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On September 20 2011 22:13 squanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 12:09 VTPerfect wrote:On September 20 2011 05:49 Destructicon wrote:
While I admire the original poster's attempt to inspire hope in the hearts of all the protoss players, the protoss community and all the protoss fans, I can't help but feel that these innovators, don't have anything to innovate upon and that our hopes will be dashed upon the rocks and will crumble to pieces.
I am going to try and say this cleanly and efficiently.
The problem with protoss is not the lack of innovation, it is the lack of strength and the multitude of weaknesses that can be exploited.
This problem is most evident in the TvP match up and is grotesquely blown out of proportion by the 1/1/1 style of opening and variations.
Problem number 1 (P1). The protoss tier 1 and 1.5 is week against a basic tier 1.5 terran army without the use of specialist units (sentries, HT), or higher tech (colossis, HT). Marines do phenomenal DPS and in combination with Marauders are deadly because marauders can just kite zealots forever even with charge, and marauders also rip apart stalkers. This leads to problem number 2.
P2.Protoss specialist units are too easy to be countered and too expensive. Ghosts can EMP from a bigger range then a HT can feedback, EMP can potentially neutralize many HT and sentries while HT can only feedback 1 unit at a time. EMP also destroyes shields which in some cases means 50% of a protoss effective health. Ghosts contribute with real DPS even after their energy is spent, and they also do double damage against light (zealots). Ghosts with cloak can survive for a good time as well, which also puts into grave perspective problem number 3.
P3. Protoss don't have enough mobile detection, terran and zerg both have at least one more means of detection then a unit. Zerg has Overseers and Fungal growth, terran has EMP, Raven and scan. Not only do the terrans and zerg have more methods of detection, but their detector units also fulfill different roles and are stronger. The overseer can help with scouting via changeling and can also delay a critical tech or reinforcements with contaminate. Raven's provide invaluable support via point defense drone, and also have the potential to do massive damage with hunter seeker missile or harass a mineral line with auto-turrets. Lastly the detection of terran and protoss is more easily available, scans and EMPs are easy to get or already part of the terran arsenal, overseers are unlocked just by teching up to lair, and infestors are now part of many lineups.
Now, if you add up all the problems you get the following scenario.
Against a terran 1/1/1 a protoss is forced to get a robo so he can have detection. Because of the lack of other detection methods the protoss becomes predictable, if he doesn't get a robotics for observers he risks dying to cloaked banshees. Also observers are easy to snipe, they have the lowest HP of any detector, and once a scan goes of they are dead. Now because protoss was forced to get robo they now have to add immortals to the army, and while great against tanks, the backbone of a 1/1/1 is the marine, and mass marines rip apart immortals, and once immortals are dead, the T1 protoss army crumbles.
Normally in balance of RTS games, if units are very cheep they should be a lot weaker (zerg), if units are more expensive they should be stronger (protoss), however, protoss T1 units are really not that good for the amount they cost, zealots and stalkers are way too weak without sentries, and against a 1/1/1 sentries don't help all that much because tanks have huge range, do massive damage, and there are also banshees that can mess them over.
This problem is put into sharp focus in games where, you see a terran not expand, you see the protoss fast expand at min 4, and at 12 minutes into the game the terran has a bigger supply army then the protoss. Its a problem in game balance that a 1 base player could have equal or more supply then a player on 2 bases for 66% of the game. What is even more wrong is that the 1 base player's army is so strong that it can annihilate the 2 base player's army.
Now, if we look away from the 1/1/1 and focus on the meta game, in a late game scenario the protoss doesn't stand much chance. A terran bio ball is cheaper to replenish, is more durable because of medivacs, and it does more DPS then the standard tier 1.5 of protoss. Protoss needs sentries and HT or colossis, however, sentries and HT are easily countered by ghosts, colossis are easily countered by vikings. In a head to head fight, the terran just needs to have the patience to emp the specialists, snipe the colossis with vikings, then the bio ball an just do the rest. Also warp prism micro with HT isn't so hot because they can be sniped by vikings, just the same way colossis are sniped. To rub salt onto the wounds, EMP also directly reduce survivability of protoss units by destroying shields.
Now I ask, where can you innovate in there?
Protoss are already using 99% of their units, they use zealots, stalkers, sentries, HT, colossus, observer and warp prism. Protoss air force is weak, they Phoenix and Void rays are already easily countered by units the terran already gets, marines, vikings and ghosts. Carriers cost too much, take too much time to build and require too big numbers to be effective. Carriers in small number are easily sniped by vikings. Mothership is even worst because it can be EMPed from farther away then it can vortex, once EMPed it becomes a big meat shield waiting to die horribly to vikings and marines.
How can you innovate against a 1/1/1, when from the get go, you need to get a robo for detection? Also how can you innovate a build against the 1/1/1 when you risk creating a build that can completely counter the 1/1/1 but fail miserably to form of early pressure?
And, keep in mind that, terrans still haven't widely adopted the use of ravens and/or mass ravens. With patch 1.4 that might change because, seeker missiles will be able to outrun zealots even with charge, and stalkers and sentries and probles, and ravens also hard counter stalkers by reducing their DPS to 0 via PDD.
Against zerg the problems aren't quite as bad, but they aren't great either. The timings of 4 gates and 6 gates has been figured out. Protoss can't do 4 gate because it won't work, the zerg can prepare an appropriate defense while still having a 1 base advantage. If protoss chooses to fast expand into a 6 gate, the zerg can just take a quick 3rd, and can have defenses out in time for any form of protoss preasure. Air play can be easily countered by the proper and strategic placement of spore crawlers and building of extra queens (which zerg have already started doing). And if the protoss decides to not go air and go a 6 gate or robo+ a number of gates, then the zerg can still have an big enough army in time to defend against it, and still retain a 1 base advantage.
The recent game of Check.Prime vs Tails from IGN qualifiers is a good example of zerg being able to take a fast 3rd and come out ahead of a protoss FE. As for late game, infestors are a big double risk problem. Not only can they fungal the entire protoss army, but they can neural colossis, and/or archons. Fungal does respectable DPS, but more critically it leaves the protoss open to brood lords and baneling drops, both of which can do massive damage.
Again, carriers and motherships won't help, they still take too long to build, cost too much, are too vulnerable to corrupters, and worst, are vulnerable to neurals.
The only conclusion I can draw is that, protoss doesn't have anything to innovate upon, they are already using all their tools, and now that terran and zerg have started to fully use their tools the cracks are starting to show. I really wish I was wrong here but, it trully feels like it will take either a very big patch (1.4 won't cut it), or the expansion to fix the current protoss problems.
And while all this situation might really suck and demoralize a lot of players, lets have faith and remember that SC2 is only 1 year old, hopefully we will be looking back at this period in time and remember it was the darkness before the dusk, the calm before the storm. Change will come, even if Blizzard has to act. Well i'll be, quite the high level understanding of the game and refreshing when people keep saying a zealot beats 4 lings. I don't post much around here but I'd like to throw in my 2 cents on the issue. I rarely play Protoss on the ladder, I'm more of an alternating Terran/Zerg player. While Terran in TvP, I've never done the 1/1/1 all in. I just don't feel like learning a strategy that's highly anticipated by the opponent, and I'd rather work on mechanics and play macro games anyway. (Btw, I'm high diamond/low masters, will probably be back in Masters this week). One thing I never see anyone mention defending the 1/1/1... Cannons. OP makes an argument that you get pigeon holed into making a robotics for detection... cannons take care of this. If you expand and take 1 gas, you'll also have enough for warp and a handful of stalkers, but the majority of your defense should come from zealots and cannons. I've been 1/1/1'd multiple times while Protoss, and cannons were a huge part of my hold. As for macro games and mauraders... I honestly don't see what players are complaining about. This is where I get frustrated listening to Protoss players. I've played against many Protoss that have learned you need to flank the army with a ball of chargelots to take out that kiting bioball. Use a damn warp prism. It's not that difficult. And if you're pumping attack and armor upgrades the EMP's become worthless against huge spread out Protoss armies with archons and lossus. Army position is important for Terran, so why shouldn't it be for Protoss? I think if anything could use a buff for Protoss, it's hallucination. I think it costs way too much energy for a unit that barely survives in the later game. As for ZvP, there's nothing to mention. The Infestor is the best unit in the game, and is a pivotal unit in all 3 matchups for Zerg. Something needs to be done about that unit. See the game 1 of MMA vs DRG in the IPL qualifier to see what I'm talking about.
we already had a troll with the idea of a forge.
you do know that 1/1/1 is quite flexible...thats good. if the terran sees that you are building cannons he will be intelligent and expand.
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On September 20 2011 22:21 TRAP[yoo] wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 22:13 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 12:09 VTPerfect wrote:On September 20 2011 05:49 Destructicon wrote:
While I admire the original poster's attempt to inspire hope in the hearts of all the protoss players, the protoss community and all the protoss fans, I can't help but feel that these innovators, don't have anything to innovate upon and that our hopes will be dashed upon the rocks and will crumble to pieces.
I am going to try and say this cleanly and efficiently.
The problem with protoss is not the lack of innovation, it is the lack of strength and the multitude of weaknesses that can be exploited.
This problem is most evident in the TvP match up and is grotesquely blown out of proportion by the 1/1/1 style of opening and variations.
Problem number 1 (P1). The protoss tier 1 and 1.5 is week against a basic tier 1.5 terran army without the use of specialist units (sentries, HT), or higher tech (colossis, HT). Marines do phenomenal DPS and in combination with Marauders are deadly because marauders can just kite zealots forever even with charge, and marauders also rip apart stalkers. This leads to problem number 2.
P2.Protoss specialist units are too easy to be countered and too expensive. Ghosts can EMP from a bigger range then a HT can feedback, EMP can potentially neutralize many HT and sentries while HT can only feedback 1 unit at a time. EMP also destroyes shields which in some cases means 50% of a protoss effective health. Ghosts contribute with real DPS even after their energy is spent, and they also do double damage against light (zealots). Ghosts with cloak can survive for a good time as well, which also puts into grave perspective problem number 3.
P3. Protoss don't have enough mobile detection, terran and zerg both have at least one more means of detection then a unit. Zerg has Overseers and Fungal growth, terran has EMP, Raven and scan. Not only do the terrans and zerg have more methods of detection, but their detector units also fulfill different roles and are stronger. The overseer can help with scouting via changeling and can also delay a critical tech or reinforcements with contaminate. Raven's provide invaluable support via point defense drone, and also have the potential to do massive damage with hunter seeker missile or harass a mineral line with auto-turrets. Lastly the detection of terran and protoss is more easily available, scans and EMPs are easy to get or already part of the terran arsenal, overseers are unlocked just by teching up to lair, and infestors are now part of many lineups.
Now, if you add up all the problems you get the following scenario.
Against a terran 1/1/1 a protoss is forced to get a robo so he can have detection. Because of the lack of other detection methods the protoss becomes predictable, if he doesn't get a robotics for observers he risks dying to cloaked banshees. Also observers are easy to snipe, they have the lowest HP of any detector, and once a scan goes of they are dead. Now because protoss was forced to get robo they now have to add immortals to the army, and while great against tanks, the backbone of a 1/1/1 is the marine, and mass marines rip apart immortals, and once immortals are dead, the T1 protoss army crumbles.
Normally in balance of RTS games, if units are very cheep they should be a lot weaker (zerg), if units are more expensive they should be stronger (protoss), however, protoss T1 units are really not that good for the amount they cost, zealots and stalkers are way too weak without sentries, and against a 1/1/1 sentries don't help all that much because tanks have huge range, do massive damage, and there are also banshees that can mess them over.
This problem is put into sharp focus in games where, you see a terran not expand, you see the protoss fast expand at min 4, and at 12 minutes into the game the terran has a bigger supply army then the protoss. Its a problem in game balance that a 1 base player could have equal or more supply then a player on 2 bases for 66% of the game. What is even more wrong is that the 1 base player's army is so strong that it can annihilate the 2 base player's army.
Now, if we look away from the 1/1/1 and focus on the meta game, in a late game scenario the protoss doesn't stand much chance. A terran bio ball is cheaper to replenish, is more durable because of medivacs, and it does more DPS then the standard tier 1.5 of protoss. Protoss needs sentries and HT or colossis, however, sentries and HT are easily countered by ghosts, colossis are easily countered by vikings. In a head to head fight, the terran just needs to have the patience to emp the specialists, snipe the colossis with vikings, then the bio ball an just do the rest. Also warp prism micro with HT isn't so hot because they can be sniped by vikings, just the same way colossis are sniped. To rub salt onto the wounds, EMP also directly reduce survivability of protoss units by destroying shields.
Now I ask, where can you innovate in there?
Protoss are already using 99% of their units, they use zealots, stalkers, sentries, HT, colossus, observer and warp prism. Protoss air force is weak, they Phoenix and Void rays are already easily countered by units the terran already gets, marines, vikings and ghosts. Carriers cost too much, take too much time to build and require too big numbers to be effective. Carriers in small number are easily sniped by vikings. Mothership is even worst because it can be EMPed from farther away then it can vortex, once EMPed it becomes a big meat shield waiting to die horribly to vikings and marines.
How can you innovate against a 1/1/1, when from the get go, you need to get a robo for detection? Also how can you innovate a build against the 1/1/1 when you risk creating a build that can completely counter the 1/1/1 but fail miserably to form of early pressure?
And, keep in mind that, terrans still haven't widely adopted the use of ravens and/or mass ravens. With patch 1.4 that might change because, seeker missiles will be able to outrun zealots even with charge, and stalkers and sentries and probles, and ravens also hard counter stalkers by reducing their DPS to 0 via PDD.
Against zerg the problems aren't quite as bad, but they aren't great either. The timings of 4 gates and 6 gates has been figured out. Protoss can't do 4 gate because it won't work, the zerg can prepare an appropriate defense while still having a 1 base advantage. If protoss chooses to fast expand into a 6 gate, the zerg can just take a quick 3rd, and can have defenses out in time for any form of protoss preasure. Air play can be easily countered by the proper and strategic placement of spore crawlers and building of extra queens (which zerg have already started doing). And if the protoss decides to not go air and go a 6 gate or robo+ a number of gates, then the zerg can still have an big enough army in time to defend against it, and still retain a 1 base advantage.
The recent game of Check.Prime vs Tails from IGN qualifiers is a good example of zerg being able to take a fast 3rd and come out ahead of a protoss FE. As for late game, infestors are a big double risk problem. Not only can they fungal the entire protoss army, but they can neural colossis, and/or archons. Fungal does respectable DPS, but more critically it leaves the protoss open to brood lords and baneling drops, both of which can do massive damage.
Again, carriers and motherships won't help, they still take too long to build, cost too much, are too vulnerable to corrupters, and worst, are vulnerable to neurals.
The only conclusion I can draw is that, protoss doesn't have anything to innovate upon, they are already using all their tools, and now that terran and zerg have started to fully use their tools the cracks are starting to show. I really wish I was wrong here but, it trully feels like it will take either a very big patch (1.4 won't cut it), or the expansion to fix the current protoss problems.
And while all this situation might really suck and demoralize a lot of players, lets have faith and remember that SC2 is only 1 year old, hopefully we will be looking back at this period in time and remember it was the darkness before the dusk, the calm before the storm. Change will come, even if Blizzard has to act. Well i'll be, quite the high level understanding of the game and refreshing when people keep saying a zealot beats 4 lings. I don't post much around here but I'd like to throw in my 2 cents on the issue. I rarely play Protoss on the ladder, I'm more of an alternating Terran/Zerg player. While Terran in TvP, I've never done the 1/1/1 all in. I just don't feel like learning a strategy that's highly anticipated by the opponent, and I'd rather work on mechanics and play macro games anyway. (Btw, I'm high diamond/low masters, will probably be back in Masters this week). One thing I never see anyone mention defending the 1/1/1... Cannons. OP makes an argument that you get pigeon holed into making a robotics for detection... cannons take care of this. If you expand and take 1 gas, you'll also have enough for warp and a handful of stalkers, but the majority of your defense should come from zealots and cannons. I've been 1/1/1'd multiple times while Protoss, and cannons were a huge part of my hold. As for macro games and mauraders... I honestly don't see what players are complaining about. This is where I get frustrated listening to Protoss players. I've played against many Protoss that have learned you need to flank the army with a ball of chargelots to take out that kiting bioball. Use a damn warp prism. It's not that difficult. And if you're pumping attack and armor upgrades the EMP's become worthless against huge spread out Protoss armies with archons and lossus. Army position is important for Terran, so why shouldn't it be for Protoss? I think if anything could use a buff for Protoss, it's hallucination. I think it costs way too much energy for a unit that barely survives in the later game. As for ZvP, there's nothing to mention. The Infestor is the best unit in the game, and is a pivotal unit in all 3 matchups for Zerg. Something needs to be done about that unit. See the game 1 of MMA vs DRG in the IPL qualifier to see what I'm talking about. we already had a troll with the idea of a forge. you do know that 1/1/1 is quite flexible...thats good. if the terran sees that you are building cannons he will be intelligent and expand.
Sooo... if he expands... then he's not all-ining anymore... and thus you've defended it?
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On September 20 2011 22:13 squanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 12:09 VTPerfect wrote:On September 20 2011 05:49 Destructicon wrote:
While I admire the original poster's attempt to inspire hope in the hearts of all the protoss players, the protoss community and all the protoss fans, I can't help but feel that these innovators, don't have anything to innovate upon and that our hopes will be dashed upon the rocks and will crumble to pieces.
