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On March 20 2011 16:15 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +He's saying its not imba, and while they secured MC's victory they wouldnt've been necessary for him to win because of july's mistakes Yeah, like OP says if he had Zealots/Stalkers instead of Sentries he still would have won those fights.
but the problem with that statement is that it's just not true. forcefields were instrumental in every game so to discuss the series along the lines of 'he could have won without sentries' seems kind of dumb.
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@^^ FF did win MC the last game, as did a few mistakes that the zerg made, had MC screwed up or made a large mistake, FF would allow him to nullify that mistake, as does chrono-boost in case you forget probes or whatnot. MC really showcased a player who doesn't need to abuse FF to win, but who chooses to anyways, the problem with FF and sentries is the lack of skill and the ammount of leeway you have with them, anyone diamond and above playing toss is about the same difficulty to beat as a top200 toss, they can just FF and stop the army, giving them time, perfect positioning, or whatever they're horrid at. The only way to really beat a toss player is to A:spawn as terran, get ghosts, and hope they don't split their sentries/immortals/templars if they go collosus it's possible to beat them, if they go templar first, then it's gg unless they suck, hardcore suck.
Also, did I mention toss knows exactly what zerg/terran are doing cuz they have obs....
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On March 20 2011 19:51 Charon1979 wrote: The games showed a few things quite clearly...
None of them ist "omg FF OP!", although i have to admit that they are in fact responsible for a undeserved amount of "free" dmg.
1) Protoss timing attacks are extremely hard to hold off. There ist just one "correct" reaction to a well executed 6 gate. If you scout it to late or a little bit off timing, you lose.
2) Hydras just suck. Plain and simple. Everytime the zerg techs to hydra, Protoss has a huge mobility advantage. You cant attack without creep and you cant defend because (blink)stalkers just outrun you.
3) Protoss fast exe is (especially on large GSL maps) nearly undeniable with a late pool. You have just 2 choices. Going all in (not exactly the "safe" way... here you can QQ about 2 - 3 sentries just stopping an army) or expand yourself. On some maps/positions you just cant take a quick 3rd "safe",
4) Protoss just dictates the entire game without even really having to know what the zerg is doing. He already knows. There are not a whole lot of possible zerg answers and not a whole lot of possible units. A "missed" spire doesnt have the same impact as not scouting all 6 gateways and having to wonder if he is going to have a robo or not You're wrong about 2 and 4 here. Hydras don't suck, as some of the finals games demonstrated quite well. They do have risks, however. They are a unit that heavily dominates certain builds, and is heavily dominated by others. Hydras are powerful but situational, and the problem comes when players start treating them as a default go-to unit for all standard builds, which they are not.
The comment about protoss dictating the game is foolish. The point is that MC is using heavy timing attacks. Players doing these types of timing attacks (for any race) only care about whether their opponent will attack before they do. No other information matters, and any player who doesn't strike first is going to be forced to react to the timing attack. It has nothing to do with what races are being played.
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On March 20 2011 18:52 Dommk wrote: ...The race that is the most aggressive obviously dictates how the game flows, the vast majority of Zergs play a passive/reactive style I think the OP and other posters underestimate the sheer metagame control FF gives Protoss in a PvZ matchup.
Defensively: Heavy FF use negates any Zerg T1 army at the ramp, alternately locking out or splitting your army into mangeable portions. This makes it difficult to apply early game pressure short of denying the Protoss their natural which 4gate does not need anyways until the push comes. Meanwhile overinvesting in this can slow down the Zerg economy and leave them vulnerable to hard-to-scout tech/air switches.
Offensively: Between FFing the ramp and the warp-in pylon, 4gate play means the Protoss deny the Zerg the defender advantage while enjoying it themselves, in the Zerg base. The Zerg have to engage outside of their base in order to deny the pylon and keep their ramp secure - there is no earlygame Zerg "counter" once the FF comes down on the ramp. The map has just irrevocably changed for the next 15 seconds.
This means investing earlier in T1 army to retain map control and engaging away from the Zerg base, off the creep, where FF can again divide and conquer their army. Or investing in enough spinecrawlers and queens to repel a 4gate, because you can't FF a spinecrawler.
On March 20 2011 18:52 Dommk wrote: ...it isn't like Zerg is incapable of dictating what the other race must do. All of the strategies you describe are late T2 for zerg due to gas and time sinks. 4gate play hits before they become active.
The only Zerg ground units that can effectively engage across FF-walls are spine crawlers, queens and hydras. The only midgame workarounds Zerg has are tunneling Roaches for 250/250 with no chrono and Overlord carry for another 300/300.
Simply put, Zerg's melee heavy army needs a better early/midgame game solution to FF play. Queens -> Massive was an interesting suggestion, although it might overbuff them against Phoenix harass.
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There is no situation you WANT to build hydras, just situations you HAVE TO go hydra.
