Which to this point they didnt even need to kick everybodies ass...
When i play terran I mostly just go marine tank or mmm with drops, more is seldom needed, its just dumb.
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On September 09 2011 18:34 HolyArrow wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 18:12 Azzur wrote:On September 09 2011 16:27 HolyArrow wrote:On September 09 2011 16:10 Azzur wrote:I could sense a lot of protoss tears and MC fanboyism in tree.hugger's article but it was nevertheless and interesting read! My take on the matter is that protoss is a gimmick race and the players who picked them are more likely to be similarly gimmicky and all-innish. Since terrans and zergs have now figured out all their cheese and all-ins, the protoss are now struggling. I would like to extend some sympathy but that would be insincere :p Part of the reason of the problem is the broken warpgate mechanic. In fact there is a thread discussing this at the very moment. Back in february, I even wrote suggesting a nerf to WGs but compensated by a "nexus nearby defensive structure": http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=189432 You almost make it sound like it's the players fault that Protoss is the "gimmick" race. Please tell me that isn't the case, because that would be illogical beyond belief. My take on the matter is that protoss is the gimmick race. Thus, the players that gravitate to them are most likely gimmicky. I don't think you understand. Most of the Protoss players you see chose Protoss before anyone knew it was "gimmicky". Unless you think that people are psychic or something and could foresee this. I personally find it grossly unfair that you label players by race and seem to be putting some sort of blame on them for playing Protoss at all. What exactly is wrong with your thought process? Seriously? I don't mean to offend you, I am genuinely curious. You are basically saying, "Protoss is the gimmick race, players who picked them are gimmicky and all-inish, Protoss is now struggling, and I feel zero sympathy for them, since they're just gimmicky players that chose a gimmicky race". You say this despite the fact that the players chose Protoss long before anyone knew it was a "gimmick" race (Protoss being the "gimmick" race is already a questionable assertion, but I'll humor you on that just to show even deeper flaws with your thought process.) So, it's somehow their fault that Protoss has turned out to be a "gimmick" race and now they're somehow paying the price for choosing a race that they didn't know would develop the way it did? Not to mention that many of them switched along the lines of what they likely played in BW, so you're basically implying that BW Protoss is also the "gimmick" race (or you just didn't think about that enough). Wow. Okay. I guess I just have nothing more I can say to that. That's... yeah. I'm speechless. I don't know if you still stand by what you're saying given the points I'm bringing up. Maybe you just didn't think things through well enough. I hope that's the case.
Don't worry about Azzur: I have no issue with him at all. But he is a hardcore Terran fanboy that will root for Terrans in any situation. His views on Protoss are expected and set in stone. No point in debating with him.
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I have read this article and tree.hugger's response and I think that most people can agree that at the highest level in Korea that protoss is struggling.
Brian333 makes an interesting point
think that all along, the focus of discussions was misplaced. With design and balance, the most important thing is a balance of options across all three races, yet, despite that idea, all we've seen is the gradual deterioration of Protoss options.
For example, in a design sense, Protoss tier 1 is inherently inferior to Terran tier 1 and Zerg tier 1. Without micro and in open areas, there is simply no way a Protoss tier 1 army will win against an equal supply, equal cost Terran or Zerg tier 1 army.
What this led to was Protoss leading the other 2 races in the necessity to evolve their meta-game and stepping up to that demand.
This design flaw is fundamentally inherent to the warpgate mechanic. If protoss tier 1 and tier 1.5 was stronger than the other races' tier 1/tier 1.5 then the game would be heavily broken because there would be no defender advantage.
When I watch BW, I don't see people go bio against protoss because goons were simply greater than bio. When I watch SC2, Terran tier 1 and tier 1.5 seems a lot more like protoss in BW, where their tier 1 and tier 1.5 is simply superior than the others. I think most people are going to agree that MM>gateway units.
