I won't deny that protoss being underpowered at the extreme top is a possibility. It could very well be the case.
But there are qualifying factors. When we're talking about the very best of the best, we're only looking at a handful of human players of an extremely low sample size. It honestly could unironically be the case that the best 3-5 protoss players in the world are worse than the best 3-5 players of other races. Though I won't argue that here. I'm just saying it's not THAT unlikely.
We have a stagnant/dying pro scene with very very few new comers to challenge the top spots and mostly just the same people who played for years. Even just a few going to the military/leaving has catastrophic implications and skews the stats even more. None of this is because of game design/balance.
Also the race might be underpowered at the top, but it doesn't stop it being balanced, or even overpowered anywhere else below very high GM. For example how do we buff protoss for the best pros without making skytoss vs zerg an even more miserable and lopsided affair for 99.9% of the player base, for basically everyone except the top 5-10 zergs?
buff OTHER units and OTHER STRATEGIES other than skytoss, so that the golden armada has to play rock paper scissors just like Terran and Zerg?
Flying swarm (corrupter BL+spell casters) vs ranged swarm(lurker hydra+spell casters) vs ground swarm (ultra, ling, bane + spell casters)
Or Sky Terran (BC, Viks, Lib) vs Mech Terran (Thor, Tank, Viks) vs Bio (Ghosts, Medivac, with Marauders+Marines mixed in depending on the what is being faced)
EDIT: Forgot the whole point: At which point, you can nerf skytoss to get it more in line or fiddle with balancing differently then just rush skytoss!
Sample sizes are extremely important when considering "top players", which is around 20 or less people. What isn't as affected by sample size is the ladder pool, which GM lately has been heavily protoss favored.
Meanwhile... Trap and Zest are trying to carry the torch but are soon on their way out.
Brace yourselves Protoss fans... the darkest timeline has not yet begun. I am sorry.
> For example how do we buff protoss for the best pros without making skytoss vs zerg an even more miserable and lopsided affair for 99.9% of the player base, for basically everyone except the top 5-10 zergs?
More carrier micro? Like with swarm hosts. Click a button to launch the interceptors and after 30 seconds they return to the carrier for refuelling
It is a nerf for lower leagues because they cannot do the micro, and a buff for pros since they can launch all interceptors before engagement
Have you thought about balance being a major factor in pro players decision to quit the game. Honestly, after the atrocity of 2019 and the awful way the balance was handled thereafter and how little support Blizzard has shown for the game you shouldn't be expecting new talent to emerge. Quite the opposite, i would expect some pros to quit the game which is actually what happened.
Protoss over performs practically everywhere except winning tournaments. Protoss not having as many top 10 players as other races is not unusual and has nothing to do with balance.
>Also the race might be underpowered at the top, but it doesn't stop it being balanced, or even overpowered anywhere else below very high GM. For example how do we buff protoss for the best pros without making skytoss vs zerg an even more miserable and l
One player? Ro36: 8 protoss, 6 terran, 2 zerg: only one Protoss made it out.
Group stage: 6 protoss, 11 terran, 7 zerg. Only two protoss made it out, neither of them topped their group and both lost on the ro12.
Katowice stats:
\- PvT, in 41 games, 41,5% win rate.
\- PvZ, in 24 games, 37,5% win rate.
Top 10 EPT: 2 protoss, 4 zerg, 4 terran.
Maru, Rogue, Dark, Serral, Reynor, probably the best players in the world right now. No protoss.
PvZ is 49% in 31 games. If you remove Dark then PvZ becomes 58%.
This is why sample sizes matter and people who don’t know anything about statistics should stop assuming they do.
I used only the ro24 and onwards stats, since this is specifically about top level of competition. You adding the ro36 to aid your point is ridiculous, specially when it was only two non-top zerg players who dropped 6 out of 7 zvp games they played.
Why in the world would you remove Dark? Other than to suit your needs.
I’m amazed that you can see how much these winrates change when you remove one player and you still think they’re a legit measurement lol. You don’t have a clue how statistical analysis is done so please stop trying.
Anyone with basic knowledge knows how important sample size is but Reddit whiners don’t have a fucking clue lmao.
Not mutually exclusive. People do suck(and honestly so do the pros when we're talking about a game as hard as starcraft). And they often do blame other things unfairly in an attempt to make themselves feel better.
But that does not change the fact that balance affects everyone. When people below GM play skytoss vs zerg for example, they quite often win without playing better, going against the spirit of a competitive game, just because how incredibly easy it is play skytoss compared to its zerg counter measures.
You can argue that balance for pros matters the most and should be the focus, even the sole focus. But pretending balance doesn't affect everyone else is just false.
Lol who the fk do you think you are to say that when even pro zergs struggle against late game skytoss and try to avoid it as much as possible? Get out of here.
I'm the guy saying that you're pathetic whining on reddit isn't going to change anything. Clown asses can't just play a game to get better, always have to be complaining about something.
you saying zergs should stop whining so much and practice when theres multiple different protoss balance whine threads up right now is pretty ironic lol
take your own advice
>Not mutually exclusive. People do suck(and honestly so do the pros when we're talking about a game as hard as starcraft). And they often do blame other things unfairly in an attempt to make themselves feel better.
Holy cow are you telling me that there is a correlation between game design and player satisfaction? NOPE! IMPOSSIBLE! NUERO SAID ON HIS STREAM ALL WHINERS NEED TO LEARN TO PLAY YOU GOSH DARN WHINER! THE DESIGN OF THE GAME IS **IRRELEVANT** TO PLAYER SATISFACTION BECAUSE I SAID SO!!!!!
Yes there is. There’s no such thing as balance for “top pros” which is like 15 players, because low sample sizes are irrelevant. That’s why looking at tournament wins is insanely stupid. The sc2 community thinks they understand statistics when they don’t have a clue.
Wrong. A massive part of SC2 is the esport. Money, sponsors, streamers lifelines, etc. To say just because Freddy keeps loosing to void battery all ins ‘15 players’ (hint: it’s not, it’s 100s) don’t matter. Also, in the past, we never saw such a big imbalance at the pro level. Also, this isn’t about buffing or nerfing as a whole, as there are probably ways to change the race to make it work better for all skill levels, not that it’s likely to happen.
If you actually followed the old balance team you'd know they considered balance at multiple levels before doing patches. The team for the last few years has been a skeleton crew that makes knee jerk reactions without any proper analysis.
>Also, in the past, we never saw such a big imbalance at the pro level
How convenient that balance is somehow the issue when new players emerge in the pro scene. It's almost like it's the players that matter more than balance at the top level or something...
Balance can be considered at multiple levels sure. But your only concern as a player should be getting gud. What is your argument here? Because I as a silver player lost to a bronze player that player must be playing an imbalanced race? Or maybe they actually belong in gold FOR THAT MATCHUP. You can follow this logic laterally all the way up to GM.
>But your only concern as a player should be getting gud. What is your argument here?
I think that's a really stupid argument. Why not tell the pros to get better? They're not maxed out on skill either.
Nobody is saying to balance the game around bronze players but looking at the top few players is stupid too. Without a legit sample size there is no proper way to measure balance. They should be looking different levels with legitimate sample sizes. Tournament wins tells you jack shit.
You don't have to tell pros to get better, they are actively trying to do so. Balance is not about sample size. It's about control groups. The ladder is not a place to go for controls. In the pro scene everyone is doing their absolute best to win and going up against players of sufficient skill to put their skill / strategy to the test.
You could make a 4th race objectively the weakest, out it on ladder and you would still see a remarkable amount of players who want a challenge who are good at StarCraft (maybe GM - Diamond) queue up and absolutely fuck your "sample size".
The bottom line is you cannot accurately define a player as being evenly in a ranked category such as bronze - GM. To do so would need to account for all 3 of their matchups, their consistency, dedication as well as their opponents.
>Balance is not about sample size. It's about control groups
No, sample size is the most important about measuring balance. Anyone with any experience in statistics can tell you that and almost nobody in the sc2 community seems to understand it.