I am going to try and say this cleanly and efficiently.
The problem with protoss is not the lack of innovation, it is the lack of strength and the multitude of weaknesses that can be exploited.
This problem is most evident in the TvP match up and is grotesquely blown out of proportion by the 1/1/1 style of opening and variations.
Problem number 1 (P1). The protoss tier 1 and 1.5 is week against a basic tier 1.5 terran army without the use of specialist units (sentries, HT), or higher tech (colossis, HT). Marines do phenomenal DPS and in combination with Marauders are deadly because marauders can just kite zealots forever even with charge, and marauders also rip apart stalkers. This leads to problem number 2.
P2.Protoss specialist units are too easy to be countered and too expensive. Ghosts can EMP from a bigger range then a HT can feedback, EMP can potentially neutralize many HT and sentries while HT can only feedback 1 unit at a time. EMP also destroyes shields which in some cases means 50% of a protoss effective health. Ghosts contribute with real DPS even after their energy is spent, and they also do double damage against light (zealots). Ghosts with cloak can survive for a good time as well, which also puts into grave perspective problem number 3.
P3. Protoss don't have enough mobile detection, terran and zerg both have at least one more means of detection then a unit. Zerg has Overseers and Fungal growth, terran has EMP, Raven and scan. Not only do the terrans and zerg have more methods of detection, but their detector units also fulfill different roles and are stronger. The overseer can help with scouting via changeling and can also delay a critical tech or reinforcements with contaminate. Raven's provide invaluable support via point defense drone, and also have the potential to do massive damage with hunter seeker missile or harass a mineral line with auto-turrets. Lastly the detection of terran and protoss is more easily available, scans and EMPs are easy to get or already part of the terran arsenal, overseers are unlocked just by teching up to lair, and infestors are now part of many lineups.
Now, if you add up all the problems you get the following scenario.
Against a terran 1/1/1 a protoss is forced to get a robo so he can have detection. Because of the lack of other detection methods the protoss becomes predictable, if he doesn't get a robotics for observers he risks dying to cloaked banshees. Also observers are easy to snipe, they have the lowest HP of any detector, and once a scan goes of they are dead. Now because protoss was forced to get robo they now have to add immortals to the army, and while great against tanks, the backbone of a 1/1/1 is the marine, and mass marines rip apart immortals, and once immortals are dead, the T1 protoss army crumbles.
Normally in balance of RTS games, if units are very cheep they should be a lot weaker (zerg), if units are more expensive they should be stronger (protoss), however, protoss T1 units are really not that good for the amount they cost, zealots and stalkers are way too weak without sentries, and against a 1/1/1 sentries don't help all that much because tanks have huge range, do massive damage, and there are also banshees that can mess them over.
This problem is put into sharp focus in games where, you see a terran not expand, you see the protoss fast expand at min 4, and at 12 minutes into the game the terran has a bigger supply army then the protoss. Its a problem in game balance that a 1 base player could have equal or more supply then a player on 2 bases for 66% of the game. What is even more wrong is that the 1 base player's army is so strong that it can annihilate the 2 base player's army.
Now, if we look away from the 1/1/1 and focus on the meta game, in a late game scenario the protoss doesn't stand much chance. A terran bio ball is cheaper to replenish, is more durable because of medivacs, and it does more DPS then the standard tier 1.5 of protoss. Protoss needs sentries and HT or colossis, however, sentries and HT are easily countered by ghosts, colossis are easily countered by vikings. In a head to head fight, the terran just needs to have the patience to emp the specialists, snipe the colossis with vikings, then the bio ball an just do the rest. Also warp prism micro with HT isn't so hot because they can be sniped by vikings, just the same way colossis are sniped. To rub salt onto the wounds, EMP also directly reduce survivability of protoss units by destroying shields.
Now I ask, where can you innovate in there?
Protoss are already using 99% of their units, they use zealots, stalkers, sentries, HT, colossus, observer and warp prism. Protoss air force is weak, they Phoenix and Void rays are already easily countered by units the terran already gets, marines, vikings and ghosts. Carriers cost too much, take too much time to build and require too big numbers to be effective. Carriers in small number are easily sniped by vikings. Mothership is even worst because it can be EMPed from farther away then it can vortex, once EMPed it becomes a big meat shield waiting to die horribly to vikings and marines.
How can you innovate against a 1/1/1, when from the get go, you need to get a robo for detection? Also how can you innovate a build against the 1/1/1 when you risk creating a build that can completely counter the 1/1/1 but fail miserably to form of early pressure?
And, keep in mind that, terrans still haven't widely adopted the use of ravens and/or mass ravens. With patch 1.4 that might change because, seeker missiles will be able to outrun zealots even with charge, and stalkers and sentries and probles, and ravens also hard counter stalkers by reducing their DPS to 0 via PDD.
Against zerg the problems aren't quite as bad, but they aren't great either. The timings of 4 gates and 6 gates has been figured out. Protoss can't do 4 gate because it won't work, the zerg can prepare an appropriate defense while still having a 1 base advantage. If protoss chooses to fast expand into a 6 gate, the zerg can just take a quick 3rd, and can have defenses out in time for any form of protoss preasure. Air play can be easily countered by the proper and strategic placement of spore crawlers and building of extra queens (which zerg have already started doing). And if the protoss decides to not go air and go a 6 gate or robo+ a number of gates, then the zerg can still have an big enough army in time to defend against it, and still retain a 1 base advantage.
The recent game of Check.Prime vs Tails from IGN qualifiers is a good example of zerg being able to take a fast 3rd and come out ahead of a protoss FE. As for late game, infestors are a big double risk problem. Not only can they fungal the entire protoss army, but they can neural colossis, and/or archons. Fungal does respectable DPS, but more critically it leaves the protoss open to brood lords and baneling drops, both of which can do massive damage.
Again, carriers and motherships won't help, they still take too long to build, cost too much, are too vulnerable to corrupters, and worst, are vulnerable to neurals.
The only conclusion I can draw is that, protoss doesn't have anything to innovate upon, they are already using all their tools, and now that terran and zerg have started to fully use their tools the cracks are starting to show. I really wish I was wrong here but, it trully feels like it will take either a very big patch (1.4 won't cut it), or the expansion to fix the current protoss problems.
And while all this situation might really suck and demoralize a lot of players, lets have faith and remember that SC2 is only 1 year old, hopefully we will be looking back at this period in time and remember it was the darkness before the dusk, the calm before the storm. Change will come, even if Blizzard has to act. Well i'll be, quite the high level understanding of the game and refreshing when people keep saying a zealot beats 4 lings. ne thing I never see anyone mention defending the 1/1/1... Cannons. OP makes an argument that you get pigeon holed into making a robotics for detection... cannons take care of this. If you expand and take 1 gas, you'll also have enough for warp and a handful of stalkers, but the majority of your defense should come from zealots and cannons. I've been 1/1/1'd multiple times while Protoss, and cannons were a huge part of my hold.
Why would you mention that you're "almost masters" when you then go on to destroy any credibility you have anyway? You're saying protoss players should counter a push including siege tanks, which usually hits moments before siege research finishes, with cannons?
You might as well tell people you're a creationist, then expect them to listen to your thoughts on natural science.
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On September 20 2011 22:28 squanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 22:21 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On September 20 2011 22:13 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 12:09 VTPerfect wrote:On September 20 2011 05:49 Destructicon wrote:
While I admire the original poster's attempt to inspire hope in the hearts of all the protoss players, the protoss community and all the protoss fans, I can't help but feel that these innovators, don't have anything to innovate upon and that our hopes will be dashed upon the rocks and will crumble to pieces.
I am going to try and say this cleanly and efficiently.
The problem with protoss is not the lack of innovation, it is the lack of strength and the multitude of weaknesses that can be exploited.
This problem is most evident in the TvP match up and is grotesquely blown out of proportion by the 1/1/1 style of opening and variations.
Problem number 1 (P1). The protoss tier 1 and 1.5 is week against a basic tier 1.5 terran army without the use of specialist units (sentries, HT), or higher tech (colossis, HT). Marines do phenomenal DPS and in combination with Marauders are deadly because marauders can just kite zealots forever even with charge, and marauders also rip apart stalkers. This leads to problem number 2.
P2.Protoss specialist units are too easy to be countered and too expensive. Ghosts can EMP from a bigger range then a HT can feedback, EMP can potentially neutralize many HT and sentries while HT can only feedback 1 unit at a time. EMP also destroyes shields which in some cases means 50% of a protoss effective health. Ghosts contribute with real DPS even after their energy is spent, and they also do double damage against light (zealots). Ghosts with cloak can survive for a good time as well, which also puts into grave perspective problem number 3.
P3. Protoss don't have enough mobile detection, terran and zerg both have at least one more means of detection then a unit. Zerg has Overseers and Fungal growth, terran has EMP, Raven and scan. Not only do the terrans and zerg have more methods of detection, but their detector units also fulfill different roles and are stronger. The overseer can help with scouting via changeling and can also delay a critical tech or reinforcements with contaminate. Raven's provide invaluable support via point defense drone, and also have the potential to do massive damage with hunter seeker missile or harass a mineral line with auto-turrets. Lastly the detection of terran and protoss is more easily available, scans and EMPs are easy to get or already part of the terran arsenal, overseers are unlocked just by teching up to lair, and infestors are now part of many lineups.
Now, if you add up all the problems you get the following scenario.
Against a terran 1/1/1 a protoss is forced to get a robo so he can have detection. Because of the lack of other detection methods the protoss becomes predictable, if he doesn't get a robotics for observers he risks dying to cloaked banshees. Also observers are easy to snipe, they have the lowest HP of any detector, and once a scan goes of they are dead. Now because protoss was forced to get robo they now have to add immortals to the army, and while great against tanks, the backbone of a 1/1/1 is the marine, and mass marines rip apart immortals, and once immortals are dead, the T1 protoss army crumbles.
Normally in balance of RTS games, if units are very cheep they should be a lot weaker (zerg), if units are more expensive they should be stronger (protoss), however, protoss T1 units are really not that good for the amount they cost, zealots and stalkers are way too weak without sentries, and against a 1/1/1 sentries don't help all that much because tanks have huge range, do massive damage, and there are also banshees that can mess them over.
This problem is put into sharp focus in games where, you see a terran not expand, you see the protoss fast expand at min 4, and at 12 minutes into the game the terran has a bigger supply army then the protoss. Its a problem in game balance that a 1 base player could have equal or more supply then a player on 2 bases for 66% of the game. What is even more wrong is that the 1 base player's army is so strong that it can annihilate the 2 base player's army.
Now, if we look away from the 1/1/1 and focus on the meta game, in a late game scenario the protoss doesn't stand much chance. A terran bio ball is cheaper to replenish, is more durable because of medivacs, and it does more DPS then the standard tier 1.5 of protoss. Protoss needs sentries and HT or colossis, however, sentries and HT are easily countered by ghosts, colossis are easily countered by vikings. In a head to head fight, the terran just needs to have the patience to emp the specialists, snipe the colossis with vikings, then the bio ball an just do the rest. Also warp prism micro with HT isn't so hot because they can be sniped by vikings, just the same way colossis are sniped. To rub salt onto the wounds, EMP also directly reduce survivability of protoss units by destroying shields.
Now I ask, where can you innovate in there?
Protoss are already using 99% of their units, they use zealots, stalkers, sentries, HT, colossus, observer and warp prism. Protoss air force is weak, they Phoenix and Void rays are already easily countered by units the terran already gets, marines, vikings and ghosts. Carriers cost too much, take too much time to build and require too big numbers to be effective. Carriers in small number are easily sniped by vikings. Mothership is even worst because it can be EMPed from farther away then it can vortex, once EMPed it becomes a big meat shield waiting to die horribly to vikings and marines.
How can you innovate against a 1/1/1, when from the get go, you need to get a robo for detection? Also how can you innovate a build against the 1/1/1 when you risk creating a build that can completely counter the 1/1/1 but fail miserably to form of early pressure?
And, keep in mind that, terrans still haven't widely adopted the use of ravens and/or mass ravens. With patch 1.4 that might change because, seeker missiles will be able to outrun zealots even with charge, and stalkers and sentries and probles, and ravens also hard counter stalkers by reducing their DPS to 0 via PDD.
Against zerg the problems aren't quite as bad, but they aren't great either. The timings of 4 gates and 6 gates has been figured out. Protoss can't do 4 gate because it won't work, the zerg can prepare an appropriate defense while still having a 1 base advantage. If protoss chooses to fast expand into a 6 gate, the zerg can just take a quick 3rd, and can have defenses out in time for any form of protoss preasure. Air play can be easily countered by the proper and strategic placement of spore crawlers and building of extra queens (which zerg have already started doing). And if the protoss decides to not go air and go a 6 gate or robo+ a number of gates, then the zerg can still have an big enough army in time to defend against it, and still retain a 1 base advantage.
The recent game of Check.Prime vs Tails from IGN qualifiers is a good example of zerg being able to take a fast 3rd and come out ahead of a protoss FE. As for late game, infestors are a big double risk problem. Not only can they fungal the entire protoss army, but they can neural colossis, and/or archons. Fungal does respectable DPS, but more critically it leaves the protoss open to brood lords and baneling drops, both of which can do massive damage.
Again, carriers and motherships won't help, they still take too long to build, cost too much, are too vulnerable to corrupters, and worst, are vulnerable to neurals.
The only conclusion I can draw is that, protoss doesn't have anything to innovate upon, they are already using all their tools, and now that terran and zerg have started to fully use their tools the cracks are starting to show. I really wish I was wrong here but, it trully feels like it will take either a very big patch (1.4 won't cut it), or the expansion to fix the current protoss problems.
And while all this situation might really suck and demoralize a lot of players, lets have faith and remember that SC2 is only 1 year old, hopefully we will be looking back at this period in time and remember it was the darkness before the dusk, the calm before the storm. Change will come, even if Blizzard has to act. Well i'll be, quite the high level understanding of the game and refreshing when people keep saying a zealot beats 4 lings. I don't post much around here but I'd like to throw in my 2 cents on the issue. I rarely play Protoss on the ladder, I'm more of an alternating Terran/Zerg player. While Terran in TvP, I've never done the 1/1/1 all in. I just don't feel like learning a strategy that's highly anticipated by the opponent, and I'd rather work on mechanics and play macro games anyway. (Btw, I'm high diamond/low masters, will probably be back in Masters this week). One thing I never see anyone mention defending the 1/1/1... Cannons. OP makes an argument that you get pigeon holed into making a robotics for detection... cannons take care of this. If you expand and take 1 gas, you'll also have enough for warp and a handful of stalkers, but the majority of your defense should come from zealots and cannons. I've been 1/1/1'd multiple times while Protoss, and cannons were a huge part of my hold. As for macro games and mauraders... I honestly don't see what players are complaining about. This is where I get frustrated listening to Protoss players. I've played against many Protoss that have learned you need to flank the army with a ball of chargelots to take out that kiting bioball. Use a damn warp prism. It's not that difficult. And if you're pumping attack and armor upgrades the EMP's become worthless against huge spread out Protoss armies with archons and lossus. Army position is important for Terran, so why shouldn't it be for Protoss? I think if anything could use a buff for Protoss, it's hallucination. I think it costs way too much energy for a unit that barely survives in the later game. As for ZvP, there's nothing to mention. The Infestor is the best unit in the game, and is a pivotal unit in all 3 matchups for Zerg. Something needs to be done about that unit. See the game 1 of MMA vs DRG in the IPL qualifier to see what I'm talking about. we already had a troll with the idea of a forge. you do know that 1/1/1 is quite flexible...thats good. if the terran sees that you are building cannons he will be intelligent and expand. Sooo... if he expands... then he's not all-ining anymore... and thus you've defended it?
and thus you are so far behind that you will still lose
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On September 20 2011 22:07 acrimoneyius wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 22:04 Zeon0 wrote:gsl spoiler: + Show Spoiler +please, please, please do never mention Puzzle in this thread anymore. Walling in you own Immortal, wasting 5 forcefields for nothing, forgeting a pylong at 26 supply and 4gating is just so bad, I cant find proper words for it^^ Common sense spoiler + Show Spoiler +One game doesn't make you a bad player. He clearly wasn't playing at his normal level.
+ Show Spoiler +i didnt say he was a bad player. i said he played like shit today...
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On September 20 2011 22:28 squanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 22:21 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On September 20 2011 22:13 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 12:09 VTPerfect wrote:On September 20 2011 05:49 Destructicon wrote:
While I admire the original poster's attempt to inspire hope in the hearts of all the protoss players, the protoss community and all the protoss fans, I can't help but feel that these innovators, don't have anything to innovate upon and that our hopes will be dashed upon the rocks and will crumble to pieces.
I am going to try and say this cleanly and efficiently.
The problem with protoss is not the lack of innovation, it is the lack of strength and the multitude of weaknesses that can be exploited.
This problem is most evident in the TvP match up and is grotesquely blown out of proportion by the 1/1/1 style of opening and variations.
Problem number 1 (P1). The protoss tier 1 and 1.5 is week against a basic tier 1.5 terran army without the use of specialist units (sentries, HT), or higher tech (colossis, HT). Marines do phenomenal DPS and in combination with Marauders are deadly because marauders can just kite zealots forever even with charge, and marauders also rip apart stalkers. This leads to problem number 2.