There is a reason behind why toss always tries to force you into hydra
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On March 20 2011 20:10 DoorKicker wrote: Simply put, Zerg's melee heavy army needs a better early/midgame game solution to FF play. Queens -> Massive was an interesting suggestion, although it might overbuff them against Phoenix harass.
With "overbuff" you mean "make them invincible"...
I don't agree with the OP that MC would've won with or without the forcefields. What I agree is that it was mostly MC getting an advantage REGARDLESS of his sentry-heavy compositiong due to strategical choices throughout the game. Best example would be the game where he went DTs. I mean, cmon people, you just can't cry imba forcefields when DTs made July go into panic mode because he didn't have lair yet.
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On March 20 2011 20:17 sleepingdog wrote: With "overbuff" you mean "make them invincible"... So you send a Void Ray instead and enjoy the bonus dmg to Massive targets. Or you fly your Phoenix away. If we're talking invincible, I'd like to get back to the "invincible" FF on my ramp completely negating my troop movements...
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MrBitter, stop being so bitter. I love what you are doing for the Zerg community but constructive criticism helps more than "are you dense? I play zerg and I can't break forcefields hence forcefields were the reason he won".
There's nothing off in the op's thread and he has reasoned it out very well.
A couple of more units on July's part and aggression (which was denied with ff) could be a valuable insight instead of whatever you posted.
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nice analysis OP, you can see how it's true since you are making the zerg emos cry again..
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On March 20 2011 15:51 ibreakurface wrote: Oh god lock this.
This.
"Why it's not imba"... hmph
Why are you posting this? Awesome recap but I don't think we need any biased opinions on the match-up... besides, there's already and official recap...
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I don't agree with OP that he would have won those games if he'd had zealots instead of sentries.
The Shakuras game is probably the best example, where July clearly had bigger armies in almost every engagement and would have easily taken out a non-sentry gateway army. The other games were not far behind as examples of game changing forcefields.
Although I don't personally feel that forcefields are imbalanced, this is not a very good analysis.
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The only way everyone will be convinced that it's really MC who is imba, not the ff's, is if he would switch to Zerg. In other words it just won't happen. So why bother
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These games simply showed that MC outplayed July so it is nearly impossible to extract anything useful from these games. July got caught with unexpected pushes almost every game, game 1 tricked into thinking MC expo'd. game 2 didn't prepare for 6 gate game 3 MC didn't prepare for hydra drop game 4 DT push did severe damage (drones lost alot of mining time and lost a queen and 3 or 4 roaches) game 5 speedling expand vs FFE is pretty stupid as it already leaves you far behind (14 hatch is a must on the map imo). Afterwards he went for both hydra and roach which is bad against a 6 gate. Just choose the one OR the other not both. No creep spread, hardly any upgrades and poor positioning lost him the game.
July lacked severely in scouting but I also think it is slightly too hard for Z to scout effectively. P is not really forced to play aggresive because they have a fine lategame and all the pushes can be easily hidden because of warpgate.
I think key for ZvP at this level is to tech lair in time which July almost never did. Lair gives access to burrow which is the best way to stop a 6 gate (practically nullifies FF and you can micro nearly dead roaches to stay alive), Lair gives access to hydra to stop air shenanigans and lair gives access to overseers to stop DT. Lair also gives access to speedoverlords of overseers to scout the next move from P.
In a standard game where both players know what the other is doing ZvP is fine imo. It is just that protoss has the option to mix it up easily, which MC abuses very well, whereas zerg can't really surprise protoss (partly because of forcefield). If anything zerg can use a small buff in scouting, perhaps change ovie speed back to 50/50 or increase the research time for it. I don't believe forcefield is overpowered as it can be easily negated by burrow when it's used in a 6 gate. FF in a 4 gate can be easily stopped by flanking properly. FFing the ramp might be a little too strong against zerg and might deserve a solution, but making queens massive would provide too many other problems (they would be too weak agains voids, too strong against phoenix). I don't know an elegant solution to the FFing of the ramp actually as any change to it might make FF too weak defensively at the same time.
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Anyone who plays zerg has lost to Protoss the way July lost to MC. The irritating thing to me is that all MC's wins were some sort of bust or timing attack. There is no way for zerg to scout every conceivable place on the map for what's coming as well as droning and expanding, and teching to lair. Not in the first five-seven minutes. A zerg needs every single larvae and drone and ovie in the early game just to stay on par with Protoss or Terran. Sure, if July had known exactly what MC was up to, he could have held it off. The trick is actually sniffing it out.
The FF's were crucial to MC's wins. You can actually count the number of July's units NOT attacking every single game. It's pretty ridiculous when you add them all up.
While i agree July was build order owned in many of the games econ wise, there's no way he should have lost as badly. The skill difference is not that distant.
Zerg really needs something to do with the scouting early. Either let us make overseers at T1, or OL speed, or tech to lair at the same time as making a queen.
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I could only see game 1 and i can say, from a zergs point of view, that July scouted perfectly given the constraints he had to deal with:
First of all he DID sac an overlord at the right time, but a stalker was positioned at the very edge so that it would have killed the slow ovie before it could reach the 3 gates hidden at the other side of the base. July retreated the ovie after getting hit to minimize the damage dealt to his economy.