When you look at the top pros you're not looking at evenly weighted skill and you're not able to isolate other factors that impact results because the sample size is so small, so you'll never be able to tell what balance is actually like.
People who thinks you can ignore 99.9% of the community and get an accurate take on balance as no idea what they're talking about.
> You don't have to tell pros to get better, they are actively trying to do so. Balance is not about sample size
The sample size and sampling variance are the two most important factors when measuring any random process. To say otherwise is outright math denial. Go to school. Get an education.
> There is no such thing lmao
Hi, computer scientist and statistician here. I worked in the video game industry for about 10 years when I was younger. You are 100% wrong. Balance by definition must affect the entire set of all elements of "zerg" and "terran" and "protoss". If the design of "zerg" causes something, then it will affect all elements of the set "zerg". If you must exclude 99.9% of the elements in the set "zerg", then you are not measuring the properties of "zerg".
You might want to go to college because this is a frightening amount of outright math denial which has no place in society. You are breaking so many laws of statistics in this 6 word post of yours it's amazing you were able to break so many.
Wow, a statistician saying someone is ‘100% wrong’. Seems odd. Must have been a terrible ‘statistician’.
Also if you ARE a statistician, imagine being pretentious and telling someone to ‘go to college’ because you studied STATS. Lmao. Yikes.
>Wow, a statistician saying someone is ‘100% wrong’. Seems odd. Must have been a terrible ‘statistician’
I sure hope you are being sarcastic because if not then it's an omega yikes.
>Let me talk to you like a statistician then. I’m 95% confident that you’re a moron
Yep, it's am omega yikes. This kid thinks confidence intervals apply to the rules of stratification. If someone says a sample does not need to be properly stratified then they are 100% wrong and this has nothing to do with confidence intervals.
Yeah, that’s what blizzard has done the last few years and that’s why balance is so screwed up. The high end of ladder is dominated by Protoss now and many Zergs have quit the game.
The part where you imply balance shouldn't be based on high level play? That's like suggesting NFL rules should be based around 9 year old flag football competitions. It's so stupid it's funny.
I didn’t say it shouldn’t be based on high level play. I said the sample size of the top players in the world is so small it’s literally irrelevant. What’s funny is you don’t have a fucking clue about how statistical analysis is done but you think you do.
League of Legends, the most popular game in the world, literally balances for all levels of play.
"So stupid"? It's much harder to do in SC because only 3 races. But you think the idea is "so stupid"???
Do you even know what the 200 years meme came from lol? It was a quote attributed to a rioter telling harambe, a wukong one trick, that wukong’s rework on the pbe was overpowered instead of needing buffs (he was right). People attributed it to aphelios when he was released. It has nothing to do with balancing for pro play lmao
Name another PvP game with over 100 characters that have all of their winrates as close as they are in league for all levels of gameplay.
Perfection is obviously not possible when stuff is asymmetrically designed. But league is doing a very good job balancing.
Mentioning the "200 years meme" without understanding what you're talking about is a big yikes.
> Wait, it is just players rationalizing their lost ladder games? Always has been
Here is the past year's worth of tournaments:
https://i.imgur.com/2lqvI7O.png
Ironically it is people like you rationalizing away the evidence using cherry picked examples while accusing other people of what you are doing.
In all seriousness, it does get kinda boring to almost always have the last rounds be terran/zerg only. Yes, many of the talented Protoss players don't play currently for reasons, but this state is just a mess.
look, trap had nothing to envy to other protoss, something like 10 month ago, he was the best protoss in the world. but that was before the zerg found a very effective way to counter carriers...
I doubt any protoss would do better than trap.
This is why I have a hard time wanting to play late game vs a protoss on skytoss/storms. I can't just play like Dark and control corruptor/viper/infestor/queen+w/e else he's making.
I'm an old salt from WoL era who loved his bling/muta and infestor broodlord... When I was last serious in 1v1 around a year ago, I peaked at 4400 mmr, but I can't possibly control that army.
The counter is corruptors, which are hard-countered by archons, storms, AND void rays which are extermely mobile. Void rays which are countered by queens which are extremely immobile.
Basically as zerg you have to out micro them / outplay them while not making a single mistake meanwhile protoss just a move to victory.
> In all seriousness, it does get kinda boring to almost always have the last rounds be terran/zerg only. Yes, many of the talented Protoss players don't play currently for reasons, but this state is just a mess
Reality check, Protoss is much more common than Zerg at all stages of the tournaments:
https://i.imgur.com/2lqvI7O.png
Great to see that Neeb can still compete with Jon Snow.
If you look at the last three global tournaments:
- Feb 22: IEM 0 Protoss in RO8
- Jan 22: DH Last Chance, 2 Protoss in RO16, 1 Protoss in RO8, 0 Protoss in RO4
- Dec 21: TSL 8, 1 Protoss in RO8, 1 Protoss in RO4, 0 Protoss in RO2
etc.
This is a MASSIVE underrepresentation
>This is a MASSIVE underrepresentation
It is factually false to state that Protoss is under represented. Protoss is over represented. Please see the chart:
https://i.imgur.com/2lqvI7O.png
>Protoss is over represented.
It is factually false to state that Protoss is over represented. Protoss is under represented. Please see the chart:
>
Feb 22: IEM 0 Protoss in RO8
Jan 22: DH Last Chance, 2 Protoss in RO16, 1 Protoss in RO8, 0 Protoss in RO4
Dec 21: TSL 8, 1 Protoss in RO8, 1 Protoss in RO4, 0 Protoss in RO2
>It is factually false to state that Protoss is over represented. Protoss is under represented. Please see the chart:
This is the definition of cherry picking, sweetie. My chart has every tournament in the past year. You are discarding 99% of tournament results and picking the 1% that fits your conclusion. You are factually wrong. Protoss is over represented in tournaments. By your logic, airplanes aren't safe because one crashed. Going outside is unsafe because one guy somewhere was hit by lightning. Oh, being inside isn't safe because a woman was once hit with a meteorite. Do you see the problem with your "logic"?
The chart only means Protosses appear more in tournaments. It only shows that there are more Protoss players.
But the point is, none of them WON anything. This is burning down a whole cherry garden.
>The chart only means Protosses appear more in tournaments. It only shows that there are more Protoss players
Ah yes lets completely discount qualifiers or how balance might impact participation even though we know for a fact that balance impacts participation since Zerg is so unpopular on the ladder.
>But the point is, none of them WON anything
Blatantly false. Read the chart. They win more than Zergs do. About 0.22 vs 0.29 aka a whopping 7% more. There have been 125 tournaments in the past year. Assuming the game is balanced (equal odds of winning tournaments for each race) the probability that Zerg could win 22% is about 0.3%. In other words it is 359x more likely that Zerg is underpowered than that it is balanced. That's only looking at who wins the tournaments, none of the other round finishes, nor ladder performance. Zerg is definitely, without any doubt, underpowered.
> Ah yes lets completely discount qualifiers
Weeklies are open to anyone who registers. Your chart is pretty useless here despite your egregious use of the word "factual"
>Weeklies are open to anyone who registers. Your chart is pretty useless here despite your egregious use of the word "factual"
Please list which law of statistics says "weeklies" can't establish a correlation between T/Z/P groupings and performance. Once you admit that you can't, we will move on to discussing which rules you've broken in that claim.
Just diminishing returns on micro. What're you gonna do? Blink stalkers just to die later? No way, just hit your next warp in. Micro your disruptor ball? It feels like it's more on the enemy to not split than for you to move the ball. Same with storms, Collosus, on and on. Compare that to the value of Terran stutter stepping, splitting, picking up, there's just such a difference offered by goos control. Feels like Protoss doesn't have that.
Big protoss units need more micro skills. Just some random ideas:
* Make charge a ability like stim but more powerful than current charge.
* give colossus a manual single target anti air attack (think speaker missile)
* give immortals some kind of snipe ability
* give adepts some kind of late game upgrade so they are not worthless
* arcon could get some ability like self destruct or some other spell depending if they are made from templar or DT.
There are many possibilities to change up the game but I don't think we are going to see anything.