P2.Protoss specialist units are too easy to be countered and too expensive. Ghosts can EMP from a bigger range then a HT can feedback, EMP can potentially neutralize many HT and sentries while HT can only feedback 1 unit at a time. EMP also destroyes shields which in some cases means 50% of a protoss effective health. Ghosts contribute with real DPS even after their energy is spent, and they also do double damage against light (zealots). Ghosts with cloak can survive for a good time as well, which also puts into grave perspective problem number 3.
P3. Protoss don't have enough mobile detection, terran and zerg both have at least one more means of detection then a unit. Zerg has Overseers and Fungal growth, terran has EMP, Raven and scan. Not only do the terrans and zerg have more methods of detection, but their detector units also fulfill different roles and are stronger. The overseer can help with scouting via changeling and can also delay a critical tech or reinforcements with contaminate. Raven's provide invaluable support via point defense drone, and also have the potential to do massive damage with hunter seeker missile or harass a mineral line with auto-turrets. Lastly the detection of terran and protoss is more easily available, scans and EMPs are easy to get or already part of the terran arsenal, overseers are unlocked just by teching up to lair, and infestors are now part of many lineups.
Now, if you add up all the problems you get the following scenario.
Against a terran 1/1/1 a protoss is forced to get a robo so he can have detection. Because of the lack of other detection methods the protoss becomes predictable, if he doesn't get a robotics for observers he risks dying to cloaked banshees. Also observers are easy to snipe, they have the lowest HP of any detector, and once a scan goes of they are dead. Now because protoss was forced to get robo they now have to add immortals to the army, and while great against tanks, the backbone of a 1/1/1 is the marine, and mass marines rip apart immortals, and once immortals are dead, the T1 protoss army crumbles.
Normally in balance of RTS games, if units are very cheep they should be a lot weaker (zerg), if units are more expensive they should be stronger (protoss), however, protoss T1 units are really not that good for the amount they cost, zealots and stalkers are way too weak without sentries, and against a 1/1/1 sentries don't help all that much because tanks have huge range, do massive damage, and there are also banshees that can mess them over.
This problem is put into sharp focus in games where, you see a terran not expand, you see the protoss fast expand at min 4, and at 12 minutes into the game the terran has a bigger supply army then the protoss. Its a problem in game balance that a 1 base player could have equal or more supply then a player on 2 bases for 66% of the game. What is even more wrong is that the 1 base player's army is so strong that it can annihilate the 2 base player's army.
Now, if we look away from the 1/1/1 and focus on the meta game, in a late game scenario the protoss doesn't stand much chance. A terran bio ball is cheaper to replenish, is more durable because of medivacs, and it does more DPS then the standard tier 1.5 of protoss. Protoss needs sentries and HT or colossis, however, sentries and HT are easily countered by ghosts, colossis are easily countered by vikings. In a head to head fight, the terran just needs to have the patience to emp the specialists, snipe the colossis with vikings, then the bio ball an just do the rest. Also warp prism micro with HT isn't so hot because they can be sniped by vikings, just the same way colossis are sniped. To rub salt onto the wounds, EMP also directly reduce survivability of protoss units by destroying shields.
Now I ask, where can you innovate in there?
Protoss are already using 99% of their units, they use zealots, stalkers, sentries, HT, colossus, observer and warp prism. Protoss air force is weak, they Phoenix and Void rays are already easily countered by units the terran already gets, marines, vikings and ghosts. Carriers cost too much, take too much time to build and require too big numbers to be effective. Carriers in small number are easily sniped by vikings. Mothership is even worst because it can be EMPed from farther away then it can vortex, once EMPed it becomes a big meat shield waiting to die horribly to vikings and marines.
How can you innovate against a 1/1/1, when from the get go, you need to get a robo for detection? Also how can you innovate a build against the 1/1/1 when you risk creating a build that can completely counter the 1/1/1 but fail miserably to form of early pressure?
And, keep in mind that, terrans still haven't widely adopted the use of ravens and/or mass ravens. With patch 1.4 that might change because, seeker missiles will be able to outrun zealots even with charge, and stalkers and sentries and probles, and ravens also hard counter stalkers by reducing their DPS to 0 via PDD.
Against zerg the problems aren't quite as bad, but they aren't great either. The timings of 4 gates and 6 gates has been figured out. Protoss can't do 4 gate because it won't work, the zerg can prepare an appropriate defense while still having a 1 base advantage. If protoss chooses to fast expand into a 6 gate, the zerg can just take a quick 3rd, and can have defenses out in time for any form of protoss preasure. Air play can be easily countered by the proper and strategic placement of spore crawlers and building of extra queens (which zerg have already started doing). And if the protoss decides to not go air and go a 6 gate or robo+ a number of gates, then the zerg can still have an big enough army in time to defend against it, and still retain a 1 base advantage.
The recent game of Check.Prime vs Tails from IGN qualifiers is a good example of zerg being able to take a fast 3rd and come out ahead of a protoss FE. As for late game, infestors are a big double risk problem. Not only can they fungal the entire protoss army, but they can neural colossis, and/or archons. Fungal does respectable DPS, but more critically it leaves the protoss open to brood lords and baneling drops, both of which can do massive damage.
Again, carriers and motherships won't help, they still take too long to build, cost too much, are too vulnerable to corrupters, and worst, are vulnerable to neurals.
The only conclusion I can draw is that, protoss doesn't have anything to innovate upon, they are already using all their tools, and now that terran and zerg have started to fully use their tools the cracks are starting to show. I really wish I was wrong here but, it trully feels like it will take either a very big patch (1.4 won't cut it), or the expansion to fix the current protoss problems.
And while all this situation might really suck and demoralize a lot of players, lets have faith and remember that SC2 is only 1 year old, hopefully we will be looking back at this period in time and remember it was the darkness before the dusk, the calm before the storm. Change will come, even if Blizzard has to act. Well i'll be, quite the high level understanding of the game and refreshing when people keep saying a zealot beats 4 lings. I don't post much around here but I'd like to throw in my 2 cents on the issue. I rarely play Protoss on the ladder, I'm more of an alternating Terran/Zerg player. While Terran in TvP, I've never done the 1/1/1 all in. I just don't feel like learning a strategy that's highly anticipated by the opponent, and I'd rather work on mechanics and play macro games anyway. (Btw, I'm high diamond/low masters, will probably be back in Masters this week). One thing I never see anyone mention defending the 1/1/1... Cannons. OP makes an argument that you get pigeon holed into making a robotics for detection... cannons take care of this. If you expand and take 1 gas, you'll also have enough for warp and a handful of stalkers, but the majority of your defense should come from zealots and cannons. I've been 1/1/1'd multiple times while Protoss, and cannons were a huge part of my hold. As for macro games and mauraders... I honestly don't see what players are complaining about. This is where I get frustrated listening to Protoss players. I've played against many Protoss that have learned you need to flank the army with a ball of chargelots to take out that kiting bioball. Use a damn warp prism. It's not that difficult. And if you're pumping attack and armor upgrades the EMP's become worthless against huge spread out Protoss armies with archons and lossus. Army position is important for Terran, so why shouldn't it be for Protoss? I think if anything could use a buff for Protoss, it's hallucination. I think it costs way too much energy for a unit that barely survives in the later game. As for ZvP, there's nothing to mention. The Infestor is the best unit in the game, and is a pivotal unit in all 3 matchups for Zerg. Something needs to be done about that unit. See the game 1 of MMA vs DRG in the IPL qualifier to see what I'm talking about. we already had a troll with the idea of a forge. you do know that 1/1/1 is quite flexible...thats good. if the terran sees that you are building cannons he will be intelligent and expand. Sooo... if he expands... then he's not all-ining anymore... and thus you've defended it?
defended ? he didnt even attack you... you build cannons thus wasted resources while he can just switch tech or to macro.
PLUS 1/1/1 IS NOT AN ALL INNNNNNNNNN.
they can transition out of it np as long as they do some dmg/gain some advantages with it.
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On September 20 2011 22:29 Ecto wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 22:13 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 12:09 VTPerfect wrote:On September 20 2011 05:49 Destructicon wrote:
While I admire the original poster's attempt to inspire hope in the hearts of all the protoss players, the protoss community and all the protoss fans, I can't help but feel that these innovators, don't have anything to innovate upon and that our hopes will be dashed upon the rocks and will crumble to pieces.
I am going to try and say this cleanly and efficiently.
The problem with protoss is not the lack of innovation, it is the lack of strength and the multitude of weaknesses that can be exploited.
This problem is most evident in the TvP match up and is grotesquely blown out of proportion by the 1/1/1 style of opening and variations.
Problem number 1 (P1). The protoss tier 1 and 1.5 is week against a basic tier 1.5 terran army without the use of specialist units (sentries, HT), or higher tech (colossis, HT). Marines do phenomenal DPS and in combination with Marauders are deadly because marauders can just kite zealots forever even with charge, and marauders also rip apart stalkers. This leads to problem number 2.
P2.Protoss specialist units are too easy to be countered and too expensive. Ghosts can EMP from a bigger range then a HT can feedback, EMP can potentially neutralize many HT and sentries while HT can only feedback 1 unit at a time. EMP also destroyes shields which in some cases means 50% of a protoss effective health. Ghosts contribute with real DPS even after their energy is spent, and they also do double damage against light (zealots). Ghosts with cloak can survive for a good time as well, which also puts into grave perspective problem number 3.
P3. Protoss don't have enough mobile detection, terran and zerg both have at least one more means of detection then a unit. Zerg has Overseers and Fungal growth, terran has EMP, Raven and scan. Not only do the terrans and zerg have more methods of detection, but their detector units also fulfill different roles and are stronger. The overseer can help with scouting via changeling and can also delay a critical tech or reinforcements with contaminate. Raven's provide invaluable support via point defense drone, and also have the potential to do massive damage with hunter seeker missile or harass a mineral line with auto-turrets. Lastly the detection of terran and protoss is more easily available, scans and EMPs are easy to get or already part of the terran arsenal, overseers are unlocked just by teching up to lair, and infestors are now part of many lineups.
Now, if you add up all the problems you get the following scenario.
Against a terran 1/1/1 a protoss is forced to get a robo so he can have detection. Because of the lack of other detection methods the protoss becomes predictable, if he doesn't get a robotics for observers he risks dying to cloaked banshees. Also observers are easy to snipe, they have the lowest HP of any detector, and once a scan goes of they are dead. Now because protoss was forced to get robo they now have to add immortals to the army, and while great against tanks, the backbone of a 1/1/1 is the marine, and mass marines rip apart immortals, and once immortals are dead, the T1 protoss army crumbles.
Normally in balance of RTS games, if units are very cheep they should be a lot weaker (zerg), if units are more expensive they should be stronger (protoss), however, protoss T1 units are really not that good for the amount they cost, zealots and stalkers are way too weak without sentries, and against a 1/1/1 sentries don't help all that much because tanks have huge range, do massive damage, and there are also banshees that can mess them over.
This problem is put into sharp focus in games where, you see a terran not expand, you see the protoss fast expand at min 4, and at 12 minutes into the game the terran has a bigger supply army then the protoss. Its a problem in game balance that a 1 base player could have equal or more supply then a player on 2 bases for 66% of the game. What is even more wrong is that the 1 base player's army is so strong that it can annihilate the 2 base player's army.
Now, if we look away from the 1/1/1 and focus on the meta game, in a late game scenario the protoss doesn't stand much chance. A terran bio ball is cheaper to replenish, is more durable because of medivacs, and it does more DPS then the standard tier 1.5 of protoss. Protoss needs sentries and HT or colossis, however, sentries and HT are easily countered by ghosts, colossis are easily countered by vikings. In a head to head fight, the terran just needs to have the patience to emp the specialists, snipe the colossis with vikings, then the bio ball an just do the rest. Also warp prism micro with HT isn't so hot because they can be sniped by vikings, just the same way colossis are sniped. To rub salt onto the wounds, EMP also directly reduce survivability of protoss units by destroying shields.
Now I ask, where can you innovate in there?
Protoss are already using 99% of their units, they use zealots, stalkers, sentries, HT, colossus, observer and warp prism. Protoss air force is weak, they Phoenix and Void rays are already easily countered by units the terran already gets, marines, vikings and ghosts. Carriers cost too much, take too much time to build and require too big numbers to be effective. Carriers in small number are easily sniped by vikings. Mothership is even worst because it can be EMPed from farther away then it can vortex, once EMPed it becomes a big meat shield waiting to die horribly to vikings and marines.
How can you innovate against a 1/1/1, when from the get go, you need to get a robo for detection? Also how can you innovate a build against the 1/1/1 when you risk creating a build that can completely counter the 1/1/1 but fail miserably to form of early pressure?
And, keep in mind that, terrans still haven't widely adopted the use of ravens and/or mass ravens. With patch 1.4 that might change because, seeker missiles will be able to outrun zealots even with charge, and stalkers and sentries and probles, and ravens also hard counter stalkers by reducing their DPS to 0 via PDD.
Against zerg the problems aren't quite as bad, but they aren't great either. The timings of 4 gates and 6 gates has been figured out. Protoss can't do 4 gate because it won't work, the zerg can prepare an appropriate defense while still having a 1 base advantage. If protoss chooses to fast expand into a 6 gate, the zerg can just take a quick 3rd, and can have defenses out in time for any form of protoss preasure. Air play can be easily countered by the proper and strategic placement of spore crawlers and building of extra queens (which zerg have already started doing). And if the protoss decides to not go air and go a 6 gate or robo+ a number of gates, then the zerg can still have an big enough army in time to defend against it, and still retain a 1 base advantage.
The recent game of Check.Prime vs Tails from IGN qualifiers is a good example of zerg being able to take a fast 3rd and come out ahead of a protoss FE. As for late game, infestors are a big double risk problem. Not only can they fungal the entire protoss army, but they can neural colossis, and/or archons. Fungal does respectable DPS, but more critically it leaves the protoss open to brood lords and baneling drops, both of which can do massive damage.
Again, carriers and motherships won't help, they still take too long to build, cost too much, are too vulnerable to corrupters, and worst, are vulnerable to neurals.
The only conclusion I can draw is that, protoss doesn't have anything to innovate upon, they are already using all their tools, and now that terran and zerg have started to fully use their tools the cracks are starting to show. I really wish I was wrong here but, it trully feels like it will take either a very big patch (1.4 won't cut it), or the expansion to fix the current protoss problems.
And while all this situation might really suck and demoralize a lot of players, lets have faith and remember that SC2 is only 1 year old, hopefully we will be looking back at this period in time and remember it was the darkness before the dusk, the calm before the storm. Change will come, even if Blizzard has to act. Well i'll be, quite the high level understanding of the game and refreshing when people keep saying a zealot beats 4 lings. ne thing I never see anyone mention defending the 1/1/1... Cannons. OP makes an argument that you get pigeon holed into making a robotics for detection... cannons take care of this. If you expand and take 1 gas, you'll also have enough for warp and a handful of stalkers, but the majority of your defense should come from zealots and cannons. I've been 1/1/1'd multiple times while Protoss, and cannons were a huge part of my hold. Why would you mention that you're "almost masters" when you then go on to destroy any credibility you have anyway? You're saying protoss players should counter a push including siege tanks, which usually hits moments before siege research finishes, with cannons? You might as well tell people you're a creationist, then expect them to listen to your thoughts on natural science.
Again, this is why I don't post much around here. I'm not trying to argue. If you can't figure out the reason why I mentioned cannons is to negate the fact that the OP says you MUST get a robo and obs out for detection, then I don't know what you're reading. I even mentioned this in my post.
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On September 20 2011 22:31 Zeon0 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 22:07 acrimoneyius wrote:On September 20 2011 22:04 Zeon0 wrote:gsl spoiler: + Show Spoiler +please, please, please do never mention Puzzle in this thread anymore. Walling in you own Immortal, wasting 5 forcefields for nothing, forgeting a pylong at 26 supply and 4gating is just so bad, I cant find proper words for it^^ Common sense spoiler + Show Spoiler +One game doesn't make you a bad player. He clearly wasn't playing at his normal level. + Show Spoiler +i didnt say he was a bad player. i said he played like shit today...
yet u said that pls not mention puzzle in this thread anymore ? what does that mean then ?
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United Kingdom36156 Posts
On September 20 2011 20:54 The KY wrote:Show nested quote +This problem is put into sharp focus in games where, you see a terran not expand, you see the protoss fast expand at min 4, and at 12 minutes into the game the terran has a bigger supply army then the protoss. This happens the other way round as well. If I go 1 rax expo and the toss goes 3 gate robo they are going to have a larger army value than me when they go for their 1 base all in push. I don't see a problem with this. If one player pursues economy, and the other goes for army size, there SHOULD be a period where the guy on one base has a larger army. The economy based player is aiming at a later point in the game where his economy will enable him to get ahead in army size. Until that point he is behind in army and tech. This is the game working as intended.
Yes, and no. There should indeed be a time when a one-basing player's army is bigger than the early expander.
The problem comes in 1-1-1 where Protoss 1-gate expands, the natural has paid for itself 3x over, and yet the Protoss loses anyway. The problem comes in games like MC vs Puma on Xel'naga when the Protoss defends the initial big push, ends up 30+ supply ahead, and then loses to wave 2 anyway.
3-gate robo vs 1 rax expo has a really slim timing window to do damage, and if the Protoss loses its entire army, it's over. This simply isn't comparable to the leeway Terran has with 1-1-1.
There are even more comparisons that skew the situation in favour of the Terran. Terran can always scout when Protoss are expanding as toss can't build a CC in their own base. Protoss either have to expand blindly, or wait for an observer. Terrans also do very nicely in 1 base vs 1 base situations due to the fact they get ~180 minerals per minute extra due to MULEs. Terrans can also fly away their orbital if they forsee things going badly (imagine how easily MC would have won that game vs Puma if, instead of sacking his Nexus and then beating Puma's army, he could have flown it away and then beaten Puma's army).
