En Taro Tassadar,
It’s sad for our toss fan to see most of the Protoss got eliminated before RO8. Protoss looks fine on the ladder, but at the pro level, it does look a bit of desperate especially in the late game. I think maybe we could give Protoss some micro potential so the top Protoss player can be as jcompetitive as others. Here’s my suggestions:
Give sentry an upgrade so it could regenerate energy faster. Sentry’s force field is amazing design and is very entertaining to watch. Force field takes a lot of skill to be good. You not only need to cast those four force fields fast and accurate, but you also need a good un standing of army positioning. Sadly, now we only see force field in some early PvZ pushes because emp and corrosive bile makes it unviable. Maybe we could give sentry an upgrade so we can see those cool walls in late game again.
Warp prism +1 pick up range. Protoss need that micro potential so High Templar can move a bit forward to feed back viper and dodge emps, also makes disruptor and claussi build more viable against abduct.
Make Oracle tempest combo more rewarding. The battle between viper corruptor vs tempest oracle High Templar seems a bit of unfair to me. Protoss takes the risk of losing oracle from abduction just to revelate the Zerg army and then keeps a good amount of tempest to one shot a Zerg unit, and Zerg can simply retreat till the revelation is over. Meanwhile, Zerg takes less risk of losing vipers since feedback can only stop them, not kill them, and once they abduct, that’s an instant unit kill. I’m thinking maybe tempest could have a bonus damage to caster units, so at the top Protoss can use two groups of tempest to snipe 2 casters at the same time? Or increase their acceleration so they are easier to micro? Or maybe give oracle an upgrade extending the duration of revolution.
As much as I would like to see more Protoss players win tournaments. We do have to acknowledge that outside of Hero, there is no real contender skill-wise with the top Zerg and Terran players in the world. The ones that could put up a fight left for military (Zest, Stats when he felt like it, Parting, Trap).
Not saying that nothing can be done and understand the frustration. It just seems that the gap will remain regardless of changes until more Protoss players step-up (hopefully Max Pax will start to play LAN events one day).
On the other hand I would appreciate any change to Protoss that does not incentivize Mass Carriers. If they nerf that composition to the ground I would be almost willing to accept anything
One upgrade I have suggested for a while is a 150m 150g upgrade at the Cybernetics Core that grants new Sentries +25 energy (i.e. an energy upgrade). It would fill a similar function.
For Oracles, an energy upgrade might find use in team games or in lower leagues, but wouldn’t be as valuable as, say, an upgrade that increased the duration of Revelation, since that would reward keeping early-game Oracles alive.
To blow my own trumpet somewhat, take a look at my extension mod Extension Mod - All Protoss Upgrades if you’re curious. There’s a couple of entries on there that are probably undesirable, like I reduced the Tempest bonus damage vs. Structures from +40 to +30, but there’s now also an upgrade that doubles the damage of Feedback so you can actually kill Vipers if you catch one with a High Templar and it hasn’t cast Abduct yet. But as I said, that pair might not be desirable.
This is a lot of cope.
Protoss has done poorly for a long long time, even the one time they won a GSL it was such an underdog win since only Hero made it out of the group stage.
This has been a pattern for far too long.
Ok which Protoss pro aside from Hero is at the level of players like Dark, Serral or Maru skill-wise? It is not unlikely that at a level with so few players as the very top there is huge deviations between the skill of the players. Which probably explains a lot more than balance.
Hero is the one Protoss player that I have seen in a very long time that has a legit claim to be at that skill-level. If he cries balance issues I may pay attention to that. But he does not, and even admitted recently that Protoss is favored vs Zerg.
The game should not be balanced to get equal performance between races at the top level, that would end up nerfing skill and buffing weaker players rather than focusing on the actual game. (which is essentially what happened when they nerfed reapers because of Byun for example).
BW for example has been dominated by players like Flash, Light and recently royal. But nobody would claim that Terran is overpowered because they understand that Flash for example is a step above everyone else.
An easy way to fix this would be to revert that dumb Charge redesign that happened a few years ago and instead just nerf the bonus damage charge did.
(was +8 damage with a much slower movement speed bonus, just make it +2 damage with an additional +2 per ground upgrade for a maximum of +8 damage with the original movement speed bonus).
Reason why? That allowed Protoss to hold a myriad of Zerg cheeses/allins, which is a gatekeeping factor for pro play.
Also, it let Terran stim micro vs chargelots while also making their armies a little more vulnerable. This interaction promoted a halthy dynamic in the MU instead of this “Oh I moved out and my nat wall was breached/my 3rd was destroyed by 15 chargelots, guess I gotta allin and pray” dynamic that PvT currently has.
That’s a skill issue. You can’t fix this problem with buffs because with an orangutan at the keyboard the game design is irrelevant to the outcome. Stats was beating Serral in Premier tournaments long before any of the brood/infestor/queen nerfs. If modern Protoss can’t win, despite SC2 being a welfare system for Protoss, it’s a skill issue.
The #1 priority for game design should be making the game fun for the player base. If protoss can’t win tournaments, then all I can say is cry more.