Brian333 even mentioned that the way protoss(MC) was winning were through 2 ways: Timing pushes and the Deathball
As protoss players would emulate MC, these timing pushes would spring up throughout the ladder (i.e. the nexus cancel 4 gate after MC's GSL win). Terran and Zerg players eventually learned the timings and how to scout them out. Also various nerfs to 4-gate timings and void ray power has left the capability to hold the 111 against any protoss 1 base all-in. Essentially there is no way to deny terran from teching.
On the other hand, 2 rax pushes from terran can straight up kill protoss if they are not careful doing either 1gate FE or some form of tech. Since both the 2 rax and the 111 can look pretty similar in the beginning, scouting the difference is very, very difficult (hiding marauders). If the 111 does come, holding it off on some maps are damn near impossible (i.e Xelnaga), and unlike other all-ins, there is no truly definitive answer to how to hold it. It is a micro battle which makes no sense that if you can scout the all-in or suspect its coming, protoss should have a definitive response.
Late game PvT has changed for the worse on the protoss end. Ghosts are definitely the superior spellcaster to the HT (longer range, cloak, aoe damage+energy removal). In a perfect micro situation - the ghost vs HT fight, ghost should win. Protoss have been trying out storm drops (MC + Hero). I am hoping that new warp prism buff will at least prevent the Warp prism from being sniped by vikings.
I am hoping that the new immortal range will at the very least cause protoss to use it more and hopefully innovate a new strategy, because as of right now protoss strategy is stale and pretty dead.
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United Kingdom14464 Posts
Mana fucking rocks. Just thought I'd slip that in there. Fuck the balance whine. He's a goddam beast and in the form of his life.
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On September 10 2011 00:20 cpomz wrote:I have read this article and tree.hugger's response and I think that most people can agree that at the highest level in Korea that protoss is struggling. Brian333 makes an interesting point Show nested quote +think that all along, the focus of discussions was misplaced. With design and balance, the most important thing is a balance of options across all three races, yet, despite that idea, all we've seen is the gradual deterioration of Protoss options.
For example, in a design sense, Protoss tier 1 is inherently inferior to Terran tier 1 and Zerg tier 1. Without micro and in open areas, there is simply no way a Protoss tier 1 army will win against an equal supply, equal cost Terran or Zerg tier 1 army.
What this led to was Protoss leading the other 2 races in the necessity to evolve their meta-game and stepping up to that demand. This design flaw is fundamentally inherent to the warpgate mechanic. If protoss tier 1 and tier 1.5 was stronger than the other races' tier 1/tier 1.5 then the game would be heavily broken because there would be no defender advantage. When I watch BW, I don't see people go bio against protoss because goons were simply greater than bio. When I watch SC2, Terran tier 1 and tier 1.5 seems a lot more like protoss in BW, where their tier 1 and tier 1.5 is simply superior than the others. I think most people are going to agree that MM>gateway units.Brian333 even mentioned that the way protoss(MC) was winning were through 2 ways: Timing pushes and the Deathball As protoss players would emulate MC, these timing pushes would spring up throughout the ladder (i.e. the nexus cancel 4 gate after MC's GSL win). Terran and Zerg players eventually learned the timings and how to scout them out. Also various nerfs to 4-gate timings and void ray power has left the capability to hold the 111 against any protoss 1 base all-in. Essentially there is no way to deny terran from teching. On the other hand, 2 rax pushes from terran can straight up kill protoss if they are not careful doing either 1gate FE or some form of tech. Since both the 2 rax and the 111 can look pretty similar in the beginning, scouting the difference is very, very difficult (hiding marauders). If the 111 does come, holding it off on some maps are damn near impossible (i.e Xelnaga), and unlike other all-ins, there is no truly definitive answer to how to hold it. It is a micro battle which makes no sense that if you can scout the all-in or suspect its coming, protoss should have a definitive response. Late game PvT has changed for the worse on the protoss end. Ghosts are definitely the superior spellcaster to the HT (longer range, cloak, aoe damage+energy removal). In a perfect micro situation - the ghost vs HT fight, ghost should win. Protoss have been trying out storm drops (MC + Hero). I am hoping that new warp prism buff will at least prevent the Warp prism from being sniped by vikings. I am hoping that the new immortal range will at the very least cause protoss to use it more and hopefully innovate a new strategy, because as of right now protoss strategy is stale and pretty dead. You don't see bio vs Protoss in BW because splash is so powerful vs just Marines and Medics. You think Dragoons hard counter bio because Marines only have 4 range and no stim without upgrades and no Terran going mech would upgrade bio, but if Marines were upgraded they'd still rip apart Zealots/Dragoons.