So sure, a 1-baser will have a bigger army than the eco player for a while. But let's not pretend Protoss and Terran have comparable options or timing windows here.
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On September 20 2011 22:32 squanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 22:29 Ecto wrote:On September 20 2011 22:13 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 12:09 VTPerfect wrote:On September 20 2011 05:49 Destructicon wrote:
While I admire the original poster's attempt to inspire hope in the hearts of all the protoss players, the protoss community and all the protoss fans, I can't help but feel that these innovators, don't have anything to innovate upon and that our hopes will be dashed upon the rocks and will crumble to pieces.
I am going to try and say this cleanly and efficiently.
The problem with protoss is not the lack of innovation, it is the lack of strength and the multitude of weaknesses that can be exploited.
This problem is most evident in the TvP match up and is grotesquely blown out of proportion by the 1/1/1 style of opening and variations.
Problem number 1 (P1). The protoss tier 1 and 1.5 is week against a basic tier 1.5 terran army without the use of specialist units (sentries, HT), or higher tech (colossis, HT). Marines do phenomenal DPS and in combination with Marauders are deadly because marauders can just kite zealots forever even with charge, and marauders also rip apart stalkers. This leads to problem number 2.
P2.Protoss specialist units are too easy to be countered and too expensive. Ghosts can EMP from a bigger range then a HT can feedback, EMP can potentially neutralize many HT and sentries while HT can only feedback 1 unit at a time. EMP also destroyes shields which in some cases means 50% of a protoss effective health. Ghosts contribute with real DPS even after their energy is spent, and they also do double damage against light (zealots). Ghosts with cloak can survive for a good time as well, which also puts into grave perspective problem number 3.
P3. Protoss don't have enough mobile detection, terran and zerg both have at least one more means of detection then a unit. Zerg has Overseers and Fungal growth, terran has EMP, Raven and scan. Not only do the terrans and zerg have more methods of detection, but their detector units also fulfill different roles and are stronger. The overseer can help with scouting via changeling and can also delay a critical tech or reinforcements with contaminate. Raven's provide invaluable support via point defense drone, and also have the potential to do massive damage with hunter seeker missile or harass a mineral line with auto-turrets. Lastly the detection of terran and protoss is more easily available, scans and EMPs are easy to get or already part of the terran arsenal, overseers are unlocked just by teching up to lair, and infestors are now part of many lineups.
Now, if you add up all the problems you get the following scenario.
Against a terran 1/1/1 a protoss is forced to get a robo so he can have detection. Because of the lack of other detection methods the protoss becomes predictable, if he doesn't get a robotics for observers he risks dying to cloaked banshees. Also observers are easy to snipe, they have the lowest HP of any detector, and once a scan goes of they are dead. Now because protoss was forced to get robo they now have to add immortals to the army, and while great against tanks, the backbone of a 1/1/1 is the marine, and mass marines rip apart immortals, and once immortals are dead, the T1 protoss army crumbles.
Normally in balance of RTS games, if units are very cheep they should be a lot weaker (zerg), if units are more expensive they should be stronger (protoss), however, protoss T1 units are really not that good for the amount they cost, zealots and stalkers are way too weak without sentries, and against a 1/1/1 sentries don't help all that much because tanks have huge range, do massive damage, and there are also banshees that can mess them over.
This problem is put into sharp focus in games where, you see a terran not expand, you see the protoss fast expand at min 4, and at 12 minutes into the game the terran has a bigger supply army then the protoss. Its a problem in game balance that a 1 base player could have equal or more supply then a player on 2 bases for 66% of the game. What is even more wrong is that the 1 base player's army is so strong that it can annihilate the 2 base player's army.
Now, if we look away from the 1/1/1 and focus on the meta game, in a late game scenario the protoss doesn't stand much chance. A terran bio ball is cheaper to replenish, is more durable because of medivacs, and it does more DPS then the standard tier 1.5 of protoss. Protoss needs sentries and HT or colossis, however, sentries and HT are easily countered by ghosts, colossis are easily countered by vikings. In a head to head fight, the terran just needs to have the patience to emp the specialists, snipe the colossis with vikings, then the bio ball an just do the rest. Also warp prism micro with HT isn't so hot because they can be sniped by vikings, just the same way colossis are sniped. To rub salt onto the wounds, EMP also directly reduce survivability of protoss units by destroying shields.
Now I ask, where can you innovate in there?
Protoss are already using 99% of their units, they use zealots, stalkers, sentries, HT, colossus, observer and warp prism. Protoss air force is weak, they Phoenix and Void rays are already easily countered by units the terran already gets, marines, vikings and ghosts. Carriers cost too much, take too much time to build and require too big numbers to be effective. Carriers in small number are easily sniped by vikings. Mothership is even worst because it can be EMPed from farther away then it can vortex, once EMPed it becomes a big meat shield waiting to die horribly to vikings and marines.
How can you innovate against a 1/1/1, when from the get go, you need to get a robo for detection? Also how can you innovate a build against the 1/1/1 when you risk creating a build that can completely counter the 1/1/1 but fail miserably to form of early pressure?
And, keep in mind that, terrans still haven't widely adopted the use of ravens and/or mass ravens. With patch 1.4 that might change because, seeker missiles will be able to outrun zealots even with charge, and stalkers and sentries and probles, and ravens also hard counter stalkers by reducing their DPS to 0 via PDD.
Against zerg the problems aren't quite as bad, but they aren't great either. The timings of 4 gates and 6 gates has been figured out. Protoss can't do 4 gate because it won't work, the zerg can prepare an appropriate defense while still having a 1 base advantage. If protoss chooses to fast expand into a 6 gate, the zerg can just take a quick 3rd, and can have defenses out in time for any form of protoss preasure. Air play can be easily countered by the proper and strategic placement of spore crawlers and building of extra queens (which zerg have already started doing). And if the protoss decides to not go air and go a 6 gate or robo+ a number of gates, then the zerg can still have an big enough army in time to defend against it, and still retain a 1 base advantage.
The recent game of Check.Prime vs Tails from IGN qualifiers is a good example of zerg being able to take a fast 3rd and come out ahead of a protoss FE. As for late game, infestors are a big double risk problem. Not only can they fungal the entire protoss army, but they can neural colossis, and/or archons. Fungal does respectable DPS, but more critically it leaves the protoss open to brood lords and baneling drops, both of which can do massive damage.
Again, carriers and motherships won't help, they still take too long to build, cost too much, are too vulnerable to corrupters, and worst, are vulnerable to neurals.
The only conclusion I can draw is that, protoss doesn't have anything to innovate upon, they are already using all their tools, and now that terran and zerg have started to fully use their tools the cracks are starting to show. I really wish I was wrong here but, it trully feels like it will take either a very big patch (1.4 won't cut it), or the expansion to fix the current protoss problems.
And while all this situation might really suck and demoralize a lot of players, lets have faith and remember that SC2 is only 1 year old, hopefully we will be looking back at this period in time and remember it was the darkness before the dusk, the calm before the storm. Change will come, even if Blizzard has to act. Well i'll be, quite the high level understanding of the game and refreshing when people keep saying a zealot beats 4 lings. ne thing I never see anyone mention defending the 1/1/1... Cannons. OP makes an argument that you get pigeon holed into making a robotics for detection... cannons take care of this. If you expand and take 1 gas, you'll also have enough for warp and a handful of stalkers, but the majority of your defense should come from zealots and cannons. I've been 1/1/1'd multiple times while Protoss, and cannons were a huge part of my hold. Why would you mention that you're "almost masters" when you then go on to destroy any credibility you have anyway? You're saying protoss players should counter a push including siege tanks, which usually hits moments before siege research finishes, with cannons? You might as well tell people you're a creationist, then expect them to listen to your thoughts on natural science. Again, this is why I don't post much around here. I'm not trying to argue. If you can't figure out the reason why I mentioned cannons is to negate the fact that the OP says you MUST get a robo and obs out for detection, then I don't know what you're reading. I even mentioned this in my post.
If you use cannons instead of robo, how do you even know if your opponent is going 1/1/1? One of the biggest reasons why 1/1/1 is so powerful is because protoss can't scout it unless he invest in a BO puts him behind against standard builds.
I mean, I'm glad you're so gosu you can hold off 1/1/1 with whatever stuff you use. But you do realize that on the pro level, players actually cut off scouting and hide whatever BO they use, right?
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On September 20 2011 21:35 infinity2k9 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 21:13 necrimanci wrote:On September 20 2011 18:18 MrProb wrote:On September 20 2011 17:51 necrimanci wrote:
races are fine - maps are broken read something here and watch some games before post =) or you could assume that the game is fine but maps are broken. All we need are defensive maps that provide a vide variety of harassment options, so you cant just turtle mindlessly, no? Will force macro games, will force harass-based play, will force multitasking, will provide more safe openings, will make the game more enjoyable to watch and will stop the shitty stagnation based off 1a2a3a one army play also, riveting argument, o'bard - if only everyone were as witty as you and propose reading a forum full of imba-cryers and game spectating as a first step to posting What are you talking about? You don't want people to turtle.. but you want macro games. You want a 'defensive map' but you want to force multitasking and harassment. You're basically contradicting yourself, not to mention including things that are totally unrelated to the map like units all on 1 group. Explain a map design that somehow includes all of this with zero changes to the rest of the game.
how am i contradicting myself? Turtling and then moving out to get your army smashed or smash opposing army so a GG can be called isnt a macro game - it's a 3, 4, 5 or 6 base all in. I want to see real macro games, and i want to watch games that give both players of any race as much opportunities to show off their skills as possible. If i wanted to watch players macro up an army and go trade it in the middle, treating it as another resource, i might as well go spectate simcity network
give players a defensive map and they will turtle. Give players a defensive map that allows for some funky ledge drops, weird harassment routes and other attack paths and players will have to step up their harassment and multitasking while maintaining good macro. BW-style, multi-pronged action all over the map, 2/3 army battles + heavy harassment style
1a2a3a one army syndrome is mostly caused by the current mappool that allows or even favours this kind of play, and that is why i brought that up. Why take an exe or 2 if you can turtle up with 1 or 2 bases and then roll out with a well-spread death ball? Or counter-composition? What can your opponent do? Outexpand? If one scouts an expansion it's a good time to move out and blast it, no? Map architecture when it comes down to counterattacks also sucks in most cases, and it's very predictable which route opponent will choose
in short, certain maps force certail playstyle/playstyles, and the crap we are seeing now is caused by that, so it's time to look for other maps, because patching game balance wont change anything
any more doubts or missinterpretations of my opinion? please, do let me know
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On September 20 2011 22:28 squanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 22:21 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On September 20 2011 22:13 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 12:09 VTPerfect wrote:On September 20 2011 05:49 Destructicon wrote:
While I admire the original poster's attempt to inspire hope in the hearts of all the protoss players, the protoss community and all the protoss fans, I can't help but feel that these innovators, don't have anything to innovate upon and that our hopes will be dashed upon the rocks and will crumble to pieces.
I am going to try and say this cleanly and efficiently.
The problem with protoss is not the lack of innovation, it is the lack of strength and the multitude of weaknesses that can be exploited.
This problem is most evident in the TvP match up and is grotesquely blown out of proportion by the 1/1/1 style of opening and variations.
Problem number 1 (P1). The protoss tier 1 and 1.5 is week against a basic tier 1.5 terran army without the use of specialist units (sentries, HT), or higher tech (colossis, HT). Marines do phenomenal DPS and in combination with Marauders are deadly because marauders can just kite zealots forever even with charge, and marauders also rip apart stalkers. This leads to problem number 2.
P2.Protoss specialist units are too easy to be countered and too expensive. Ghosts can EMP from a bigger range then a HT can feedback, EMP can potentially neutralize many HT and sentries while HT can only feedback 1 unit at a time. EMP also destroyes shields which in some cases means 50% of a protoss effective health. Ghosts contribute with real DPS even after their energy is spent, and they also do double damage against light (zealots). Ghosts with cloak can survive for a good time as well, which also puts into grave perspective problem number 3.
P3. Protoss don't have enough mobile detection, terran and zerg both have at least one more means of detection then a unit. Zerg has Overseers and Fungal growth, terran has EMP, Raven and scan. Not only do the terrans and zerg have more methods of detection, but their detector units also fulfill different roles and are stronger. The overseer can help with scouting via changeling and can also delay a critical tech or reinforcements with contaminate. Raven's provide invaluable support via point defense drone, and also have the potential to do massive damage with hunter seeker missile or harass a mineral line with auto-turrets. Lastly the detection of terran and protoss is more easily available, scans and EMPs are easy to get or already part of the terran arsenal, overseers are unlocked just by teching up to lair, and infestors are now part of many lineups.
Now, if you add up all the problems you get the following scenario.
Against a terran 1/1/1 a protoss is forced to get a robo so he can have detection. Because of the lack of other detection methods the protoss becomes predictable, if he doesn't get a robotics for observers he risks dying to cloaked banshees. Also observers are easy to snipe, they have the lowest HP of any detector, and once a scan goes of they are dead. Now because protoss was forced to get robo they now have to add immortals to the army, and while great against tanks, the backbone of a 1/1/1 is the marine, and mass marines rip apart immortals, and once immortals are dead, the T1 protoss army crumbles.
Normally in balance of RTS games, if units are very cheep they should be a lot weaker (zerg), if units are more expensive they should be stronger (protoss), however, protoss T1 units are really not that good for the amount they cost, zealots and stalkers are way too weak without sentries, and against a 1/1/1 sentries don't help all that much because tanks have huge range, do massive damage, and there are also banshees that can mess them over.
This problem is put into sharp focus in games where, you see a terran not expand, you see the protoss fast expand at min 4, and at 12 minutes into the game the terran has a bigger supply army then the protoss. Its a problem in game balance that a 1 base player could have equal or more supply then a player on 2 bases for 66% of the game. What is even more wrong is that the 1 base player's army is so strong that it can annihilate the 2 base player's army.
Now, if we look away from the 1/1/1 and focus on the meta game, in a late game scenario the protoss doesn't stand much chance. A terran bio ball is cheaper to replenish, is more durable because of medivacs, and it does more DPS then the standard tier 1.5 of protoss. Protoss needs sentries and HT or colossis, however, sentries and HT are easily countered by ghosts, colossis are easily countered by vikings. In a head to head fight, the terran just needs to have the patience to emp the specialists, snipe the colossis with vikings, then the bio ball an just do the rest. Also warp prism micro with HT isn't so hot because they can be sniped by vikings, just the same way colossis are sniped. To rub salt onto the wounds, EMP also directly reduce survivability of protoss units by destroying shields.
Now I ask, where can you innovate in there?
Protoss are already using 99% of their units, they use zealots, stalkers, sentries, HT, colossus, observer and warp prism. Protoss air force is weak, they Phoenix and Void rays are already easily countered by units the terran already gets, marines, vikings and ghosts. Carriers cost too much, take too much time to build and require too big numbers to be effective. Carriers in small number are easily sniped by vikings. Mothership is even worst because it can be EMPed from farther away then it can vortex, once EMPed it becomes a big meat shield waiting to die horribly to vikings and marines.
How can you innovate against a 1/1/1, when from the get go, you need to get a robo for detection? Also how can you innovate a build against the 1/1/1 when you risk creating a build that can completely counter the 1/1/1 but fail miserably to form of early pressure?
And, keep in mind that, terrans still haven't widely adopted the use of ravens and/or mass ravens. With patch 1.4 that might change because, seeker missiles will be able to outrun zealots even with charge, and stalkers and sentries and probles, and ravens also hard counter stalkers by reducing their DPS to 0 via PDD.
Against zerg the problems aren't quite as bad, but they aren't great either. The timings of 4 gates and 6 gates has been figured out. Protoss can't do 4 gate because it won't work, the zerg can prepare an appropriate defense while still having a 1 base advantage. If protoss chooses to fast expand into a 6 gate, the zerg can just take a quick 3rd, and can have defenses out in time for any form of protoss preasure. Air play can be easily countered by the proper and strategic placement of spore crawlers and building of extra queens (which zerg have already started doing). And if the protoss decides to not go air and go a 6 gate or robo+ a number of gates, then the zerg can still have an big enough army in time to defend against it, and still retain a 1 base advantage.
The recent game of Check.Prime vs Tails from IGN qualifiers is a good example of zerg being able to take a fast 3rd and come out ahead of a protoss FE. As for late game, infestors are a big double risk problem. Not only can they fungal the entire protoss army, but they can neural colossis, and/or archons. Fungal does respectable DPS, but more critically it leaves the protoss open to brood lords and baneling drops, both of which can do massive damage.
Again, carriers and motherships won't help, they still take too long to build, cost too much, are too vulnerable to corrupters, and worst, are vulnerable to neurals.
The only conclusion I can draw is that, protoss doesn't have anything to innovate upon, they are already using all their tools, and now that terran and zerg have started to fully use their tools the cracks are starting to show. I really wish I was wrong here but, it trully feels like it will take either a very big patch (1.4 won't cut it), or the expansion to fix the current protoss problems.
