|
MY PROTOSS BRETHREN,
Over the last 5 years, we have faced many foes. The 1/1/1. Infestor/Brood Lord. Medivac Boost. Swarm Hosts. Mass Marines continuing to be a thing (seriously?). We have done so valiantly, but silently. Our war has always been our own... our failures on the battlefield served only as inspiration for future generations of Protoss to develop new tactics. We looked to our fearless leaders to overcome these enemies. Inca, the Dark Warrior. MC, the Boss Toss. Parting, Conductor of the Soul Train. sOs, the guy who wins $100k tournaments with Bronze League strategies.
But a new foe is upon us, the likes of which we have never seen: Legacy of the Void. Its greatest weapon... balance whine, born the annals of www.teamliquid.net.
We Protoss are a proud people. In our darkest times, we fought bravely against insurmountable opposition and looked only to our own tactics to overcome it. But our pride has also been our downfall. We did nothing as the cries of the Zerg echoed in the chambers of the mighty creators. We stood silent as the Terran lobbyists filed their complaints with the SCDK (Supreme Court of David Kim). Now, we must face the consequences of our inaction...
Fellow warriors of Aiur!
Today, I call upon you to defend StarCraft 2 from the abomination that is Legacy of the Void. United, we shall banish this dark beast back to where it came from (some sort of twilight zone where Idra is still relevant and people actually care about Starbow). But we must fight this enemy with a new weapon. We must swallow our Protoss pride and let the strength of the balance whine guide us. Only then will we have the power to fight this dangerous enemy.
Templar, now is the time to balance whine. For Aiur!
________________________________________________________________________
Alright,
Here we go... I tried to introduce the topic with a bit of humor but this is something that' been bugging me for a while now and I'm finally going to write about it. Protoss in Legacy of the Void has essentially been ruined by balance whine.
Terran is a race that plays pretty straightforward in most matchups. Zergs on the most part prefer either reactive macro or sharp timing attacks to punish greedy play. But their units are simple and not very gimmicky and that gives them comfort. Protoss, partly by design, has always been a race based around deception and mechanics that seem "unfair" because they aren't "standard." Warping in 10 Zealots feels like cheating to a guy who makes guys with guns from a building called "the barracks." But it's no less cheating than winning the game with MULEs, reactors and and army of 50 mineral entry level units.
In the past, Terrans and Zergs have been very vocal about balance whine. Queens need more range. Infestor Broodlord is too strong. Hellbats are imba. Forcefields have no counter play (this is absolutely false). Blink OP (on some maps, there was truth to this). But Protoss players, have resorted to new tactics. The way we play the game has changed the most in the 5 years that StarCraft has been out. This isn't to say that balance whine is always (un)justified. I'm taking about attitude towards balance. Protoss players have always changed their builds first and asked questions later.
Let's look at a few things that, in my opinion didn't need to change:
Chrono Boost: Why? What does the new mechanic offer that the old one didn't? The argument by whiners was that it was too strong and allowed Protoss players to get certain things too quickly. But the tech that Protoss players were rushing, when it became problematic, was changed to be balanced *when fully chrono boosted. Take away chrono (or nerf it significantly) and all tech build times are now way too high. The new chrono also takes away the Protoss's ability to craft a build based on certain timings and it limits strategic depth of the game (banking up chrono to use when a tech structure completes). At the high level, the new chrono is strictly a nerf vs the old chrono in every way. Yet there was really no need for this.
The Colossus: "Stupid a-move unit." Except it wasn't. With the ability to walk over ground units, the Colossus easily found itself towards the front/middle of a tightly packed deathball. Keeping it at the back during fights, avoiding cliffs and other disadvantageous positions, and microing it away from threats such as Vikings/Vipers were all part of the micro. With the damage reduction on the Colossus having FAR greater implications than the 20% nerf suggests (2 Colos now don't 1 shot marines, 1 Colo doesn't 1 shot Zerglings... 50% efficiency nerf) this unit has basically been patched out of the game.
Deathballs are bad: This lead to 1) the colossus nerf and 2) the disruptor, meant as a more microable form of slash damage that could be more mobile. Except the disruptor, with its 40 second cooldown, effectively ONLY works in a deathball situation where you have enough numbers to make up for the high cooldown. Blizzard has replaced one deathball unit with another, harder to use deathball unit.
Protoss is too easy: Immortal change, Colossus nerfs, the Disruptor. Bad design changes all meant to fix the myth that Protoss "is too easy."