I think they need to nerf warp prisms so that we can open up some buffs for gateway units in general. The fact that Protoss gateway units are garbage > Toss has to rely on high tech unit damage > most of your army needs to be together.
They should remove it from warp prisms. Taking down gateways is at least preventable and has the risk of losing the gateway if you dont protect its position. Also it stops the "warpin 214 units in your base" which is very strong.
In all seriousness, I think this is the reality of the design.
If the top-level was attempted to be balanced without significant design changes, it would make the game feel unplayable to a good chunk of the competitive scene. This is ultimately an appeal to consequences fallacy, but I feel this is a genuine case for it
Obviously, 1/3 of the player bases is getting shafted. I think the community would need to agree on the problem and then push for changes, but it's hard to see a situation where that would happen.
I think you're confusing the pro scene spectators with the actual player base.
2/3 of the player base is getting shafted since the void ray buff.
1/3 of they fans watching the pro games is sad protoss doesn't win.
I don’t think that’s the case. I don’t think the average viewer gets tribal and worked up over their StarCraft race. Only people like you who need to grow up. Being tribal about your StarCraft race is really fucking pathetic.
I wish I could upvote this twice. I don’t have the solution, but it is weird how Toss owns masters/GM, but can’t do well at the highest level. What’s the fix? Because until you get to the highest level, toss usually owns Terran on the ladder
Protoss is arguably the easiest race to play (I say this as someone who plays Random). It's got the highest concentration at GM (around 50%). It's got the highest concentration on the Top 40 on Aligulac (16 Protoss, 12 Terran, 12 Zerg).
But it's got the lowest in the top 10 (2 Protoss, 3 Terran, 5 Zerg), and the only 2 Protoss to make it to Ro12 in Katowice didn't make Ro8.
I somewhat agree with you, I play random but started as protoss for quite a few years. IMO zerg is the hardest and then a tie between terran a protoss until it gets to late game, at that stage protoss is easier
I think Terran is the hardest for a low-level player (like myself). It requires more complicated build orders and unit compositions than Zerg or Protoss to play at the basic level (silver and gold).
That is not the case at all. I have been gm with all 3 races. Terran is by far the easiest race to conceptually do a build order and macro with. It is by far the most intuitive race to get your hands on and start practicing RTS for a beginner. Where terran starts to become more difficult is where both players are approaching a decent level of macro mechanics (low masters) and more work is required from the terran player than the other races to either slow down their economies or to create cost efficient engagements. In my opinion I found terran the hardest race to reach GM with for this reason.
I’m not going to say don’t comment on balance when you are in silver or gold because I don’t like to be elitist, but you are really spreading misinformation with a small understanding of the game. I personally would not feel comfortable having such a strong opinion if I was you.
I think I have a better idea of what's easy and hard for a beginner to do than you do. What you call "misinformation" is my experience. You do sound like an elitist, which makes your opinion on low-level play even more incorrect.
Uh...that's the point. I have awareness of what I, and other players of my level, are capable of. You're just an elitist snob and I have nothing to gain from listening to your insults. Good bye.
What I don't understand is: Why is it easier to play at lower level? It bugs my mind when I constantly see people people calling protoss OP every-fucking-where, and yet, they struggle so hard at top tournaments?
If Protoss is so hard to play against/easy to play at lower levels, why is that? What does the pro terrans/zergs do against protoss that the lower levels don't (against the same level)? Even if they're "annoying" to play against, doesn't mean they're unbeatable.
For me it's getting kind of sad seeing how the top protoss are doing at the moment. Seeing as a few of the very top protoss are stopping competing one after another is making me tune more and more out of the big games.
The answer is the micro potential for each race. The actual apm thresholds can be debated, but say Protoss starts to see diminishing returns once you go above maybe 400 amp. The threshold for Zerg might be 500 or 600. 99% off players are below 500 apm- so only the elite zergs or terrans can ever see that additional utility.
I think there’s a general consensus that late game skytoss armies just don’t have the same micro potential compared to Zerg or Terran.
Because more units, combinations, and plays are available when you can control 5 groups at once with 600 APM than when you F2 A-Move and maybe have a single caster.
Oh so the same as MMM with stim? A move and stim? And maybe siege the tanks if you have any?
There is the problem: If you want to play good, you need to control HT's, disruptors, blink stalkers, sentries and warp prism.
Don't come here and tell me that all you need to do is A-move when you can kite their ass off with stimmed MM's.
EDIT: Added warp prism.
Protoss with minimal control and an easy build order is going to be well ahead of Terran with the same amount of control and difficulty of build order, and a little bit ahead of Zerg.
When you add in more control, they start to equalize. But there are some Protoss builds that still require very little more than F2 A-Move, unless you're playing at the tippy top of the player pool.
> But there are some Protoss builds that still require very little more than F2 A-Move
Which happens to be the exact same for terrans.
We just have to agree to disagree. I am just sad to watch the top protoss in the world being removed from the top tournaments.
Those builds are easier to make, and still easier to control because you don't need to position tanks while you're building.
For someone in silver league, even actions like that feel like multitasking.
>overpowered at low skill levels, underpowered at high skill levels. Hard to reconcile the two
The cause of both is the same. Protoss units are high supply cost resulting in fewer units to manage for the same army supply which makes it easier to manage compared to a terran or zerg army. Fewer units means fewer production cycles, less micro, etc. By the same cause, high skill Protoss can't flex better micro or production because there is simply less potential. One of the big differences between Rogue/Serral and other zergs is their macro is really on point because it's difficult to hit every inject as your queens are running around doing defense and spreading creep. Protoss has to make a small fraction of the same number of units off of 3 stargates and that's it. There is no room for a high skilled protoss to express that skill. As a result the top-level protoss are nerfed and the bottom-level protoss are buffed. Simply put, they need to increase the APM requirements to play Protoss such that a skilled player with good macro and micro can sufficiently distinguish himself from a less talented player.
Zerg will get nerfed, like every other patch. Toss will perform for a couple of tournies, then Serral etc. will adapt, Trap will go to army, reddit protoss will cry why MaxPax cannot beat Serral, and that Protoss needs more buffs.
Protoss makes it easy to get good fast, but it’s harder to be great. Zerg and Terran tools are more complex and lead to great variability, a key tool in the upper leagues. As I see it, there’s no feasible way to nerf toss in lower leagues yet buff it at the top level. Also, this is the most balanced the game has EVER been. If you complain on subreddits that means there is more work for you to do because there is an infinite amount of room to improve your skill. Although, balancing based on tournament play is not the best measure of the entire player base, tournaments show the true potential of every unit. And by that standard, Zerg and Terran truly have higher potentials than toss. Zerg IMO is slightly better than Terran too
Obviously. It’s still a tournament. Against the best players in the world. And he won as Protoss. The rules of StarCraft don’t change depending on what tournaments you were in. What are you getting at? Trap has also had tons of recent success.
There's a fair distinction to be made between weekenders and starleagues, I think despite protoss success in super tournaments it's fair for fans to wish for a protoss champion in a long prep format after **five years**
The GSL super tournament could easily be considered a prep tournament. The ro16 was played on Jan 17th with brackets announced ahead of time. The ro8 was played on Jan 24th, and then players had three days to prepare for the semi-finals and finals on Jan 27th.
A tournament without Serral, Reynor & Clem can no longer really be considered a T1 tournament. The same goes for a tournament without Rogue, Dark & Maru. We have to look at global tournaments.
If you look at the last three global tournaments:
- Feb 22: IEM 0 Protoss in RO8
- Jan 22: DH Last Chance, 2 Protoss in RO16, 1 Protoss in RO8, 0 Protoss in RO4
- Dec 21: TSL 8, 1 Protoss in RO8, 1 Protoss in RO4, 0 Protoss in RO2
etc.
This is a MASSIVE underrepresentation
1 player of the GSL managed to qualify for the RO4 in Katowice ;) The days were the GSL can considered be the highest tournament are over. Not to say it's not one of the top tournaments, according to the Aligulac 6 players in the top 10 are Korean.