And while all this situation might really suck and demoralize a lot of players, lets have faith and remember that SC2 is only 1 year old, hopefully we will be looking back at this period in time and remember it was the darkness before the dusk, the calm before the storm. Change will come, even if Blizzard has to act. Well i'll be, quite the high level understanding of the game and refreshing when people keep saying a zealot beats 4 lings. I don't post much around here but I'd like to throw in my 2 cents on the issue. I rarely play Protoss on the ladder, I'm more of an alternating Terran/Zerg player. While Terran in TvP, I've never done the 1/1/1 all in. I just don't feel like learning a strategy that's highly anticipated by the opponent, and I'd rather work on mechanics and play macro games anyway. (Btw, I'm high diamond/low masters, will probably be back in Masters this week). One thing I never see anyone mention defending the 1/1/1... Cannons. OP makes an argument that you get pigeon holed into making a robotics for detection... cannons take care of this. If you expand and take 1 gas, you'll also have enough for warp and a handful of stalkers, but the majority of your defense should come from zealots and cannons. I've been 1/1/1'd multiple times while Protoss, and cannons were a huge part of my hold. As for macro games and mauraders... I honestly don't see what players are complaining about. This is where I get frustrated listening to Protoss players. I've played against many Protoss that have learned you need to flank the army with a ball of chargelots to take out that kiting bioball. Use a damn warp prism. It's not that difficult. And if you're pumping attack and armor upgrades the EMP's become worthless against huge spread out Protoss armies with archons and lossus. Army position is important for Terran, so why shouldn't it be for Protoss? I think if anything could use a buff for Protoss, it's hallucination. I think it costs way too much energy for a unit that barely survives in the later game. As for ZvP, there's nothing to mention. The Infestor is the best unit in the game, and is a pivotal unit in all 3 matchups for Zerg. Something needs to be done about that unit. See the game 1 of MMA vs DRG in the IPL qualifier to see what I'm talking about. we already had a troll with the idea of a forge. you do know that 1/1/1 is quite flexible...thats good. if the terran sees that you are building cannons he will be intelligent and expand. Sooo... if he expands... then he's not all-ining anymore... and thus you've defended it?
Well you are in a situation where he is up one base.. With 2 orbitals calling down mules. You are on one base with .. Cannons...
On top of that, cannons doesnt help very much against seige tanks. If he sees your are cannoning he can just park right outside your base and inch forward with siegetanks.. The cannons will not help you when you decide to egage his army because he will be out of range for them.
Thus cannon is even worse than observerver in the scernario where he still goes for the attack..
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On September 20 2011 22:38 baubo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 22:32 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 22:29 Ecto wrote:On September 20 2011 22:13 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 12:09 VTPerfect wrote:On September 20 2011 05:49 Destructicon wrote:
While I admire the original poster's attempt to inspire hope in the hearts of all the protoss players, the protoss community and all the protoss fans, I can't help but feel that these innovators, don't have anything to innovate upon and that our hopes will be dashed upon the rocks and will crumble to pieces.
I am going to try and say this cleanly and efficiently.
The problem with protoss is not the lack of innovation, it is the lack of strength and the multitude of weaknesses that can be exploited.
This problem is most evident in the TvP match up and is grotesquely blown out of proportion by the 1/1/1 style of opening and variations.
Problem number 1 (P1). The protoss tier 1 and 1.5 is week against a basic tier 1.5 terran army without the use of specialist units (sentries, HT), or higher tech (colossis, HT). Marines do phenomenal DPS and in combination with Marauders are deadly because marauders can just kite zealots forever even with charge, and marauders also rip apart stalkers. This leads to problem number 2.
P2.Protoss specialist units are too easy to be countered and too expensive. Ghosts can EMP from a bigger range then a HT can feedback, EMP can potentially neutralize many HT and sentries while HT can only feedback 1 unit at a time. EMP also destroyes shields which in some cases means 50% of a protoss effective health. Ghosts contribute with real DPS even after their energy is spent, and they also do double damage against light (zealots). Ghosts with cloak can survive for a good time as well, which also puts into grave perspective problem number 3.
P3. Protoss don't have enough mobile detection, terran and zerg both have at least one more means of detection then a unit. Zerg has Overseers and Fungal growth, terran has EMP, Raven and scan. Not only do the terrans and zerg have more methods of detection, but their detector units also fulfill different roles and are stronger. The overseer can help with scouting via changeling and can also delay a critical tech or reinforcements with contaminate. Raven's provide invaluable support via point defense drone, and also have the potential to do massive damage with hunter seeker missile or harass a mineral line with auto-turrets. Lastly the detection of terran and protoss is more easily available, scans and EMPs are easy to get or already part of the terran arsenal, overseers are unlocked just by teching up to lair, and infestors are now part of many lineups.
Now, if you add up all the problems you get the following scenario.
Against a terran 1/1/1 a protoss is forced to get a robo so he can have detection. Because of the lack of other detection methods the protoss becomes predictable, if he doesn't get a robotics for observers he risks dying to cloaked banshees. Also observers are easy to snipe, they have the lowest HP of any detector, and once a scan goes of they are dead. Now because protoss was forced to get robo they now have to add immortals to the army, and while great against tanks, the backbone of a 1/1/1 is the marine, and mass marines rip apart immortals, and once immortals are dead, the T1 protoss army crumbles.
Normally in balance of RTS games, if units are very cheep they should be a lot weaker (zerg), if units are more expensive they should be stronger (protoss), however, protoss T1 units are really not that good for the amount they cost, zealots and stalkers are way too weak without sentries, and against a 1/1/1 sentries don't help all that much because tanks have huge range, do massive damage, and there are also banshees that can mess them over.
This problem is put into sharp focus in games where, you see a terran not expand, you see the protoss fast expand at min 4, and at 12 minutes into the game the terran has a bigger supply army then the protoss. Its a problem in game balance that a 1 base player could have equal or more supply then a player on 2 bases for 66% of the game. What is even more wrong is that the 1 base player's army is so strong that it can annihilate the 2 base player's army.
Now, if we look away from the 1/1/1 and focus on the meta game, in a late game scenario the protoss doesn't stand much chance. A terran bio ball is cheaper to replenish, is more durable because of medivacs, and it does more DPS then the standard tier 1.5 of protoss. Protoss needs sentries and HT or colossis, however, sentries and HT are easily countered by ghosts, colossis are easily countered by vikings. In a head to head fight, the terran just needs to have the patience to emp the specialists, snipe the colossis with vikings, then the bio ball an just do the rest. Also warp prism micro with HT isn't so hot because they can be sniped by vikings, just the same way colossis are sniped. To rub salt onto the wounds, EMP also directly reduce survivability of protoss units by destroying shields.
Now I ask, where can you innovate in there?
Protoss are already using 99% of their units, they use zealots, stalkers, sentries, HT, colossus, observer and warp prism. Protoss air force is weak, they Phoenix and Void rays are already easily countered by units the terran already gets, marines, vikings and ghosts. Carriers cost too much, take too much time to build and require too big numbers to be effective. Carriers in small number are easily sniped by vikings. Mothership is even worst because it can be EMPed from farther away then it can vortex, once EMPed it becomes a big meat shield waiting to die horribly to vikings and marines.
How can you innovate against a 1/1/1, when from the get go, you need to get a robo for detection? Also how can you innovate a build against the 1/1/1 when you risk creating a build that can completely counter the 1/1/1 but fail miserably to form of early pressure?
And, keep in mind that, terrans still haven't widely adopted the use of ravens and/or mass ravens. With patch 1.4 that might change because, seeker missiles will be able to outrun zealots even with charge, and stalkers and sentries and probles, and ravens also hard counter stalkers by reducing their DPS to 0 via PDD.
Against zerg the problems aren't quite as bad, but they aren't great either. The timings of 4 gates and 6 gates has been figured out. Protoss can't do 4 gate because it won't work, the zerg can prepare an appropriate defense while still having a 1 base advantage. If protoss chooses to fast expand into a 6 gate, the zerg can just take a quick 3rd, and can have defenses out in time for any form of protoss preasure. Air play can be easily countered by the proper and strategic placement of spore crawlers and building of extra queens (which zerg have already started doing). And if the protoss decides to not go air and go a 6 gate or robo+ a number of gates, then the zerg can still have an big enough army in time to defend against it, and still retain a 1 base advantage.
The recent game of Check.Prime vs Tails from IGN qualifiers is a good example of zerg being able to take a fast 3rd and come out ahead of a protoss FE. As for late game, infestors are a big double risk problem. Not only can they fungal the entire protoss army, but they can neural colossis, and/or archons. Fungal does respectable DPS, but more critically it leaves the protoss open to brood lords and baneling drops, both of which can do massive damage.
Again, carriers and motherships won't help, they still take too long to build, cost too much, are too vulnerable to corrupters, and worst, are vulnerable to neurals.
The only conclusion I can draw is that, protoss doesn't have anything to innovate upon, they are already using all their tools, and now that terran and zerg have started to fully use their tools the cracks are starting to show. I really wish I was wrong here but, it trully feels like it will take either a very big patch (1.4 won't cut it), or the expansion to fix the current protoss problems.
And while all this situation might really suck and demoralize a lot of players, lets have faith and remember that SC2 is only 1 year old, hopefully we will be looking back at this period in time and remember it was the darkness before the dusk, the calm before the storm. Change will come, even if Blizzard has to act. Well i'll be, quite the high level understanding of the game and refreshing when people keep saying a zealot beats 4 lings. ne thing I never see anyone mention defending the 1/1/1... Cannons. OP makes an argument that you get pigeon holed into making a robotics for detection... cannons take care of this. If you expand and take 1 gas, you'll also have enough for warp and a handful of stalkers, but the majority of your defense should come from zealots and cannons. I've been 1/1/1'd multiple times while Protoss, and cannons were a huge part of my hold. Why would you mention that you're "almost masters" when you then go on to destroy any credibility you have anyway? You're saying protoss players should counter a push including siege tanks, which usually hits moments before siege research finishes, with cannons? You might as well tell people you're a creationist, then expect them to listen to your thoughts on natural science. Again, this is why I don't post much around here. I'm not trying to argue. If you can't figure out the reason why I mentioned cannons is to negate the fact that the OP says you MUST get a robo and obs out for detection, then I don't know what you're reading. I even mentioned this in my post. If you use cannons instead of robo, how do you even know if your opponent is going 1/1/1? One of the biggest reasons why 1/1/1 is so powerful is because protoss can't scout it unless he invest in a BO puts him behind against standard builds. I mean, I'm glad you're so gosu you can hold off 1/1/1 with whatever stuff you use. But you do realize that on the pro level, players actually cut off scouting and hide whatever BO they use, right?
I'm not saying you can't get a robo and obs for scouting. I'm saying you don't have to rely on it for detection. An investment in a robo also means an immortal or 2, which doesn't hurt against the siege tanks.
All any of this is proving is how flexible Protoss is in the early game. As long as the majority of your defense, if the Terran is happening to 1/1/1 is zealots and cannons, then you should be fine.
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On September 20 2011 22:42 xzidez wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 22:28 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 22:21 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On September 20 2011 22:13 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 12:09 VTPerfect wrote:On September 20 2011 05:49 Destructicon wrote:
While I admire the original poster's attempt to inspire hope in the hearts of all the protoss players, the protoss community and all the protoss fans, I can't help but feel that these innovators, don't have anything to innovate upon and that our hopes will be dashed upon the rocks and will crumble to pieces.
I am going to try and say this cleanly and efficiently.
The problem with protoss is not the lack of innovation, it is the lack of strength and the multitude of weaknesses that can be exploited.
This problem is most evident in the TvP match up and is grotesquely blown out of proportion by the 1/1/1 style of opening and variations.
Problem number 1 (P1). The protoss tier 1 and 1.5 is week against a basic tier 1.5 terran army without the use of specialist units (sentries, HT), or higher tech (colossis, HT). Marines do phenomenal DPS and in combination with Marauders are deadly because marauders can just kite zealots forever even with charge, and marauders also rip apart stalkers. This leads to problem number 2.
P2.Protoss specialist units are too easy to be countered and too expensive. Ghosts can EMP from a bigger range then a HT can feedback, EMP can potentially neutralize many HT and sentries while HT can only feedback 1 unit at a time. EMP also destroyes shields which in some cases means 50% of a protoss effective health. Ghosts contribute with real DPS even after their energy is spent, and they also do double damage against light (zealots). Ghosts with cloak can survive for a good time as well, which also puts into grave perspective problem number 3.
P3. Protoss don't have enough mobile detection, terran and zerg both have at least one more means of detection then a unit. Zerg has Overseers and Fungal growth, terran has EMP, Raven and scan. Not only do the terrans and zerg have more methods of detection, but their detector units also fulfill different roles and are stronger. The overseer can help with scouting via changeling and can also delay a critical tech or reinforcements with contaminate. Raven's provide invaluable support via point defense drone, and also have the potential to do massive damage with hunter seeker missile or harass a mineral line with auto-turrets. Lastly the detection of terran and protoss is more easily available, scans and EMPs are easy to get or already part of the terran arsenal, overseers are unlocked just by teching up to lair, and infestors are now part of many lineups.
Now, if you add up all the problems you get the following scenario.
Against a terran 1/1/1 a protoss is forced to get a robo so he can have detection. Because of the lack of other detection methods the protoss becomes predictable, if he doesn't get a robotics for observers he risks dying to cloaked banshees. Also observers are easy to snipe, they have the lowest HP of any detector, and once a scan goes of they are dead. Now because protoss was forced to get robo they now have to add immortals to the army, and while great against tanks, the backbone of a 1/1/1 is the marine, and mass marines rip apart immortals, and once immortals are dead, the T1 protoss army crumbles.
Normally in balance of RTS games, if units are very cheep they should be a lot weaker (zerg), if units are more expensive they should be stronger (protoss), however, protoss T1 units are really not that good for the amount they cost, zealots and stalkers are way too weak without sentries, and against a 1/1/1 sentries don't help all that much because tanks have huge range, do massive damage, and there are also banshees that can mess them over.
This problem is put into sharp focus in games where, you see a terran not expand, you see the protoss fast expand at min 4, and at 12 minutes into the game the terran has a bigger supply army then the protoss. Its a problem in game balance that a 1 base player could have equal or more supply then a player on 2 bases for 66% of the game. What is even more wrong is that the 1 base player's army is so strong that it can annihilate the 2 base player's army.
Now, if we look away from the 1/1/1 and focus on the meta game, in a late game scenario the protoss doesn't stand much chance. A terran bio ball is cheaper to replenish, is more durable because of medivacs, and it does more DPS then the standard tier 1.5 of protoss. Protoss needs sentries and HT or colossis, however, sentries and HT are easily countered by ghosts, colossis are easily countered by vikings. In a head to head fight, the terran just needs to have the patience to emp the specialists, snipe the colossis with vikings, then the bio ball an just do the rest. Also warp prism micro with HT isn't so hot because they can be sniped by vikings, just the same way colossis are sniped. To rub salt onto the wounds, EMP also directly reduce survivability of protoss units by destroying shields.
Now I ask, where can you innovate in there?
Protoss are already using 99% of their units, they use zealots, stalkers, sentries, HT, colossus, observer and warp prism. Protoss air force is weak, they Phoenix and Void rays are already easily countered by units the terran already gets, marines, vikings and ghosts. Carriers cost too much, take too much time to build and require too big numbers to be effective. Carriers in small number are easily sniped by vikings. Mothership is even worst because it can be EMPed from farther away then it can vortex, once EMPed it becomes a big meat shield waiting to die horribly to vikings and marines.
How can you innovate against a 1/1/1, when from the get go, you need to get a robo for detection? Also how can you innovate a build against the 1/1/1 when you risk creating a build that can completely counter the 1/1/1 but fail miserably to form of early pressure?
And, keep in mind that, terrans still haven't widely adopted the use of ravens and/or mass ravens. With patch 1.4 that might change because, seeker missiles will be able to outrun zealots even with charge, and stalkers and sentries and probles, and ravens also hard counter stalkers by reducing their DPS to 0 via PDD.
Against zerg the problems aren't quite as bad, but they aren't great either. The timings of 4 gates and 6 gates has been figured out. Protoss can't do 4 gate because it won't work, the zerg can prepare an appropriate defense while still having a 1 base advantage. If protoss chooses to fast expand into a 6 gate, the zerg can just take a quick 3rd, and can have defenses out in time for any form of protoss preasure. Air play can be easily countered by the proper and strategic placement of spore crawlers and building of extra queens (which zerg have already started doing). And if the protoss decides to not go air and go a 6 gate or robo+ a number of gates, then the zerg can still have an big enough army in time to defend against it, and still retain a 1 base advantage.
The recent game of Check.Prime vs Tails from IGN qualifiers is a good example of zerg being able to take a fast 3rd and come out ahead of a protoss FE. As for late game, infestors are a big double risk problem. Not only can they fungal the entire protoss army, but they can neural colossis, and/or archons. Fungal does respectable DPS, but more critically it leaves the protoss open to brood lords and baneling drops, both of which can do massive damage.
Again, carriers and motherships won't help, they still take too long to build, cost too much, are too vulnerable to corrupters, and worst, are vulnerable to neurals.
The only conclusion I can draw is that, protoss doesn't have anything to innovate upon, they are already using all their tools, and now that terran and zerg have started to fully use their tools the cracks are starting to show. I really wish I was wrong here but, it trully feels like it will take either a very big patch (1.4 won't cut it), or the expansion to fix the current protoss problems.