Carriers: LotV reduced Carrier build time because it was too long and made them not viable. Then LotV added a new ability because everything needs to have a fucking ability. The ability was broken, so WE KEPT IT, INCREASED BUILD TIMES, AND NERFED CARRIER HEALTH. What the actual fuck, Blizzard? We didn't wait for Terrans/Zergs to "learn to deal with Carriers." Nope, nerf bat right away.
Same with Adepts.
But when it comes to Protoss weakness, the philosophy is always "let them figure out something."
________________________________________________________________________
Now for my own list of whine:
1) I think Ravagers at tier 1 is utter bullshit. They require such a specific response and come really early in the game. They're also really good at defending with the AoE in their ability.
2) I think Medivac Boost is a farce
3) I think Liberators serve no role in the Terran army that isn't already occupied by another unit. I think it's absolute bullshit that they can be made 2 at a time given their speed, cost, and versatility. This unit one-shots Hydras at 9 range from the air and can actually defend itself against its only counter! It's fucking ridiculous.
4) I think Lurkers having 9 range and/or tanking 2 Disruptor shots each is an absolute joke. I also think that their burrow time is too fast.
5) Carriers take too long to build. They actually take longer than they did in HotS now. Even though the whole point of reducing the build time was to see more Carrier play in LotV.
6) Ultralisks. What kind of a fucking sick joke is that. What does Protoss have to deal with an Ultralisk remax. Am I supposed to build 10 robos pre-emptively so that when I trade armies with the Zerg I can hopefully *guess that his remax will be Ultras and start making Immortals? Seriously what the fuck 8 armor? What kills them faster than they kill my base (the answer is nothing).
  
|
I think Liberators just need to be scrapped period. It's like Warhound 2.0 all over again. The worst part is, it overlaps what tanks do, and completely make tanks pointless.
|
A couple years ago we had a sad Zealot Fan Club. This brings back those memories...
|
|
|
On November 18 2015 11:49 BeStFAN wrote:
wow amazing
I have seen this exact quote in a couple of threads now. Do you say anything else ?
|
On November 18 2015 11:24 SigmaoctanusIV wrote:
A couple years ago we had a sad Zealot Fan Club. This brings back those memories...
Zealot is really sad right now he never gets made 
We need to bring back the spirit of the sad Zealot and complain more.
|
Contrary to what appears to be popular belief, I don't think this type of balance whine is very productive. Don't get me wrong, balance complaints can be productive, but not when it's just "a, b, c, d, e, f, and g are bullshit." This is particularly true when you're not attacking things that aren't new changes that are still in a bit of trial period, but stuff that's been in the game a while and Blizzard seems fairly happy with it.
Your Medivac Boost complaint, for instance. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding and you're complaining about the new upgrade, not the boost itself, but if you're just complaining that medivacs should go back to their WoL state, you're gonna have to give a good reason. Blizzard seems to think they make mass drop play more viable, which is good for multitasking and action-packed games and viewership, and they're not imbalanced. I assume you disagree on at least one of those points, but which? And why?
Another example: I don't know what you're figuring the liberator's "only counter" is. Without specifying, the reader is left to guess whether you've been figuring that, I don't know, phoenixes should be able to beat liberators. If you're talking about tempests, I don't really know how you figure liberators are fighting back against tempests. They can run away, if that's what you mean, but it seems to me if you've successfully forced a Terran army with liberators into full retreat because you got tempests I'd call that a win for you.
In general a lot of the language in your balance whine is "____ is a joke" or "_____ is a farce" or "_____ is bullshit." It might bring you satisfaction to say those things, and if that's all you want, then go right ahead. But if you're hoping for this feedback to be taken seriously (even by fellow forumgoers, if you want to generate a movement that eventually gets Blizzard's attention), you have to give more justification for your claims.
One of your better claims is that carrier build time is too long, because you do at least back it up a little. The carrier build time is longer than in HotS, and Blizzard was trying to promote more carrier usage. The problem is, people actually are using carriers. In fact the build time was increased because some people (Zergs, mostly) thought carriers were totally fucking broken with the new 'Release Interceptors' ability. So if Blizzard wanted to increase carrier usage in LotV, and it's still increased even with the high build time, then your claim falls flat.
TL;DR: Step up your balance whine game, man 
|
the problem with the collossus wasn't that it was to easy to micro but that it just created terrible games.
Once the protoss has a collossus deathball the game revolves solely about two deathballs dancing at each other waiting for the perfect position to fight.
You can't constantly trade with a collossus deathball like you can with gateway focused armies (+immortal/etc) because collossus based armies are only strong when you have a very big army (150+ supply) and until then you are forced to turtle.