Obviously he couldnt have gotten an ovie in from another angle, as it would have been in range from land units too. In Metalopolis then place from which july sent his scout ovie was the only safe place to do it from.
Then July kept scouting again and again and again with his zerglings at the front to check that the expansion was still there, while many zergs would have only scouted it once and then some time later just to make sure.
Alo he prepared as much as he could once he saw the attack coming: spines, roaches and zerglings. What more could one do in his place? I mean, seriously, as Tastopsis said: the nexus was cancelled at THE LAST SECOND, July did what he could in such a short time frame.
By the way, i wont go into FF are OP or not, but DONT say that the toss would have won the same if he had made stalkers: if he had made stalkers he wouldnt have had the minerals to fake the expansion, which was what put July out of balance.
Thus the problem isnt the forcefield,but the difficulty of scouting that zerg endures.
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On March 20 2011 21:30 cerebralz wrote: Anyone who plays zerg has lost to Protoss the way July lost to MC. The irritating thing to me is that all MC's wins were some sort of bust or timing attack. There is no way for zerg to scout every conceivable place on the map for what's coming as well as droning and expanding, and teching to lair. Not in the first five-seven minutes. A zerg needs every single larvae and drone and ovie in the early game just to stay on par with Protoss or Terran. Sure, if July had known exactly what MC was up to, he could have held it off. The trick is actually sniffing it out.
The FF's were crucial to MC's wins. You can actually count the number of July's units NOT attacking every single game. It's pretty ridiculous when you add them all up.
While i agree July was build order owned in many of the games econ wise, there's no way he should have lost as badly. The skill difference is not that distant.
Zerg really needs something to do with the scouting early. Either let us make overseers at T1, or OL speed, or tech to lair at the same time as making a queen.
Overlord speed at tier 1 is an interesting suggestion actually. It won't make zerg's scouting better for free but does give them an option to get intel when it is needed. Basically the same as scanning with terran instead of using MULEs. You can get intel if you need but it will cost you. At the moment zerg seems to be guessing way too much and they don't have a strategy that can deal with basically anything. T can always make MM vs protoss and be fine against anything but Z has to know exactly what's coming up (DT, air, 4 gate, expo) to react properly. Not droning enough puts Z behind against a expansion, not getting detection vs DT, not enough units loses vs 4 gate and not enough queens can lose vs air. Getting enough of everything always puts them behind as well though.
Giving burrow a short research time (100 -> 70) would help alot as well. Part of the problem imo is that adapting to some of these P strats simply takes too much time. Simply nerfing FF so zerg can hold off these rushes even if they didn't prepare fully for it would be a bad move imo, it would make the game more generic as Protoss would stop to switch it up (what would be the point then?) and strategic diversity would be lost. There should always be tactics that punish a poorly scouting player BUT someone who does scout alot should be able to respond in time.
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The reason why these timing pushes are so strong is due to the fact that the game is too fast (Reactors, Gateway warp-in mechanic) for the current scouting options, as most people alredy pointed out. I'm almost always playing blind against any competent Terran - Protoss at 3500 Master, you can't just BLINDLY go lair and tech or BLINDLY mass defenses, it's not meant to be that way and it's in fact not like that for the other 2 races. I also play Random at the same 3k+ Master level and i never ever once felt so hopeless and defenseless when losing to some timing push i couldn't counter properly or couldn't scout entirely.
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I didn't see the finals, but from reading the OP, it seems he's totally unqualified to be analyzing the finals. Not to mention entirely downplaying just how strong forcefields are, and in the one analysis of why july won he says july "deserved the win by making hydras."
Also, just like 50 other people are gonna post, the OP doesn't know what he's talking about when he says getting zealot/stalkers instead of sentries would have the same result. That's obviously not the case.
yeah...
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I was pretty stunned by the use of stalkers+sentries to beat hydras. That strikes me as gamechanging as MarineKing's use of marines against banelings, showing that a counter is in fact not a counter. Does this mean that burrow roaches are now the only correct response?
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EDIT:
You know, this is down right stupid trying to argue over the internet, quite honestly it is a waste of time.
I'm not any position to say whether or not Force field is overpowered--that is for Blizzard to decide and I think I can at least take comfort with the fact that nothing idiotic like channeling force fields, one force field per sentry, etc will ever get implemented
But issues with the Force Fielding ramps confuse me to no end. It has been like this for the past Year, it is the very basic use of force field, it isn't like the MC doughnut which makes dealing with armies a lot more efficient, it is the very basic use of force field. It has been used to cut off reinforcements for SOO long.
If this particular style of 4gate is far too strong in combination with it, then that 4gate is probably what needs addressing not force fielding ramps to stop/deny access because that has been like that since the dawn of time and it has never been a major issue until now where people feel compelled to piggy back it on the main issue of Force field dividing armies.
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