And while all this situation might really suck and demoralize a lot of players, lets have faith and remember that SC2 is only 1 year old, hopefully we will be looking back at this period in time and remember it was the darkness before the dusk, the calm before the storm. Change will come, even if Blizzard has to act. Well i'll be, quite the high level understanding of the game and refreshing when people keep saying a zealot beats 4 lings. I don't post much around here but I'd like to throw in my 2 cents on the issue. I rarely play Protoss on the ladder, I'm more of an alternating Terran/Zerg player. While Terran in TvP, I've never done the 1/1/1 all in. I just don't feel like learning a strategy that's highly anticipated by the opponent, and I'd rather work on mechanics and play macro games anyway. (Btw, I'm high diamond/low masters, will probably be back in Masters this week). One thing I never see anyone mention defending the 1/1/1... Cannons. OP makes an argument that you get pigeon holed into making a robotics for detection... cannons take care of this. If you expand and take 1 gas, you'll also have enough for warp and a handful of stalkers, but the majority of your defense should come from zealots and cannons. I've been 1/1/1'd multiple times while Protoss, and cannons were a huge part of my hold. As for macro games and mauraders... I honestly don't see what players are complaining about. This is where I get frustrated listening to Protoss players. I've played against many Protoss that have learned you need to flank the army with a ball of chargelots to take out that kiting bioball. Use a damn warp prism. It's not that difficult. And if you're pumping attack and armor upgrades the EMP's become worthless against huge spread out Protoss armies with archons and lossus. Army position is important for Terran, so why shouldn't it be for Protoss? I think if anything could use a buff for Protoss, it's hallucination. I think it costs way too much energy for a unit that barely survives in the later game. As for ZvP, there's nothing to mention. The Infestor is the best unit in the game, and is a pivotal unit in all 3 matchups for Zerg. Something needs to be done about that unit. See the game 1 of MMA vs DRG in the IPL qualifier to see what I'm talking about. we already had a troll with the idea of a forge. you do know that 1/1/1 is quite flexible...thats good. if the terran sees that you are building cannons he will be intelligent and expand. Sooo... if he expands... then he's not all-ining anymore... and thus you've defended it? Well you are in a situation where he is up one base.. With 2 orbitals calling down mules. You are on one base with .. Cannons... On top of that, cannons doesnt help very much against seige tanks. If he sees your are cannoning he can just park right outside your base and inch forward with siegetanks.. The cannons will not help you when you decide to egage his army because he will be out of range for them. Thus cannon is even worse than observerver in the scernario where he still goes for the attack..
I never said, anywhere in my post, that the protoss should be working off 1 base. I even said "If you expand and take 1 gas..."
Do people even read anymore?
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On September 20 2011 22:50 squanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 22:42 xzidez wrote:On September 20 2011 22:28 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 22:21 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On September 20 2011 22:13 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 12:09 VTPerfect wrote:On September 20 2011 05:49 Destructicon wrote:
While I admire the original poster's attempt to inspire hope in the hearts of all the protoss players, the protoss community and all the protoss fans, I can't help but feel that these innovators, don't have anything to innovate upon and that our hopes will be dashed upon the rocks and will crumble to pieces.
I am going to try and say this cleanly and efficiently.
The problem with protoss is not the lack of innovation, it is the lack of strength and the multitude of weaknesses that can be exploited.
This problem is most evident in the TvP match up and is grotesquely blown out of proportion by the 1/1/1 style of opening and variations.
Problem number 1 (P1). The protoss tier 1 and 1.5 is week against a basic tier 1.5 terran army without the use of specialist units (sentries, HT), or higher tech (colossis, HT). Marines do phenomenal DPS and in combination with Marauders are deadly because marauders can just kite zealots forever even with charge, and marauders also rip apart stalkers. This leads to problem number 2.
P2.Protoss specialist units are too easy to be countered and too expensive. Ghosts can EMP from a bigger range then a HT can feedback, EMP can potentially neutralize many HT and sentries while HT can only feedback 1 unit at a time. EMP also destroyes shields which in some cases means 50% of a protoss effective health. Ghosts contribute with real DPS even after their energy is spent, and they also do double damage against light (zealots). Ghosts with cloak can survive for a good time as well, which also puts into grave perspective problem number 3.
P3. Protoss don't have enough mobile detection, terran and zerg both have at least one more means of detection then a unit. Zerg has Overseers and Fungal growth, terran has EMP, Raven and scan. Not only do the terrans and zerg have more methods of detection, but their detector units also fulfill different roles and are stronger. The overseer can help with scouting via changeling and can also delay a critical tech or reinforcements with contaminate. Raven's provide invaluable support via point defense drone, and also have the potential to do massive damage with hunter seeker missile or harass a mineral line with auto-turrets. Lastly the detection of terran and protoss is more easily available, scans and EMPs are easy to get or already part of the terran arsenal, overseers are unlocked just by teching up to lair, and infestors are now part of many lineups.
Now, if you add up all the problems you get the following scenario.
Against a terran 1/1/1 a protoss is forced to get a robo so he can have detection. Because of the lack of other detection methods the protoss becomes predictable, if he doesn't get a robotics for observers he risks dying to cloaked banshees. Also observers are easy to snipe, they have the lowest HP of any detector, and once a scan goes of they are dead. Now because protoss was forced to get robo they now have to add immortals to the army, and while great against tanks, the backbone of a 1/1/1 is the marine, and mass marines rip apart immortals, and once immortals are dead, the T1 protoss army crumbles.
Normally in balance of RTS games, if units are very cheep they should be a lot weaker (zerg), if units are more expensive they should be stronger (protoss), however, protoss T1 units are really not that good for the amount they cost, zealots and stalkers are way too weak without sentries, and against a 1/1/1 sentries don't help all that much because tanks have huge range, do massive damage, and there are also banshees that can mess them over.
This problem is put into sharp focus in games where, you see a terran not expand, you see the protoss fast expand at min 4, and at 12 minutes into the game the terran has a bigger supply army then the protoss. Its a problem in game balance that a 1 base player could have equal or more supply then a player on 2 bases for 66% of the game. What is even more wrong is that the 1 base player's army is so strong that it can annihilate the 2 base player's army.
Now, if we look away from the 1/1/1 and focus on the meta game, in a late game scenario the protoss doesn't stand much chance. A terran bio ball is cheaper to replenish, is more durable because of medivacs, and it does more DPS then the standard tier 1.5 of protoss. Protoss needs sentries and HT or colossis, however, sentries and HT are easily countered by ghosts, colossis are easily countered by vikings. In a head to head fight, the terran just needs to have the patience to emp the specialists, snipe the colossis with vikings, then the bio ball an just do the rest. Also warp prism micro with HT isn't so hot because they can be sniped by vikings, just the same way colossis are sniped. To rub salt onto the wounds, EMP also directly reduce survivability of protoss units by destroying shields.
Now I ask, where can you innovate in there?
Protoss are already using 99% of their units, they use zealots, stalkers, sentries, HT, colossus, observer and warp prism. Protoss air force is weak, they Phoenix and Void rays are already easily countered by units the terran already gets, marines, vikings and ghosts. Carriers cost too much, take too much time to build and require too big numbers to be effective. Carriers in small number are easily sniped by vikings. Mothership is even worst because it can be EMPed from farther away then it can vortex, once EMPed it becomes a big meat shield waiting to die horribly to vikings and marines.
How can you innovate against a 1/1/1, when from the get go, you need to get a robo for detection? Also how can you innovate a build against the 1/1/1 when you risk creating a build that can completely counter the 1/1/1 but fail miserably to form of early pressure?
And, keep in mind that, terrans still haven't widely adopted the use of ravens and/or mass ravens. With patch 1.4 that might change because, seeker missiles will be able to outrun zealots even with charge, and stalkers and sentries and probles, and ravens also hard counter stalkers by reducing their DPS to 0 via PDD.
Against zerg the problems aren't quite as bad, but they aren't great either. The timings of 4 gates and 6 gates has been figured out. Protoss can't do 4 gate because it won't work, the zerg can prepare an appropriate defense while still having a 1 base advantage. If protoss chooses to fast expand into a 6 gate, the zerg can just take a quick 3rd, and can have defenses out in time for any form of protoss preasure. Air play can be easily countered by the proper and strategic placement of spore crawlers and building of extra queens (which zerg have already started doing). And if the protoss decides to not go air and go a 6 gate or robo+ a number of gates, then the zerg can still have an big enough army in time to defend against it, and still retain a 1 base advantage.
The recent game of Check.Prime vs Tails from IGN qualifiers is a good example of zerg being able to take a fast 3rd and come out ahead of a protoss FE. As for late game, infestors are a big double risk problem. Not only can they fungal the entire protoss army, but they can neural colossis, and/or archons. Fungal does respectable DPS, but more critically it leaves the protoss open to brood lords and baneling drops, both of which can do massive damage.
Again, carriers and motherships won't help, they still take too long to build, cost too much, are too vulnerable to corrupters, and worst, are vulnerable to neurals.
The only conclusion I can draw is that, protoss doesn't have anything to innovate upon, they are already using all their tools, and now that terran and zerg have started to fully use their tools the cracks are starting to show. I really wish I was wrong here but, it trully feels like it will take either a very big patch (1.4 won't cut it), or the expansion to fix the current protoss problems.
And while all this situation might really suck and demoralize a lot of players, lets have faith and remember that SC2 is only 1 year old, hopefully we will be looking back at this period in time and remember it was the darkness before the dusk, the calm before the storm. Change will come, even if Blizzard has to act. Well i'll be, quite the high level understanding of the game and refreshing when people keep saying a zealot beats 4 lings. I don't post much around here but I'd like to throw in my 2 cents on the issue. I rarely play Protoss on the ladder, I'm more of an alternating Terran/Zerg player. While Terran in TvP, I've never done the 1/1/1 all in. I just don't feel like learning a strategy that's highly anticipated by the opponent, and I'd rather work on mechanics and play macro games anyway. (Btw, I'm high diamond/low masters, will probably be back in Masters this week). One thing I never see anyone mention defending the 1/1/1... Cannons. OP makes an argument that you get pigeon holed into making a robotics for detection... cannons take care of this. If you expand and take 1 gas, you'll also have enough for warp and a handful of stalkers, but the majority of your defense should come from zealots and cannons. I've been 1/1/1'd multiple times while Protoss, and cannons were a huge part of my hold. As for macro games and mauraders... I honestly don't see what players are complaining about. This is where I get frustrated listening to Protoss players. I've played against many Protoss that have learned you need to flank the army with a ball of chargelots to take out that kiting bioball. Use a damn warp prism. It's not that difficult. And if you're pumping attack and armor upgrades the EMP's become worthless against huge spread out Protoss armies with archons and lossus. Army position is important for Terran, so why shouldn't it be for Protoss? I think if anything could use a buff for Protoss, it's hallucination. I think it costs way too much energy for a unit that barely survives in the later game. As for ZvP, there's nothing to mention. The Infestor is the best unit in the game, and is a pivotal unit in all 3 matchups for Zerg. Something needs to be done about that unit. See the game 1 of MMA vs DRG in the IPL qualifier to see what I'm talking about. we already had a troll with the idea of a forge. you do know that 1/1/1 is quite flexible...thats good. if the terran sees that you are building cannons he will be intelligent and expand. Sooo... if he expands... then he's not all-ining anymore... and thus you've defended it? Well you are in a situation where he is up one base.. With 2 orbitals calling down mules. You are on one base with .. Cannons... On top of that, cannons doesnt help very much against seige tanks. If he sees your are cannoning he can just park right outside your base and inch forward with siegetanks.. The cannons will not help you when you decide to egage his army because he will be out of range for them. Thus cannon is even worse than observerver in the scernario where he still goes for the attack.. I never said, anywhere in my post, that the protoss should be working off 1 base. I even said "If you expand and take 1 gas..." Do people even read anymore?
So what you are saying is that you are going to expand. Cannon main mineralline, cannon exp mineralline.. cannon base entrance. And expect to hold 1/1/1 with siege mode?
Sorry, I missed that in your post. I just assumed you wouldnt do suggest something as stupid, as this.
Also, with all that minerals invested in your static defense this early, he could probably just go for 3 bases if he wants.. (if he didnt go 1/1/1).. if he did 1 1 1 he can just straightup kill you.
Grandmaster here btw.
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On September 20 2011 22:48 squanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 22:38 baubo wrote:On September 20 2011 22:32 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 22:29 Ecto wrote:On September 20 2011 22:13 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 12:09 VTPerfect wrote:On September 20 2011 05:49 Destructicon wrote:
While I admire the original poster's attempt to inspire hope in the hearts of all the protoss players, the protoss community and all the protoss fans, I can't help but feel that these innovators, don't have anything to innovate upon and that our hopes will be dashed upon the rocks and will crumble to pieces.
I am going to try and say this cleanly and efficiently.
The problem with protoss is not the lack of innovation, it is the lack of strength and the multitude of weaknesses that can be exploited.
This problem is most evident in the TvP match up and is grotesquely blown out of proportion by the 1/1/1 style of opening and variations.
Problem number 1 (P1). The protoss tier 1 and 1.5 is week against a basic tier 1.5 terran army without the use of specialist units (sentries, HT), or higher tech (colossis, HT). Marines do phenomenal DPS and in combination with Marauders are deadly because marauders can just kite zealots forever even with charge, and marauders also rip apart stalkers. This leads to problem number 2.
P2.Protoss specialist units are too easy to be countered and too expensive. Ghosts can EMP from a bigger range then a HT can feedback, EMP can potentially neutralize many HT and sentries while HT can only feedback 1 unit at a time. EMP also destroyes shields which in some cases means 50% of a protoss effective health. Ghosts contribute with real DPS even after their energy is spent, and they also do double damage against light (zealots). Ghosts with cloak can survive for a good time as well, which also puts into grave perspective problem number 3.
P3. Protoss don't have enough mobile detection, terran and zerg both have at least one more means of detection then a unit. Zerg has Overseers and Fungal growth, terran has EMP, Raven and scan. Not only do the terrans and zerg have more methods of detection, but their detector units also fulfill different roles and are stronger. The overseer can help with scouting via changeling and can also delay a critical tech or reinforcements with contaminate. Raven's provide invaluable support via point defense drone, and also have the potential to do massive damage with hunter seeker missile or harass a mineral line with auto-turrets. Lastly the detection of terran and protoss is more easily available, scans and EMPs are easy to get or already part of the terran arsenal, overseers are unlocked just by teching up to lair, and infestors are now part of many lineups.
Now, if you add up all the problems you get the following scenario.
Against a terran 1/1/1 a protoss is forced to get a robo so he can have detection. Because of the lack of other detection methods the protoss becomes predictable, if he doesn't get a robotics for observers he risks dying to cloaked banshees. Also observers are easy to snipe, they have the lowest HP of any detector, and once a scan goes of they are dead. Now because protoss was forced to get robo they now have to add immortals to the army, and while great against tanks, the backbone of a 1/1/1 is the marine, and mass marines rip apart immortals, and once immortals are dead, the T1 protoss army crumbles.
Normally in balance of RTS games, if units are very cheep they should be a lot weaker (zerg), if units are more expensive they should be stronger (protoss), however, protoss T1 units are really not that good for the amount they cost, zealots and stalkers are way too weak without sentries, and against a 1/1/1 sentries don't help all that much because tanks have huge range, do massive damage, and there are also banshees that can mess them over.
This problem is put into sharp focus in games where, you see a terran not expand, you see the protoss fast expand at min 4, and at 12 minutes into the game the terran has a bigger supply army then the protoss. Its a problem in game balance that a 1 base player could have equal or more supply then a player on 2 bases for 66% of the game. What is even more wrong is that the 1 base player's army is so strong that it can annihilate the 2 base player's army.
Now, if we look away from the 1/1/1 and focus on the meta game, in a late game scenario the protoss doesn't stand much chance. A terran bio ball is cheaper to replenish, is more durable because of medivacs, and it does more DPS then the standard tier 1.5 of protoss. Protoss needs sentries and HT or colossis, however, sentries and HT are easily countered by ghosts, colossis are easily countered by vikings. In a head to head fight, the terran just needs to have the patience to emp the specialists, snipe the colossis with vikings, then the bio ball an just do the rest. Also warp prism micro with HT isn't so hot because they can be sniped by vikings, just the same way colossis are sniped. To rub salt onto the wounds, EMP also directly reduce survivability of protoss units by destroying shields.
Now I ask, where can you innovate in there?
Protoss are already using 99% of their units, they use zealots, stalkers, sentries, HT, colossus, observer and warp prism. Protoss air force is weak, they Phoenix and Void rays are already easily countered by units the terran already gets, marines, vikings and ghosts. Carriers cost too much, take too much time to build and require too big numbers to be effective. Carriers in small number are easily sniped by vikings. Mothership is even worst because it can be EMPed from farther away then it can vortex, once EMPed it becomes a big meat shield waiting to die horribly to vikings and marines.
How can you innovate against a 1/1/1, when from the get go, you need to get a robo for detection? Also how can you innovate a build against the 1/1/1 when you risk creating a build that can completely counter the 1/1/1 but fail miserably to form of early pressure?
And, keep in mind that, terrans still haven't widely adopted the use of ravens and/or mass ravens. With patch 1.4 that might change because, seeker missiles will be able to outrun zealots even with charge, and stalkers and sentries and probles, and ravens also hard counter stalkers by reducing their DPS to 0 via PDD.