Also it makes for very onesided engagements because either all the collossi die to vikings before the bio is dead or the vikings die before the collossi are dead. A bad poosition can make the difference between winning the engagement with 50+ supply of units left and losing the engagement. That's why we see the armies dancing at each other for days, they just can't risk getting a bad engagement.
|
On November 19 2015 05:01 ChristianS wrote:Contrary to what appears to be popular belief, I don't think this type of balance whine is very productive. Don't get me wrong, balance complaints can be productive, but not when it's just "a, b, c, d, e, f, and g are bullshit." This is particularly true when you're not attacking things that aren't new changes that are still in a bit of trial period, but stuff that's been in the game a while and Blizzard seems fairly happy with it. Your Medivac Boost complaint, for instance. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding and you're complaining about the new upgrade, not the boost itself, but if you're just complaining that medivacs should go back to their WoL state, you're gonna have to give a good reason. Blizzard seems to think they make mass drop play more viable, which is good for multitasking and action-packed games and viewership, and they're not imbalanced. I assume you disagree on at least one of those points, but which? And why? Another example: I don't know what you're figuring the liberator's "only counter" is. Without specifying, the reader is left to guess whether you've been figuring that, I don't know, phoenixes should be able to beat liberators. If you're talking about tempests, I don't really know how you figure liberators are fighting back against tempests. They can run away, if that's what you mean, but it seems to me if you've successfully forced a Terran army with liberators into full retreat because you got tempests I'd call that a win for you. In general a lot of the language in your balance whine is "____ is a joke" or "_____ is a farce" or "_____ is bullshit." It might bring you satisfaction to say those things, and if that's all you want, then go right ahead. But if you're hoping for this feedback to be taken seriously (even by fellow forumgoers, if you want to generate a movement that eventually gets Blizzard's attention), you have to give more justification for your claims. One of your better claims is that carrier build time is too long, because you do at least back it up a little. The carrier build time is longer than in HotS, and Blizzard was trying to promote more carrier usage. The problem is, people actually are using carriers. In fact the build time was increased because some people (Zergs, mostly) thought carriers were totally fucking broken with the new 'Release Interceptors' ability. So if Blizzard wanted to increase carrier usage in LotV, and it's still increased even with the high build time, then your claim falls flat. TL;DR: Step up your balance whine game, man
Alright, you wanted better balance whine, here goes:
Medivac speed: Medivac speed is problematic because it forces a Protoss player (whose units lack mobility) to defend both where the units are AND where they can quickly be. It also prevents a few (not 10... 3 or 4...) Stalkers or cannons from defending an incoming drop THAT YOU CAN SEE COMING because the Medivac can just boost over them and drop the units. In that sense, both scouting, AND positioning in defense of the drop are nullified by the boost. So rather than preventing the drop, you have to have enough army anywhere a drop can to fight the contents of the drop (which is not feasible). As a result, Protoss becomes overly reliant on Photon Overcharge to defend where its units can't be (because they're too slow) and basically anywhere that your main army with splash damage isn't.
Ravagers: The unit with its ability is simply too good given the counters that are out on the field for the other races at the time. It's a 9 range siege unit that does splash damage at Hatchery tech! It doesn't even carry the armored flag so it doesn't take bonus damage from anything. Terran players are saying that they NEED flying siege tanks to hold this off. In my opinion, no unit should justify REQUIRING Siege Tanks to fly as a solution.
Lurkers I think Lurkers are a strong positional unit that adds a lot to the Zerg's capabilities. But unfortunately I think the range on it is too good and it’s a bit broken at the moment. The Lurker is just far too dominant on the ground against everything that Protoss has. It matches the Colossus in range and has higher DPS… Disruptors, “the counter” take too long to kill it as you need 2 shots 40 seconds apart to kill ONE Lurker. Massing disruptors is not an option either because it takes too long. By the time you mass enough disruptors to take out the Lurkers Zerg is ready to throw those units away and transition into something else like Air or Ultras (which render your disruptors worthless). The fact that any Zerg going Lurkers instantly forces the Protoss to throw down 5 Stargates should be a sign that something is wrong here.
Ultralisks: The unit is simply too hard to kill. There's nothing that kills it fast enough, regardless of the amount of time that you have to prepare for the fight. Any level of Protoss tech struggles to kill Ultras faster than they can kill your expansions. Eventually you run out of money to build interceptors. It's that bad. The issue is 2 fold - 1) the unit is too strong 2) the Zerg remax can be any unit... not necessarily Ultras. So the only reliable way to kill them fast enough (Immortals, Archons) have to be built in response to actually seeing an Ultra remax. And the Protoss player can't just have 10 robos on standby waiting to make Immortals....