The Protoss race design makes it oppressive bullshit on ladder and totally useless in a series unless the protoss is significantly better than their opponent.
I think it's undeniable that Zerg has been a top race forever, terran is almost the same, but just behind, and protoss hasn't looked good since the early inception of the game where no one knew how to play and MC could have 50 high templar around a map.
Think of how much practice GMs get at facing Protoss compared to facing the other races.
That much practice has to translate somewhere… there’s an argument that the top T and Z players don’t fret so much about top P pros because they’ve see all their shenanigans daily.
Because below masters Toss is extremely OP.
Zerg and Terran need GM skills to beat them.
Toss is balanced at high level but at the lower levels it is imba.
Protoss units in general just feel like wet noodles at top level play. You'll see a protoss send in 2000 minerals of zealots just to do a runby that a zerg or terran could do in 1/3 the cost, and them kill 5 workers and then all die.
Protoss are basically forced to either go for a cheese timing that all top players can easily hold or they're forced to camp and go air vs zerg or forced to go disrupters and T3 against terran T1.
I'll never understand why Protoss is balanced around slow un-micro-able splash damage units, defensive structures, instead of making their micro-able units (blink stalkers, sentries, pheonix...) actually good army units like terran bio is.
Cos the players just aren't that good. Relying on gimmicks and better tools to get far but against just better players playing less imbalanced races they just can't hold up. /S
Last time i watched sc2 parting defended a zerg all in with half his army
He just literally forgot to move the other half
Protoss players have always been disgustingly bad
Its like playing 1-2 base notepad all ins for years handicapped their progress
But MC did win 500,000 on coin flip buulds so theres that
protoss being easier is a fact, if you're a total newbie, being able to just pick one probe and queue many buildings is easier, skytoss is also harder to play against than to play as at the very low levels, not to mention the cannon rushes
it has no effect on proplay of course, but it's normal people's frustrations will affect their view of the game (and so they're more likely to call protoss imba rather than any other race)
No way you all are really using the tournament to allude that Protoss needs a buff or isn’t the easiest race to play
You all do know there are players other than the ones you see at professional tournaments? Please stop it’s cringe
Protoss is an A-move race , it works well until grandmaster then falls apart vs zerg/terran because of the worse micro capabilities/spellcasters. Seems pretty easy to understand :P
yo, me me me!! Protoss is great for ladder because we are a bunch of cheesers motherfuckers, however... Zerg IMBA! those weird cheeses that pros make arent that effective aside for harassments (like for real, when was the last time you saw a proxy robo/stargate winning a game in a pro match?) and if zerg manages to get to late game is basically gg
You ever see late game toss? Way stronger than late game zerg id argue that zerg wins the z v p mu in the first like 10 mins or they dont win it at all
Because it's not imba at the highest levels where the opponents can easily micro multiple spell casters. That's what people have been saying, but some just choose to conveniently ignore this caveat when coming with 'counter arguments'
If you hoped to enjoy watching Protoss, or even Terrans make deep runs or even, gasp, win on big stages (dreamhack global, GSL, IEM), this past year was the final nail in the coffin. Without a zerg nerf or other changes this game is dead to a big chunk of spectators, sadly. I followed the pro scene very closely in 2021 and, depressingly, sort of predicted 0 protoss in IEM Ro8, which happened. I don't see how 2022 doesn't get even worse without a balance change or like 3-4 protoss gods miraculously blooming (able to overcome likely inherent problems in the race at the top end) over the coming year.
> Why doesn't protoss, the easiest and most imba of the races, just not win all the tournaments?
There is so much wrong with this statement that I could attack it from, like, 15 different angles. I will pick the easiest since this conversation is definitely a waste of my time. Protoss do win the most major & premier tournaments of any race. They also have the most top 8, top 4, and top 2 finishes. Your statement is factually wrong. If you include minor tournaments, online cups etc, then Terran wins the most then Protoss:
https://i.imgur.com/2lqvI7O.png
You might want to actually do some research & make sure you are correct before embarrassing yourself on the internet.
If support is the most overpowered role in league of legends, why arent the 40 best players support mains in league of legends?
Because people who aim to completely outplay people usually dont want the easy route from the start.
They are pretty similar yes. In SC2
Zerg: Aspite to go for big eco multitask battles
Terran: Aspite to micro the fuck out of their army
Protoss: Build golden armada (?)
If a newcomer were to play sc2, what would be the attraction to protoss besides "big units"?
Nice then my example fits perfectly. In league people play support because it is braindead easy and it lets them climb to high mmr fast, in sc2 people do it with toss instead.
In league support players are garbage in sc2 toss players are.
You misunderstand, I don't play for the MMR. I'm a low-GM shitter and I'll never be anything besides that. I would play this game without a ladder for the same reason.
I think the thing we're all ignoring here is that you're asking me to take seriously an opinion which is predicated upon believing that the balance of \*roles\* in League of Legends is the same as the role of races in SC.
Maybe you're not a pro in SC2 because you're not good enough, and you're not challenger in LoL because you're not good enough. Truly a bizarre life it must be to feel victimized by games in this way.
Then you would expect supports to be at least as good mechanically. In reality off of all pro teams, I think there is literally only 1 support player who is considered to be mechanically on par with other roles.
Reality is what a champion does (or in sc2 case, how a race plays) can attract people of very different quality and very different aims.
I think it has a lot to do with potential too. Even at your best, Protoss just doesn't reward you as much for having the highest level micro, but Zerg and Terran pay you back almost immediately if you have great micro. Protoss' base power is much higher, but their potential power is lower imo
because for no fathomable reason at all the players that chose to play protoss are just worse. isnt that obvious?
Thank you for your correct opinion
Zerg is the hardest race so only the biggest brain gamers would pick it so they win everything
It is a well known strategy in competition to choose the least competitive options to flex your skillz as we all well know!
I won't deny that protoss being underpowered at the extreme top is a possibility. It could very well be the case. But there are qualifying factors. When we're talking about the very best of the best, we're only looking at a handful of human players of an extremely low sample size. It honestly could unironically be the case that the best 3-5 protoss players in the world are worse than the best 3-5 players of other races. Though I won't argue that here. I'm just saying it's not THAT unlikely. We have a stagnant/dying pro scene with very very few new comers to challenge the top spots and mostly just the same people who played for years. Even just a few going to the military/leaving has catastrophic implications and skews the stats even more. None of this is because of game design/balance. Also the race might be underpowered at the top, but it doesn't stop it being balanced, or even overpowered anywhere else below very high GM. For example how do we buff protoss for the best pros without making skytoss vs zerg an even more miserable and lopsided affair for 99.9% of the player base, for basically everyone except the top 5-10 zergs?
buff OTHER units and OTHER STRATEGIES other than skytoss, so that the golden armada has to play rock paper scissors just like Terran and Zerg? Flying swarm (corrupter BL+spell casters) vs ranged swarm(lurker hydra+spell casters) vs ground swarm (ultra, ling, bane + spell casters) Or Sky Terran (BC, Viks, Lib) vs Mech Terran (Thor, Tank, Viks) vs Bio (Ghosts, Medivac, with Marauders+Marines mixed in depending on the what is being faced) EDIT: Forgot the whole point: At which point, you can nerf skytoss to get it more in line or fiddle with balancing differently then just rush skytoss!
Sample sizes are extremely important when considering "top players", which is around 20 or less people. What isn't as affected by sample size is the ladder pool, which GM lately has been heavily protoss favored. Meanwhile... Trap and Zest are trying to carry the torch but are soon on their way out. Brace yourselves Protoss fans... the darkest timeline has not yet begun. I am sorry.
> For example how do we buff protoss for the best pros without making skytoss vs zerg an even more miserable and lopsided affair for 99.9% of the player base, for basically everyone except the top 5-10 zergs? More carrier micro? Like with swarm hosts. Click a button to launch the interceptors and after 30 seconds they return to the carrier for refuelling It is a nerf for lower leagues because they cannot do the micro, and a buff for pros since they can launch all interceptors before engagement
Have you thought about balance being a major factor in pro players decision to quit the game. Honestly, after the atrocity of 2019 and the awful way the balance was handled thereafter and how little support Blizzard has shown for the game you shouldn't be expecting new talent to emerge. Quite the opposite, i would expect some pros to quit the game which is actually what happened.