Blizz made bio viable vs Protoss in Sc2 by: 1) buffing bio (+15 hp Marines / beefy as fuck Marauders) 2) nerfing the shit out of Storm (117 damage to 80 plus like 1/2 the AOE)
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How can Mana be so good ?? o.o
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He plays Pokemon :D
(Im a pokemon player and a protoss player, mana is my hero <3)
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On September 10 2011 00:20 cpomz wrote: I have read this article and tree.hugger's response and I think that most people can agree that at the highest level in Korea that protoss is struggling.
I am hoping that the new immortal range will at the very least cause protoss to use it more and hopefully innovate a new strategy, because as of right now protoss strategy is stale and pretty dead.
I think immortals received the buff since right now, they are the only option to holding a 111 without all-inning afaik. They are seeing more use now than ever. It's just not doing much.
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Im sorry to say, but first article i dont like from tree.hugger.
Its true that protoss is having a hard time, and they might be underpowered, but i dont like too much having imbalance complains in a front page article. Im not good enough to understand pro level game balance, and it might be true that terran 1/1/1 is actually OP against P, but i have heard july complaining a lot about Z being trash, yet he made semifinals, or terrans saying they cant compete in macro games against Z (lol good times), and now terrans everywhere dominating.
My point is that we have actually seen this happen a lot of times, and we can still see the game change by purely player intervention, without any patch, so i kinda doenst like that about the article, everything else, pretty good read, hope MC comes back soon!
PS: im not a Terran player, dont think im biased or anything like that
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Whoever is complaining about treehugger balance whining needs to re-read the article. He has organised his thoughts clearly and explained with evidence why Protoss is currently the weakest race right now. This is not whining. Whining is when you say "lol protoss up, nerf terran plox" without anything backing it up. They do allow balance discussion in TL, just not in LR threads.
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On September 09 2011 09:47 OlorinTheWise wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 08:53 Erasme wrote: 5 rax reaper was nerfed because of 1v1, I'm tired of seeing people thinking that it wasn't an abusive strat. See MorroW vs Idra at IEM. I never said it wasn't an abusive strategy. However, the primary reason that the Reaper was nerfed was how imbalanced it was in 2v2, not 1v1.
Oh sorry, I was diamond when 5rax reaper was in place. Where were you ? By the way abusive = imbalanced and yes you can say it was imbalanced since the counter of that strat (roach + speed) was nullified by expand + marauders from terran. At high level MorroW used it against superior player (Idra just when he was back from Korea). He also said in that interview that 5rax reapers against zerg is abusive. Does anyone remember ? 'Oh noes it was for 2v2, 1v1 tournament wasn't plagued with this strat !' Thank you mister protoss. I will repeat myself about the 'imbalance' in PvT. We cannot say now that there is an imbalance, we will be able to see it in months.
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United Kingdom14464 Posts
He's the best foreigner Protoss right now. If he retains his momentum I think he could boss NASL Division 2. HuK is the only player who could beat him, and will be in Korea so has a disadvantage. MANA FIGHTIIIIIIIING><!!!