The Carrier: We're seeing more Carriers, sure. But I think it's for the wrong reasons. I'd like to see more Carrier play as a viable strategy rather than "oh shit, it's 20 minutes into the game and this is turning into a stalemate, BETTER BUILD CARRIERS." And for that reason I'd rather have a viable Carrier that is a balanced unit rather than a totally fucking broken Carrier that you get to maybe once in a blue moon (and then die to Ultras anyway).
|
On November 19 2015 05:10 Charoisaur wrote:
the problem with the collossus wasn't that it was to easy to micro but that it just created terrible games.
Once the protoss has a collossus deathball the game revolves solely about two deathballs dancing at each other waiting for the perfect position to fight.
You can't constantly trade with a collossus deathball like you can with gateway focused armies (+immortal/etc) because collossus based armies are only strong when you have a very big army (150+ supply) and until then you are forced to turtle.
Also it makes for very onesided engagements because either all the collossi die to vikings before the bio is dead or the vikings die before the collossi are dead. A bad poosition can make the difference between winning the engagement with 50+ supply of units left and losing the engagement. That's why we see the armies dancing at each other for days, they just can't risk getting a bad engagement.
Sure, but I enjoyed watching that. Good players are seemingly able to create good positioning out of nowhere, or to micro well and win a fight even if the engagement looks like it's going to go down in an unfavorable position. See CJ herO for example.
|
Much better! I'd say you just went from ~gold league whine to diamond just between those two posts. With a bit of practice you could join avilo and ZerglingShepherd1 in the great balance whiners of all time! (Personally I'd pick qxc as GOAT for his balance suggestion on ghost snipe, but that's just me)
Regarding medivacs, you brought up the obvious response in your post - overcharge is a useful skill toi have. Of course that's also an often-criticised mechanic, so maybe you'd prefer everything rebalanced without it. If both overcharge and medivac boost were removed (with some nerf to Zerg or something to avoid breaking the vZ matchups), would that make you happier?
As a Terran I couldn't argue with you much about ultralisks or lurkers. Between the marauder nerf and ultralisks getting larva armor, I don't know what I'm supposed to do about them. And I sometimes forget they added lurkers.
|
On November 19 2015 06:53 ChristianS wrote:
Much better! I'd say you just went from ~gold league whine to diamond just between those two posts. With a bit of practice you could join avilo and ZerglingShepherd1 in the great balance whiners of all time! (Personally I'd pick qxc as GOAT for his balance suggestion on ghost snipe, but that's just me)
Regarding medivacs, you brought up the obvious response in your post - overcharge is a useful skill toi have. Of course that's also an often-criticised mechanic, so maybe you'd prefer everything rebalanced without it. If both overcharge and medivac boost were removed (with some nerf to Zerg or something to avoid breaking the vZ matchups), would that make you happier?
As a Terran I couldn't argue with you much about ultralisks or lurkers. Between the marauder nerf and ultralisks getting larva armor, I don't know what I'm supposed to do about them. And I sometimes forget they added lurkers.
I was tired after writing that long post. Sorry man, didn’t mean to let you down with my low quality balance whine.
I think if I see a drop coming and I have units in place to kill it, I should be able to kill it. I shouldn’t have to precisely estimate exactly how much of my main army’s firepower I need to divert to a drop that can just as easily turn around and join their main army. Or those medivacs could be empty!
I don’t like relying on the MsC (and I don’t think the other races like it either) but it’s the only choice I have given how mobile Terran units are and how IMMOBILE my splash damage is.
Ultras are just too strong. I’m all for a strong Ultra, because it actually rewards Zergs for getting to tier 3, but they’ve overdone it. You just can’t kill them fast enough. It’s no longer about winning fights… even base races... Zerg can just a-move Ultras at your bases and you’ll eventually just lose because nothing kills them faster than they kill your bases. For a unit that can just *APPEAR out of nowhere 10+ at a time in the late game, there has to be a more efficient way to kill them.
|
I've actually been playing a lot of WoL lately, and I don't think it's true that 4 stalkers fends off a 2 medivac drop. It takes three rounds of shots from the stalkers to kill a medivac, which should be enough time for me to get most of the army out. Maybe if they were really hugging the cliff they could stop me, but generally I could still go forward, start dropping as soon as I get over land, and maybe one of the medivacs dies with a couple of marines in it, but I still get to unload and kill all four stalkers. Of course, it's a different situation if there's 4 stalkers and a full round of warp-ins, but that's true even if the medivacs have boost. I think the biggest difference there is that if you saw a drop coming in WoL and you had 4 stalkers and a round of warp-ins, you'd warp in stalkers to kill the medivacs, whereas in HotS if you didn't have an overcharge handy you'd probably warp in zealots just to make sure you could kill the units if they did decide to drop.