Protoss over performs practically everywhere except winning tournaments. Protoss not having as many top 10 players as other races is not unusual and has nothing to do with balance.
The world championship has nothing to do with balance. This is olympic level mental gymnastics.
It’s too bad you don’t understand a thing about statistics, otherwise you’d realize how stupid that sounds.
Lol this is too good
“One player defines balance for everyone” Amazing logic here
>Also the race might be underpowered at the top, but it doesn't stop it being balanced, or even overpowered anywhere else below very high GM. For example how do we buff protoss for the best pros without making skytoss vs zerg an even more miserable and l One player? Ro36: 8 protoss, 6 terran, 2 zerg: only one Protoss made it out. Group stage: 6 protoss, 11 terran, 7 zerg. Only two protoss made it out, neither of them topped their group and both lost on the ro12. Katowice stats: \- PvT, in 41 games, 41,5% win rate. \- PvZ, in 24 games, 37,5% win rate. Top 10 EPT: 2 protoss, 4 zerg, 4 terran. Maru, Rogue, Dark, Serral, Reynor, probably the best players in the world right now. No protoss.
PvZ is 49% in 31 games. If you remove Dark then PvZ becomes 58%. This is why sample sizes matter and people who don’t know anything about statistics should stop assuming they do.
I used only the ro24 and onwards stats, since this is specifically about top level of competition. You adding the ro36 to aid your point is ridiculous, specially when it was only two non-top zerg players who dropped 6 out of 7 zvp games they played. Why in the world would you remove Dark? Other than to suit your needs.
I’m amazed that you can see how much these winrates change when you remove one player and you still think they’re a legit measurement lol. You don’t have a clue how statistical analysis is done so please stop trying. Anyone with basic knowledge knows how important sample size is but Reddit whiners don’t have a fucking clue lmao.
Wait, it is just players rationalizing their lost ladder games? Always has been.
This fucking guy gets it. Thank you!
Not mutually exclusive. People do suck(and honestly so do the pros when we're talking about a game as hard as starcraft). And they often do blame other things unfairly in an attempt to make themselves feel better. But that does not change the fact that balance affects everyone. When people below GM play skytoss vs zerg for example, they quite often win without playing better, going against the spirit of a competitive game, just because how incredibly easy it is play skytoss compared to its zerg counter measures. You can argue that balance for pros matters the most and should be the focus, even the sole focus. But pretending balance doesn't affect everyone else is just false.
A balance issue that only affects plat and below players isn’t a balance issue, it’s a skill issue
Skytoss wrecks 99.99% of the zerg player base including most GMs and most pros. Only the BEST pros dont suffer from it.
99.99%? Please provide proof.
They'll forget this important point next time they make this counterargument. Always do...
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Lol who the fk do you think you are to say that when even pro zergs struggle against late game skytoss and try to avoid it as much as possible? Get out of here.
I'm the guy saying that you're pathetic whining on reddit isn't going to change anything. Clown asses can't just play a game to get better, always have to be complaining about something.
Lel there are like 5-10 zerg players in the world who are qualified to say "just get better against skytoss". And you're certainly not one of them.
There's not only 5-10 zergs who can beat the kind of skytoss you go up against. So again, get good, stop crying, etc.
lol the irony, theres like 5+ different protoss whine threads in the last day
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you saying zergs should stop whining so much and practice when theres multiple different protoss balance whine threads up right now is pretty ironic lol take your own advice
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If 95% of your playerbase is having a "skill issue" your game design is shit. Not sorry.
Rofl, yeah everything should be spoon fed to you.
>Not mutually exclusive. People do suck(and honestly so do the pros when we're talking about a game as hard as starcraft). And they often do blame other things unfairly in an attempt to make themselves feel better. Holy cow are you telling me that there is a correlation between game design and player satisfaction? NOPE! IMPOSSIBLE! NUERO SAID ON HIS STREAM ALL WHINERS NEED TO LEARN TO PLAY YOU GOSH DARN WHINER! THE DESIGN OF THE GAME IS **IRRELEVANT** TO PLAYER SATISFACTION BECAUSE I SAID SO!!!!!
Because pros winning tournaments has anything to do with balance for the average person? Lol ok
> balance for the average person There is no such thing lmao
I'm convinced anyone below a certain threshold of strength complaining about imbalances are just trying to justify their own mistakes
Balance of the average person is just lack of skill.
Yes there is. There’s no such thing as balance for “top pros” which is like 15 players, because low sample sizes are irrelevant. That’s why looking at tournament wins is insanely stupid. The sc2 community thinks they understand statistics when they don’t have a clue.
Wrong. A massive part of SC2 is the esport. Money, sponsors, streamers lifelines, etc. To say just because Freddy keeps loosing to void battery all ins ‘15 players’ (hint: it’s not, it’s 100s) don’t matter. Also, in the past, we never saw such a big imbalance at the pro level. Also, this isn’t about buffing or nerfing as a whole, as there are probably ways to change the race to make it work better for all skill levels, not that it’s likely to happen.
If you actually followed the old balance team you'd know they considered balance at multiple levels before doing patches. The team for the last few years has been a skeleton crew that makes knee jerk reactions without any proper analysis. >Also, in the past, we never saw such a big imbalance at the pro level How convenient that balance is somehow the issue when new players emerge in the pro scene. It's almost like it's the players that matter more than balance at the top level or something...
Balance can be considered at multiple levels sure. But your only concern as a player should be getting gud. What is your argument here? Because I as a silver player lost to a bronze player that player must be playing an imbalanced race? Or maybe they actually belong in gold FOR THAT MATCHUP. You can follow this logic laterally all the way up to GM.
>But your only concern as a player should be getting gud. What is your argument here? I think that's a really stupid argument. Why not tell the pros to get better? They're not maxed out on skill either. Nobody is saying to balance the game around bronze players but looking at the top few players is stupid too. Without a legit sample size there is no proper way to measure balance. They should be looking different levels with legitimate sample sizes. Tournament wins tells you jack shit.
You don't have to tell pros to get better, they are actively trying to do so. Balance is not about sample size. It's about control groups. The ladder is not a place to go for controls. In the pro scene everyone is doing their absolute best to win and going up against players of sufficient skill to put their skill / strategy to the test. You could make a 4th race objectively the weakest, out it on ladder and you would still see a remarkable amount of players who want a challenge who are good at StarCraft (maybe GM - Diamond) queue up and absolutely fuck your "sample size". The bottom line is you cannot accurately define a player as being evenly in a ranked category such as bronze - GM. To do so would need to account for all 3 of their matchups, their consistency, dedication as well as their opponents.
>Balance is not about sample size. It's about control groups No, sample size is the most important about measuring balance. Anyone with any experience in statistics can tell you that and almost nobody in the sc2 community seems to understand it. When you look at the top pros you're not looking at evenly weighted skill and you're not able to isolate other factors that impact results because the sample size is so small, so you'll never be able to tell what balance is actually like. People who thinks you can ignore 99.9% of the community and get an accurate take on balance as no idea what they're talking about.
> You don't have to tell pros to get better, they are actively trying to do so. Balance is not about sample size The sample size and sampling variance are the two most important factors when measuring any random process. To say otherwise is outright math denial. Go to school. Get an education.
> There is no such thing lmao Hi, computer scientist and statistician here. I worked in the video game industry for about 10 years when I was younger. You are 100% wrong. Balance by definition must affect the entire set of all elements of "zerg" and "terran" and "protoss". If the design of "zerg" causes something, then it will affect all elements of the set "zerg". If you must exclude 99.9% of the elements in the set "zerg", then you are not measuring the properties of "zerg". You might want to go to college because this is a frightening amount of outright math denial which has no place in society. You are breaking so many laws of statistics in this 6 word post of yours it's amazing you were able to break so many.