(Alright, this is like my 3rd pro Mana post in this thread, but fuck it, this thread is a shithole. (no offense))
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On September 10 2011 00:47 Nobu wrote:Im sorry to say, but first article i dont like from tree.hugger. Its true that protoss is having a hard time, and they might be underpowered, but i dont like too much having imbalance complains in a front page article. Im not good enough to understand pro level game balance, and it might be true that terran 1/1/1 is actually OP against P, but i have heard july complaining a lot about Z being trash, yet he made semifinals, or terrans saying they cant compete in macro games against Z (lol good times), and now terrans everywhere dominating. My point is that we have actually seen this happen a lot of times, and we can still see the game change by purely player intervention, without any patch, so i kinda doenst like that about the article, everything else, pretty good read, hope MC comes back soon! PS: im not a Terran player, dont think im biased or anything like that
The difference between those situations and the current one is that in those situations, Terran and Zerg were quite obviously not playing to the full capability of their races. Protoss has already tried out every unit composition there is. The only remaining hope is that there is some insane timing window reminiscent of the Bisu Build that allows us to crush Terran and Zerg play, and even then, it won't be surprising if the Terran and Zerg players figure out how to beat that timing window and set Protoss right back where we are now.
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On September 09 2011 13:57 Active.815 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 04:32 Paladia wrote:On September 09 2011 04:06 Havefa1th wrote: To blame one player's downfall on the "faults" of an entire race is a racey and unwarranted claim. To say that no Protoss is good at ZvP is as an absurd statement as saying that 1-1-1 will forever be unholdable. The 1-1-1 will be, in the end, just another cheese (like the 4 gate and the roach-ling all-ins before it) that is scoutable and held cost-efficiently with slight build order changes and superior micro.
The fact of the matter remains is that Protoss is not underpowered, there just is no overarching Protoss "president," so to speak. Jinro himself says that MC has stagnated due to lack of provocative and innovative play. To be honest, there isn't any Protoss player that's innovating the race... meanwhile there are Zerg players (mainly foreign ones) commanding the helm of the Infestor battleship and Korean Zergs at the front of faster, safer roach based play that has shown success against a variety of unit compositions. And there are the Terrans like Boxer and the rest of SlayerS, who made one small unit (and therefore the mech composition) more popular of late due to aggressive, cost-efficient play.
Where's the Protoss? You can argue for MC's storm drop play, but that's a technique that is shadowed in the end by standard, stagnated build orders and strategies. You can argue for White-Ra, who shoves the square Warp Prism into every round hole the PvX matchup has, but in the end, it's one unit that forces no special macro-related reaction from the other player.
The lack of success is not the fault of an "imbalanced" race or the 1-1-1, it's MC's (and the rest of the Protoss PLAYERS) fault. You can't blame the losses of one player on the race. You just can't.
However...
Easily the best written article I've read on this website (about Starcraft 2, that is). Keep this shit up. There is no reason why people who pick Terran would be better players. Yet there are 17 Terrans in Code S and 5 Protoss. The top10 of the Korean ladder has 9 Terrans. Even the half decent Terran players are doing very well. Terran has highest potential for offensive/aggressive play. Terran matchups practically require you to be harassing/doing offensive plays consistently. This also gives Terran the highest non-single engagement damage potential, barring mass mutas catching toss or terran with no turrets/cannons/storms and killing every probe, nexus, and pylon ever T___T. Protoss as a race never really had to play like zerg and terran with the multi-harass. High-level koreans have insane multitasking, and terran offers the greatest potential for their multitasking~when you want to be the best, you look for the race that gives you the best advantage. Also, you say 'half decent terrans doing well'. Code A ro16: Ganzi(2-0)vsFD, sc(0-2)vsTaeja(2-0),Yoda(2-1)vsTassadar(1-2), Maka(0-2)vsLeenock(2-0), JJakji(2-0)vsLucky(0-2), MKP(2-1)vsYugioh... The