I think if I see a drop coming and I have units in place to kill it, I should be able to kill it. Obvious counterargument, I think if I have a big enough army headed towards your main, you shouldn't be able to negate it with such a small force. I mean, if I got you out of position so most of your army is down by your third, and then I get four medivacs into your main, I should be rewarded with some damage. God knows my army isn't stronger in a straight-up fight (again, I've been playing WoL, and boy do a lot of games end with me taking a big advantage in upgrades and economy and doing some drop harass, and then I lose to one good storm, or having my vikings out of position so they can't shoot the colossus without getting destroyed by stalkers or something).
If ultras were to get nerfed, how would you want it to happen? If the problem is that they die too slow, would HP or armor be the better nerf? If the problem is that it's too easy for zerg to tech switch into them, wouldn't a build time nerf seem more sensible? Or if they're base racing you, maybe a nerf to the damage vs. buildings?
|
On November 19 2015 10:30 ChristianS wrote:I've actually been playing a lot of WoL lately, and I don't think it's true that 4 stalkers fends off a 2 medivac drop. It takes three rounds of shots from the stalkers to kill a medivac, which should be enough time for me to get most of the army out. Maybe if they were really hugging the cliff they could stop me, but generally I could still go forward, start dropping as soon as I get over land, and maybe one of the medivacs dies with a couple of marines in it, but I still get to unload and kill all four stalkers. Of course, it's a different situation if there's 4 stalkers and a full round of warp-ins, but that's true even if the medivacs have boost. I think the biggest difference there is that if you saw a drop coming in WoL and you had 4 stalkers and a round of warp-ins, you'd warp in stalkers to kill the medivacs, whereas in HotS if you didn't have an overcharge handy you'd probably warp in zealots just to make sure you could kill the units if they did decide to drop. Show nested quote +I think if I see a drop coming and I have units in place to kill it, I should be able to kill it. Obvious counterargument, I think if I have a big enough army headed towards your main, you shouldn't be able to negate it with such a small force. I mean, if I got you out of position so most of your army is down by your third, and then I get four medivacs into your main, I should be rewarded with some damage. God knows my army isn't stronger in a straight-up fight (again, I've been playing WoL, and boy do a lot of games end with me taking a big advantage in upgrades and economy and doing some drop harass, and then I lose to one good storm, or having my vikings out of position so they can't shoot the colossus without getting destroyed by stalkers or something). If ultras were to get nerfed, how would you want it to happen? If the problem is that they die too slow, would HP or armor be the better nerf? If the problem is that it's too easy for zerg to tech switch into them, wouldn't a build time nerf seem more sensible? Or if they're base racing you, maybe a nerf to the damage vs. buildings?
The armor is too much. It makes them impossible to kill with anything other than Immortals.
If they reduced the armor, Carriers would become infinitely better against them (remember each carrier attack is 16 different shots, so armor applies 16 times!!)
|
So... 7 armor? 6? I've been playing WoL and even the 5 armor feels insanely powerful. At this point I'm way more scared that my opponents will fast tech to ultralisks than broodlord/infestor. But that's just me - there's no way Blizzard is going to set ultralisk armor back to WoL levels. In the meantime I'll just have to grin and bear it.
It occurs to me that I just kind of assumed you wouldn't mind someone coming in and arguing with you, and I didn't really have a good reason to assume that. If you weren't looking for an argument, I just kind of hijacked your blog. So, uh, sorry about that.
|
On November 19 2015 15:32 ChristianS wrote:
So... 7 armor? 6? I've been playing WoL and even the 5 armor feels insanely powerful. At this point I'm way more scared that my opponents will fast tech to ultralisks than broodlord/infestor. But that's just me - there's no way Blizzard is going to set ultralisk armor back to WoL levels. In the meantime I'll just have to grin and bear it.
It occurs to me that I just kind of assumed you wouldn't mind someone coming in and arguing with you, and I didn't really have a good reason to assume that. If you weren't looking for an argument, I just kind of hijacked your blog. So, uh, sorry about that.
I don't mind really.
Problem in WoL and HotS was Ultras were too hard to get to.
They can stay 5 armor but with the new economy favoring Zerg Ultras are much easier to get
|
Swithing to zerg atm (if not now then never i told myslef), can't take this shit anymore.
p.s. but man, i feel you so badly.
|
|
|
|
|
No more wins with brainless and so, boring strats such as 3base blinks or just turtling => Whine before any major event happens.
Gratz
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