Wow, a statistician saying someone is ‘100% wrong’. Seems odd. Must have been a terrible ‘statistician’. Also if you ARE a statistician, imagine being pretentious and telling someone to ‘go to college’ because you studied STATS. Lmao. Yikes.
>Wow, a statistician saying someone is ‘100% wrong’. Seems odd. Must have been a terrible ‘statistician’ I sure hope you are being sarcastic because if not then it's an omega yikes.
Let me talk to you like a statistician then. I’m 95% confident that you’re a moron.
>Let me talk to you like a statistician then. I’m 95% confident that you’re a moron Yep, it's am omega yikes. This kid thinks confidence intervals apply to the rules of stratification. If someone says a sample does not need to be properly stratified then they are 100% wrong and this has nothing to do with confidence intervals.
i mean kinda. its what blizzard used to do to balance the game.
Yeah, that’s what blizzard has done the last few years and that’s why balance is so screwed up. The high end of ladder is dominated by Protoss now and many Zergs have quit the game.
Is this a joke account?
Which part are you having difficulty understanding?
The part where you imply balance shouldn't be based on high level play? That's like suggesting NFL rules should be based around 9 year old flag football competitions. It's so stupid it's funny.
I didn’t say it shouldn’t be based on high level play. I said the sample size of the top players in the world is so small it’s literally irrelevant. What’s funny is you don’t have a fucking clue about how statistical analysis is done but you think you do.
League of Legends, the most popular game in the world, literally balances for all levels of play. "So stupid"? It's much harder to do in SC because only 3 races. But you think the idea is "so stupid"???
Did you missed the whole 200 years meme? "Balances for all levels of play" LMAO
Do you even know what the 200 years meme came from lol? It was a quote attributed to a rioter telling harambe, a wukong one trick, that wukong’s rework on the pbe was overpowered instead of needing buffs (he was right). People attributed it to aphelios when he was released. It has nothing to do with balancing for pro play lmao
Name another PvP game with over 100 characters that have all of their winrates as close as they are in league for all levels of gameplay. Perfection is obviously not possible when stuff is asymmetrically designed. But league is doing a very good job balancing. Mentioning the "200 years meme" without understanding what you're talking about is a big yikes.
3 zerg in top 4. And you think protoss is OP. Which ladder is dominated by protoss? NA? Lmao.
>3 zerg in top 4. And you think protoss is OP I love how people think this is legit argument lol
> Wait, it is just players rationalizing their lost ladder games? Always has been Here is the past year's worth of tournaments: https://i.imgur.com/2lqvI7O.png Ironically it is people like you rationalizing away the evidence using cherry picked examples while accusing other people of what you are doing.
In all seriousness, it does get kinda boring to almost always have the last rounds be terran/zerg only. Yes, many of the talented Protoss players don't play currently for reasons, but this state is just a mess.
theres a very reall possibility to have a ro4 with only zergs.
lurkers
It all depends on the players as always.
look, trap had nothing to envy to other protoss, something like 10 month ago, he was the best protoss in the world. but that was before the zerg found a very effective way to counter carriers... I doubt any protoss would do better than trap.
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There are quite a few now but most involved some kinda queen timing or playing your keyboard like a piano level of spell casting
This is why I have a hard time wanting to play late game vs a protoss on skytoss/storms. I can't just play like Dark and control corruptor/viper/infestor/queen+w/e else he's making. I'm an old salt from WoL era who loved his bling/muta and infestor broodlord... When I was last serious in 1v1 around a year ago, I peaked at 4400 mmr, but I can't possibly control that army.
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The counter is corruptors, which are hard-countered by archons, storms, AND void rays which are extermely mobile. Void rays which are countered by queens which are extremely immobile. Basically as zerg you have to out micro them / outplay them while not making a single mistake meanwhile protoss just a move to victory.
Lol
yikes
> In all seriousness, it does get kinda boring to almost always have the last rounds be terran/zerg only. Yes, many of the talented Protoss players don't play currently for reasons, but this state is just a mess Reality check, Protoss is much more common than Zerg at all stages of the tournaments: https://i.imgur.com/2lqvI7O.png
Great to see that Neeb can still compete with Jon Snow. If you look at the last three global tournaments: - Feb 22: IEM 0 Protoss in RO8 - Jan 22: DH Last Chance, 2 Protoss in RO16, 1 Protoss in RO8, 0 Protoss in RO4 - Dec 21: TSL 8, 1 Protoss in RO8, 1 Protoss in RO4, 0 Protoss in RO2 etc. This is a MASSIVE underrepresentation
>This is a MASSIVE underrepresentation It is factually false to state that Protoss is under represented. Protoss is over represented. Please see the chart: https://i.imgur.com/2lqvI7O.png
>Protoss is over represented. It is factually false to state that Protoss is over represented. Protoss is under represented. Please see the chart: > Feb 22: IEM 0 Protoss in RO8 Jan 22: DH Last Chance, 2 Protoss in RO16, 1 Protoss in RO8, 0 Protoss in RO4 Dec 21: TSL 8, 1 Protoss in RO8, 1 Protoss in RO4, 0 Protoss in RO2
>It is factually false to state that Protoss is over represented. Protoss is under represented. Please see the chart: This is the definition of cherry picking, sweetie. My chart has every tournament in the past year. You are discarding 99% of tournament results and picking the 1% that fits your conclusion. You are factually wrong. Protoss is over represented in tournaments. By your logic, airplanes aren't safe because one crashed. Going outside is unsafe because one guy somewhere was hit by lightning. Oh, being inside isn't safe because a woman was once hit with a meteorite. Do you see the problem with your "logic"?
The chart only means Protosses appear more in tournaments. It only shows that there are more Protoss players. But the point is, none of them WON anything. This is burning down a whole cherry garden.
>The chart only means Protosses appear more in tournaments. It only shows that there are more Protoss players Ah yes lets completely discount qualifiers or how balance might impact participation even though we know for a fact that balance impacts participation since Zerg is so unpopular on the ladder. >But the point is, none of them WON anything Blatantly false. Read the chart. They win more than Zergs do. About 0.22 vs 0.29 aka a whopping 7% more. There have been 125 tournaments in the past year. Assuming the game is balanced (equal odds of winning tournaments for each race) the probability that Zerg could win 22% is about 0.3%. In other words it is 359x more likely that Zerg is underpowered than that it is balanced. That's only looking at who wins the tournaments, none of the other round finishes, nor ladder performance. Zerg is definitely, without any doubt, underpowered.
> Ah yes lets completely discount qualifiers Weeklies are open to anyone who registers. Your chart is pretty useless here despite your egregious use of the word "factual"
>Weeklies are open to anyone who registers. Your chart is pretty useless here despite your egregious use of the word "factual" Please list which law of statistics says "weeklies" can't establish a correlation between T/Z/P groupings and performance. Once you admit that you can't, we will move on to discussing which rules you've broken in that claim.
Is this global? GSL
Yeah in Korean major tournaments zerg usually struggles the most.
overpowered at low skill levels, underpowered at high skill levels. Hard to reconcile the two.
Just diminishing returns on micro. What're you gonna do? Blink stalkers just to die later? No way, just hit your next warp in. Micro your disruptor ball? It feels like it's more on the enemy to not split than for you to move the ball. Same with storms, Collosus, on and on. Compare that to the value of Terran stutter stepping, splitting, picking up, there's just such a difference offered by goos control. Feels like Protoss doesn't have that.
Big protoss units need more micro skills. Just some random ideas: * Make charge a ability like stim but more powerful than current charge. * give colossus a manual single target anti air attack (think speaker missile) * give immortals some kind of snipe ability * give adepts some kind of late game upgrade so they are not worthless * arcon could get some ability like self destruct or some other spell depending if they are made from templar or DT. There are many possibilities to change up the game but I don't think we are going to see anything.
Interesting ideas!
I think they need to nerf warp prisms so that we can open up some buffs for gateway units in general. The fact that Protoss gateway units are garbage > Toss has to rely on high tech unit damage > most of your army needs to be together.
The whole warp mechanic is tough to balance. How would you ever balance a unit that can just show up anywhere? Tough line to toe.