only not-superhighlevel Terrans that i would say are in that list are maka and yoda, who both get knocked out by leenock (yoda in the ro8). Jjakji, Ganzi, Taeja, MKP all go on to make code S. code S ro16: MMA(1-2)vsPolt(2-1), Bomber(1-2)vsKeen(2-1), Zenio(1-2)vsTOP(2-1), Virus(1-2)vsGenius(2-1), Nestea(0-2)vsMVP(2-0), Huk(2-1)vsNada(1-2), Puzzle(0-2)vsRyung(2-0), Hongun(0-2)vsJuly(2-0) who's mediocre there? Bomber? Virus? MVP and TOP are facing off for the final, MMA and Polt have already proven themselves to be excellent players, Nada is most definitely not mediocre, Ryung has had consistent, fairly strong showings.... There is something that most of you are missing, it's that the korean scene was a huge terran / zerg scene back in SC1. I don't understand why nobody ever talk about that. The fact that, during SC1, the protoss race was the least developped race for a long time while terran (from boxer to nada... and flash) and zerg (july, savior, jaedong) all had their own bonjwa. Who's the protoss bonjwa ? Nal_rA ? Garimto ? Stork ? Old legends and well... stork who never had the dominance flash or jaedong had. There have been 4 golden mouse in SC2's history : 2 zerg and 2 terran. And the two other players who were the closest to had their golden mouse were iloveoov and boxer, two terran AGAIN.
SC2 is a new game, but in korea, SC1 WAS EVERYTHING about esport, and SC2 came into that very scene : that's why there are least protoss and protoss is least developped (MC and sangho are the two only old SC1 pro gamer who switched to SC2's protoss, while marineking went terran). If you compare to europe, where protoss are HUGE. Look again : the most successful foreigner in code A & S is a protoss player (huk). Look now, yellow is switching, which race did he decided to play ? Obviously... zerg.
Korea = zerg and terran heavy.
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I don´t understand why people are talking about Protoss being a gimmicky race? It´s a race with super expensive units, that until higher in the tech route, are very cost-inefficient...Being able to 4 gate doesn´t make it a gimmicky race, and the fact we have 2 base 6/7 gate pushes, doesn´t make it gimmicky either.
If you can´t win because the race is simply underpowered, it´s pretty natural to go for some sort of cheese to even have a shot of winning.
This ain´t rocket science :/
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On September 10 2011 02:18 n0btozz wrote: I don´t understand why people are talking about Protoss being a gimmicky race? It´s a race with super expensive units, that until higher in the tech route, are very cost-inefficient...Being able to 4 gate doesn´t make it a gimmicky race, and the fact we have 2 base 6/7 gate pushes, doesn´t make it gimmicky either.
If you can´t win because the race is simply underpowered, it´s pretty natural to go for some sort of cheese to even have a shot of winning.
This ain´t rocket science :/ The protoss race is considered a "gimmicky race" while they are not, but it's because people don't know the difference between a cheese and a timing attack anymore... Protoss is a race that is timing attack based because of warpgate tech.
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On September 10 2011 02:11 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2011 13:57 Active.815 wrote:On September 09 2011 04:32 Paladia wrote:On September 09 2011 04:06 Havefa1th wrote: To blame one player's downfall on the "faults" of an entire race is a racey and unwarranted claim. To say that no Protoss is good at ZvP is as an absurd statement as saying that 1-1-1 will forever be unholdable. The 1-1-1 will be, in the end, just another cheese (like the 4 gate and the roach-ling all-ins before it) that is scoutable and held cost-efficiently with slight build order changes and superior micro.
The fact of the matter remains is that Protoss is not underpowered, there just is no overarching Protoss "president," so to speak. Jinro himself says that MC has stagnated due to lack of provocative and innovative play. To be honest, there isn't any Protoss player that's innovating the race... meanwhile there are Zerg players (mainly foreign ones) commanding the helm of the Infestor battleship and Korean Zergs at the front of faster, safer roach based play that has shown success against a variety of unit compositions. And there are the Terrans like Boxer and the rest of SlayerS, who made one small unit (and therefore the mech composition) more popular of late due to aggressive, cost-efficient play.