Exactly. OP says: Increase protoss because there are only rusty toss left so they need to win hard while playing worse
Also there is no such thing as balance for high level, stats will affect ladder too. I’ve seen/played against toss in 2018 thank you, that also came with the nerfs for terran was perfect combo
idc though as i said im just spectating the game waiting for next one
I honestly think they dragoonafy the immortals more. Protoss don’t have any high DPS units ground units and stalkers as an AA option in the mid and late game is very lackluster against Roaches, Marines, hydras, and Marauders. I’m not also a fan of the Blink micro. Stalkers are imo just as useful as Dark Templars but Protoss are forced to use them as the only ground AA option available.
Protoss changes:
Decrease cost of immortals to 200/100, Decrease build time by 25%, and enable them to shoot air. Protoss has no answer to broodlords, Liberators except Tempests which is just sad.
Let Sentries Restore Shields using Gaurdian Shield ability instead of reducing projectile damage. Medievacs Heal and Queens Heals
Increase Feedback Range to same as Ghost Steady targeting range. Bring back Maelstrom ability from broodwars or let stasis units be attacked because Widow Mines Kill and Baneling Mines Kill but only Stasis mines are Pacifist, why?
Motherships need an toggle ability to turn off cloak and turn on a Large Warp pylon field that can move instead of time warp ability. For better support role than just a Flex of wealth.
Make Nexus recall ability and Battery overcharge ability Local and not Global and make recalling units with Nexus faster. All Nexuses having a global cooldown for Battery overcharge and Recall is absurd since Battery overcharge was nerfed and Recall field isn’t that large.
Let Disruptor move while purification nova is moving about. Since nova radius was nerfed.
Let Carrier interceptor launch all at once or, Let interceptors already fighting stay in fighting even while the Carrier has moved away until the player recalls them back into the Carrier manually with an ability key.
Make Adepts available before a cybercore is built.
Remove the Colossus bonus against light and double their base damage against everything.
Terran and Zerg changes:
Make EMP bombs strip 25 units per bomb than all at once.
Remove Concussion shells and make Stimpacks only affect Marauder movement speed only.
to point 1:
I am not sure if this is a change for high lvl toss. Stalker and Immortal both have 6 range and bonus vs Armored.
I would not reduce the cost in the first step just like build time, the reason is simple → cheese.
to point 2:
currently Guardian Shield is good against marine or hydra, with your change it would be a more felxible tool.
At least on PTR I would like to see it.
I have the feeling Sentry feel better between Archon/ Immortal, but this is gas intensive.
to point 3:
sounds strong.
to point 4:
Motherships as Warp Prism? the toggle sounds interesting.
to point 5:
Then toss must fit on which nexus is used. with recall I am not sure.
to point 6:
Disruptor …
to point 7:
maybe I don’t understand, but sounds a bit like SH.
to point 8:
… Cheese…
to point 9:
I see the direction you want, think the numbers need to be adjusted.
I feel most strongly about point no.1 . Thors can kill Tempests and Carriers and broodlords from a mile away and still hit hard. a few Liberators do too well against both stalkers and immortals. Phoenixes and voidrays don’t do too well against corruptors and vikings and these units along with stalkers do less than mediocre performance protecting colossi. I would also want immortals to get the same range upgrade that OG dragoons used to get. Its not too crazy for immortals to be cheaper, faster produced, and shoot air. Marines and Hydras have almost the same DPS as Immortals and they are cheaper, faster produced and shoot air and still cost less supply(4 times less) and better massed produced fast; Immortals being built one at a time by robos while marines come out 2 at a time of reactored barracks and hydras being popped like popcorn off heavily injected Hatches. Immortals are just a bit sturdier than marines and hydras but less DPS .I see stalker more akin to reapers and adepts : built early game but switched out for better units later like the immortal variation I’m suggesting. After early game during mid game, stalkers can still be used to blink into enemy for a surround or, scouting potshots.
But maybe you should also show all the values. Maybe also show the role of immortals.
Immortals have bonus damage against Armored. Possess much more Hp/ def values( Immortals HP200/ S100 /armor 1) than Marine (HP45+10/ a0)/ Hydra (90/ a0). needs no upgrades and has a def passive.
That is the very essence of a strategy game. Even series like total war that have turn based gameplay or just not real time builds are so. I think their numbers may be pretty much the same as for AOE4 and any strategy game.
So one can’t blame ‘design to build and attack’ this is what a strategy game is about, if one cant deal with it then they do not belong to the genre at all. SC2 was blamed for speed not for ‘build buildings and attack’ and in case of Starcraft, unlike warcraft for example, building 60+ workers and a bunch of barracks and so on, while in war3 for example you do not use more than x2 per type, and in SC2 things ending in quick battles and having to quickly rebuild. so this can be blamed but I cant agree the idea of a strategy game is ‘bad design’. But what game doesnt include this ,even mobile games with days of build time they are ‘manage base and attack with army’.
Yeah, I think the camera zoom level makes it much worse, to play optimally you would have to rapidly go back and forth, and that’s just not fun for many people.
AoE 2 was slower paced with interesting resource gathering + base building (at the time), Company of Heroes was micro focused, in Starcraft there’s just too many things.