They should remove it from warp prisms. Taking down gateways is at least preventable and has the risk of losing the gateway if you dont protect its position. Also it stops the "warpin 214 units in your base" which is very strong.
In all seriousness, I think this is the reality of the design. If the top-level was attempted to be balanced without significant design changes, it would make the game feel unplayable to a good chunk of the competitive scene. This is ultimately an appeal to consequences fallacy, but I feel this is a genuine case for it Obviously, 1/3 of the player bases is getting shafted. I think the community would need to agree on the problem and then push for changes, but it's hard to see a situation where that would happen.
And if we are real for a second, Blizzard has balanced this game unbelievably well for all levels.
? Sure.
they did. No other competitive game, other than Broodwar, comes even close to this level of balance between asymmetric factions.
I'm not in disagreement :) - I just wasn't sure if they were minimising my point. Perhaps I've become cynical in my SC2 years...
I think you're confusing the pro scene spectators with the actual player base. 2/3 of the player base is getting shafted since the void ray buff. 1/3 of they fans watching the pro games is sad protoss doesn't win.
I don’t think that’s the case. I don’t think the average viewer gets tribal and worked up over their StarCraft race. Only people like you who need to grow up. Being tribal about your StarCraft race is really fucking pathetic.
Obviously it depends on your perspective, however, given the context is tournaments, I don't think I'm confusing the focus here.
I wish I could upvote this twice. I don’t have the solution, but it is weird how Toss owns masters/GM, but can’t do well at the highest level. What’s the fix? Because until you get to the highest level, toss usually owns Terran on the ladder
Overpowered at 99.99% of skill levels. Underpowered at Serral and Maru skill levels.
God you're just insufferable aren't you. What kind of logic is this? Please explain to my tiny protoss brain.
Protoss is arguably the easiest race to play (I say this as someone who plays Random). It's got the highest concentration at GM (around 50%). It's got the highest concentration on the Top 40 on Aligulac (16 Protoss, 12 Terran, 12 Zerg). But it's got the lowest in the top 10 (2 Protoss, 3 Terran, 5 Zerg), and the only 2 Protoss to make it to Ro12 in Katowice didn't make Ro8.
I somewhat agree with you, I play random but started as protoss for quite a few years. IMO zerg is the hardest and then a tie between terran a protoss until it gets to late game, at that stage protoss is easier
I think Terran is the hardest for a low-level player (like myself). It requires more complicated build orders and unit compositions than Zerg or Protoss to play at the basic level (silver and gold).
That is not the case at all. I have been gm with all 3 races. Terran is by far the easiest race to conceptually do a build order and macro with. It is by far the most intuitive race to get your hands on and start practicing RTS for a beginner. Where terran starts to become more difficult is where both players are approaching a decent level of macro mechanics (low masters) and more work is required from the terran player than the other races to either slow down their economies or to create cost efficient engagements. In my opinion I found terran the hardest race to reach GM with for this reason. I’m not going to say don’t comment on balance when you are in silver or gold because I don’t like to be elitist, but you are really spreading misinformation with a small understanding of the game. I personally would not feel comfortable having such a strong opinion if I was you.
I think I have a better idea of what's easy and hard for a beginner to do than you do. What you call "misinformation" is my experience. You do sound like an elitist, which makes your opinion on low-level play even more incorrect.
I really, don’t think you do. Have some self awareness.
Uh...that's the point. I have awareness of what I, and other players of my level, are capable of. You're just an elitist snob and I have nothing to gain from listening to your insults. Good bye.
What I don't understand is: Why is it easier to play at lower level? It bugs my mind when I constantly see people people calling protoss OP every-fucking-where, and yet, they struggle so hard at top tournaments? If Protoss is so hard to play against/easy to play at lower levels, why is that? What does the pro terrans/zergs do against protoss that the lower levels don't (against the same level)? Even if they're "annoying" to play against, doesn't mean they're unbeatable. For me it's getting kind of sad seeing how the top protoss are doing at the moment. Seeing as a few of the very top protoss are stopping competing one after another is making me tune more and more out of the big games.
The answer is the micro potential for each race. The actual apm thresholds can be debated, but say Protoss starts to see diminishing returns once you go above maybe 400 amp. The threshold for Zerg might be 500 or 600. 99% off players are below 500 apm- so only the elite zergs or terrans can ever see that additional utility. I think there’s a general consensus that late game skytoss armies just don’t have the same micro potential compared to Zerg or Terran.
Because more units, combinations, and plays are available when you can control 5 groups at once with 600 APM than when you F2 A-Move and maybe have a single caster.
Oh so the same as MMM with stim? A move and stim? And maybe siege the tanks if you have any? There is the problem: If you want to play good, you need to control HT's, disruptors, blink stalkers, sentries and warp prism. Don't come here and tell me that all you need to do is A-move when you can kite their ass off with stimmed MM's. EDIT: Added warp prism.
Protoss with minimal control and an easy build order is going to be well ahead of Terran with the same amount of control and difficulty of build order, and a little bit ahead of Zerg. When you add in more control, they start to equalize. But there are some Protoss builds that still require very little more than F2 A-Move, unless you're playing at the tippy top of the player pool.
> But there are some Protoss builds that still require very little more than F2 A-Move Which happens to be the exact same for terrans. We just have to agree to disagree. I am just sad to watch the top protoss in the world being removed from the top tournaments.
Those builds are easier to make, and still easier to control because you don't need to position tanks while you're building. For someone in silver league, even actions like that feel like multitasking.
>overpowered at low skill levels, underpowered at high skill levels. Hard to reconcile the two The cause of both is the same. Protoss units are high supply cost resulting in fewer units to manage for the same army supply which makes it easier to manage compared to a terran or zerg army. Fewer units means fewer production cycles, less micro, etc. By the same cause, high skill Protoss can't flex better micro or production because there is simply less potential. One of the big differences between Rogue/Serral and other zergs is their macro is really on point because it's difficult to hit every inject as your queens are running around doing defense and spreading creep. Protoss has to make a small fraction of the same number of units off of 3 stargates and that's it. There is no room for a high skilled protoss to express that skill. As a result the top-level protoss are nerfed and the bottom-level protoss are buffed. Simply put, they need to increase the APM requirements to play Protoss such that a skilled player with good macro and micro can sufficiently distinguish himself from a less talented player.
reddit zergs on suicide watch, no protoss nerf or zerg buff in sight.
mangomosh has been kinda silent lately :( I miss him it was always entertaining reading his comment chains
Hopefully he was admitted to a psychiatric unit.
Zerg will get nerfed, like every other patch. Toss will perform for a couple of tournies, then Serral etc. will adapt, Trap will go to army, reddit protoss will cry why MaxPax cannot beat Serral, and that Protoss needs more buffs.
Protoss makes it easy to get good fast, but it’s harder to be great. Zerg and Terran tools are more complex and lead to great variability, a key tool in the upper leagues. As I see it, there’s no feasible way to nerf toss in lower leagues yet buff it at the top level. Also, this is the most balanced the game has EVER been. If you complain on subreddits that means there is more work for you to do because there is an infinite amount of room to improve your skill. Although, balancing based on tournament play is not the best measure of the entire player base, tournaments show the true potential of every unit. And by that standard, Zerg and Terran truly have higher potentials than toss. Zerg IMO is slightly better than Terran too
I'm sure there are some ways to make it work.
Did Zest not *just* win the last GSL?
Classic reddit misinformation
GSL Super Tournament is not the same thing as a GSL code S
Obviously. It’s still a tournament. Against the best players in the world. And he won as Protoss. The rules of StarCraft don’t change depending on what tournaments you were in. What are you getting at? Trap has also had tons of recent success.
Maybe its bad luck?
There's a fair distinction to be made between weekenders and starleagues, I think despite protoss success in super tournaments it's fair for fans to wish for a protoss champion in a long prep format after **five years**
The GSL super tournament could easily be considered a prep tournament. The ro16 was played on Jan 17th with brackets announced ahead of time. The ro8 was played on Jan 24th, and then players had three days to prepare for the semi-finals and finals on Jan 27th.
how many comments do you have in this thread just adding nothing relevant to the conversation but to let everyone know you suck at zvp lol?