Against zerg the problems aren't quite as bad, but they aren't great either. The timings of 4 gates and 6 gates has been figured out. Protoss can't do 4 gate because it won't work, the zerg can prepare an appropriate defense while still having a 1 base advantage. If protoss chooses to fast expand into a 6 gate, the zerg can just take a quick 3rd, and can have defenses out in time for any form of protoss preasure. Air play can be easily countered by the proper and strategic placement of spore crawlers and building of extra queens (which zerg have already started doing). And if the protoss decides to not go air and go a 6 gate or robo+ a number of gates, then the zerg can still have an big enough army in time to defend against it, and still retain a 1 base advantage.
The recent game of Check.Prime vs Tails from IGN qualifiers is a good example of zerg being able to take a fast 3rd and come out ahead of a protoss FE. As for late game, infestors are a big double risk problem. Not only can they fungal the entire protoss army, but they can neural colossis, and/or archons. Fungal does respectable DPS, but more critically it leaves the protoss open to brood lords and baneling drops, both of which can do massive damage.
Again, carriers and motherships won't help, they still take too long to build, cost too much, are too vulnerable to corrupters, and worst, are vulnerable to neurals.
The only conclusion I can draw is that, protoss doesn't have anything to innovate upon, they are already using all their tools, and now that terran and zerg have started to fully use their tools the cracks are starting to show. I really wish I was wrong here but, it trully feels like it will take either a very big patch (1.4 won't cut it), or the expansion to fix the current protoss problems.
And while all this situation might really suck and demoralize a lot of players, lets have faith and remember that SC2 is only 1 year old, hopefully we will be looking back at this period in time and remember it was the darkness before the dusk, the calm before the storm. Change will come, even if Blizzard has to act. Well i'll be, quite the high level understanding of the game and refreshing when people keep saying a zealot beats 4 lings. ne thing I never see anyone mention defending the 1/1/1... Cannons. OP makes an argument that you get pigeon holed into making a robotics for detection... cannons take care of this. If you expand and take 1 gas, you'll also have enough for warp and a handful of stalkers, but the majority of your defense should come from zealots and cannons. I've been 1/1/1'd multiple times while Protoss, and cannons were a huge part of my hold. Why would you mention that you're "almost masters" when you then go on to destroy any credibility you have anyway? You're saying protoss players should counter a push including siege tanks, which usually hits moments before siege research finishes, with cannons? You might as well tell people you're a creationist, then expect them to listen to your thoughts on natural science. Again, this is why I don't post much around here. I'm not trying to argue. If you can't figure out the reason why I mentioned cannons is to negate the fact that the OP says you MUST get a robo and obs out for detection, then I don't know what you're reading. I even mentioned this in my post. If you use cannons instead of robo, how do you even know if your opponent is going 1/1/1? One of the biggest reasons why 1/1/1 is so powerful is because protoss can't scout it unless he invest in a BO puts him behind against standard builds. I mean, I'm glad you're so gosu you can hold off 1/1/1 with whatever stuff you use. But you do realize that on the pro level, players actually cut off scouting and hide whatever BO they use, right? I'm not saying you can't get a robo and obs for scouting. I'm saying you don't have to rely on it for detection. An investment in a robo also means an immortal or 2, which doesn't hurt against the siege tanks. All any of this is proving is how flexible Protoss is in the early game. As long as the majority of your defense, if the Terran is happening to 1/1/1 is zealots and cannons, then you should be fine.
Hello, mr. Theorycrafter, I shall introduce a new product to you: build order tester! With this tester, you can check how many cannons can be up when you are awaiting for the cruel 1/1/1! The results will surprise you badly!
Ever wondered why oGsMC never went cannon expo before? Take a nice little guess.
You don't know?
Fine, I shall tell you.
Forge expo delays the entire tech line of protoss. Do you need me to say anything else?
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On September 20 2011 22:56 xzidez wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 22:50 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 22:42 xzidez wrote:On September 20 2011 22:28 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 22:21 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On September 20 2011 22:13 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 12:09 VTPerfect wrote:On September 20 2011 05:49 Destructicon wrote:
While I admire the original poster's attempt to inspire hope in the hearts of all the protoss players, the protoss community and all the protoss fans, I can't help but feel that these innovators, don't have anything to innovate upon and that our hopes will be dashed upon the rocks and will crumble to pieces.
I am going to try and say this cleanly and efficiently.
The problem with protoss is not the lack of innovation, it is the lack of strength and the multitude of weaknesses that can be exploited.
This problem is most evident in the TvP match up and is grotesquely blown out of proportion by the 1/1/1 style of opening and variations.
Problem number 1 (P1). The protoss tier 1 and 1.5 is week against a basic tier 1.5 terran army without the use of specialist units (sentries, HT), or higher tech (colossis, HT). Marines do phenomenal DPS and in combination with Marauders are deadly because marauders can just kite zealots forever even with charge, and marauders also rip apart stalkers. This leads to problem number 2.
P2.Protoss specialist units are too easy to be countered and too expensive. Ghosts can EMP from a bigger range then a HT can feedback, EMP can potentially neutralize many HT and sentries while HT can only feedback 1 unit at a time. EMP also destroyes shields which in some cases means 50% of a protoss effective health. Ghosts contribute with real DPS even after their energy is spent, and they also do double damage against light (zealots). Ghosts with cloak can survive for a good time as well, which also puts into grave perspective problem number 3.
P3. Protoss don't have enough mobile detection, terran and zerg both have at least one more means of detection then a unit. Zerg has Overseers and Fungal growth, terran has EMP, Raven and scan. Not only do the terrans and zerg have more methods of detection, but their detector units also fulfill different roles and are stronger. The overseer can help with scouting via changeling and can also delay a critical tech or reinforcements with contaminate. Raven's provide invaluable support via point defense drone, and also have the potential to do massive damage with hunter seeker missile or harass a mineral line with auto-turrets. Lastly the detection of terran and protoss is more easily available, scans and EMPs are easy to get or already part of the terran arsenal, overseers are unlocked just by teching up to lair, and infestors are now part of many lineups.
Now, if you add up all the problems you get the following scenario.
Against a terran 1/1/1 a protoss is forced to get a robo so he can have detection. Because of the lack of other detection methods the protoss becomes predictable, if he doesn't get a robotics for observers he risks dying to cloaked banshees. Also observers are easy to snipe, they have the lowest HP of any detector, and once a scan goes of they are dead. Now because protoss was forced to get robo they now have to add immortals to the army, and while great against tanks, the backbone of a 1/1/1 is the marine, and mass marines rip apart immortals, and once immortals are dead, the T1 protoss army crumbles.
Normally in balance of RTS games, if units are very cheep they should be a lot weaker (zerg), if units are more expensive they should be stronger (protoss), however, protoss T1 units are really not that good for the amount they cost, zealots and stalkers are way too weak without sentries, and against a 1/1/1 sentries don't help all that much because tanks have huge range, do massive damage, and there are also banshees that can mess them over.
This problem is put into sharp focus in games where, you see a terran not expand, you see the protoss fast expand at min 4, and at 12 minutes into the game the terran has a bigger supply army then the protoss. Its a problem in game balance that a 1 base player could have equal or more supply then a player on 2 bases for 66% of the game. What is even more wrong is that the 1 base player's army is so strong that it can annihilate the 2 base player's army.
Now, if we look away from the 1/1/1 and focus on the meta game, in a late game scenario the protoss doesn't stand much chance. A terran bio ball is cheaper to replenish, is more durable because of medivacs, and it does more DPS then the standard tier 1.5 of protoss. Protoss needs sentries and HT or colossis, however, sentries and HT are easily countered by ghosts, colossis are easily countered by vikings. In a head to head fight, the terran just needs to have the patience to emp the specialists, snipe the colossis with vikings, then the bio ball an just do the rest. Also warp prism micro with HT isn't so hot because they can be sniped by vikings, just the same way colossis are sniped. To rub salt onto the wounds, EMP also directly reduce survivability of protoss units by destroying shields.
Now I ask, where can you innovate in there?
Protoss are already using 99% of their units, they use zealots, stalkers, sentries, HT, colossus, observer and warp prism. Protoss air force is weak, they Phoenix and Void rays are already easily countered by units the terran already gets, marines, vikings and ghosts. Carriers cost too much, take too much time to build and require too big numbers to be effective. Carriers in small number are easily sniped by vikings. Mothership is even worst because it can be EMPed from farther away then it can vortex, once EMPed it becomes a big meat shield waiting to die horribly to vikings and marines.
How can you innovate against a 1/1/1, when from the get go, you need to get a robo for detection? Also how can you innovate a build against the 1/1/1 when you risk creating a build that can completely counter the 1/1/1 but fail miserably to form of early pressure?
And, keep in mind that, terrans still haven't widely adopted the use of ravens and/or mass ravens. With patch 1.4 that might change because, seeker missiles will be able to outrun zealots even with charge, and stalkers and sentries and probles, and ravens also hard counter stalkers by reducing their DPS to 0 via PDD.
Against zerg the problems aren't quite as bad, but they aren't great either. The timings of 4 gates and 6 gates has been figured out. Protoss can't do 4 gate because it won't work, the zerg can prepare an appropriate defense while still having a 1 base advantage. If protoss chooses to fast expand into a 6 gate, the zerg can just take a quick 3rd, and can have defenses out in time for any form of protoss preasure. Air play can be easily countered by the proper and strategic placement of spore crawlers and building of extra queens (which zerg have already started doing). And if the protoss decides to not go air and go a 6 gate or robo+ a number of gates, then the zerg can still have an big enough army in time to defend against it, and still retain a 1 base advantage.
The recent game of Check.Prime vs Tails from IGN qualifiers is a good example of zerg being able to take a fast 3rd and come out ahead of a protoss FE. As for late game, infestors are a big double risk problem. Not only can they fungal the entire protoss army, but they can neural colossis, and/or archons. Fungal does respectable DPS, but more critically it leaves the protoss open to brood lords and baneling drops, both of which can do massive damage.
Again, carriers and motherships won't help, they still take too long to build, cost too much, are too vulnerable to corrupters, and worst, are vulnerable to neurals.
The only conclusion I can draw is that, protoss doesn't have anything to innovate upon, they are already using all their tools, and now that terran and zerg have started to fully use their tools the cracks are starting to show. I really wish I was wrong here but, it trully feels like it will take either a very big patch (1.4 won't cut it), or the expansion to fix the current protoss problems.
And while all this situation might really suck and demoralize a lot of players, lets have faith and remember that SC2 is only 1 year old, hopefully we will be looking back at this period in time and remember it was the darkness before the dusk, the calm before the storm. Change will come, even if Blizzard has to act. Well i'll be, quite the high level understanding of the game and refreshing when people keep saying a zealot beats 4 lings. I don't post much around here but I'd like to throw in my 2 cents on the issue. I rarely play Protoss on the ladder, I'm more of an alternating Terran/Zerg player. While Terran in TvP, I've never done the 1/1/1 all in. I just don't feel like learning a strategy that's highly anticipated by the opponent, and I'd rather work on mechanics and play macro games anyway. (Btw, I'm high diamond/low masters, will probably be back in Masters this week). One thing I never see anyone mention defending the 1/1/1... Cannons. OP makes an argument that you get pigeon holed into making a robotics for detection... cannons take care of this. If you expand and take 1 gas, you'll also have enough for warp and a handful of stalkers, but the majority of your defense should come from zealots and cannons. I've been 1/1/1'd multiple times while Protoss, and cannons were a huge part of my hold. As for macro games and mauraders... I honestly don't see what players are complaining about. This is where I get frustrated listening to Protoss players. I've played against many Protoss that have learned you need to flank the army with a ball of chargelots to take out that kiting bioball. Use a damn warp prism. It's not that difficult. And if you're pumping attack and armor upgrades the EMP's become worthless against huge spread out Protoss armies with archons and lossus. Army position is important for Terran, so why shouldn't it be for Protoss? I think if anything could use a buff for Protoss, it's hallucination. I think it costs way too much energy for a unit that barely survives in the later game. As for ZvP, there's nothing to mention. The Infestor is the best unit in the game, and is a pivotal unit in all 3 matchups for Zerg. Something needs to be done about that unit. See the game 1 of MMA vs DRG in the IPL qualifier to see what I'm talking about. we already had a troll with the idea of a forge. you do know that 1/1/1 is quite flexible...thats good. if the terran sees that you are building cannons he will be intelligent and expand. Sooo... if he expands... then he's not all-ining anymore... and thus you've defended it? Well you are in a situation where he is up one base.. With 2 orbitals calling down mules. You are on one base with .. Cannons... On top of that, cannons doesnt help very much against seige tanks. If he sees your are cannoning he can just park right outside your base and inch forward with siegetanks.. The cannons will not help you when you decide to egage his army because he will be out of range for them. Thus cannon is even worse than observerver in the scernario where he still goes for the attack.. I never said, anywhere in my post, that the protoss should be working off 1 base. I even said "If you expand and take 1 gas..." Do people even read anymore? So what you are saying is that you are going to expand. Cannon main mineralline, cannon exp mineralline.. cannon base entrance. And expect to hold 1/1/1 with siege mode? Sorry, I missed that in your post. I just assumed you wouldnt do suggest something as stupid, as this. Also, with all that minerals invested in your static defense this early, he could probably just go for 3 bases if he wants.. (if he didnt go 1/1/1).. if he did 1 1 1 he can just straightup kill you. Grandmaster here btw.
I'm saying the safest build against Terran, to which I experienced, was a 1 gate expand. From there, you have a few options. If you noticed the Terran has walled off and you can't see anything, then it would be wise to get a robo and observer to scout. While scouting, you should drop a forge regardless (upgrades). If you happen to see the 1/1/1 build while scouting with your obs, a few well positioned cannons in the front of your natural is something I feel Protoss needs to do more often, and don't really consider too much when defending the 1/1/1.
Now you have an expansion, a 2nd and 3rd gate, and a robo. With cannons. And you're upgrading.
I assumed that's what you all would think, when I say cannons to defend the 1/1/1. If I really have to go through step by step to explain why it would work, then we'll never get anywhere. Scouting and game sense is apart of the game. Why would I have to say "okay guys, scout. Now, use game sense." Seriously?
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On September 20 2011 23:05 squanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 22:56 xzidez wrote:On September 20 2011 22:50 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 22:42 xzidez wrote:On September 20 2011 22:28 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 22:21 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On September 20 2011 22:13 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 12:09 VTPerfect wrote:On September 20 2011 05:49 Destructicon wrote:
While I admire the original poster's attempt to inspire hope in the hearts of all the protoss players, the protoss community and all the protoss fans, I can't help but feel that these innovators, don't have anything to innovate upon and that our hopes will be dashed upon the rocks and will crumble to pieces.
I am going to try and say this cleanly and efficiently.
The problem with protoss is not the lack of innovation, it is the lack of strength and the multitude of weaknesses that can be exploited.
This problem is most evident in the TvP match up and is grotesquely blown out of proportion by the 1/1/1 style of opening and variations.
Problem number 1 (P1). The protoss tier 1 and 1.5 is week against a basic tier 1.5 terran army without the use of specialist units (sentries, HT), or higher tech (colossis, HT). Marines do phenomenal DPS and in combination with Marauders are deadly because marauders can just kite zealots forever even with charge, and marauders also rip apart stalkers. This leads to problem number 2.
P2.Protoss specialist units are too easy to be countered and too expensive. Ghosts can EMP from a bigger range then a HT can feedback, EMP can potentially neutralize many HT and sentries while HT can only feedback 1 unit at a time. EMP also destroyes shields which in some cases means 50% of a protoss effective health. Ghosts contribute with real DPS even after their energy is spent, and they also do double damage against light (zealots). Ghosts with cloak can survive for a good time as well, which also puts into grave perspective problem number 3.
P3. Protoss don't have enough mobile detection, terran and zerg both have at least one more means of detection then a unit. Zerg has Overseers and Fungal growth, terran has EMP, Raven and scan. Not only do the terrans and zerg have more methods of detection, but their detector units also fulfill different roles and are stronger. The overseer can help with scouting via changeling and can also delay a critical tech or reinforcements with contaminate. Raven's provide invaluable support via point defense drone, and also have the potential to do massive damage with hunter seeker missile or harass a mineral line with auto-turrets. Lastly the detection of terran and protoss is more easily available, scans and EMPs are easy to get or already part of the terran arsenal, overseers are unlocked just by teching up to lair, and infestors are now part of many lineups.
Now, if you add up all the problems you get the following scenario.
Against a terran 1/1/1 a protoss is forced to get a robo so he can have detection. Because of the lack of other detection methods the protoss becomes predictable, if he doesn't get a robotics for observers he risks dying to cloaked banshees. Also observers are easy to snipe, they have the lowest HP of any detector, and once a scan goes of they are dead. Now because protoss was forced to get robo they now have to add immortals to the army, and while great against tanks, the backbone of a 1/1/1 is the marine, and mass marines rip apart immortals, and once immortals are dead, the T1 protoss army crumbles.
Normally in balance of RTS games, if units are very cheep they should be a lot weaker (zerg), if units are more expensive they should be stronger (protoss), however, protoss T1 units are really not that good for the amount they cost, zealots and stalkers are way too weak without sentries, and against a 1/1/1 sentries don't help all that much because tanks have huge range, do massive damage, and there are also banshees that can mess them over.
This problem is put into sharp focus in games where, you see a terran not expand, you see the protoss fast expand at min 4, and at 12 minutes into the game the terran has a bigger supply army then the protoss. Its a problem in game balance that a 1 base player could have equal or more supply then a player on 2 bases for 66% of the game. What is even more wrong is that the 1 base player's army is so strong that it can annihilate the 2 base player's army.