Where's the Protoss? You can argue for MC's storm drop play, but that's a technique that is shadowed in the end by standard, stagnated build orders and strategies. You can argue for White-Ra, who shoves the square Warp Prism into every round hole the PvX matchup has, but in the end, it's one unit that forces no special macro-related reaction from the other player.
The lack of success is not the fault of an "imbalanced" race or the 1-1-1, it's MC's (and the rest of the Protoss PLAYERS) fault. You can't blame the losses of one player on the race. You just can't.
However...
Easily the best written article I've read on this website (about Starcraft 2, that is). Keep this shit up. There is no reason why people who pick Terran would be better players. Yet there are 17 Terrans in Code S and 5 Protoss. The top10 of the Korean ladder has 9 Terrans. Even the half decent Terran players are doing very well. Terran has highest potential for offensive/aggressive play. Terran matchups practically require you to be harassing/doing offensive plays consistently. This also gives Terran the highest non-single engagement damage potential, barring mass mutas catching toss or terran with no turrets/cannons/storms and killing every probe, nexus, and pylon ever T___T. Protoss as a race never really had to play like zerg and terran with the multi-harass. High-level koreans have insane multitasking, and terran offers the greatest potential for their multitasking~when you want to be the best, you look for the race that gives you the best advantage. Also, you say 'half decent terrans doing well'. Code A ro16: Ganzi(2-0)vsFD, sc(0-2)vsTaeja(2-0),Yoda(2-1)vsTassadar(1-2), Maka(0-2)vsLeenock(2-0), JJakji(2-0)vsLucky(0-2), MKP(2-1)vsYugioh... The only not-superhighlevel Terrans that i would say are in that list are maka and yoda, who both get knocked out by leenock (yoda in the ro8). Jjakji, Ganzi, Taeja, MKP all go on to make code S. code S ro16: MMA(1-2)vsPolt(2-1), Bomber(1-2)vsKeen(2-1), Zenio(1-2)vsTOP(2-1), Virus(1-2)vsGenius(2-1), Nestea(0-2)vsMVP(2-0), Huk(2-1)vsNada(1-2), Puzzle(0-2)vsRyung(2-0), Hongun(0-2)vsJuly(2-0) who's mediocre there? Bomber? Virus? MVP and TOP are facing off for the final, MMA and Polt have already proven themselves to be excellent players, Nada is most definitely not mediocre, Ryung has had consistent, fairly strong showings.... There is something that most of you are missing, it's that the korean scene was a huge terran / zerg scene back in SC1. I don't understand why nobody ever talk about that. The fact that, during SC1, the protoss race was the least developped race for a long time while terran (from boxer to nada... and flash) and zerg (july, savior, jaedong) all had their own bonjwa. Who's the protoss bonjwa ? Nal_rA ? Garimto ? Stork ? Old legends and well... stork who never had the dominance flash or jaedong had. SC2 is a new game, but in korea, SC1 WAS EVERYTHING about esport, and SC2 came into that very scene : that's why there are least protoss and protoss is least developped (MC and sangho are the two only old SC1 pro gamer who switched to SC2's protoss, while marineking went terran). If you compare to europe, where protoss are HUGE. Look again : the most successful foreigner in code A & S is a protoss player (huk). Look now, yellow is switching, which race did he decided to play ? Obviously... zerg. Korea = zerg and terran heavy. It's not like there are just a few more dominant terrans and zergs. Protoss isn't even competitive in Code S. They are a joke, and the winrates are pitiful. Simply saying that there were more terran in sc1 so of course there are less good protoss players...it's absolute shit and SCBW has nothing to do with it. The winrates and race representation at the highest level don't lie, and it's too extreme to be a coincidence. Protoss is too weak or limited at the highest level.
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