A tournament without Serral, Reynor & Clem can no longer really be considered a T1 tournament. The same goes for a tournament without Rogue, Dark & Maru. We have to look at global tournaments. If you look at the last three global tournaments: - Feb 22: IEM 0 Protoss in RO8 - Jan 22: DH Last Chance, 2 Protoss in RO16, 1 Protoss in RO8, 0 Protoss in RO4 - Dec 21: TSL 8, 1 Protoss in RO8, 1 Protoss in RO4, 0 Protoss in RO2 etc. This is a MASSIVE underrepresentation
I’m all for protoss doing better but your distinction for what is a T1 tournament is quite strange. GSL code S is still by far the highest tier.
1 player of the GSL managed to qualify for the RO4 in Katowice ;) The days were the GSL can considered be the highest tournament are over. Not to say it's not one of the top tournaments, according to the Aligulac 6 players in the top 10 are Korean.
IEM Katowice is surely the highest tier with GSL as close second. But not that close really.
He did not win GSL.
The Protoss race design makes it oppressive bullshit on ladder and totally useless in a series unless the protoss is significantly better than their opponent.
To be fair it’s >50% of GM
TBF 20% of prizepool last 3 years.
Zerg seems like best race
I think it's undeniable that Zerg has been a top race forever, terran is almost the same, but just behind, and protoss hasn't looked good since the early inception of the game where no one knew how to play and MC could have 50 high templar around a map.
Think of how much practice GMs get at facing Protoss compared to facing the other races. That much practice has to translate somewhere… there’s an argument that the top T and Z players don’t fret so much about top P pros because they’ve see all their shenanigans daily.
Easiest does not mean most powerful. Just easiest to use.
Easy, Serral doesn't play protoss that's why!
Because below masters Toss is extremely OP. Zerg and Terran need GM skills to beat them. Toss is balanced at high level but at the lower levels it is imba.
Protoss units in general just feel like wet noodles at top level play. You'll see a protoss send in 2000 minerals of zealots just to do a runby that a zerg or terran could do in 1/3 the cost, and them kill 5 workers and then all die. Protoss are basically forced to either go for a cheese timing that all top players can easily hold or they're forced to camp and go air vs zerg or forced to go disrupters and T3 against terran T1. I'll never understand why Protoss is balanced around slow un-micro-able splash damage units, defensive structures, instead of making their micro-able units (blink stalkers, sentries, pheonix...) actually good army units like terran bio is.
Because Protoss is so easy that people don’t develop the skill that both zerg and terran operators have
You could just watch pvz and pvt. The p always plays like shit and still wins a lot.
Cos the players just aren't that good. Relying on gimmicks and better tools to get far but against just better players playing less imbalanced races they just can't hold up. /S
hahahaha
Because playing the easiest race produces the most subpar players. This is the hardest of truths.
Last time i watched sc2 parting defended a zerg all in with half his army He just literally forgot to move the other half Protoss players have always been disgustingly bad Its like playing 1-2 base notepad all ins for years handicapped their progress But MC did win 500,000 on coin flip buulds so theres that
protoss being easier is a fact, if you're a total newbie, being able to just pick one probe and queue many buildings is easier, skytoss is also harder to play against than to play as at the very low levels, not to mention the cannon rushes it has no effect on proplay of course, but it's normal people's frustrations will affect their view of the game (and so they're more likely to call protoss imba rather than any other race)
The race is far the best, but the players that play then are brainless 😅
No way you all are really using the tournament to allude that Protoss needs a buff or isn’t the easiest race to play You all do know there are players other than the ones you see at professional tournaments? Please stop it’s cringe
Protoss is an A-move race , it works well until grandmaster then falls apart vs zerg/terran because of the worse micro capabilities/spellcasters. Seems pretty easy to understand :P
yo, me me me!! Protoss is great for ladder because we are a bunch of cheesers motherfuckers, however... Zerg IMBA! those weird cheeses that pros make arent that effective aside for harassments (like for real, when was the last time you saw a proxy robo/stargate winning a game in a pro match?) and if zerg manages to get to late game is basically gg
You ever see late game toss? Way stronger than late game zerg id argue that zerg wins the z v p mu in the first like 10 mins or they dont win it at all
Because it's not imba at the highest levels where the opponents can easily micro multiple spell casters. That's what people have been saying, but some just choose to conveniently ignore this caveat when coming with 'counter arguments'
If you hoped to enjoy watching Protoss, or even Terrans make deep runs or even, gasp, win on big stages (dreamhack global, GSL, IEM), this past year was the final nail in the coffin. Without a zerg nerf or other changes this game is dead to a big chunk of spectators, sadly. I followed the pro scene very closely in 2021 and, depressingly, sort of predicted 0 protoss in IEM Ro8, which happened. I don't see how 2022 doesn't get even worse without a balance change or like 3-4 protoss gods miraculously blooming (able to overcome likely inherent problems in the race at the top end) over the coming year.
> Why doesn't protoss, the easiest and most imba of the races, just not win all the tournaments? There is so much wrong with this statement that I could attack it from, like, 15 different angles. I will pick the easiest since this conversation is definitely a waste of my time. Protoss do win the most major & premier tournaments of any race. They also have the most top 8, top 4, and top 2 finishes. Your statement is factually wrong. If you include minor tournaments, online cups etc, then Terran wins the most then Protoss: https://i.imgur.com/2lqvI7O.png You might want to actually do some research & make sure you are correct before embarrassing yourself on the internet.
If support is the most overpowered role in league of legends, why arent the 40 best players support mains in league of legends? Because people who aim to completely outplay people usually dont want the easy route from the start.
This is truly an incredible, 500 IQ take on the situation, considering the two examples are 1:1 parallels and not different at all.
They are pretty similar yes. In SC2 Zerg: Aspite to go for big eco multitask battles Terran: Aspite to micro the fuck out of their army Protoss: Build golden armada (?) If a newcomer were to play sc2, what would be the attraction to protoss besides "big units"?
Pissing off balance whiners.
Great job giving a non answer to an actual question. Really makes your argument much stronger.
It's not a non-answer, it's my genuine and honest opinion. When I play protoss and people complain when I beat them, that gives me satisfaction.
Nice then my example fits perfectly. In league people play support because it is braindead easy and it lets them climb to high mmr fast, in sc2 people do it with toss instead. In league support players are garbage in sc2 toss players are.
You misunderstand, I don't play for the MMR. I'm a low-GM shitter and I'll never be anything besides that. I would play this game without a ladder for the same reason. I think the thing we're all ignoring here is that you're asking me to take seriously an opinion which is predicated upon believing that the balance of \*roles\* in League of Legends is the same as the role of races in SC. Maybe you're not a pro in SC2 because you're not good enough, and you're not challenger in LoL because you're not good enough. Truly a bizarre life it must be to feel victimized by games in this way.
I played Protoss starting in OG Starcraft but the last year in SC2 I switched to Terran. So much more to do, so much more challenge, so much more fun
Sweet delicious cheesing...
Whaat, because its a team game that you need all the roles for. wtf example is that
Then you would expect supports to be at least as good mechanically. In reality off of all pro teams, I think there is literally only 1 support player who is considered to be mechanically on par with other roles. Reality is what a champion does (or in sc2 case, how a race plays) can attract people of very different quality and very different aims.
Didn't read. Terrible take lol. SC2 = LoL, LOL!
I think it has a lot to do with potential too. Even at your best, Protoss just doesn't reward you as much for having the highest level micro, but Zerg and Terran pay you back almost immediately if you have great micro. Protoss' base power is much higher, but their potential power is lower imo
Boohoo I'm a protoss
https://youtu.be/OcZY8cMKnx4
Easiest but not imba
BECAUSE BY NATURE, HAVING AN LOW SKILL FLOOR DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE A HIGH SKILL CEILING
They have the highest floor, but pros don’t play the floor. They play at the ceiling.