Now, if we look away from the 1/1/1 and focus on the meta game, in a late game scenario the protoss doesn't stand much chance. A terran bio ball is cheaper to replenish, is more durable because of medivacs, and it does more DPS then the standard tier 1.5 of protoss. Protoss needs sentries and HT or colossis, however, sentries and HT are easily countered by ghosts, colossis are easily countered by vikings. In a head to head fight, the terran just needs to have the patience to emp the specialists, snipe the colossis with vikings, then the bio ball an just do the rest. Also warp prism micro with HT isn't so hot because they can be sniped by vikings, just the same way colossis are sniped. To rub salt onto the wounds, EMP also directly reduce survivability of protoss units by destroying shields.
Now I ask, where can you innovate in there?
Protoss are already using 99% of their units, they use zealots, stalkers, sentries, HT, colossus, observer and warp prism. Protoss air force is weak, they Phoenix and Void rays are already easily countered by units the terran already gets, marines, vikings and ghosts. Carriers cost too much, take too much time to build and require too big numbers to be effective. Carriers in small number are easily sniped by vikings. Mothership is even worst because it can be EMPed from farther away then it can vortex, once EMPed it becomes a big meat shield waiting to die horribly to vikings and marines.
How can you innovate against a 1/1/1, when from the get go, you need to get a robo for detection? Also how can you innovate a build against the 1/1/1 when you risk creating a build that can completely counter the 1/1/1 but fail miserably to form of early pressure?
And, keep in mind that, terrans still haven't widely adopted the use of ravens and/or mass ravens. With patch 1.4 that might change because, seeker missiles will be able to outrun zealots even with charge, and stalkers and sentries and probles, and ravens also hard counter stalkers by reducing their DPS to 0 via PDD.
Against zerg the problems aren't quite as bad, but they aren't great either. The timings of 4 gates and 6 gates has been figured out. Protoss can't do 4 gate because it won't work, the zerg can prepare an appropriate defense while still having a 1 base advantage. If protoss chooses to fast expand into a 6 gate, the zerg can just take a quick 3rd, and can have defenses out in time for any form of protoss preasure. Air play can be easily countered by the proper and strategic placement of spore crawlers and building of extra queens (which zerg have already started doing). And if the protoss decides to not go air and go a 6 gate or robo+ a number of gates, then the zerg can still have an big enough army in time to defend against it, and still retain a 1 base advantage.
The recent game of Check.Prime vs Tails from IGN qualifiers is a good example of zerg being able to take a fast 3rd and come out ahead of a protoss FE. As for late game, infestors are a big double risk problem. Not only can they fungal the entire protoss army, but they can neural colossis, and/or archons. Fungal does respectable DPS, but more critically it leaves the protoss open to brood lords and baneling drops, both of which can do massive damage.
Again, carriers and motherships won't help, they still take too long to build, cost too much, are too vulnerable to corrupters, and worst, are vulnerable to neurals.
The only conclusion I can draw is that, protoss doesn't have anything to innovate upon, they are already using all their tools, and now that terran and zerg have started to fully use their tools the cracks are starting to show. I really wish I was wrong here but, it trully feels like it will take either a very big patch (1.4 won't cut it), or the expansion to fix the current protoss problems.
And while all this situation might really suck and demoralize a lot of players, lets have faith and remember that SC2 is only 1 year old, hopefully we will be looking back at this period in time and remember it was the darkness before the dusk, the calm before the storm. Change will come, even if Blizzard has to act. Well i'll be, quite the high level understanding of the game and refreshing when people keep saying a zealot beats 4 lings. I don't post much around here but I'd like to throw in my 2 cents on the issue. I rarely play Protoss on the ladder, I'm more of an alternating Terran/Zerg player. While Terran in TvP, I've never done the 1/1/1 all in. I just don't feel like learning a strategy that's highly anticipated by the opponent, and I'd rather work on mechanics and play macro games anyway. (Btw, I'm high diamond/low masters, will probably be back in Masters this week). One thing I never see anyone mention defending the 1/1/1... Cannons. OP makes an argument that you get pigeon holed into making a robotics for detection... cannons take care of this. If you expand and take 1 gas, you'll also have enough for warp and a handful of stalkers, but the majority of your defense should come from zealots and cannons. I've been 1/1/1'd multiple times while Protoss, and cannons were a huge part of my hold. As for macro games and mauraders... I honestly don't see what players are complaining about. This is where I get frustrated listening to Protoss players. I've played against many Protoss that have learned you need to flank the army with a ball of chargelots to take out that kiting bioball. Use a damn warp prism. It's not that difficult. And if you're pumping attack and armor upgrades the EMP's become worthless against huge spread out Protoss armies with archons and lossus. Army position is important for Terran, so why shouldn't it be for Protoss? I think if anything could use a buff for Protoss, it's hallucination. I think it costs way too much energy for a unit that barely survives in the later game. As for ZvP, there's nothing to mention. The Infestor is the best unit in the game, and is a pivotal unit in all 3 matchups for Zerg. Something needs to be done about that unit. See the game 1 of MMA vs DRG in the IPL qualifier to see what I'm talking about. we already had a troll with the idea of a forge. you do know that 1/1/1 is quite flexible...thats good. if the terran sees that you are building cannons he will be intelligent and expand. Sooo... if he expands... then he's not all-ining anymore... and thus you've defended it? Well you are in a situation where he is up one base.. With 2 orbitals calling down mules. You are on one base with .. Cannons... On top of that, cannons doesnt help very much against seige tanks. If he sees your are cannoning he can just park right outside your base and inch forward with siegetanks.. The cannons will not help you when you decide to egage his army because he will be out of range for them. Thus cannon is even worse than observerver in the scernario where he still goes for the attack.. I never said, anywhere in my post, that the protoss should be working off 1 base. I even said "If you expand and take 1 gas..." Do people even read anymore? So what you are saying is that you are going to expand. Cannon main mineralline, cannon exp mineralline.. cannon base entrance. And expect to hold 1/1/1 with siege mode? Sorry, I missed that in your post. I just assumed you wouldnt do suggest something as stupid, as this. Also, with all that minerals invested in your static defense this early, he could probably just go for 3 bases if he wants.. (if he didnt go 1/1/1).. if he did 1 1 1 he can just straightup kill you. Grandmaster here btw. I'm saying the safest build against Terran, to which I experienced, was a 1 gate expand. From there, you have a few options. If you noticed the Terran has walled off and you can't see anything, then it would be wise to get a robo and observer to scout. While scouting, you should drop a forge regardless (upgrades). If you happen to see the 1/1/1 build while scouting with your obs, a few well positioned cannons in the front of your natural is something I feel Protoss needs to do more often, and don't really consider too much when defending the 1/1/1. Now you have an expansion, a 2nd and 3rd gate, and a robo. With cannons. And you're upgrading. I assumed that's what you all would think, when I say cannons to defend the 1/1/1. If I really have to go through step by step to explain why it would work, then we'll never get anywhere. Scouting and game sense is apart of the game. Why would I have to say "okay guys, scout. Now, use game sense." Seriously?
Lol, do you know how much a cannon cost? They don't cost 50 energy. Also, a retarded Terran would seige up behind your wall of cannons, which equates to throwing away 300~600 minerals away. How would that help in stopping the 1/1/1?
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United Kingdom36156 Posts
On September 20 2011 23:05 squanzo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 22:56 xzidez wrote:On September 20 2011 22:50 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 22:42 xzidez wrote:On September 20 2011 22:28 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 22:21 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On September 20 2011 22:13 squanzo wrote:On September 20 2011 12:09 VTPerfect wrote:On September 20 2011 05:49 Destructicon wrote:
While I admire the original poster's attempt to inspire hope in the hearts of all the protoss players, the protoss community and all the protoss fans, I can't help but feel that these innovators, don't have anything to innovate upon and that our hopes will be dashed upon the rocks and will crumble to pieces.
I am going to try and say this cleanly and efficiently.
The problem with protoss is not the lack of innovation, it is the lack of strength and the multitude of weaknesses that can be exploited.
This problem is most evident in the TvP match up and is grotesquely blown out of proportion by the 1/1/1 style of opening and variations.
Problem number 1 (P1). The protoss tier 1 and 1.5 is week against a basic tier 1.5 terran army without the use of specialist units (sentries, HT), or higher tech (colossis, HT). Marines do phenomenal DPS and in combination with Marauders are deadly because marauders can just kite zealots forever even with charge, and marauders also rip apart stalkers. This leads to problem number 2.
P2.Protoss specialist units are too easy to be countered and too expensive. Ghosts can EMP from a bigger range then a HT can feedback, EMP can potentially neutralize many HT and sentries while HT can only feedback 1 unit at a time. EMP also destroyes shields which in some cases means 50% of a protoss effective health. Ghosts contribute with real DPS even after their energy is spent, and they also do double damage against light (zealots). Ghosts with cloak can survive for a good time as well, which also puts into grave perspective problem number 3.
P3. Protoss don't have enough mobile detection, terran and zerg both have at least one more means of detection then a unit. Zerg has Overseers and Fungal growth, terran has EMP, Raven and scan. Not only do the terrans and zerg have more methods of detection, but their detector units also fulfill different roles and are stronger. The overseer can help with scouting via changeling and can also delay a critical tech or reinforcements with contaminate. Raven's provide invaluable support via point defense drone, and also have the potential to do massive damage with hunter seeker missile or harass a mineral line with auto-turrets. Lastly the detection of terran and protoss is more easily available, scans and EMPs are easy to get or already part of the terran arsenal, overseers are unlocked just by teching up to lair, and infestors are now part of many lineups.
Now, if you add up all the problems you get the following scenario.
Against a terran 1/1/1 a protoss is forced to get a robo so he can have detection. Because of the lack of other detection methods the protoss becomes predictable, if he doesn't get a robotics for observers he risks dying to cloaked banshees. Also observers are easy to snipe, they have the lowest HP of any detector, and once a scan goes of they are dead. Now because protoss was forced to get robo they now have to add immortals to the army, and while great against tanks, the backbone of a 1/1/1 is the marine, and mass marines rip apart immortals, and once immortals are dead, the T1 protoss army crumbles.
Normally in balance of RTS games, if units are very cheep they should be a lot weaker (zerg), if units are more expensive they should be stronger (protoss), however, protoss T1 units are really not that good for the amount they cost, zealots and stalkers are way too weak without sentries, and against a 1/1/1 sentries don't help all that much because tanks have huge range, do massive damage, and there are also banshees that can mess them over.
This problem is put into sharp focus in games where, you see a terran not expand, you see the protoss fast expand at min 4, and at 12 minutes into the game the terran has a bigger supply army then the protoss. Its a problem in game balance that a 1 base player could have equal or more supply then a player on 2 bases for 66% of the game. What is even more wrong is that the 1 base player's army is so strong that it can annihilate the 2 base player's army.
Now, if we look away from the 1/1/1 and focus on the meta game, in a late game scenario the protoss doesn't stand much chance. A terran bio ball is cheaper to replenish, is more durable because of medivacs, and it does more DPS then the standard tier 1.5 of protoss. Protoss needs sentries and HT or colossis, however, sentries and HT are easily countered by ghosts, colossis are easily countered by vikings. In a head to head fight, the terran just needs to have the patience to emp the specialists, snipe the colossis with vikings, then the bio ball an just do the rest. Also warp prism micro with HT isn't so hot because they can be sniped by vikings, just the same way colossis are sniped. To rub salt onto the wounds, EMP also directly reduce survivability of protoss units by destroying shields.
Now I ask, where can you innovate in there?
Protoss are already using 99% of their units, they use zealots, stalkers, sentries, HT, colossus, observer and warp prism. Protoss air force is weak, they Phoenix and Void rays are already easily countered by units the terran already gets, marines, vikings and ghosts. Carriers cost too much, take too much time to build and require too big numbers to be effective. Carriers in small number are easily sniped by vikings. Mothership is even worst because it can be EMPed from farther away then it can vortex, once EMPed it becomes a big meat shield waiting to die horribly to vikings and marines.
How can you innovate against a 1/1/1, when from the get go, you need to get a robo for detection? Also how can you innovate a build against the 1/1/1 when you risk creating a build that can completely counter the 1/1/1 but fail miserably to form of early pressure?
And, keep in mind that, terrans still haven't widely adopted the use of ravens and/or mass ravens. With patch 1.4 that might change because, seeker missiles will be able to outrun zealots even with charge, and stalkers and sentries and probles, and ravens also hard counter stalkers by reducing their DPS to 0 via PDD.
Against zerg the problems aren't quite as bad, but they aren't great either. The timings of 4 gates and 6 gates has been figured out. Protoss can't do 4 gate because it won't work, the zerg can prepare an appropriate defense while still having a 1 base advantage. If protoss chooses to fast expand into a 6 gate, the zerg can just take a quick 3rd, and can have defenses out in time for any form of protoss preasure. Air play can be easily countered by the proper and strategic placement of spore crawlers and building of extra queens (which zerg have already started doing). And if the protoss decides to not go air and go a 6 gate or robo+ a number of gates, then the zerg can still have an big enough army in time to defend against it, and still retain a 1 base advantage.
The recent game of Check.Prime vs Tails from IGN qualifiers is a good example of zerg being able to take a fast 3rd and come out ahead of a protoss FE. As for late game, infestors are a big double risk problem. Not only can they fungal the entire protoss army, but they can neural colossis, and/or archons. Fungal does respectable DPS, but more critically it leaves the protoss open to brood lords and baneling drops, both of which can do massive damage.
Again, carriers and motherships won't help, they still take too long to build, cost too much, are too vulnerable to corrupters, and worst, are vulnerable to neurals.
The only conclusion I can draw is that, protoss doesn't have anything to innovate upon, they are already using all their tools, and now that terran and zerg have started to fully use their tools the cracks are starting to show. I really wish I was wrong here but, it trully feels like it will take either a very big patch (1.4 won't cut it), or the expansion to fix the current protoss problems.
And while all this situation might really suck and demoralize a lot of players, lets have faith and remember that SC2 is only 1 year old, hopefully we will be looking back at this period in time and remember it was the darkness before the dusk, the calm before the storm. Change will come, even if Blizzard has to act. Well i'll be, quite the high level understanding of the game and refreshing when people keep saying a zealot beats 4 lings. I don't post much around here but I'd like to throw in my 2 cents on the issue. I rarely play Protoss on the ladder, I'm more of an alternating Terran/Zerg player. While Terran in TvP, I've never done the 1/1/1 all in. I just don't feel like learning a strategy that's highly anticipated by the opponent, and I'd rather work on mechanics and play macro games anyway. (Btw, I'm high diamond/low masters, will probably be back in Masters this week). One thing I never see anyone mention defending the 1/1/1... Cannons. OP makes an argument that you get pigeon holed into making a robotics for detection... cannons take care of this. If you expand and take 1 gas, you'll also have enough for warp and a handful of stalkers, but the majority of your defense should come from zealots and cannons. I've been 1/1/1'd multiple times while Protoss, and cannons were a huge part of my hold. As for macro games and mauraders... I honestly don't see what players are complaining about. This is where I get frustrated listening to Protoss players. I've played against many Protoss that have learned you need to flank the army with a ball of chargelots to take out that kiting bioball. Use a damn warp prism. It's not that difficult. And if you're pumping attack and armor upgrades the EMP's become worthless against huge spread out Protoss armies with archons and lossus. Army position is important for Terran, so why shouldn't it be for Protoss? I think if anything could use a buff for Protoss, it's hallucination. I think it costs way too much energy for a unit that barely survives in the later game. As for ZvP, there's nothing to mention. The Infestor is the best unit in the game, and is a pivotal unit in all 3 matchups for Zerg. Something needs to be done about that unit. See the game 1 of MMA vs DRG in the IPL qualifier to see what I'm talking about. we already had a troll with the idea of a forge. you do know that 1/1/1 is quite flexible...thats good. if the terran sees that you are building cannons he will be intelligent and expand. Sooo... if he expands... then he's not all-ining anymore... and thus you've defended it? Well you are in a situation where he is up one base.. With 2 orbitals calling down mules. You are on one base with .. Cannons... On top of that, cannons doesnt help very much against seige tanks. If he sees your are cannoning he can just park right outside your base and inch forward with siegetanks.. The cannons will not help you when you decide to egage his army because he will be out of range for them. Thus cannon is even worse than observerver in the scernario where he still goes for the attack.. I never said, anywhere in my post, that the protoss should be working off 1 base. I even said "If you expand and take 1 gas..." Do people even read anymore? So what you are saying is that you are going to expand. Cannon main mineralline, cannon exp mineralline.. cannon base entrance. And expect to hold 1/1/1 with siege mode? Sorry, I missed that in your post. I just assumed you wouldnt do suggest something as stupid, as this. Also, with all that minerals invested in your static defense this early, he could probably just go for 3 bases if he wants.. (if he didnt go 1/1/1).. if he did 1 1 1 he can just straightup kill you. Grandmaster here btw. If you happen to see the 1/1/1 build while scouting with your obs, a few well positioned cannons in the front of your natural is something I feel Protoss needs to do more often, and don't really consider too much when defending the 1/1/1. Now you have an expansion, a 2nd and 3rd gate, and a robo. With cannons. And you're upgrading. I assumed that's what you all would think, when I say cannons to defend the 1/1/1. If I really have to go through step by step to explain why it would work, then we'll never get anywhere. Scouting and game sense is apart of the game. Why would I have to say "okay guys, scout. Now, use game sense." Seriously?
Please do go through, step by step. I will be particularly interested to hear how the static, range 7 cannons will deal with the range 13 sieged tanks.
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